(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
Normally, this special issue would be called Summer Celebration and have a multi-page pullout calendar of events. This summer, however, is unique and more sobering. The photograph is meant to reflect our current reality. We have no idea what lies ahead but remain hopeful for a brighter future.
In a Temple Sholom webinar May 6, ZLC Financial’s Garry Zlotnik, left, and Jon McKinney spoke on the topic Financial Planning in a Pandemic. (photos from Temple Sholom)
Reflecting on previous financial downturns – in 1987, 2000 and 2008 – Garry Zlotnik, chair and chief executive officer of ZLC Financial, admitted he felt worse now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, than in earlier recessions – not because of the economic implications but rather the health issues currently confronting the world.
“A year from now, two years from now, we’ll look back on this time and say, ‘Wow, that was just the most ridiculous, crazy thing in our lifetimes.’ But things will move forward in a positive way, with all the ingenuity that our population has,” Zlotnik said, adding that, as in any market, there are winners, such as Zoom, the web conferencing platform on which the webinar – called Financial Planning in a Pandemic – took place May 6.
Zlotnik was joined by Jon McKinney, ZLC’s president and portfolio manager, in the hour-long discussion, which was part of Temple Sholom’s Let’s Talk About It series.
McKinney holds overall responsibility for client relations, business development and administration at ZLC and has almost 30 years of financial sector experience in both portfolio management and accounting. Zlotnik, who has close to 40 years of experience as a chartered accountant and formed ZLC Wealth in 2000 – ZLC Financial was established in 1946 – also has served in numerous positions within the Jewish community, including as board president and chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, co-chair of the Vancouver JCC Maccabi Games, co-president of Vancouver Talmud Torah, treasurer of B’nai Brith Canada and president of the Richmond Country Club.
Though the spread of the virus has been flattening lately, the economic statistics – jobless claims, consumer spending – have been grim, with Canada’s economy further challenged by tense U.S.-China trade relations and a downward turn in the price of oil. According to McKinney, a silver lining has been the stimulus and bond buying by governments and central banks to prop up markets.
McKinney cited a Warren Buffett maxim from the midst of the 2008 recession: “Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.” If one had heeded that advice in late March of this year, he said, then April would have seen the best returns for equities since 1987, particularly as the U.S. Federal Reserve had been displaying its willingness to pump liquidity into the markets. The S&P 500 index, for example, gained 12.7% last month.
A principal message of the discussion was for investors to take a broad, long-term view. “Market timing is impossible,” McKinney cautioned. “But we can tell you there will be a bottom, and holding investments in companies that can weather this storm will be profitable long-term.”
In outlining ZLC’s own investment strategy, McKinney said, “We have reasonable diversification across different holdings and we pick good managers. We don’t just buy the index, and we look for companies that fly under the radar. We also invest in long/short funds and real estate.”
However, ZLC is concerned that there may be a retreat from the level the market is at now, as more bad news could filter through the system. Short-term, they believe, there could be a pullback and, if it comes, it will provide a great opportunity for investors.
“There are going to be some fairly volatile times ahead,” Zlotnik predicted, mentioning that it will take some time for people to get used to spending as they once did in pre-coronavirus times.
Oil and gas is one sector that has been beaten up in the past three quarters. It is, according to McKinney, contingent on the economy whether it rebounds, but many companies in the sector have seen strong gains through April and May.
“Every asset class has taken a hit,” Zlotnik said, though he sees opportunities in corporate bonds, which operate like a bond when a company’s price goes down and like equity when its price increases.
As for the Canadian dollar, McKinney forecasted the loonie either staying where it is or moving slightly higher after the recent rush to U.S. dollars, which tends to happen during economic crises.
For those with some money to put into the market, Zlotnik spoke of “dollar cost average strategy,” which means placing a fixed amount into a given investment on a regular basis. For example, if someone has $100,000 to invest, then they would place $10,000 in a given investment once a month for 10 months.
“It is important to know what one’s risk tolerance is and having a plan based on that,” he noted. Since March 2009, investment risk, for Vancouverites especially, has not been a factor, as both the equity and real estate markets have headed in an upwards direction.
