Category: News

Panelists talk about BDS movement

Left to right, panelists Gabor Maté, Michael Barkusky and Yonatan Shapira. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

Independent Jewish Voices-Vancouver hosted A Conversation About BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) on Nov. 8. IJV’s Martha Roth, moderator of the event, told the Jewish Independent, “The Israeli government propaganda has been so strongly anti-BDS and people are terrified of it.… We wanted to make a safe space for discussion.”

In order of presentation, the four panelists were columnist Dr. Mira Sucharov, an associate professor of political science at Carleton University, who joined the discussion via FaceTime; Yonatan Shapira, a former Israeli rescue helicopter pilot who has become a Palestinian solidarity activist; Michael Barkusky of the Pacific Institute for Ecological Economics, who was born in South Africa and was an anti-apartheid activist during university; and author and speaker Dr. Gabor Maté, a former Zionist youth leader.

The BDS movement (bdsmovement.net) calls for Israel to end “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantl[e] the [security] wall”; recognize “the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality”; and support “the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”

Shapira told the crowd: “The BDS movement is a human rights-based initiative calling for equality … end of occupation, end of apartheid situation and to promote the right of return. It is not saying that Israel is the most devilish thing in the world. It doesn’t say what is happening in Syria is better.… It is just a nonviolent practical tool to change the power balance in the situation.”

Maté based his view on the actions carried out in 1947/48, which, he said, “involved massacres … expulsions of large numbers of people from their homeland … demolition of hundreds of villages, the bulldozing of gravestones. Going to Palestine-Israel today is like going to Europe today and looking for a trace of Jewish life.”

He continued, “On top of that now, you have this occupation, this totally illegal occupation… Even if you assume Israel has a right to conquer those lands in 1967…. They never had the right under international law to enter these demographic changes, that’s against the law. To build businesses and economy, that’s against the law. It’s not even controversial.”

The only panelist against BDS, Sucharov said, “I have spoken out, mostly through writing, against BDS … for the reason, I think the end-game is confused.”

While portions of Sucharov’s arguments were inaudible due to technical difficulties, she did make her main points heard. She referenced Prof. Rex Brynen of McGill University, in saying, about the right of return, “repatriation in that case would refer to Palestinians who are still stateless being able and encouraged to return to a Palestinian state, but, in order for that to happen, a Palestinian state needs to come about. So the question is, How to change this tired and bloody status quo that we see right now in order to see a Palestinian state?”

She added, “Instead of boycott, I call for wrestling, grappling and engagement. Instead of shunning, I call for dialogue. Both sides want, if you want to use the binary construct of sides, to play their own game of boycott and shunning and narrowing of the discourse…. The most egregious expression of that has been the academic boycott that has been used to cut off the kind of debate and dialogue we are having today.”

She said, for example, that philosopher and law professor Moshe Halbertal was blocked from speaking at the University of Minnesota on Nov. 3 for 30 minutes by BDS supporters, and that she has witnessed the same shunning of dialogue “within the mainstream Jewish community.”

Shapira later responded to the notion of academic boycott: “Only if the professor is connected and representing an official institution in Israel, then it’s a target for the boycott.… All Israeli universities are connected to the occupation … therefore, if someone is representing them, it’s a target for the boycott.”

About the debate over SodaStream, which was located in the West Bank and employed 500 Palestinians, Sucharov said, “One could certainly view that as a way of propping up the settler project, and we know the settlements are illegal under international law. What was key and what the boycott movement got wrong [is], the owner had stated that if and when there would be a Palestinian state, tomorrow he would seek to keep the plant there and simply pay taxes to the new Palestinian state.” She later added, “This is an example of direct investment that will be essential to help the Palestinian economy in its sovereign incarnation.”

Maté countered, “When you are taking people’s lands, when you build a wall that separates them from their fields, when you make life impossible, when you destroy their economy, when you practise environmental degradation on their whole country, guess what, they are going to be desperate for jobs.” He said SodaStream’s “giving 500 jobs to the Palestinians” was “not an argument against boycott, not an argument against economic pressure.”

Sucharov argued that BDS works against a two-state solution: “Scores of Palestinian, Israeli and joint Palestinian-Israeli NGOs are doing work in the West Bank and Israel. There are many groups seeking to engage the situation. With boycott, one has cut off one’s ability to connect with those activists who seek to engage, to visit Israel, visit the West Bank and try to change status quo.”

Shapira said, “Wake up from this old dream of a two-state solution…. We are intertwined together with the Palestinians whether we want it or not. We have to move on from a conflict between two sides … an occupier force and an occupied, an oppressor and oppressed, a colonizer and native. This is the context and we have to change the mindset.

“It is not, let’s go for a dialogue meeting with Israeli and Palestinian kids. I am not saying I am against dialogue,” but dialogue “will not be what brings the solution … the solution will come when we change the power dynamic.” He said, looking at the audience, that they “were probably a part of struggle to end apartheid…. If you supported boycott back then, you should support boycott now.”

About the use of BDS to end apartheid, Barkusky said, “About 25% of South African civil society wanted the end of apartheid … and my worry is that I don’t think that 25% of Jewish Israelis today are ready for a two-state solution, or certainly not a one-state solution.” Barkusky warned that “any BDS strategy, to be effective, needs to avoid sweeping the centrist majority in Israel into the hands of the right-wing.”

Barkusky was “ambiguous” about BDS. “There are certain, obviously attractive features of BDS. It is accessible when other strategies seem futile and it appears to be nonviolent,” he said. However, he added, BDS “is a collective punishment strategy,” akin to an aerial bombing: “hard to target and collateral damage.” BDS can be “damaging and [destroy] people’s livelihoods,” he said, and it “is not exactly nonviolent: it can crush peoples’ hopes, it can lead to suicide, it can lead to domestic violence.”

