Rebeca Kuropatwa

The need to support caregivers

Rick Tash is the primary caregiver of his wife, Bambi Fass, who is dying of cancer. (still)

A new short film by Dr. Jessica Zitter and Kevin Gordon gives an intimate look at the toll involved in caring for a loved one at the end stages of their life.

Zitter happened upon palliative care, she said, before “anyone even knew how to spell the word ‘palliative,’” after she had “finally realized I’d been feeling a lot of burning walls of stress in the way that I had been practising medicine.”

A physician in Northern California, Zitter said, “I’d been treating patients like objects on a conveyor belt, instead of as people, and then began to practise, for the next two decades, palliative care and critical care at the same time, providing me with a strange vantage point within the world of medicine.

“I was inspired to write and share stories about what’s going on in hospitals, and about how we’re treating the seriously ill among us … and I also continue practising medicine.”

Zitter at first opted to educate the public via books, but then she encountered the power of film. “I realized, all these messages I’m trying to get across to people – about medical culture and about what we want to think about differently – they’d lend themselves so well to film, to show the experience of the patient. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, I realized that a movie is worth much more than 1,000 pictures.”

photos - Dr. Jessica Zitter and Kevin Gordon are directors of the short film Caregiver: A Love Story — Dr. Jessica Zitter and Kevin Gordon are directors of the short film Caregiver: A Love Story. *(photos from Jessica Zitter)*

In the 24-minute Caregiver: A Love Story, the audience meets a woman Zitter met at synagogue, Bambi Fass, and Fass’s husband, Rick Tash. Fass was dying of cancer and Zitter offered palliative care, but was refused, until Fass’s condition became dire.

“She called me and she was extremely sick and had deteriorated,” Zitter told the Independent. “She said she needed help and, that day, we got her into hospice care. She was so, so sick and in so much pain and suffering. That day, her life turned around for the better. All of a sudden, she was living again.”

That is when Zitter asked Fass if she would be willing to be filmed. “She replied, ‘I want to help someone else … if you want to write about me or anything.’ She knew about my book. That’s when we got a film crew. I thought the film would be about her, an amazing woman. What I didn’t realize then is that it would actually end up being about her husband as the main focus. I thought he was just going to be the guy who opens the door for the hospital, but he ended up being a central character.”

Fass had sat a few rows in front of Zitter at their synagogue. “She had a long braid of hair,” recalled Zitter. “I’d always see it from behind. I didn’t know her really, but I did wonder…. She was very, very sick…. I knew she was, because she had brain metastasis. She was vivacious and funny. She was staring her death in the face and she still had a sense of humour. She was a hero, a really fascinating character.”

It took almost two years to put the movie together and to fully grasp the importance of sharing it with the world.

“I never realized – the invisible public health crisis, family caregiver burden – how much this story needed to be told,” said Zitter. “The original intention I had for this film was to show how, once you make the right decision, everything will be OK…. I then realized how naïve that message was. It’s not that easy. You can make decisions that feel like they’re going to be the right choice for the patients, but will it be the right choice for the family as a whole? We have to be much more holistic when we think about our patients. It really needs to include our families as well.

“Even in a loving, caring and organized community like ours, we aren’t necessarily focusing on and supporting the family caregivers among us,” said Zitter. “And there are a lot of family caregivers – rising numbers – with very little support. An organized community has been unable to attend to this man [Tash] who is deteriorating in front of our eyes, because they don’t know what to do with him. We’re not primed to think about caregiver burden as an urgent task.”

Zitter found that her synagogue had no committee to assist family caregivers, and her hospital community was also not paying attention to caregivers.

“They’re an invisible workforce that we don’t pay attention to,” said Zitter. “We don’t attend to them, we don’t think about them, we don’t identify them, we don’t include them in the conversation. But they’re a huge part of our workforce … and we’re just ignoring them.”

Zitter’s hope is that people from various communities, including synagogues, churches and mosques, will watch this movie and then establish a workshop for family caregivers and identify ways to support caregivers. To that end, she has created a keynote message and an hour-long program to raise awareness of this crisis and do something about it.

“The best place to start is at caregiveralovestory.com,” she said. “You can go on the website and see public screenings that are coming up and other ways to watch the film yourself, whether bringing it to your organization or watching it privately.”

Currently, Zitter is working on a film about deathbed spirituality and prayer, as well as on a movie about Ethan Sisser, a Jewish Buddhist.

“Ethan was an amazing, amazing guy,” said Zitter. “He died about two or three months ago. He has a community following on social media. A lot of young people were just so moved by the way he viewed his death and the bravery and beauty of his final days…. We’re making a film about him, which will be beautiful and, hopefully, you’ll see that soon.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

COVID and other challenges

Dr. Judith Moskowitz (photo from Judith Moskowitz)

Anxiety and stress can be debilitating even in the most normal of times, but, with COVID-19 and all that it encompasses, we have all been presented with a whole other level of challenges.

In this context, the Jewish Independent connected with Dr. Judith Moskowitz, a professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago. She is also the director of research for Northwestern’s Osher Centre for Integrative Medicine. Trained as a social psychologist, with expertise in stress and coping with emotions, Moskowitz started her career in the early 1990s, helping men caring for their partners suffering from AIDS.

“Before there were more effective treatments available, it was essentially a terminal illness,” she said. “Caring for a loved one with AIDS was really one of the most stressful events a human could experience.”

Initially, she said, “We’d ask them, ‘What is stressful about this?’ Then, we’d help them cope with it, really focusing in on the negative part the whole experience and, shortly after the start of the study, the participants started saying, ‘You’re not asking us about the good things in our lives’ … which surprised us, because we’re coming at it from a very much stress and coping way.

“So, we listened to them and started then asking, ‘OK, tell us something positive that happened in the last week.’ And, almost in every single interview, even if their partner had just died, they could talk about something positive … often something small … having to do with something else going on in their lives not necessarily directly related to their care-giving.”

This new perspective helped direct Moskowitz onto a path looking at the positive things within stressful life events, allowing positive emotions to be expressed along with the negative.

“This isn’t about pretending things aren’t happening,” she stressed. “Rather, it’s about knowing that, even when times are really dark and you may be experiencing a lot of negative emotions and a lot of stress – maybe even depression or anxiety – you also have the ability to experience positive emotions as well. So, if you can experience the positive alongside those negative emotions, you’ll be able to cope better.”