A video of the webinar can be found on the Temple Sholom website: templesholom.ca/video.
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Lianne Cohen prepares to take a “PORCHtrait” of the Gorski family. (photo from Kehila Society)
As a fundraiser for Kehila Society of Richmond and/or Pathways Clubhouse, professional photographers Lianne Cohen, Jocelyne Hallé and Adele Lewin are volunteering their time (in a safe way) to photograph your family in front of your home. Dress up, stay in your PJs, hold a sign, whatever you feel like – be creative, have fun! These photos are intended to be a positive memory, to serve as a reminder of all the time you got to spend with your families in quarantine. The photographs are by a suggested minimum donation of $54 to kehilasociety.org/content/make-donation-kehila-society-richmond or pathwaysclubhouse.com/donate. A full tax receipt will be provided, along with your photographs. Bookings are available until June 7. To register, email [email protected] or call 604-241-9270.
In the first eight weeks of Jewish Family Services Vancouver’s COVID-19 emergency response program, more than 400 calls were received, 1,500 meals and groceries were delivered, and 672 hours of service was provided on the Community Care Hotline. In addition to the challenges, JFS has also witnessed many stories of hope and gratitude, and has recently launched the enewsletter JFS Uplift, which every week will share highlights of what inspires JFS staff and volunteers to do the work they do. The lead story in the inaugural issue was on the new JFS Breakfast Club program.
On May 11, JFS staff came together to pack grocery bags full of healthy breakfast items and packets of Play-Doh as part of the club program. Fifty-eight families in several cities across Greater Vancouver received their goodies thanks to the help of volunteers.
“We realize parents are under much more stress during this time of uncertainty, especially given their added roles as teachers and ‘playmates.’ The Arnold and Anita Silber Family Foundation approached Tanja Demajo, the chief executive officer of JFS, to see where we could help. Together, we came up with the JFS Breakfast Club,” explained Arnold, Anita and Stacey Silber, sponsors of the club. “Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day, so now healthy items are delivered to families. This is a great opportunity for us to get involved in supporting the health of young families. We hope to give parents one less thing to worry about during this difficult time.”
New families can register for the JFS Breakfast Club at jfsvancouver.ca/jfsbreakfastclub (some restrictions apply) and people who are interested in volunteering for JFS can email Kristina Moser at [email protected] or visit jfsvancouver.ca/emergencyvolunteer.
To subscribe to the JFS newsletter or for other information about JFS, visit jfsvancouver.ca.
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.
Garden City Bakery owner Steve Uy, right, with store manager Monica Flores and fellow baker Richard Caranto. (photo from Garden City Bakery)
If you’ve not set foot into Garden City Bakery for some time, you’re in for a surprise. The longtime Richmond kosher bakery at Blundell and Garden City roads came under new ownership in December 2019 and Steve Uy has infused the shop with his personal style and charisma. The interior has been updated and the bakery hums with an energy inspired by Uy’s friendliness and business acumen.
A Manila native, Uy moved to Vancouver in 1989 at the age of 20 and studied economics at Simon Fraser University. By 26, he’d returned to the Philippines, first importing Canadian food products and later immersing himself in the kitchen, where he baked steam buns for grocery stores. In 2017, when he returned to Vancouver with his wife and children, he was determined to continue baking for a living. An ingredient supplier introduced Uy to former Garden City Bakery owner Ivan Gerlach and, within two months, the transaction was complete and Uy was at the helm of the business.
“When I took over the shop, the only thing I wanted was an oven to bake things,” he admitted. “I didn’t even know what kosher was!”
Immediately afterwards, though, his kosher education began in earnest, first under Gerlach’s tutelage and then under the instruction of rabbis from BC Kosher. It was a steep learning curve but Uy was fiercely committed to two things: to respect the Jewish traditions of the bakery and to increase the availability of its signature challahs, challah buns, bagels and pita bread.
“Our goal is to be more visible and more available,” he told the Independent.