Maté said it is a “pipedream to shift Israeli policy by being really nice about it.” When it came to boycott specificities, he said, “If you are only willing to boycott stuff from the occupied territories, boycott stuff from the occupied territories. If you want to boycott everything, boycott everything…. If you want to boycott academia as well, go ahead, I don’t care. Because it doesn’t matter what small, little arguments or details we want to engage in because the overall reality for everybody who has been there … is so horrible and is getting daily more horrible that the insanity is out of control now and only external pressure will do anything about it.”

Shapira said, “You cannot live in peace and security if you are superior over other people in that country. You cannot have the oxymoron of a Jewish democracy. We have to give up this idea, it is not possible.”

Around 80 people attended the event, which was held at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, including professor Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan Kaplan, interim director of Iona Pacific Inter-Religious Centre at the Vancouver School of Theology. She told the Independent, “There was a significant amount of agreement in the audience and so the questions were not as provocative as they would have been if … most people weren’t left-leaning.”

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Kids in the classroom

Maria LeRose, left, speaks with Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl. (photo from Janusz Korczak Association of Canada)

The second lecture of the “How to Love a Child” series, co-sponsored by the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada and the University of British Columbia faculty of education, took place at the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre on Oct. 29. The topic was Janusz Korczak and the Importance of Listening to Children’s Voices in Education: Theory, Research and Practical Strategies.

Keynote speaker Dr. Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl spoke at length on being mindful and caring towards children, very much in the spirit of Korczak’s own theories on how to love a child. Her best example was the classroom as the microcosmic world of children, where teachers’ attitudes towards their students play an integral role in their development.

Schonert-Reichl is a professor in the Human Development, Learning and Culture program at UBC and the interim director of the Human Early Learning Partnership. She has authored more than 100 articles and several books, and her focus is on the social and emotional development and the well-being of children and adolescents.

In her address, she talked about her own education and how she was seduced by the idea of giving children a voice in the classroom. So, she engaged them in decorating the classroom according to their own taste, and let them express their ideas. When the students saw that their opinion mattered, they became engaged. Schonert-Reichl realized that she was learning from her students by listening to them, hearing and heeding their voices, and this increased her pleasure in teaching them. She discussed further how teachers need to have compassion for the children and to never shame them.

Following the keynote lecture, moderator Maria LeRose, program consultant for the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education and adjunct professor at UBC in the faculty of medicine, coordinated a panel consisting of Robin Kaebe, Salma Rafi and Alexander Corless, Grade 6 students at Lord Roberts Elementary School, who answered questions from the audience. They spoke of how a teacher’s attitude matters; how children need to be heard and seen. Even a hello in the school corridor gives a child a sense of being and recognition.

One student said that the classroom becomes like a second family and that very important relationships are formed at school. Another appreciated school’s climate of comfort and safety. Another defined a teacher as “somebody who asks us what we want to do.” Also appreciated was the presence of suggestion boxes as a medium through which the children could express their thoughts and feelings.

Both Schonert-Reichel and LeRose addressed the fact that teachers also need care and understanding, as being a teacher is an often-demanding job that can cause burnout.

The panel discussion closed on the importance of parent-teacher communication, as that gives the child more confidence, acknowledgment and feeling of security.

Jerry Nussbaum, the president of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada, opened the evening with remarks about Korczak and his various activities in the field of children’s rights and welfare, and he quoted Korczak: “Children are people whose souls contain the seeds of all those thoughts and emotions that we possess. As these seeds develop, their growth must be gently directed.”

Nussbaum mentioned the famous Korczak democratic court, held in his orphanage for the children by the children. Nussbaum concluded his address by thanking all the donors, speakers and volunteers.

The next and third lecture of the six-part series takes place in the alumni centre on Nov. 25, with Anne Cools, senator for Toronto Centre-York, and moderator Dr. Edward Kruk, associate professor of social work at UBC. The discussion will focus on current challenges in the implementation of the “best interests of the child” standard in Canadian jurisprudence, social policy and professional practice. To register, visit jklectures.educ.ubc.ca.

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz is a Vancouver-based author and a board member of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada.

Remember the Weston Girls

Weston Girls Estelle Sures, 17, centre, with Yvonne Harris, left, and Toni MacDonell before they set sail in 1953. (Photo from Estelle Sures)

The Weston Girls were named after the man who sent them from Canada to Great Britain – W. Garfield Weston, a Toronto businessman and philanthropist who came from Britain to Canada to open up a biscuit factory.

The young women who comprised the Weston Girls were sent from Canada to attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and to get a greater view of the British Empire.

A total of 50 17-year-olds from across Canada were chosen to make the six-week trip that included the coronation and a few historic and cultural sites in Britain, France and the rest of the British Isles – all paid for by Weston.

Estelle Sures (née Flesher) was the only Jewish member chosen. At that time, she was living in Ottawa. Now retired, following a successful career in public relations, Sures lives in Winnipeg. While she spent most of her career and life in Winnipeg, Sures did have a five-year stint in Vancouver, where she was director of public relations at St Paul’s Hospital from 1980 to 1985.

“Prior to our tour, he [Weston] had had a couple of boys tours to the British Isles, but, in the coronation year, he decided to send a group of 50 young women to foster a better understanding of Great Britain and foster closer ties. At the same time, he also sent 50 young women from Great Britain to tour Canada,” Sures told the Independent.

“The young women who were selected for the tour [to England] were from all across Canada, from the Yukon to Newfoundland, and there were four young women from B.C. One came from Prince George, one from 150 Mile House (a First Nations young woman), one from Dawson Creek, and one from Kimberley. One of the things he [Weston] was trying to do was choose young women, not just from cities, but who could represent all parts of the country.”

The selection was based on principals’ nominations of students from their schools and then, in conjunction with departments of education across the country, they made a selection of 50 young women to go on the trip.

“Those were the days when ocean liners were the way to travel,” said Sures. “It was also a way for the young women to bond. None of us knew each other before the trip. We took an ocean liner together there and back.”