Moskowitz and her team put together a program that includes eight to 10 skills, depending on the target group, toward helping participants increase their daily experience of positive emotions – stopping to notice, savour and capitalize on those good aspects.

“When things are stressful, it can be hard to see the positive things going on,” said Moskowitz. “We help people realize there’s usually something positive happening … you just have to be able to notice it.

“Things might be really horrific, but your dog is sitting next to you, really loves you, and it’s very sweet. So, just taking a moment and petting your dog, and then maybe telling someone about it – that would be noticing something positive in your life and savouring or capitalizing on it,” she explained. “We’ve been able to show that people who learn these skills and then practise them have better emotional well-being. They’re less likely to be depressed. In some samples, we were seeing some physical health effects. So, through clinical trials, we showed that the program seems to be helpful.”

When COVID first hit, Moskowitz was inundated with questions about how to cope better with stresses associated with the pandemic. The bottom line is that these skills transcend any particular stressor and can help no matter what the situation.

“For COVID, my advice is the same as it is for coping with breast cancer, diabetes, depression, or being a high school student,” said Moskowitz. “Learn these skills, try them out, see which work for you and, then, keep doing them. It’s like a physical activity, something you need to keep on doing. You can’t just do it once … similar to gratitude, noticing the good things, being thankful … it doesn’t work for you to just be grateful once and then be done with it. You need to take it up as a habit, and that can help you cope with COVID-19 or adapt with whatever kind of life stress you’re facing.”

Moskowitz also teaches the importance of doing acts of kindness. The idea is that, when you do something nice for someone else, it helps you feel better, too. Such an act can be as simple as paying for the coffee of the person in line behind you. Or looking someone in the eye and thanking them, making them feel appreciated and seen. And there are many types of acts that can be done without the receiver knowing the kindness came from you, if you’d rather remain anonymous.

“Doing these acts helps you feel better in a situation where you might think, I’m suffering here, I’m having a really hard time … but, knowing you can do something to help someone else can help your own well-being,” said Moskowitz.

Another skill she pointed to is “positive reappraisal.” When something stressful happens, take a moment to reframe it or think about it in a way that makes it seem not so bad or even like it’s positive thing – find the good in it.

“Sometimes, it takes the form of actually learning something about yourself – like you find that you are stronger than you’d thought you were,” said Moskowitz. “My favourite positive reappraisal is, ‘Well, that could have been worse! It’s bad, but it could have been worse.’

“An extreme example of this happened when we were doing some work with a gun-violence prevention group here in Chicago, teaching them these skills. They work with young men who are at high risk of either being victims or perpetrators of gun violence. The people they work with often are involved in a shooting. [The group members] will talk about it and will say, ‘One of our clients was shot and is in the hospital, but he’s alive.’ Having one of your clients shot is pretty bad and very stressful, but they’re able to say, ‘You know what? It could have been worse. He could have died, but he’s still alive.’ So, that’s a very vivid example of positive reappraisal.”

Moskowitz stressed that there is no one technique that works better than all others. She said, with regard to various anxiety- and stress-reducing methods, it is very much a matter of what fits best for each individual in a particular circumstance.

For more information visit moskowitzlab.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

New Jewish law group

Renowned lawyer and human right activist David Matas is being honoured by B’nai Brith Canada, as the organization launches the Matas Law Society.

Matas, who is based in Winnipeg, has long served as B’nai Brith Canada’s senior legal counsel, working closely with B’nai Brith for more than 30 years. He has his own private practise and, among other recognitions for his work, has been appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.

The new society is set to be a primary hub for Jewish members of Canada’s legal community. For now, while COVID restrictions remain, all events will be held virtually, with any Jewish lawyer, paralegal and law student able to join and participate from any location.

“David is doing so many wonderful things all of the time,” said Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “He really personifies to me what a human rights advocate should be.”

photo - Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada — Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada. *(photo from B’nai Brith Canada)*

According to Mostyn, “There is a rich history of Jewish law societies in Canada. They are great, established societies. Currently, there’s one in Ottawa and one in Montreal. There used to be one in Toronto, but it closed down decades ago, essentially because the need was no longer there.

“As friends and advocates in the community, we were hearing a lot from the legal community about the need for an activist law society. So, the idea has been brewing for the last number of years. We already have a very strong advocacy program, government relations program and communications program. We wanted to create this law society as a forum for lawyers to get together, network and get some continuing education. It’s also a way for us to give back to the community, for those who care about the fight against antisemitism, racism, and the fight for human rights.”

The society will operate as a subcommittee of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, with news to come of scheduled activities and ways that legal professionals can get involved. Law students can join for free, and the annual cost for legal professionals is $250.

“It’s as easy as, if you’re a law student, paralegal or lawyer and you’re interested in advancing your own career and want to make a difference for the community, you just sign up on the website,” said Mostyn. “Then, you’d be put onto the email list … and, as soon as we will be publicly announcing any activities, those will also be reflected on the website.”

photo - B’nai Brith Canada has launched a new law society, named in honour of lawyer and human rights activist David Matas — B’nai Brith Canada has launched a new law society, named in honour of lawyer and human rights activist David Matas. *(photo from B’nai Brith Canada)*

“The time when it was first mentioned to me, it wasn’t mentioned to me as something that would be named after me,” Matas told the Independent. “It was mentioned as a way of getting lawyers involved … [in] legal-specific work related to B’nai Brith.

“There are a lot of legal issues that do arise. In fact, today, I put in an application for an intervention document. It’s a case about Mike Ward. He’s a comedian in Quebec who went after a handicapped guy in the audience in his comic routine.

“The person who was the target of this comic routine complained to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, successfully,” said Matas.

The case is now before the Supreme Court of Canada. “And we applied at B’nai Brith for interveners’ status, based on the experience of Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who’s a French comedian who has used his comic routine to attack the Jewish community and has been fined many times … and has gone to court many times in France, Belgium and Switzerland. There’s even a European Court of Human Rights judgment on him. So, I suggested we intervene, and B’nai Brith agreed. We applied for intervention status and we got it.”

While Matas enjoys volunteering with B’nai Brith, he will not be able to do so indefinitely, and would love to get some help sharing the workload.