Expanding the availability of his baked breads wasn’t easy initially and, when Uy first approached Safeway at King Edward Avenue and Oak Street, he wasn’t met with open arms. “I wondered why a Safeway right beside a Jewish school wouldn’t want to carry kosher bread,” he said. It took four months of repeated meetings and encouragement before the grocery store agreed to carry Garden City Bakery challah and buns. But, as soon as they did, the items disappeared fast and the store increased their order. By January 2020, Safeway had invited Uy to set up his own bread rack in the store, where he could sell even more kosher breads, including pita, bagels and rye bread.
Today, Uy’s baked goods are available at Meinhardt Fine Foods, Stong’s Market, two Save-On Foods (Dunbar and Terra Nova), Omnitsky Kosher, Louis Brier Home and Hospital, two Superstore locations (Marine Drive and Richmond) and a FreshCo. And Uy is just getting started on his wholesale journey.
“We intend to expand into more Safeway stores, Superstores and Save-On Foods in the next year or two,” he said. “There’s a gap in the market we can fill here. Grain bread and artisan bread are popular, but I think there’s a market for kosher bread beyond the Jewish community, for anyone who appreciates a good bread. And, personally, I think challah is one of the best, most beautiful breads in the world. The dough itself is just fabulous.”
While expansion plans have been put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic, Uy’s ambition has not tapered. A hands-on owner, he does much of the mixing and baking himself, “to keep our secret recipes and to ensure consistency of the product.” Uy also handles delivery of the products to the stores.
His baking repertoire remains much the same as it was previous to his leadership, but a couple of new items include a Filipino soft bun called Pandesal, and a sandwich loaf made from the same dough as challah but more suitable as an everyday bread. “The challah and challah buns are our mainstay and we worry that adding too much variety will bog down the bakery in terms of manpower,” he explained.
A great ambassador for the bakery, he emanates positivity and a can-do attitude. “When I bought the business, I could tell that the sales volume was not great, but I’ve always been a risk-taker and I’m confident in my own abilities,” he said. “I’m really enjoying the business, and owning a kosher bakery has exposed me to a new group of people, a different culture and unique traditions I didn’t previously understand.”
He added, “It’s my sales pitch when I go to new stores. I tell them we’re different because we’re kosher. We’re taking one step at a time, but we’re determined to open up more avenues for kosher bread in British Columbia. We know when people start believing in the product, they’ll buy it.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
Vancouver Soup Company’s Steven Sloan with his wife Iona Monk and their daughter, Zoe Sloan. (photo by Michelle Dodek)
Soup is comfort food; great for lunch or dinner; light or hearty and always satisfying. Steven Sloan certainly thinks so. He is the owner and creator of the Vancouver Soup Company, a local wholesale business that he set up in May 2015 to serve a demand he saw in coffee shops.
A veteran of the food industry and an avid cook, Sloan’s first customer was Breka Bakery & Café, a 24-hour coffee shop owned by a Jewish family, the Granots. As Breka expanded – they now have five locations around Vancouver – so did the Vancouver Soup Company.
“I get nice comments from my customers. People like the soups…. I haven’t ever lost a client,” said Sloan.
As he pitched his soups to shops all over the city, taking samples with him everywhere he went, he found that his shared kitchen arrangement could no longer accommodate his needs. He took the leap to finding his own production facility in 2018.
He found a large kitchen at 292 East 1st Ave., three blocks east of Main Street. The facility also had an unused area facing the street that looked perfect for a restaurant, he said. “I thought a retail space would be great to generate extra revenue to help pay for the rent. It also helps to build the brand.”
The location is also great for retail, he added, because it’s near the new Emily Carr University of Art + Design campus and there are many offices in the area.
Sloan’s wife, Iona Monk, who works as a couples therapist, did the majority of the publicity the old-fashioned way when the store opened for lunch in early January.
“Iona went to local businesses and apartment buildings and put up fliers,” explained Sloan. “We offer a discount to Emily Carr students, so many of them started walking over for lunch.”
Serving five kinds of soups daily with fresh bread on the side, Sloan also offers two daily sandwiches (one vegetarian) and a salad as well. There is an assortment of baked goods to round off lunch.