The trip was well organized, said Sures, with two of Weston’s daughters, who were only a few years older than the other participants, leading the way.

As was the case with the other participants, Sures was selected during her high school graduating year.

“The trip had a big impact on all of us,” said Sures. “It was life-changing. It gave me a greater worldview and certainly inspired me to go on to higher education. After that, I received a scholarship from the National Council of Jewish Women to attend the University of Toronto.

“I think we all … wanted to give back afterwards and try to accomplish something, give back to the community and in terms of our careers.”

Sures was married in 1957. She and her husband Richard spent a year traveling overseas, later returning to Winnipeg (where he is from).

While the Weston Girls have kept in contact to a certain extent over the years, it was not until 2003 that they decided to hold their first reunion. “The first reunion was quite significant, because it was 50 years after the Queen’s coronation,” said Sures. “As you can appreciate, we had all moved on, changed cities, most of us had gotten married.

“When a few of the women, including myself, decided we wanted to have a reunion, there was a lot of detective work involved trying to find where people were. At the first reunion in Ottawa, we succeeded in having 38 of the original group attend.

“That first reunion sort of cemented our friendship and our desire to meet again. We had subsequent reunions in St. John’s, Nfld.; Victoria, B.C.; Burlington, Ont.; and St. Andrews by-the-Sea,” which is in New Brunswick.

Sures felt that this year, 2015, was time for another reunion, particularly with the establishment of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg. She saw it as an opportune moment in history.

“I was quite thrilled, on a personal level, that 19 of the original group were able to come to Winnipeg,” said Sures.

photo - Weston Girl Estelle Sures, left, presents a memory book of the Weston Girls tour to Manitoba Lieutenant Governor Janice Filmon
Weston Girl Estelle Sures, left, presents a memory book of the Weston Girls tour to Manitoba Lieutenant Governor Janice Filmon. (photo from Estelle Sures)

The reunion lasted for four days, beginning with Sures hosting the women to a luncheon at her home, followed by a tour of the legislative buildings, and capped off by a dinner reception hosted by the lieutenant governor of Manitoba, Janice Filmon. The dinner reception, said Sures, “was very elegant and we all enjoyed it.”

On the Saturday of the reunion, participants visited CMHR and toured the Forks area, a popular local meeting place with historical significance. On Sunday, they spent the day at Assiniboine Park, touring the English Garden and Leo Mol Sculpture Garden.

“We also had a picnic in the park that day,” said Sures. “So, it was a lovely weekend, where we spent a lot of time together, but also had the chance to see the best of Winnipeg.”

Given that all of the participants are now about 80 years old, it is getting more challenging for many of them to travel. While Sures will continue to get together with some of the women in smaller groups, the next large reunion is not yet planned.

“When I go to Vancouver, which I do once a year or so, because I have children and grandchildren living there, I usually meet the women who now live on the West Coast and a couple of the women in Calgary usually fly in to get together,” said Sures. “Similarly, with people in the east – there is a group that meets in Montreal.”

Of the original group trip, Sures reflected, “I think it was just coincidental, but I was the only Jewish girl in the entire group. There were a lot of Francophone women, because of the large representation from Quebec. It gave me an opportunity to meet women from across the country, which ended up being lasting friendships.

“A lot of these friendships, as we got older, we saw each other in a different context, and some of us who maybe didn’t know each other that well on the trip became even closer friends later on.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Sacred for three faiths

The Hellenistic/Hasmonean excavation at Nebi Samwil. (photo by Anthony Bale)

Just over 10 kilometres north of the Temple Mount, the Old City and east Jerusalem, where terrorist attacks continue, Muslims and Jews both go up to Nebi Samwil, to what they consider to be the holy burial place of Samuel the Prophet.

On the Thursday between Yom Kippur and Sukkot and the first day of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice, I visited this archeology site located in the West Bank. It was quite a scene.

A young Muslim family in Western holiday dress entered the Muslim part of the joint prayer site. They were followed by a young ultra-Orthodox couple who climbed to the roof for photo-taking. Close on their heels, a group of young adult Chassidic males piled out of a mini-van.

Walking by the Muslim cemetery, along the northern perimeter of the archeology site in the direction of the spring, I nearly bumped into a glitzy-dressed bridegroom, clad from head (kippah) to toe (pointy shoes) in silvery white. Continuing on my way, I glimpsed Bratslav Chassidim scurrying into the trees on their way to hitbodedut or seclusion. At the edge of the spring named after the Prophet Samuel’s mother, Chana, North American yeshivah students were drying off following immersion in this natural mikvah, ritual bath. (If you visit, consider equipping yourself with a bullhorn or whistle to announce your upcoming presence to anyone who might be in this open mikvah.)

Special religious experiences are not new to the site. For example, some 500 years earlier, Christians were having mystical experiences at Nebi Samwil. In 1413, Margery Kempe, an English mystic, traveled from the coastal plain toward Jerusalem. When she passed Nebi Samwil, she was so overjoyed by the view and by her reported heavenly contact, she nearly fell from her donkey. Two German pilgrims broke her fall. “One of them was a priest, and he put spices in her mouth to comfort her, believing her to have been ill. And so they helped her onwards to Jerusalem.” (The Book of Margery Kempe)

And, speaking of “joy,” earlier on when the Crusaders first looked south to Jerusalem from this point, they were so enthralled that they named the area Mount of Joy or, in French, Mont de Joie. In between combating those they considered pagan, heretical or politically inexpedient, the Crusaders happily settled in at Mont de Joie. They established a cistern, church, monastery (apparently commemorating Samuel the Prophet), pilgrims hostel, stable, quarry (drinking troughs and hewn stones are clearly visible today) and a fort. Before they began construction, they razed the area upon which they built. Crusader joy was relatively short-lived, however, as a generation later, in 1187, Salah ad-Din pushed them out and ushered in the Mamelukes. Curiously, the remains of one Mameluke building have an arch displaying a Star of David. While it looks like a Magen David, back then it was not a Jewish symbol.