“Obviously, when you’re dealing with a volunteer organization, you want to get as many people involved as possible,” said Matas. “Not just to spread the load, but also you want to get more people aware, committed and involved. Advocacy can’t just be advocacy of one person; it’s not going to carry much weight. It needs to be as many people as possible.”

Mostyn is working on getting accreditation for the society’s seminars, as he and Matas hope that the continuing education component of the law society will help bring together a number of law students, who will eventually go out and work in the field and fuel change.

The society has been launched and many students have already signed up, said Mostyn.

As for what specializations in law those wanting to join the society may want to possess, Matas suggested “discrimination, equality and international law … also, libel law, which is very different from equality law or international law … or we have things about charities, tax and corporations. There are a wide variety of legal issues that come up.

“There’s a lot, in terms of advancements of rights, that occurs through the courts and also through parliaments and legislatures. Legal work isn’t only doing court work. It’s also sometimes advocating changes to law. You need, of course, a public component for that. That may not be lawyers, but often requires some legal expertise to point out the depths of the law and so on. I’d say there’s a real need here and I think it’s a welcome addition to the work that B’nai Brith is doing to add this.

“It’s also a great opportunity for lawyers to contribute and use their skills,” added Matas. “They can talk to each other in a way where everybody knows what they’re talking about.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Books foster identity

Sifriya Pijama has created approximately 100 books in Hebrew and Arabic. (photo by David Salem)

Keren Grinspoon Israel promotes literacy through the gift of books to young children in Israel. Last fall, KGI was chosen by the U.S. Library of Congress as a Literacy Awards Program Best Practice Honoree, “in recognition of the organization’s long-standing achievement in promoting literacy and the development of innovative methods and effective practices in the field.” This past December, KGI’s founding director, Galina Vromen, retired, and the organization welcomed Andrea Arbel to its helm.

photo - Keren Grinspoon Israel’s new executive director, Andrea Arbel — Keren Grinspoon Israel’s new executive director, Andrea Arbel. *(photo by David Salem)*

The Harold Grinspoon Foundation started PJ Library in 2005 in the United States. According to its website, the program now sends “free books to more than 230,000 subscribers throughout the United States and Canada” and “is an expanding global community linked by shared stories and values that spans across five continents and more than 670,000 subscribers.”

The program reached Israel in 2008, when the foundation’s director of special projects, Vromen, moved back to Israel. She said Harold Grinspoon jumped at the opportunity to extend the program. “He basically said, ‘OK … if you’re going back to Israel, see if you can start PJ Library there,’” Vromen told the Independent. “We were giving away about a million and a half dollars’ worth of grants each year there. He said, ‘I don’t think I need a full-time person to watch over those grants in Israel … so I can assure you full-time employment for six months.’” The job lasted much longer than that, of course.

According to Vromen, the PJ Library book delivery system needed to be different in Israel, as mailboxes there are too small for books. But, on the plus side, unlike in North America, where Jewish populations are spread out, in Israel, you can reach practically every Jewish kid through the public school system.

In 2009, a pilot program was launched with Israel’s Ministry of Education, starting with 3,500 children in the Gilboa region.

“People knew me [in that area] and I came to them and said that we wanted to do a book program,” explained Vromen. “They asked, ‘What books?’ And we answered that we didn’t know yet. So, they basically said, ‘Well, if Grinspoon says he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it.’ And they gave me a lot of support.”

After the first year, the numbers increased to 40,000 children, with funding being split between the foundation and the ministry. The program – called Sifriya Pijama – continued to expand and, eventually, in 2014, the foundation started a program in Arabic.

“Harold Grinspoon, when he started PJ Library, he was inspired by Dolly Parton – a program called Imagination Library, which was really one that served inner-city families, gifting books,” said Vromen.

In Israel, Sifriya Pijama gives kids a shared experience, as they start learning to read.

“Whether it’s a religious or secular school, they get the same books, with the same parent suggestions, for teachers to implement the program within the classroom and, so, it has become quite a bridge-builder,” said Vromen. “I think that children coming from religious homes and those from secular or non-religious homes in Israel don’t normally read the same books or authors. It’s not like in America, where everyone grows up reading Dr. Seuss.

“So, in that way, we’ve managed to make it so that kids now, across the board, are really experiencing the same kind of books. And, with the Arabic program, one could say … What’s a Jewish foundation group dedicated to Jewish education doing running a book program with the Ministry of Education in Arabic? But, the truth of the matter is that, for Israel’s Arab minority, language is an issue.”

Spoken and written Arabic differ. Formal Arabic, which is found in books, unifies Arabs around the world, and the books for kids in formal Arabic begin to build language skills, said Vromen. Just like Sifriya Pijama, Maktabat al-Fanoos is a program about identity, she said.

Many PJ Library books in North America focus on Jewish holidays and Jewish values. The books in Israel focus less on holidays and more on values, like hospitality, taking care of the sick, and honouring your parents.

“We have a book about a bear that is sick and someone takes care of him, and then they all get sick and he takes care of them,” said Vromen. “That’s a perfectly good story for the programs. Another good example is a story we have about a mother koala bear who is very, very busy, but the little koala bear wants to play with her all the time … and the little koala bear learns to do things by himself, eventually deciding to make mud pies, and they come together at the end. It’s a cute little story and a way of discussing an important issue that, when you’re 4 years old is a big concept … giving mom a little bit of mom time and you needing to play by yourself for now … explaining values to a child in a child’s world.

“What’s really important is choosing books that open up a conversation,” said Vromen. “This is a book you can have a conversation about between parents and children. Basically, we’re trying to create opportunities for parents and children.”

Since the program in Israel is school-based, however, the education process starts with the teacher introducing the book to their class, reading it aloud a couple of times. Often, there is an activity included. Then, eventually, the kids take the book home.

“Each child takes home a copy and they keep it,” said Vromen. “There are eight books per year, per child, for three years in preschool. There are four books in first grade and in second grade. And so, by the time the child goes into third grade, they already will have received 32 books from us over the years.”

While most schools are either Jewish or Arab, a small minority are mixed. In mixed schools, the program starts by delivering four Hebrew books in the first half of the year, then four Arabic books in the second half of the year.

So far, the program has created approximately 100 books in Hebrew and Arabic, with nearly 30 of them being translated into English and other languages.