Up until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, business was steadily growing, as more and more people heard about the lunch available at the Vancouver Soup Company. Sloan was preparing to open in the mornings starting at the beginning of April. He was going to have smoothies, a hot breakfast bowl and breakfast sandwich as well as freshly baked goods made in-house. But then, coffee shops were forced to close and he had to close his restaurant as well.
Assisted in the sales part of the business by his 15-year-old daughter, Zoe, who is off school indefinitely, Sloan began reaching out on social media. His contacts included Vancouver Talmud Torah, from which his daughter graduated two years ago. The family set up an online order platform for frozen soup with an option for delivery or pick up at the store.
“The community has been very supportive,” said Monk. “We’re doing OK. This terrible situation has forced Steve to grow the business in a way new direction. It shows the potential of this business and that the demand is there.”
In addition to vegetarian, vegan and meat soups, Sloan produces stews and chilis and in his words, a killer mac ’n’ cheese, now all available frozen to go. In this new paradigm, the family feels fortunate to have been able to find a new retail outlet for their business. However, they are hopeful that coffee shops and restaurants will soon be able to reopen so the business can continue to grow. In the meantime, this family continues to serve up the soup – and the comfort – as best they can.
Michelle Dodek is a freelance writer living in Vancouver. She also is the baker for the Vancouver Soup Company, recently incorporating her own business, called ess Baked Goods.
The Alsidawi family, sponsors and congregants at the Vancouver International Airport, January 2019. (photo by Adele Lewin Photography)
Canadian Jews have a long history of standing up for the rights and welfare of refugees. And while Jewish immigrants have often been at the receiving end of this generosity, Vancouver Jewish congregations have played a frequent and often crucial role in ensuring the safe relocation of many non-Jewish refugees as well. They have sponsored refugees from Tibet, families from Vietnam, as well as helped relocate Jews from North Africa and Hungary during times of political unrest. When Canada announced its intention to accept some 25,000 immigrants from in and around wartorn Syria in 2015, many Vancouver congregations once again stepped up to help.
The news of a little Syrian boy whose body had washed up onto a Turkish resort beach in 2015 became a haunting symbol of the war for many Canadians, Rosalind Karby and Miranda Burgess told the Independent. In November of that year, the two women, along with a small cadre of volunteers from congregations Beth Israel and Beth Tikvah, launched an appeal to sponsor a Kurdish family’s immigration to Canada. Karby, who is no stranger to philanthropic initiatives, said the decision to mobilize a sponsorship was a “no brainer” for her, and for many in the local Jewish community. “There’s no question. That [image] sort of galvanized us.”
By 2016, the effort to save Syrian civilians in peril had become an egalitarian issue: Orthodox, Conservative Reform and Renewal congregations here were finding their own ways to fundraise and reach out. In the Lower Mainland, Schara Tzedeck members voted to contribute funds to the Joint Distribution Committee’s humanitarian aid efforts, while Or Shalom, Temple Sholom, Beth Israel and Beth Tikvah applied to the federal government for permission to sponsor families to Canada.
Burgess said, for many, the decision to help fleeing Syrian families emanated from longstanding Jewish experience. “From wandering Aramaeans and other dispossessed Jews to post-Holocaust migrations, to a situation like this, it felt like a very direct line, I think, to a lot of people,” she said.
But, if the ethical decision to provide a lifeline for refugees was a “no brainer,” as Karby put it, the path to bringing that sponsorship to fruition was anything but simple. It was not merely a matter of overseeing their resettlement in Vancouver. There would be a long list of forms to fill out. There were meetings with immigration representatives and members of the Anglican Church archdiocese, which coordinated the sponsorship process for this program. And there were lengthy virtual meetings with the applicant family, who, for the time being, was living in a crowded refugee camp in eastern Jordan.
There was also an “exhaustive” number of details to collect, often over spotty wireless connections, to verify the family’s eligibility: education backgrounds, family histories, residences and connections for all adults. In all, about 40 pages of forms to fill out, said Burgess.
For the family, the application process had its own challenges. For Hanan Alsidawi, the mother, it meant repeated trips to the capital, Amman, an hour-and-a-half drive away from the refugee camp, to secure paperwork, signatures and permission. Her husband, who had been reported missing when the family fled Syria, had not been found. Making it to Canada safely now rested on Hanan’s own initiative and the kindness of strangers thousands of kilometres away in Vancouver.