Like the earlier Umayyads and Abbasids (638-1099), the Mamelukes went into pottery production. Archeologists have uncovered the large kilns they used, as well as pottery with place-identifying Arabic seals. Oddly enough, during this same period, the site became a holy place for Jews from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia and elsewhere. In 1730, however, Jerusalem’s Mufti Sheikh Muhammad al-Khalili called a halt to Jewish pilgrimage, by what Yitzhak Magen terms “appropriating the tomb from the Jews” and forbidding Jews to pray there. The mufti erected a mosque at the site.

Some Jewish sources have identified Nebi Samwil as the biblical Rama, the burial place of Samuel. Others have identified it with Mitzpah, a site connected to Samuel, and later to the Hasmoneans.

Speaking of the Hasmoneans, the well-built structures from the Hellenistic period were not destroyed by natural disaster or by fighting. It appears that the community was simply abandoned. One theory maintains that the Hasmoneans did not want competing places of worship, as there apparently was a tradition of worship at both Mitzpah and neighboring Givon (see Maccabees I: 3,46 and Kings I: 3,4). That is, they wanted to centralize worship and power in Jerusalem.

In being at the site, you see how people have protected their holdings. One way has been to build a fortress, equipping it with soldiers and weaponry. Another way has been to declare a place a holy site. While we cannot actually prove that Samuel the Prophet was buried at this site, neither can we totally disprove it. So the tradition stands for Jews, Muslims and Christians. Today, the site houses both a Wakf-run mosque with its tomb of the Prophet Samuel and an Orthodox synagogue with its separate tomb for the Prophet Samuel.

***

If you visit Nebi Samwil, don’t be fooled into thinking that you are going to the original citadel and mosque. The British destroyed it while fighting to take Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks. During the Mandate, however, they rebuilt the structures.

The visiting hours for the archeology site are 8 a.m.-4 p.m. (winter) and 8 a.m.-5 p.m. (summer). Visiting hours for the prayer sites are Sunday-Wednesday continuously, with the exception of two hours between 2-4 a.m.; and Thursday-Friday, from 4 a.m. until an hour before Shabbat begins. More on the site, including a map, can be found at parks.org.il/sigalit/DAFDAFOT/nabi-samuel_eng.pdf.

At the time of my visit, there was no checkpoint, and apparently only one guard on the premises. Originally located among the archeology ruins, Israeli authorities moved the village called Nebi Samwil to its current setting in 1971, with some controversy. (For example, see alt-arch.org/en/nabi-samuel-national-park.)

Nebi Samwil is partially accessible to wheelchair users. If readers wish to get further details on the subject, they can contact the park curator, Avivit Gara, at 972-2-586-3281.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

הזדהו עם הקורבנות פיגועי הטרור שפקדו את פריז

אזרחים של ונקובר הגיעו לבניין בו ממוקמת הקונסוליה הצרפתית ברחוב פנדר בדאון טאון, עמדו דקת דומיה בכניסה, הניחו זרים ותמונות של פריז, והדליקו נרות נשמה. (צילום: Roni Rachmani)

קנדיים מזדהים עם קורבנות פיגועי הטרור הקשים שתקפו את פריז

אזרחים רבים של קנדה הביעו זעם וכעס והזדהו עם הקורבנות פיגועי הטרור הקשים שפקדו את פריז, ביום שישי האחרון. יש שהגיבו באמצעי המדיה השונים ואילו אחרים שפקדו מוסדות צרפתיים או כאלה שמזוהים עם צרפת, ועמדו דקת דומיה לידם לזכר הקורבנות שניספו בפיגועים.

אזרחים של ונקובר הגיעו לבניין בו ממוקמת הקונסוליה הצרפתית ברחוב פנדר בדאון טאון, עמדו דקת דומיה בכניסה, הניחו זרים ותמונות של פריז, והדליקו נרות נשמה. פעילויות דומות התקיימו בכל רחבי קנדה. מבני ציבור רבים הדליקו נורות בצבעי הדגל הצרפתי ודגלי קנדה הורדו לחצי התורן.

רמת הכוננות הבטחונית בקנדה הוגברה והמשטרה הפדרלית (האר.סי.אם.פי) פועלת בשיתוף עם סוכנויות הביון והריגול הקנדיות, וסוכנויות משטרה אחרות, למניעת אפשרות של פיגועי טרור מקומיים. עם זאת בשלב זה לא התקבל שום מידע ממשי על אפשרות של פיגועי טרור בקנדה.

במקביל הוגבר הלחץ על ראש הממשלה החדש מטעם הליברלים, ג’סטין טרודו, לחזור בו מהחלטתו להפסיק ולהפציץ מטרות של דאע”ש בסוריה ועיראק. כידוע טרודו הודיע חד משמעית בקמפיין הבחירות שלו שאם יבחר לראשות הממשלה, הוא יחזיר את מטוסי חיל האוויר הקנדי הביתה, והצבא יתמקד רק באימון כוחות צבאיים מקומיים שנלחמים בדאע”ש. טרודו עוד הודיע שהממשלה תגביר את העזרה ההומנטרית למדינות ואזרחים שסובלים מהלוחמה במזרח התיכון.

אליפות העולם בכדורגל לנשים שהתקיימה בקנדה: הנבחרת נכשלה אך הקופה התעשרה

נבחרת הנשים הלאומית של קנדה בכדורגל נחלה כשלון צורב באליפות העולם המונדיאל, שנערכה בחודשים יוני ויולי בקיץ. עתה מברר כי מהבחינה הכספית המונדיאל הכניס לקופתה של קנדה סכום שיא של 493.6 מיליון דולר. הסכום כולל גם את המונדיאל לנשים על גיל 20 שנערך בחודש אוגטס אשתקד באדמונטון, טורונטו מונטריאול ומונקטון. ההכנסות משני הטורנירים היו גבוהות בשיעור של 46 אחוז המתחזיות המוקדמות שפורסמו בחודש פברואר אשתקד. הנתונים מתפרסמים על ידי ההתחדות לכדורגל של קנדה שנעזרה בחברת המחקר ‘סטים פרו’.