COVID-19 posed a challenge in Israel when schools were closed, but the younger kids were the first to be sent back to school, so the program has more or less caught up on the missed books and is now running as normal.

“For the Arab program, about 90% of the books they receive are the only children’s books they have in their home. In Hebrew-speaking families, it’s about 47%,” said Vromen. “We’re the largest book-giving program in Arabic in the world.”

The program reaches about “70% of Hebrew-speaking children,” she added. “So, we’re talking about 80% of children in public schools in Israel – that’s quite extraordinary.”

Late last year, Vromen retired and, on Dec. 1, Andrea Arbel stepped in to lead KGI, after having worked for 18 years at the Jewish Agency.

“I relate to PJ Library on several spheres – as a published author who believes in the positive power of the written word on children; as someone who cares about strengthening Jewish culture in Israel and overseas Jewish communities; and as a mother of three who understands the critical importance of nurturing young minds and how much these efforts put children on a successful trajectory,” said Arbel.

Together with KGI’s leading partners and other supporters, Arbel is hoping to expand Sifriya Pijama and Maktabat al-Fanoos in both scope and depth, and to widen their sphere of influence on the broader community in new ways. For more information, visit hgf.org.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Getting rid of landfill garbage

UBQ chief executive officer Tato Bigio in the factory at Kibbutz Tse’elim, in the Negev. (photo from UBQ)

Garbage is piling up everywhere – in landfills and elsewhere on the ground, in oceans and other bodies of water, and even in outer space. And there is growing awareness that our attempts at reducing garbage through recycling has not worked as first imagined – only a small percentage of what we put in our recycling bins ends up being recycled. However, a new Israeli company offers some hope for improvement.

Based in Kibbutz Tse’elim in the Negev, UBQ is producing plastic pellets out of household garbage. The name UBQ is not an acronym, but an abbreviation of the word ubiquitous, conveying that the problem of garbage is everywhere and ever-present. The company launched in 2018, after six years of research. Its chief executive officer, Jack “Tato” Bigio, recently spoke with the Jewish Independent via Zoom from his office in Tel Aviv.

Originally from Peru, Bigio came to Israel in 1984, when he was 18, to attend the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the following years, he went from corporation to corporation, developing his business and management skills, until, in 2012, he joined UBQ.

A concept was proposed: to take household waste, such as paper, cardboard, plastics, diapers, food scraps, etc., and turn it into a thermoplastic composite material. This, Bigio explained, “means turning all this waste into a new plastic that can replace conventional plastic materials made out of oil, to make end products.”

Thermoplasticity is a characteristic of a material that is affected by heat – that is liquid when hot and solid when cool, such as sugar or wax.

“UBQ is a plastic that has mechanical properties … very similar to common plastics made out of oil,” said Bigio.

The UBQ process is able to take any garbage stream and, instead of it going to landfill, converting it – upcycling it – into UBQ plastic, regardless of the exact mix of garbage collected.

“The waste balance will be different in different places, depending on the way they handle the source [garbage],” said Bigio. “If the proportions are a little different, the reaction process of UBQ knows how to handle these differences.

“One of the incredible things we’ve developed is kind of a reactor. Once we know what is in the source of our waste, we can manage a process where different percentages are balanced out in the end material.”

While the exact process, which produces no waste itself, remains a protected secret, Bigio said, “There is enough water in the waste, so we don’t need water. And we will convert the waste, 100% of it, into UBQ material. We don’t use any additives or any chemicals, no accelerates or enzymes. It’s just a very incredible system that involves physical and chemical reactions with temperature … sheer forces, conditions like oxygen, certain gases…. It’s a very green and low-temperature conversion, which makes it really hard to believe.”

All of UBQ’s factory and office trash is recycled in the making of the plastic.

The location of the initial UBQ factory was selected for a number of reasons.

“We chose that kibbutz, which is in the south of Israel, because we wanted to develop this amazing technology in a perfect place to be able to enjoy the practices of being revolutionary – not only in the material and science, but also in the engagement of different communities,” said Bigio. “Today, we have Bedouins, Russians and Israelis working together at UBQ.”

UBQ plans to open more plants around the world, beginning in Europe. And, soon, consumers around the world will have more opportunities to choose between products made from conventional plastic and those made from UBQ plastic.

“Waste is an unlimited source of material,” said Bigio. “So, if you buy a product made with UBQ, you will not only be enjoying the product you buy – if it’s a box, or chair, or table – but, by buying it, you will be making good with the environment. You’ll be saving waste, you’ll be saving carbon emissions, and it doesn’t cost a penny more than regular plastics…. We’ve come out with a technology that makes our material competitive to regular plastics.

“One of the reasons for it is that we use waste, and waste is a negative cost – they pay us to take waste. The other benefit of UBQ is that it works in temperatures that are very low compared to regular plastics. We work at 200°C; regular plastic made out of oil is between 800 to 1200°C. Also, we don’t use any water, because there is enough water in the waste.”

Though it might take a few years before Canadians have the option of buying things made with UBQ plastic created from our own garbage, products made out of UBQ plastic produced in the Israeli plant are already finding their way into local stores. UBQ products can be recycled just like other plastics.

UBQ opened a second and much bigger plant in the Netherlands, and the list of countries interested in having plants includes Japan, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Argentina and Chile.

“It will take some time until we reach all these markets, but we expect to be, in the next 10 years, phenomenally dominating the plastic market,” said Bigio.

Right now, landfill waste is something Bigio said “pollutes oceans, rivers, natural environments, and is killing animal life … at the end of the day, it creates a lot of harm to human beings. If you really care about the future or [coming] generations, you better start working on helping make a difference.”

Bigio encouraged others to think innovatively to find new ways of reusing existing materials. “It’s just a matter of wanting to do it,” he said. “Governments, multinational companies … individuals can choose to do the right thing.”

For more information, visit ubqmaterials.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Using chutzpah in business

Uri Adoni shares “The Six Rules of Chutzpah” in his book The Unstoppable Startup. (photo from Uri Adoni)

Uri Adoni, author of The Unstoppable Startup – Mastering Israel’s Secret Rules of Chutzpah, is on a mission to teach businesspeople how to use chutzpah to their advantage.