Sponsoring a refugee family came with considerable financial responsibility. According to the Canadian government, the sponsors were in charge of covering all out-of-pocket costs for the family for one year, including food, lodging and incidentals. That meant the sponsors would need to have a minimum of $40,000 in the bank to qualify. Moreover, Burgess and Karby estimated, that was actually low: for a family of three, the cost of living would be closer to $50,000 a year. The team would need to raise at least $10,000 more than mandated by the government.
“At the time, BI had just completed five years of fundraising for the [synagogue’s] new building,” Karby said. It was also just wrapping up its annual High Holy Day Appeal, another important humanitarian project that relied on the congregation’s support. Asking the entire congregation to take on a third project – and quickly – seemed unrealistic.
After some thought, the sponsorship team decided to take a different tack: they would reach out to a smaller, select group of family and friends who might be able to cover the sponsorship. And they would put a top limit on each donation.
“We determined a maximum gift of $1,000 so that no one person would feel that they should just pay the whole thing and no one person could feel they had to meet up to some high standard,” Karby explained.
But that still meant coming up with at least 40 to 50 donations.
“So, we cast a wide net,” Burgess said. “We worked our networks.”
They appealed to donors both inside the congregations and out. They contacted people they knew had contributed to humanitarian initiatives before. And they appealed to friends far away.
“I went to graduate school in the United States and I have a big network south of the border,” Burgess admitted, noting that the idea struck a chord with American residents as well, “who, because of their own governmental circumstances weren’t able to do sponsorships but felt the same urgency.”
By the end of the appeal, they had received donations from as far away as Michigan, Massachusetts and Maryland. “All were very small, but contributed to the whole,” said Burgess.
They had met their goal – and then some. Karby said Beth Tikvah’s donation of $10,000, whose fundraising was coordinated by David Numerow, put the project over the top, bringing the total to just over $50,000.
Still, it took more than two years for the family to receive approval to immigrate. In January 2019, Hanan and her two children, Mahros and Safa, arrived at Vancouver International Airport to a fanfare of elated family and Jewish congregants. Some of the Alsidawi clan was already living in Vancouver, so Hanan and her children would be able to count on help with things like language interpretation and getting settled in their new city.
According to Congregation Beth Israel president Helen Pinsky, quite a number of BI congregants stepped up to support the initiative privately when it was announced. She said she chose to donate because the endeavour resonated with her values as a Jew.
“Many of us had been involved in sponsoring the Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s,” she said. “It had been a very happy, very successful experience for me.”
She said the experience taught her the value of such initiatives. The sponsorship, she said, “is certainly in keeping with our beliefs and how we should behave, according to our forefathers, and it seems like it is consistent with an organization of people who have strong feelings about pikuach nefesh, the saving of a soul.”
Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, who serves as Beth Israel’s head rabbi, said helping others is a core principle to the Jewish faith, specifically because of the historical experiences of the Jewish people.
“Torah tells us that we were foreigners in a foreign land and we need to care about foreigners, and people suffering,” Infeld said. That’s why the congregation – and other synagogues as well – felt it was essential to help Syrian families in distress. “We wanted to take up what the Torah told us in a very real, concrete way.”
Even though sponsors’ financial responsibilities ended in January, their bond with the Alsidawi family has not. Burgess and Karby continue to visit Hanan and her children and check up on their progress. By law, the sponsors are not permitted to offer further funding, and Karby admits that the transition will continue to take time for the small family.
For the volunteers, the past four years of effort was more than a gesture of generosity. It was crucial they help.
“You save one life, you save a world, and we were fated to do what, well, any human being should do, really,” said Karby. “But I think that our Jewish tradition of helping the needy, of trying to save a life definitely propelled Miranda and me.”
“Saving one life is as if you saved a whole world,” Burgess agreed. “And, now that geopolitics has intensified the Syrian crisis again and people are once again fleeing in vast numbers, I am so thankful we were able to help one family. I wish we could have helped all families, but to help one family is something and we were grateful we were able to do it.”