משחקי המונדיאל לנשים שהתקיימו בשש ערים: ונקובר, אדמונטון, ויניפג, אוטווה, מונטריאול ומונקטון. מספר הצופים בששת האצטדיונים הגיע לשיא מבחינת אליפות הנשים ועמד על 1,353,506. הצלחתה של נבחרת ארצות הברית בטורניר שבו היא זכתה, הביאה כמאה אלף אוהדים אמריקנים שחצו את הגבול לקנדה, לצפות במשחקים. אין ספק האמריקנים היוו את אחד הגורמים המשמעותיים בהכנסות הגבוהות של המונדיאל. גם אחוזי הצפייה במחשקים בטלוויזיה והשימוש במדיה החברתית בעת הטורניר שברו שיאים.

אורבנקורפ מטורונטו פרסמה טיוטת תשקיף להנפקת אג“ח בתקופה הקרובה

חברת אורבנקורפ (בבעלות אלן ססקין) הפעילה בתחום הנדל”ן בטורונטו פרסמה בימים אלה טיוטת תשקיף להנפקה ראשונה לציבור של אגרות חוב. ההנפקה תתקיים בתקופה בשבועות הקרובים והחברה מקווה לקבל דירוג מקומי.

ססקין פועל בתחום הנדל”ן במשך יותר משלושים וחמש שנים וחברתו אורבנקורפ פעולת בתחום הנדל”ן בטורנטו יותר מעשרים וארבע שנים. החברה נחשבת לאחת הבולטות בעיר, היא פועלת בעיקר במרכז טורונטו ועוסקת בפיתוח, שיווק פרוייקטים למגורים, בהשכרה של נכסים מניבים וכן בייזום והפעלה של מערכות גיאותרמיות בפרוייקטים שהיא בנתה. אורבנקורפ בנתה עד היום לפחות חמשת אלפים וחמש מאות דירות מגורים, והיא פעילה כיום בשנים עשר פרוייקטים שונים. בין השנים 2012 ו-2014 הרווח הנקי המצרפי של החברה עמד על כשלושים וארבעה מיליון דולר. אורבנקורפ צופה כי בין השנים 2016 ו-2018 יגיעו הכנסותיה לכשלוש מאות ותשעים מליון דולר, והרווח המצרפי הגולמי צפוי להגיע לכשבעים מיליון דולר.

Consuls save thousands of lives

Consul General of Japan Seiji Okada, centre, Yasuko Okada and Dr. George Bluman. (photo from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre)

There are Vancouverites who owe their lives to the wartime actions of the then-obscure Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara. The mid-level official, vice-consul in Lithuania for the imperial government of Japan, disobeying explicit and repeated orders, in 1940 issued Japanese transit visas to Jewish refugees fleeing the advancing Nazi onslaught.

Two of the people who received the visas were Nathan and Susan Bluman. Their son, Dr. George Bluman, delivered the keynote address Sunday at the 33rd annual Kristallnacht commemoration event, presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in partnership with Congregation Beth Israel.

Bluman recounted the story of Sugihara’s life and the motivations for his actions, then addressed the magnitude of those events on his own family.

“There are thousands of stories like my parents’,” said Bluman, noting that this one family’s story is barely a footnote in the Sugihara narrative, but it means “the entire world for me and my family.”

Bluman, professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of British Columbia, said his parents were two of about 2,100 people who received life-giving visas from the Japanese consular official. Approximately another 600 individuals were aided by being included in the visas of others, mostly their parents, and perhaps 25% more were helped in their survival by forged versions of Sugihara visas.

Bluman explained that, after Germany invaded Poland and divvied the country up with the Soviet Union, many Jews fled to the Soviet-occupied portion. Unable to flee to the west, and having been denied entry by most Western countries, Jews were effectively trapped.

Nathan Bluman and his fiancée Susan lived in Warsaw, which was occupied by the Nazis. Nathan fled to the Soviet-occupied east and prevailed upon Susan to join him, which she did, though her father forbade them from marrying without his permission.

“She would never again see any of her parents or siblings,” Bluman said.

While Germany had occupied the Netherlands, Dutch embassies and consulates worldwide remained loyal to the Dutch government-in-exile, located in London. Jan Zwartendijk, the Dutch consul in Lithuania, began issuing visas to Curaçao, the Dutch colony in the Caribbean. Jewish refugees, including many Polish Jews like Nathan and Susan Bluman, made their way to Lithuania in hopes of obtaining a ticket to safety.

When the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, all foreign embassies and consulates were ordered closed. In the short window available, the Dutch consul, with the support of his superiors in the government-in-exile, issued visas for Jewish refugees to enter Curaçao.

However, while Polish and Lithuanian Jewish refugees were free to travel in the Soviet Union, they could not go further without a visa to another country. That made a Japanese transit visa priceless.

While there is no evidence that Zwartendijk and Sugihara ever met, it was their combined actions that are credited with saving thousands of lives. While Zwartendijk acted with the authority of his superiors, Sugihara ignored explicit orders not to issue transit visas, an act of extraordinary disobedience for a mid-level Japanese bureaucrat and an action that not only put his job on the line, but threatened the lives of himself and his family.

Sugihara handwrote the visas day and night, issuing the equivalent of an average month’s worth of visas every day in the weeks before the consulate was forcibly closed by the Soviets.

The combination of a Dutch visa to Curaçao and a transit visa for Japan allowed refugees to make the arduous journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, board a ship to a Japanese port, take a train to Kobe and, in various ways, survive the war. In many cases, the refugees became stateless people, interned first in Japan and then in Japanese-occupied Shanghai.