Born and raised in Israel, Adoni was working at a large advertising agency when the internet was just starting to catch fire.

“I really remember the exact moment when I first saw the internet,” Adoni told the Independent. “It was back in 1995 and it really blew my mind. I said, ‘Wow! I can talk to somebody in Singapore!’ It was very slow, dial up. It took ages to download anything, but it was crazy for me. And then I realized I just had to be part of it.

“Funnily enough, one of the partners in the agency at the time, he said to me, ‘This internet thing, it’ll never catch on.’ But, I begged to differ! And the old advertising world, I think, it will change dramatically, because you have so much data and people will know exactly what you were doing. That’s when I joined Microsoft.”

Adoni was chief executive officer of MSN Israel, working for Microsoft, for about seven years. He then moved to managing venture capital, giving him a unique view as to why some venture owners succeed while others fail. After a decade on the job, he decided to share this knowledge in book form.

According to Adoni, “One of the questions we’ve been frequently asked by people from all over the world is, ‘What is the secret sauce behind the Israeli success?’… We’re the second-largest tech hub in the world, second only to Silicon Valley, the largest per capita. We have the highest density of startups per capita, the highest venture capital per capita.”

Adoni shared that Israel has the third most companies on the NASDAQ, after the United States and China, though, in terms of population and geography, Israel is tiny compared to these countries.

“The positive side of chutzpah is what makes the difference between Israeli entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs from around the world,” said Adoni. “One of my hypotheses is that, unlike charisma, which you’re either born with or not, chutzpah is actually something you can teach. And, I’d say, more than that, by the way. I think that any entrepreneur in the world, whether Israeli or not, they all have chutzpah. They just don’t know how to define it this way. But, I really think it’s a key ingredient in any successful startup.

“I felt the best way to explain it is by demonstrating what it is, and that the best way to demonstrate it would be to interview very successful entrepreneurs who could relate to it – asking them how important chutzpah has been in the success of their startup. If they are Israelis, they’d know it, and be able to put their finger on it.”

In The Unstoppable Startup, Adoni delves into what he has dubbed, “The Six Rules of Chutzpah,” with plenty of examples. The first rule involves changing one’s mindset, which, in turn, enables you to challenge reality as you know it, by thinking ahead of the curve.

“One of the companies we invested in at the time was a company, called CyActive, in the computer anti-virus world,” he said. “Usually, the way it works is that you have a virus and then you have the anti-virus that comes up with some sort of virus blocking. But it’s a cat-and-mouse thing, because they have to come up with a new virus and the anti-virus has to block it.

“They came up with a really interesting approach by changing the paradigm,” he explained. “They took the existing virus and, with a very smart algorithm, they created tens of thousands of potential viruses that could be expanded or developed from the original virus. And then, once we had all these viruses, we could create a tool to block them, before they even existed. So, they actually built something that blocks viruses that no one had come up with yet, but that there’s a chance they’ll come up with.”

Another rule, Adoni said, is innovating in order to meet future demand. In this context, he gave the example of the navigation app, Waze. Users share real-time data about their travel location and speed, allowing Waze to calculate the quickest way from point A to B.

“Once they use the application, all of this data [is] collected and you can sometimes know and predict where there will be traffic jams, guiding people to different routes and getting them to the destination faster,” said Adoni. “A lot of people were very skeptical about it. They said nobody will share their data; privacy issues. But, they proved everybody wrong. The market actually needed that, but we needed to bring them the tool. Once the tool was introduced, it was adopted very quickly.

“By the way, [Apple’s] Steve Jobs was one of the best – all the way from the Macintosh to the iPhone, having this entrepreneurial mindset that says, ‘I know what people need and will introduce it to them.’”

While Adoni’s book is naturally geared to startups and tech companies, he is adamant that the principles are relevant for any company, “no matter if they are small, big, or what state they are in because, at the end of the day, if you’re just doing more of the same, you may sell, you may make a living, but not necessarily make it big, or breakthrough, or grow in a large way.

“Even if you just have a small coffee shop, you should have your own competitive advantage, whether that’s with your cakes, experience, prices, name, or community. You need to differentiate yourself, showing why people should choose you over others. Random choice will not build return business. Any company around the world, any business you can think of, must think in a mindset of how they can outpace their competition, figure out their competitive advantage.”

Adoni believes his book is also great for investors, as it will teach them what to look for in startups.

In non-pandemic restricted days, Adoni regularly travels the world, speaking with university students.

Not wanting to reveal much, Adoni said he is currently working on a venture to challenge the mindset of Americans about developing new high-tech hubs in places that many people would not even consider a possibility.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Making safe, inclusive space

Clockwise from the top left: Tanja Demajo, Shelley Karrel, Amanda Haymond Malul and Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman participate in a JACS Vancouver panel discussion Oct. 15.

“When someone comes through the door and says, ‘I’m an addict. I’m a recovering addict,’ do they feel judged or do they feel accepted? Do they feel that we are putting them in a box, giving them a label?” asked Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman in a recent community discussion. “We have to identify the illness, there’s no question about that. But, is that the only way to view a human being? I think to respect every human being for their humanity, that’s what people are really craving – respect and love.”

Baitelman, director of Chabad Richmond, was one of three panelists on the topic Building Safe and Inclusive Spaces for Those Affected by Addiction and Mental Illness. He was joined by Tanja Demajo, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services (JFS), and Amanda Haymond Malul, a community member in recovery, in the Oct. 15 event presented by Jewish Addiction Community Services (JACS) Vancouver. JACS Vancouver’s Shelley Karrel moderated the conversation.

Haymond Malul would like to see more community discussions on addiction and people being taught acceptance. She spoke of the need to “have support from the religious leaders of the community, from every single agency in the community, to start talking about it – make it acceptable, educate.” (See jewishindependent.ca/help-repair-the-world.)

And we need to ensure that what we are teaching is in line with our actions, said Demajo. “If we talk to children about acceptance, but we don’t actually practise that, that’s creating double standards where we talk about certain things, but that’s not what people experience,” she said. This could be damaging, she said, to people who “really need that support and want to trust.”

We must see each member of the community as a human being, said Baitelman. Love is important, but, he said, “Love is on my terms, respect is on your terms. If I love you, it’s more a reflection of who I am. But, if I respect you, it’s more of a reflection of how I see you, what you are about – and I think that’s really important. Respect the humanity. If you can love them, that’s even greater. But respect is more fundamental.”