Jan Lee’s articles and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.
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Note: This article has been amended to correct Rosalind Karby’s first name, which was misspelled in the original version.
University of British Columbia student Ava Katz has been helping people with errands since the pandemic began. (photo by Paul Joseph/UBC)
First-year kinesiology student Ava Katz commutes to the University of British Columbia from Kerrisdale, where her housemates include her 91-year-old grandmother and a mother with a heart condition. In these extraordinary times, Katz doesn’t want her loved ones risking their health with unnecessary trips to the grocery store. So, in March, she began making those trips herself. As she was transporting groceries home from Save-On Foods, something occurred to her.
“It dawned on me that there are people in the community who don’t have family, who don’t have anyone else to go out for them,” said Katz.
Her final exams were just a couple of weeks away. It’s the time of year when most students’ instincts are telling them to clear their schedules of any distractions. Katz’s instincts were telling her to do something else.
She posted a public note on Facebook: “In wake of the spreading pandemic, I would like to offer my services to anyone who is compromised during this time. If you or someone you know is in need of groceries, household items, etc., please contact me directly and we can arrange for me to complete your needed errands free of charge.”
She indicated where she lived and her phone number, assuring people, “I will not enter your homes, only drop items off at the door. Priority goes to elders and individuals with compromised health. Please do not contact me to run errands for you if you are able and in good health.”
She asked readers to share the post. The calls came quickly. Just a couple at first, but more and more as her friends returned from school in the United States and overseas. They all had to self-isolate for 14 days, so they couldn’t do anything for their own grandparents who were shut in. Katz stepped in.
“That was just kind of a no-brainer for me,” she said. “I was happy to do those things, and still am.”
Katz has been shuttling to and from supermarkets and pharmacies all over Vancouver. Each outing brings her into the orbit of people who potentially carry the virus. Katz has heard the stories about the toll COVID-19 takes on its victims. She wears a mask and takes great care not to bring the virus to the people she’s helping.
She still makes the trips for her mom and grandmother, walks her two dogs, and also delivers food between two seniors homes twice a week as a volunteer for Congregation Beth Israel. It’s a lot to do, but, as far as Katz is concerned, it’s the least she can do.
“It definitely scares me that I could be exposing myself, but people need help,” she said. “I’d rather sacrifice myself than have a senior go into a grocery store and contract the virus instead.”
Many of the volunteers who were delivering food between the two seniors homes when COVID-19 arrived were older folks themselves. It was too risky for them to continue, so the congregation put out a call for new volunteers. Katz was among the first to step up, despite her busy exam schedule.
“Crisis brings out the best and the worst in people, and I think Ava is one of those examples of it bringing out the best,” said Krystine McInnes, volunteer coordinator for the synagogue. “The idea of selfless service and loving our neighbours as ourselves – she really embodies that.”
Helping people is in Katz’s blood. Her grandfather was a doctor for more than 60 years. She came to UBC thinking she would go into medicine eventually, too. Nothing during her first year has changed that. In fact, the COVID-19 outbreak has given her even more respect for the healthcare and support workers who keep our hospitals functioning every day.
“They are real heroes,” said Katz. “I have a huge respect for what it takes to provide care to so many people at a time like this and it reinforces my commitment to be a part of it.”
Left to right are Lynne Fader (Kehila Society), Adam Ben-Dov (Connect Me In), Toby Rubin (Kehila Society), Michael Sachs (with daughter Desi and son Izzy), Monica Flores and Steve Uy (Garden City Bakery). (photo from Kehila Society)
The Covid Challah Initiative was started by Michael Sachs and is a partnership between Richmond’s Kehila Society, Richmond’s Garden City Bakery, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Connect Me In and North Vancouver’s Congregation Har El. The initiative aims to ensure that everyone in Metro Vancouver who needs a (free) challah is delivered one. (For the story of how the initiative started, see citynews1130.com/2020/05/03/challah-delivery-covid-richmond-family.) To sign up for a challah contact, visit jewishvancouver.com/challah-delivery. Each week’s registration opens on Monday and closes Thursday at noon – and people need to register each week, as this is not a recurring service.