Bluman’s parents managed to get on one of the last two ships heading to North America before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor launched Japan and the United States into a state of war and made passage impossible.

The Bluman family’s fate was influenced by one of those fortunate flukes that occurs in history. While in Japan, Nathan Bluman ran into an old professor from school in Warsaw, who told him that a ship, the Hei Maru, was to leave for Vancouver the next day. Bluman raced to the Canadian consulate to request one of the 25 visas being offered to skilled workers and it was granted. There were no provisions for spouses but Susan Bluman, using some sort of extraordinary persuasive power, managed to get the Canadian official to include her on her husband’s visa and they boarded the ship the same day, arriving in Vancouver on July 9, 1941.

That single transit visa was responsible for 17 lives, including Nathan and Susan Bluman, their children and grandchildren and three great-grandchildren born this year.

George Bluman estimates that, in all, 30,000 people worldwide owe their lives to Sugihara. Yet, it was not until 1968, when a survivor contacted him, that Sugihara began to understand the magnitude of what he had done during the war. In 1985, he was named by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Sugihara died in 1986, as did Nathan Bluman. But the Bluman and Sugihara families have had a long association and friendship that remains strong today to the third generation.

The event Sunday night at Beth Israel began with a solemn candlelight procession of local survivors of the Holocaust.

The annual event commemorates Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” a government-initiated pogrom across Germany and Austria on the night of Nov. 9-10, 1938. Hundreds of synagogues were burned, Jewish-owned businesses were destroyed, nearly 100 Jews were killed and 30,000 were sent to concentration camps.

Prof. Chris Friedrichs, a member of the commemoration’s organizing committee, noted that the Holocaust ended 70 years ago with the Allied defeat of the Nazi regime. But when did it begin? Kristallnacht is often cited as the moment when the increasingly repressive policies of the Hitler dictatorship turned into the violence that would culminate in the “Final Solution.”

But Friedrichs said that the Holocaust was not so much a direct result of events of that fateful night.

“It is what did not happen in the days that followed,” he said. After a day or two of headlines worldwide, said Friedrichs, there was nothing more. The world’s reaction, or lack of it, was the signal the Nazis needed to be assured that their policies of eliminating those “deemed unworthy of life” would meet with no resistance from the world community.

Referring to the procession of candle-bearing survivors that had just preceded him, Friedrichs said, “a candle may not seem very heavy to you.” But each of the survivors who mounted the bimah, said Friedrichs, belonged to a family, many of whom were almost completely destroyed, and the candles represent not just their families or hundreds or thousands of people, but millions.

Vancouver City Councillor

Andrea Reimer, deputy mayor of the city, broke down in tears while reading the mayor’s proclamation after telling the audience how the history of the Holocaust tests for faith in humanity.

Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld thanked Bluman and expressed gratitude that Bluman is a member of his congregation.

“You are a key component of maintaining the history of the Holocaust in our community,” Infeld said.

Arthur Guttman, cantor emeritus of Temple Sholom, chanted El Moleh Rachamim, the memorial prayer for the martyrs. Ed Lewin, president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, introduced the survivors. Gary Miller, president of Beth Israel, introduced Reimer. Bluman was introduced by Prof. Richard Menkis, a member of the Kristallnacht commemoration organizing committee.

Better access to education

Aaron Friedland at Semei Kakungulu High School in Uganda. Friedland has written the book The Walking School Bus, both as a first reader but also as a means to generate funds for students to access education. To get it published, he has started an Indiegogo campaign. (photo from Aaron Friedland)

During high school and elementary, “it was too easy for me to miss school,” said Aaron Friedland, currently a master’s in economics student at the University of British Columbia. In other parts of the world, children walk great distances to attain an education.

“Five years ago, I wrote a children’s book called The Walking School Bus,” Friedland told the Independent. It was “written with the realization that students in North America really take access to education for granted.”

It was on a trip to Uganda and South Africa, he said, when he really began to understand “the distances students had to walk to obtain an education and it was startling.”

Data from the Uganda National Household Survey Report 2009/2010 indicate that 5.5% of children aged 6-12 do not attend school because it is too far away, and the average high school-aged student must walk a distance of 5.1 kilometres to the nearest government school, more than 10 kilometres every day.

“I wanted the book to serve a purpose and the purpose was twofold. I wanted it to raise awareness … that students have to walk,” Friedland said about The Walking School Bus. “But I also wanted it to be a means to generate funds for students to access education and so, in that case, I’d say the school bus itself is metaphoric and it represents access to education.

“I submitted my manuscript to a publishing house just under a year ago and it was well received, so we started moving forward. But, in order to really have a book come to fruition, it costs quite a bit of money.”

On Nov. 9, Friedland started an Indiegogo campaign to raise $15,000 to cover the costs of publication, “everything surrounding the book,” which includes editors who specialize in children’s books and the illustrations. The campaign runs for 60 days.

The Walking School Bus has the capacity to “act as a first reader and, while it does have a picture book component, I’d also like it to serve as a coffee table book and a symbol for interfaith collaboration,” said Friedland.

Friedland’s concern about and involvement in interfaith work began in 2010, when J.J. Keki, a member of the Ugandan Abayudaya Jewish community and founder of the Delicious Peace fair-trade coffee cooperative, was invited to King David High School. Many students, including Friedland, “formed a pretty special bond with him.”

A bond that continued for Friedland. “When I was in first year [university] – while all my friends were going to Mexico and hilarious holidays – I went to Uganda with my family,” he said. “It was an amazing experience for us. We benefited so much more than the ‘recipient’ community. I recognized quite quickly that our aid had been negligible, but what it did for me was it provided me with a clear trajectory, which guided me for my four years at McGill.… At McGill, I started working with the Abayudaya community in Uganda, specifically with Delicious Peace…. What most amazed me – and my rationale for getting involved – was that they employed an interfaith collaboration model in which they united these previously disparate communities, the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities, and formed one solid frontier in which they collaborated. In collaborating, there were a variety of positive spillover effects … you see higher levels of economic prosperity in that region on Nabagoya Hill than you do in comparable areas, you see how there is much more religious tolerance.”