When Karrel asked panelists for tangible ways in which people could be more accepting and inclusive, with love and respect, Demajo said agencies are overwhelmed with the number of people needing support. She said it is up to each of us to connect on a personal level with others, accepting that it will take time for them to trust us enough to share.

“You have to build a relationship, and a relationship is not built overnight,” said Demajo. “I had a client who I often think of, a person who spent a number of years [in the] Downtown Eastside being homeless, not having pretty much anything in his life…. He would come to see me … and we would speak about books, because he was a huge reader and I love reading. It took him six months until he really started talking about things that were going on in his life and what he actually needed, and we started working from there. Now, he has a regular life. He has a home. He brought his family back. He is working. So, things are in a place that he wanted … a number of years ago. Recovery is a process of being vulnerable and, so, if social services don’t have the time to invest in people, I think we are setting ourselves up for a really huge failure.”

All panelists agreed that having a drop-in centre with people who understand is absolutely essential and that, while professional support would be ideal, it is not essential. To be kind, respectful and loving, you do not need to be a professional, they said.

While there are recovery clubs in the general community, Haymond Malul said it would be great if there were also one in the Jewish community – “having a safe place for people to come and be able to drop in, and know that this is the Hillel House of Recovery,” she said.

However, having a community place might inhibit some people from coming out, due to fear of being exposed, warned Demajo. “The other piece is that I do feel that what Amanda has done tonight, speaking of her own experience and being in the community, and [talking about] some of the things that were helpful for her, is important to start with; having those opportunities to open up the conversation – not just for me, in a professional role, but from a personal place – because that is where the relationship happens. I do believe that is the core of whatever we come up with – the core is the relationship.”

Each of us is deserving of respect, regardless of our achievements, successes, failures or addictions, stressed Baitelman. “The fact that you were created by G-d makes you worthy of the highest form of respect and no judgment,” he said.

“Why would I not be involved with somebody who’s in recovery?” asked the rabbi. “After all, these people are accountable. They’re working on character development and are improving certain areas of their lives that they have the courage to acknowledge need to be corrected. They’re actively making amends with people around them. They are working on a conscious relationship with G-d rather than on other forms of success that society often judges success by. This is really an achievement.

“How many of us would like to change even one iota of our character, and people in recovery have changed more than one iota. They have made an incredible change, which is so admirable and should command respect. I think that’s part of the attitude that should be helpful in the broader community, and how we act with people, and the stigma.”

Karrel closed the discussion by giving a brief synopsis of JACS and its services. “We are working to diminish the stigma of addiction,” she told the Independent after the event. “Let’s keep this conversation going so we all feel we belong in our community.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Uncovering the story within

A participant in Yehudit Silverman’s The Story Within process shows off their self-made mask. (photo from Yehudit Silverman)

This past spring, Prof. Yehudit Silverman’s new book came out. In The Story Within: Myth and Fairy Tale in Therapy, the Concordia University professor emerita walks people through a step-by-step process to healing.

“When a person embarks on this journey, they feel called to a story, but they don’t know why,” said Silverman. “And it’s the sense of the unknown that’s really important…. Sometimes, in conventional therapy, we just go around in circles and might not necessarily get to the deeper layers that are inaccessible to us. But, through the arts and through the use of a character from a myth or fairy tale, gradually we can access those areas in ourselves.”

In Silverman’s approach, clients start by choosing their own story after going through a couple of exercises. “That process of choosing the story is therapeutic and healing in itself, because it’s part of the person’s sense of their own sense of knowing their own strengths and their own intuition, which is really important,” she explained. “Also, it’s important to stay with one character in a story for a long time, allowing the depth work to be done … recognizing what the character’s quest is, which is so important in myth and fairy tale, which is why I think they are still so relevant.

“The protagonist is on a quest and has to face obstacles and challenges,” she continued. “That can be so helpful when people are facing their own challenges and obstacles, so they don’t feel so alone. Also, they get to work with fiction, which is very safe, providing a certain amount of distance.”

People choose their stories for different reasons.

“Someone might be really drawn to a character that is having to do an impossible task, like in Rumpelstiltskin, where the girl has to make straw into gold,” said Silverman. “A lot of people think they are facing an impossible task, so they might then choose that story.

“Sometimes, it’s just the title of the story. I worked with an adolescent who was homeless and, sadly, addicted to drugs. When I worked with her, she chose the story of the handless maiden, which led to, sadly, to the revelation of her having been abused as a child. It was just the title that drew her.”

Once people choose a character, they start to build a mask. Then, they build the environment for the character and go through the steps that are described in Silverman’s book. The process is usually done within the context of a group, so that it is witnessed, which, according to Silverman, aids significantly in healing.

“They work with other people so that, at some point, they actually direct someone else in their mask and in their costume,” she said. “They get to look at what their character looks like to an outsider. And then, they have people embodying the obstacle and the helper, so they actually embody going through the quest and the challenges of the character.”

Silverman once worked with an anorexic teen who chose the character of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. “For her, the tornado was her eating disorder that took her to the Wonderful Land of Oz … which was, for her, magical. It was the ‘Land of Starvation’ and the good witch, Glenda, was actually evil for her, because she was trying to get her to go back to Kansas…. I realized that, for her, everyone in the hospital was evil, was going against what she felt was her sense of reality and her sense of what was magical and important, which was her starvation.

“And so, little by little, she worked with it and she embodied the tornado,” said Silverman. “She was actually swirling around and started crying, and realized how destructive it was. It was the first time she had had that realization – she didn’t have it when people were just talking to her.”

The teen connected and embodied the “chaotic energy of the tornado,” said Silverman. “She began to realize it was destructive and, then, she very slowly started healing. But, for her, having that story was essential.”

Although COVID-19 has made holding in-person group sessions impossible for Silverman, it has opened the door to including people from all over the world in the online groups she leads.

The Story Within outlines Silverman’s process step-by-step, taking readers through each one, and it can be useful for both therapists looking to implement the technique, as well as anyone wanting to understand why they do what they do.