About his experience in Uganda, Friedland, who has worked with UN Watch, said, “I have only seen the us-against-them mentality, and this is one of the first times I have ever seen this collaboration.”

About his most recent trip to Uganda, Friedland said, “Essentially, I have been working with three schools there as well as King David over here, kind of empowering their educational sector in the interfaith forum. And the three interfaith schools I’ve been working with are the three I’m the most motivated to help provide school buses.”

While interviewing students in Uganda, he said, “One of the girls that really stood out to me was a girl named Miriam, a lovely Jewish girl from [Semei Kakungulu] high school, an 18-year-old. She was telling me that, when she walks to school, she walks six kilometres in either direction. And, in extreme rainfall events, which is pretty much all of the rainy season, she will cross a river to school and, when she goes back, the river is often flooded and she cannot cross back, so that night she’ll spend at a friend’s.”

Friedland added, “When I think about the struggle that our counterparts make to go to school and we do not – we don’t have that drive. That is something I’d like to impress on people in North America. I’m not saying you have to feel bad, just appreciate your access and your ease in getting an education and take it seriously.”

The website thewalkingschoolbus.com was created by Friedland to support the book and bus project, and sales of T-shirts and various other merchandise go towards his efforts to increase access to education. He said, “I think, as a Jew in Vancouver, in a more liberalized society, that this is the model that we should be going for … we should be supporting interfaith.”

Friedland has most recently worked with a team to connect King David’s Marketing 12 class with the entrepreneurship class at Semei Kakungulu. About his master’s degree, he said he will likely be writing his thesis on “the positive economic spillover effects from interfaith collaboration and employing interfaith collaboration, as an economic development growth model in other places, particularly Israel.”

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Chabad expands in Victoria

Chabad of Vancouver Island Rabbi Meir and Rebbetzin Chani Kaplan at the Aug. 23 groundbreaking. (photo from lubavitch.com)

Announced in April 2014, Chabad’s plans to build a centre in Victoria proved a relevant and exciting development for locals. The day after he shared his vision with the community, Chabad of Vancouver Island’s Rabbi Meir Kaplan got a call from a local woman. “I was up all night thinking about how much the building will change Jewish life on the Island for my daughter, compared to the way it was when I was growing up,” she told the rabbi.

Two hundred and fifty guests turned out to celebrate the groundbreaking of the centre on Sunday, Aug. 23, and all that represents for the Jewish community led by Kaplan and his wife Chani. Then-prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, sent greetings: “The new larger Chabad, with its expanded facilities for worship, study and family activities, will help meet the needs of your growing community for many years to come. I commend everyone responsible for making this day possible.”

His words were echoed by many who joined, among them Mayor Lisa Helps, members of Parliament and the Legislature.

“The vision was ours, but so many helped us bring it to fruition,” said Kaplan, grateful for the steady support of local community members. Ahead of the groundbreaking, various individuals offered to participate in the fundraising campaign and share their enthusiasm with others.

George Gelb escaped Hungary with his family in 1956, and was welcomed into Canada. In retrospect, he was impressed that his parents sought out a synagogue in Toronto after surviving Auschwitz. When they later moved to Vancouver Island, they discovered the Kaplans and found a family in Chabad. “This is the second synagogue in 150 years on Vancouver Island,” he said, referring to Congregation Emanu-El, which was built in 1863. “It’s a very historic event that I feel really quite privileged to participate in. It’s sort of like carrying on a family legacy.”

photo - An artist's rendering of the new Centre for Jewish Life and Learning. The building’s east wall, facing a main street, will feature a permanently illuminated menorah
An artist’s rendering of the new Centre for Jewish Life and Learning. The building’s east wall, facing a main street, will feature a permanently illuminated menorah. (photo from lubavitch.com)

The projected $3.5 million project is slated for completion in time for the 2016 High Holidays. The building plot at 2995 Glasgow St. is located on a quiet street, close to a popular area park. It will be a home to a library, an industrial-sized kosher kitchen, new offices, synagogue, community hall and a mikvah, giving Chabad the ability to expand all of its current projects and begin new ones, according to the community’s needs. It will also include a facility for the Jewish preschool and Hebrew school, currently housed in the annex of a local school building.

“History is in the making as we gather in this place at this moment. You are now an integral part of this auspicious and historic occasion,” said community member Lindy Shortt at the groundbreaking event. “The Centre for Jewish Life and Learning, Chabad of Vancouver Island and the Kaplan family will be right here for you and your children and your children’s children, G-d willing, for generations to come.”

The building’s east wall, facing a main street, will feature a permanently illuminated menorah. Dedicated by the sponsors to victims of the Holocaust, it promises to radiate Jewish pride and raise the profile of Jewish life on the Island, proving yet again, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, insisted, that living as a Jew is possible and relevant everywhere. Even on an island.

The original version of this article was published on lubavitch.com. The version here has been edited to reflect the time that has passed since the orginal’s publication on Aug. 26, as well as a local readership.

More than Slim Peace

Filmmaker Yael Luttwak spoke at Choices Nov. 1. (photo from jewishvancouver.com)

A film that brings Palestinian and Israeli women together in a weight-loss group. Who would have thought that was possible? American-Israeli Yael Luttwak did, and she made it happen. Luttwak, the keynote speaker at Choices, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual women in philanthropy event, held on Nov. 1 at Congregation Beth Israel, captivated the audience with her story.

“The idea came to me at a time when

I was attending Weight Watchers in Tel Aviv,” said Luttwak. “The peace process had broken down and Ariel Sharon had been hospitalized and I had this image of Sharon and [Yasser] Arafat jogging together on the beach and working it all out. It struck me, as I listened to women in my group who were uninhibited in sharing their struggles with health and weight and body image, that there was so much humanity in that room. What if we could capture this humanity and bring together women who otherwise would never have an opportunity to meet?”

She set out to find women who would be willing to participate in this social experiment. She approached Orthodox women, West Bank Muslims, American-born settlers and Bedouins. Fourteen women agreed to get involved. The Jerusalem Cinémathèque in East Jerusalem became the meeting place. Filming took six weeks.

The women metamorphosed during the process, as they started to come to the meetings in nicer clothes and make-up, and they began to share their thoughts (and recipes). “This was the first opportunity for Arab women to meet Jewish women that were not soldiers, and for Israeli women to meet Arabs that did not want to kill them. At the beginning, everyone was nervous, but very polite (unusual for the Middle East) but, within a few hours, they were all talking and sharing stories.”

The women found common ground on many issues that emphasized their similarities. Even when there was political turbulence, violence on the streets of Jerusalem and curfews, the Arab women would cross the checkpoints to attend the meetings. When Luttwak asked what it was about the group that kept them coming, they answered that it was their only opportunity for hope. And so, the 2007 documentary A Slim Peace came to be. It premièred at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and screened in the United States on Sundance Channel.

While promoting the film, Luttwak was approached by English philanthropist Dame Hilary Blume, who offered to seed fund more women’s groups. She told Luttwak, “Don’t waste your talent on films. You have hit on something. You are building bridges. This is your destiny.” As a result, the nonprofit Slim Peace developed and, over the past eight years, it has opened 33 groups in six cities and two countries. Luttwak said, “It’s a train I cannot stop.” She has also been able to keep making films about contemporary issues. Her final messages – we all have to do our part for tikkun olam (repair of the world) and to never give up hope.

Prior to Luttwak’s talk, Ricki Thal addressed the audience: “My name is Esther Zuckerman Kaufman and I was born in Warsaw, Poland, on Oct. 11, 1920. I was one of the Jews on Schindler’s List.” Everyone’s attention caught, Thal then told the story of her grandmother and grandfather, Leon, both saved by Oskar Schindler. They never spoke about their wartime experiences and the family had no idea that they were Schindler Jews until they all went to see Steven Spielberg’s movie. That moment changed Thal’s life. It led her to explore her family’s history, to participate in March of the Living on two occasions, as a student and as a chaperone, and to become involved in the Jewish community. Kaufman died in 1999 but not before she appeared in New York on The Phil Donahue Show to tell her story to television audiences. Thal finished almost as she began: “My name is Ricki Thal and I was born in Vancouver in 1979 and I am proud to be the granddaughter of Esther and Leon Kaufman.”

CBC television personality Belle Puri emceed the night, co-chair Debbie Jeroff gave opening remarks and Stephen Gaerber brought greetings from Federation. Two video presentations, a raffle and a meal catered by Susy Siegel completed the night, and then 500 Jewish women went out into the rain inspired, full of good food and hope.

To donate to Federation’s annual campaign, visit jewishvancouver.com.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Stories that empower

Shanie Levin brought Sholem Aleichem’s stories to life with Al Stein. (photo by Binny Goldman)

Tell me a story, please…. Which one of us has not made this request of a mother, a father, a zayda or bubbie?

On Oct. 30, almost 70 people gathered at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, where they were welcomed by Peretz president Gene Homel, who shared some of the activities that the centre hosts, including the Sholem Aleichem speaker series (SASS, or “SASSY,” as they call it). The Tuesday night event was held by Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver in partnership with SASSY.

Gyda Chud of both JSA and Peretz introduced the first session of this year’s JSA Elders Empowering Elders series, which focused on storytelling.

photo - Myrna Rabinowitz
The audience sat enraptured as they listened to Myrna Rabinowitz. (photo by Binny Goldman)

The audience sat enraptured, traveling back to their kinder yorn, childhood years, as they listened to Myrna Rabinowitz. She sang several Yiddish songs. Among her original compositions was one that she had composed for the birth of her grandson.

From stories told in song, to those spoken, Shanie Levin and Al Stein read stories that came alive with their interpretations of the text and their excellent delivery. Enhanced by the clever use of minimal but appropriate costuming, and done with humor, the characters and the way of life of Shayneh Shayndel and Menachem Mendel became real to those listening, as did the ongoing dilemma that they each faced. As Sholem Aleichem once famously stated, “You can take the Jew out of the shtetl but you cannot take the shtetl out of the Jew.”

In thanking the performers, Chud quoted Stein, who had said in his preface to reading his first story: “In keeping with the Narodnik movement (Power to the People), the young Russian intelligentsia at the time and not the elite, Sholem Rabinovitch chose the name Sholem Aleichem, the common Jewish greeting, as his pen name, ‘Peace be unto you.’” Chud commented on the fact that Power to the People motivated Sholem Rabinovitch to change his name, and that the theme of JSA’s Empowerment series is “Elders Empowering Elders.”

photo - Al Stein, with Shanie Levin, entertained with their lively storytelling
Al Stein, with Shanie Levin, entertained with their lively storytelling. (photo by Binny Goldman)

Ken Levitt, one of JSA’s vice-presidents, rose to the occasion by thanking the performers partly in Yiddish, having researched the phrasing on the internet. He explained that he hadn’t grown up in a Yiddish-speaking household, although Yiddish had been used as a secret language between his parents. His valiant effort endeared Levitt to all the Yiddish-speakers in the audience.

The session ended with eppes zees mit a Yiddish taam, something sweet with a Jewish taste, accompanied by hot drinks. To quote one of the characters in the story that Levin read: “If you have a piece of bread, take your eyes off the cake!”

Volunteers of both JSA and SASSY helped make the event a success, as did JSA staff Karon Shear and Rita Propp.

Es eez given a mechayeh, it was a pleasure and an oisgetzaichent, outstanding and enriching time together.

For more on JSA and future events, visit jsalliance.org.

Binny Goldman is a member of the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver board.