“If you’re going through something that is severe or you are in crisis, you should definitely see a therapist,” said Silverman. “And, if you’re going to use the book, you should only use it in context of therapy. But, for people looking for personal healing and a way to have creative reflection about what their life and quest is, then it is definitely for those people – for seekers, for artists and, also, for therapists, as something to integrate into their process with clients. And that’s something I do a lot of right now – supervising therapists insofar as how to integrate this into their work.”

Silverman said already established groups can use the book, as well, to form a more solid structural foundation perhaps. And, “there are so many people at home right now, and they are really questioning what their life is about,” she added. With the anxiety, she said, “having this structure, where they can go through a creative process … is so life-giving. It really allows us to express what’s going on inside into an outside form.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Father-son campaign leaders

Jonathon Leipsic is chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, and his father, Peter Leipsic, is co-chair of the annual campaign of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg. (photo from Leipsics)

Father and son, Peter Leipsic and Jonathon Leipsic, are chairing the Jewish Federation annual campaigns in their respective hometowns. Peter is co-chair, with Neil Duboff, of the Winnipeg fundraising effort, while Jonathon is in his third consecutive year of leading the fundraising here in Vancouver.

For Peter, “growing up, helping others was something that just got ingrained in you. You see somebody in trouble, you reach down and help them. My father served in Europe and following in his steps I went to Israel as a volunteer, in the ’67 war. It was just an automatic.

“I remember being at our synagogue and … on the cover of Time Magazine, I guess May of ’67 … there was a picture of 800 Syrian tanks, 600 Egyptian and Iraqi…. It made Israel look like they were going to be toast. At the synagogue, they were asking for money from all the members and I remember the cheques being torn up and being returned to people … saying, that, ‘No, we’re not interested in this. We’re interested in a cheque that hurts. Don’t give us your $1,000…. We want $10,000.’

“When I saw that,” said Peter, “I was probably 21. I think that just sort of instilled in me how to look out for the underdog. People would make fun of me for handing out money to people on the street and I’d say to them, ‘Where are you sleeping tonight? Are you having a shower or not?’”

Peter has been raising money for the Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA) for more than 50 years now, and he has learned that, with some people, giving is automatic, one doesn’t even need to ask. “In the end, we all end up in the same place. Eventually, I don’t know where the cemeteries are in Vancouver, but, in Winnipeg, they’re in the North End – we’re all going to end up there, and you ain’t taking it with you!”

The Leipsics do their best to help out beyond the Jewish community, as well. Peter established a scholarship program at Winnipeg’s Gordon Bell High School, where applicants are judged, not according to scholastic achievements, but on how much of a mensch they are. This past year, there were nine recipients – the highest number yet. “They sent the bios on these people, and, they were just gut-wrenching,” said Peter. “After reading the bios, I said, ‘OK. Can I add another $1,000?’ And, of course, I sent [the list] to Jonathon, too. Well, I raised it to $6,000 and Jonathon doubled it, up to, I think, $11,000. So, instead of them getting $400 per person, they each were given $1,018. And Jonathon, of course, explained to them the significance of 18 in Jewish life. To me, I’m tickled … to actually be able to see somebody’s face, and how I changed that face – taking a massive weight off of them.”

While both Peter and Jonathon are calling on people to help, they each have their own unique styles, with Peter being more direct and Jonathon having a more diplomatic approach.

“I probably burned a couple of bridges,” said Peter of his method. “When you know that somebody has the ability and you tried to explain to them the need, yet they back off and they back off … and, at some point, they say, ‘Do you want me to hang up on you now?’ Some people just don’t get it.”

Even in times such as these, some people, like the Leipsics, are downplaying the negative aspects and focusing on the needed work at hand.

“I mentioned in my campaign opening address that we, the Jewish people, certainly have known challenges greater than COVID,” said Jonathon. “While the challenges are profound, I always like to remind people that, even though, in the last 1,000 years, the challenges were seemingly insurmountable, we overcame and moved from strength to strength by never forgetting our call from Sinai and the centrality of community and Klal Yisroel. I think that COVID has been an eye-opener for people of my generation and younger. It has to start at home, I think.”

Jonathon said that he has really learned from his father’s commitment and that it has set the tone. “We’re taught in our homes and taught through Torah … we have to make community a priority, and my father has always done that,” said Jonathon. “Whether he does it by giving more, giving his time and whatever we were in the position to be able to do, he made those decisions up front – not after all our spending was done, rather at the beginning. ‘First things first,’ as they say. He showed me the way to a life of tzedakah, commitment and meaning…. To be in the same position with him, I think, is actually really, really special.”

Having had the benefit of helping fundraise in Winnipeg, Jonathon understands the different challenges that exist in Vancouver. “We have a bigger community, but it’s spread out,” he noted. “And, as a result, the binding of the community is less tight than it was when our community was more closely tied to Oak Street [in the past, and in] the North End of Winnipeg.”

Learning from both campaigns, Jonathon said, “We work together and do what we can. At the end of the day, food security and access to safe housing is becoming more and more challenging. And then, the isolation with COVID, obviously, is really profound with the elderly and those who can’t get out…. I can imagine, when it’s raining all winter or cold, the social isolation will become even more profound … the potential [effects] it can have on them, but also, their sense of community. I think, more than ever, these sorts of community initiatives are essential.”

“If you want Jewish life to continue,” Peter added, “you must reach down and support the people that are in need. You never know who the next leaders of your community are going to be. A lot of people that have received help had nowhere else to turn, and they may turn out to be your future leaders.”

As far as both Leipsics are concerned, Judaism is defined by the talmudic words, Klal Yisroel areivim zeh bah zeh (all of Israel is a guarantor for one another).

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Want to be a therapist?

Avrum Nadigel’s latest book, which he co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, is aimed at people contemplating a career in family therapy. (photo from Avrum Nadigel)

Therapist Avrum Nadigel’s latest book hit the shelves this month. Co-authored with the late Dr. David Freeman, Where Would You Like to Start: A Master Therapist on Beginning Psychotherapy with Families is structured as a conversation or interview between veteran therapist Freeman and then-newish therapist Nadigel.

Nadigel is a family marriage therapist based in Toronto. Originally from Montreal, where he had worked for the Jewish community for years, he moved to Vancouver for a spell. It was here that he met Freeman (who passed away in 2010).

Freeman had brought in various therapists to speak on marriage, love and respect at different events. Attending these lectures, Nadigel found what the therapists had to say “redundant and I didn’t find it very helpful for me. I had a pretty severe case of fear of commitment, and they all rambled on about the same thing. But, when David spoke, it blew my mind.”

About a year after hearing Freeman speak, Nadigel met, online, the woman who would become his wife, Dr. Aliza Israel. “She is from Vancouver, but was staying in Toronto at the time,” said Nadigel. “Now, we’re married and have three kids. And that all started because of David’s talk in Vancouver. David’s talk introduced me to a type of therapy called family systems theory.’”

Nadigel read many books on the topic, including Freeman’s, which made Nadigel rethink his previously held suppositions about relationships and marriage. “I changed the way I practise with my own clients,” he said.

Nadigel moved to Toronto when he was accepted into a residency there. He started up a private practice and began to look for someone to mentor him. At his wife’s suggestion, he reached out to Freeman in Vancouver, who, although semi-retired, was happy to supervise Nadigel via Skype.

Nadigel recalled some of the game-changing ways in which Freeman changed his way of thinking.

“When I was single, if I felt anxious or not good in a relationship, I was taught that this meant there was something wrong,” said Nadigel by way of example. A relationship “should be lovely, giving and with good communication, but, as soon as I get anxious, I bolt. Then, David comes around and goes … ‘Perhaps your own internal states of anxiety have nothing to do with the people you’re dating, but with your own internal struggle itself.’ It really changed how I saw discomforting feelings in intimate relationships. It helped me sit with them longer.”

Thinking about his eventual marriage to Israel, Nadigel said, “I often think back to that time and think, ‘How did all this work?’ Maybe, it was one part luck, one part theory and one part having a good therapist in my corner.”

In addition to Freeman’s counsel, Nadigel has done much study on family systems, notably he did post-graduate training with the Western Pennsylvania Family Centre, which teaches Bowen family systems theory, as formulated by the late Dr. Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist and founder of the theory.

Recalling his conversations with Freeman, Nadigel said, “David was very worried about two things. Number one, that people were focusing too much on hacks and behavioural changes, and that the system was much more powerful than that … and that the system would often, not always, but often, thwart any attempts the individual would try to make the change. So, he was very concerned that there were so few therapists offering a larger perspective about human suffering.

“The second thing he was very worried about – I think this is because he was a grandfather at the time of his death, he had two grandkids – was about the disconnect from wise elders in society. I think that’s really coming home to roost right now, the fact that we have the hashtag on Twitter, where it says, ‘BoomerRemover.’

“Some people are thinking that, well, it’s good about this coronavirus – it’s going to kill off all the old people and there’ll be more condos. I don’t know what the hell they are thinking but we really do see the elderly as an inconvenience in a lot of cases, and David thought this creates an impoverished culture – that, when you think of traditional society, it’s the elders who share life lessons that can only be acquired over time, through adversity and history. You can read a book, but it’s very different if an elder tells you what it was like to survive the Blitz in Britain. And David thought that young people in their marriages were impoverished, because of their lack of connection.

“So, with those two things,” said Nadigel, “I thought, maybe, if I can somehow convince David to write another book, I could be the young green therapist and he could be the senior guy. He could speak to me and motivate the next generation of therapists.

“I thought to myself that it should be snappy and quick.… I threw him the idea and I think the same day he got back to me and said he thought the format’s viable – except that, in this case, it would be Skype calls between a young therapist and a senior therapist…. We quickly started working on this once a week.

“Then, David had the manuscript and was going on vacation,” said Nadigel. “We had a few more chapters to write; he really liked where the book was going. Then, I got an email from him, a very brief email, which was odd, because he was much more verbose. It just asked if I could call him.

“I thought, that doesn’t sound good, that maybe he was going to say the book sucks. I called, and it was his now-widow [Judith Anastasia], who answered, and she said, ‘Avrum, I’m sorry to tell you, but David died of a heart attack while we were cycling in Croatia.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was a crazy summer. My dad died, my son was born and David died.”

Several years later, with Anastasia’s blessing and to honour Freeman’s memory and work, Nadigel started to complete their book.

“The book gives you a taste of a master therapist, to experience the wisdom and thinking he brought to thousands of families and couples he’s worked with over 40 years,” explained Nadigel. “And, once you finish the book, you might feel it’s your responsibility now to go and further your training in this area.

“David’s life work was helping people understand that, if you want to do well with your own personal goals and struggles and gridlock, you have to understand what you’re up against,” said Nadigel. “And you don’t do that by just talking about your neurotransmitters and serotonin and dopamine, or meditation…. It’s about certain ways of the here and now, that you either distance or connect through relationships that are happening right now – that are happening with your mother, your father, your sister, your aunt, your cousin. The work is staring you right in the face right now.”

Family system coaching, consultation or therapy, said Nadigel, is based on “the theory and the road map of going back and reworking through some of the gridlock in your family. And those people who are successful at doing something and thinking differently [about] their problems with their relationships – siblings, spouse, kids, whatever – [are] bringing those successes to every relationship. And that does not happen in the clinician’s office.

“Also, this type of therapy understands that human beings don’t get into problems because of their thinking – they get into problems because they are flooded with feelings…. It tries to promote good thinking to balance out strong feelings, toward being a little more strategic in how you conduct yourself in your relationships.”

And Nadigel himself is an example of how the approach can work.

“I’ve often thought that, if I was reading about this book, the interesting angle I always found … is that I was a punk rock alternative musician in Montreal. I was commitment-phobic and really saw marriage and family, marriage considerably, as the death knell of all that’s good in life – [that it’s] boring and sucks the nectar out of a good life. Then, David comes along in Vancouver and he just creates a profound paradigm shift in me, and I have come to a wildly different understanding. I’ve become a marriage therapist myself, a father, all this kind of stuff, so a pretty fundamental transition.

“I was one of these people that, once upon a time, really had a strong distaste for the very thing I’ve embraced,” said Nadigel. “It really is all credit to this one little talk in Vancouver in the JCC. There’s hope there. It doesn’t take years and years. It could be a 50-minute talk.”

Nadigel has created a blog and podcast to support the new book. To access it, visit nadigel.com/start. Electronic and hard copy versions of Where Would You Like to Start are available at amazon.ca.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.