News – Page 256

One generation to the next

Current president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Dr. Alan Bernstein has been a scientist all his life.

“When I was asked if I was interested in the [CIFAR] position, it was a natural evolution of my own journey through science, so I said yes immediately,” said Bernstein. “It’s a great organization and I’m having a tremendous amount of fun running it and making the kinds of changes I think are necessary to stay current and take CIFAR with the strengths when I started to the next level, which we are in the middle of doing.”

photo - Dr. Alan Bernstein was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame earlier this year — Dr. Alan Bernstein was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame earlier this year. (photo from Alan Bernstein)

For more than 30 years, CIFAR has been bringing some of the top researchers in Canada and around the world together to focus on worldwide challenges. It provides a space for sustained, small-scale, intimate conversations between groups of investigators that come from diverse disciplines and perspectives.

“We need to take risks,” said Bernstein. “We expect our researchers to take risks. Tough questions are always, by definition, risky.

“We’ve always been global in the sense that half our fellows come from outside Canada. We have 14 programs divided into three broad initiatives. One is a brain initiative. The second is around … the environmental and physical sciences. And, the third one is around building stronger societies. Within that, there are a number of programs. Each program typically has 20-30 fellows who meet on a regular basis and discuss issues around their particular program.”

One program concerns child and brain development. “There are about 25 people in that program and they range from pediatricians to fruit fly neurogeneticists, psychologists, epidemiologists, molecular biologists and policy people,” said the doctor.

While all of the 25 have their own particular research program, they come to CIFAR to focus on one question, which, in this case, is how do we optimize child and brain development?

Fifteen years ago, Bernstein became the first president of the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the national funding agency for health research. It was a job he had to create. Seven years later, he joined CIFAR.

During his first five years there, Bernstein also ran a lab. “My lab was in Toronto at the Mount Sinai Hospital, where I’d been the director,” he explained. “I just found that, after five years, I wasn’t being fair to the people in my lab in the sense that I just couldn’t devote the kind of time, energy and brainpower to my own scientists that they deserved … and that the science deserved. So, I made the tough decision after a year of agonizing about it, to give up my lab.”

When he closed his lab, Bernstein made sure that everybody had a job. Although the transition was quite traumatic for him at the time, he realized he was still a scientist, that he did not need to run a lab to be one.

“I still do, maybe more so than before, think very deeply about science and read much more widely now than I ever used to,” said Bernstein. “Before, I only read about health research things, but now I read about everything – from cosmology and gravity to successful societies, and childhood development.”

In April of this year, Bernstein was one of six inductees into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Laureates “are individuals whose outstanding contributions to medicine and the health sciences have led to extraordinary improvements in human health. Their work may be a single meritorious contribution or a lifetime of superior accomplishments. Pioneers in their field, they are role models and inspiration to young Canadians to pursue careers in the health sciences.”

“I was deeply honored,” said Bernstein of being chosen. “It’s a high honor, indeed. I know a lot about the Hall of Fame because when I was the president of CIHR, I had to chair the selection committee.… I had a chance to go to a lot of the ceremonies.

“It’s one of those things that your colleagues bestow on you, so it was especially meaningful to me, as these are my colleagues, saying, ‘Alan, we think your contributions to Canadian medicine and health research have been at a calibre that you’re deserving to be inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.’”

Some of Bernstein’s family was able to be at the April 23 ceremony – his wife, sister and son. “So, that was also very nice for me,” he said. “Actually, it was very nice to be in Winnipeg. The ceremony moves around from year to year and, this year, it was in Winnipeg.”

Bernstein had not been back to Winnipeg for a long time and was looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and places. And also some new ones, such as visiting the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. “That was an especially moving experience,” he said. “I’m sure it is for everybody who goes there. It’s incredible.”

For the induction ceremony, a video was made in which some of his former students were interviewed, as well as some colleagues from his time at CIHR.

“Sir John Bell, who’s a Canadian, but also the Regis Professor of Medicine at Oxford University – a very accomplished, very senior guy in the global medical scene – also said some nice words about me,” said Bernstein.

“It’s always interesting to hear what other people think about you. It was very meaningful to me that a couple of my students – a post-op in my lab and one who’d been a student with me – spoke. To hear what they had to say from their perspective about what it was like to be in my lab, that meant great deal to me.”

What Bernstein found most moving about the video was the message that it conveyed – that the most important legacy a scientist leaves behind is the training of his or her students.

“Science is never-ending, so the art of doing science has to be passed from one generation to the next,” said Bernstein. “That’s just a privilege, to be able to interact with and help introduce young people to science.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Researching unique species

Simon Fraser University biologist Dov Lank with some of the ruffs he and his team have been studying. (all photos from SFU Communications)

Simon Fraser University biologist Dov Lank and a team of researchers have identified the genes responsible for three different kinds of male ruff (Philomachus pugnax) – a species of wading bird. The ruff is the only bird species in which three kinds of males exist, each having its own approach to courtship and mating and with distinct physical characteristics. One is a fighter, the second is a “wingman” and the third is a cross-dresser.

The paper, “A supergene determines highly divergent male reproductive morphs in the ruff” was published on Nov. 16 in Nature Genetics. Researchers found that, 3.8 million years ago, an inversion occurred in the chromosomes of the ruff, creating a second kind of male. Then, half a million years ago, a second chromosomal rearrangement between the inversion and the original sequence occurred, creating a third kind of male. As a result, there are three types of male ruffs: one with ancestral sequences, another with an older kind of the inversion and a third with a newer kind of inversion.

Lank said, “Today, we have the tools to identify exactly what genes are involved and, over the next few years, we will describe how they work. These genes control differences in aggressive behavior and the expression of gender-specific traits, and the pathways and processes involved will provide a model with general applicability for vertebrates, including ourselves.”

Discovering my 99% family

The author’s one photograph of her great-grandmother, Betty Brotman, “stiff-necked and corseted, with her dark hair combed tightly across her head.” (photo from Shula Klinger)

I have been researching my family history for many years, on and off. Much of my research has been online, using resources like JewishGen, the internet database of Jewish genealogical records. I have also found a home at Czernowitz-L, an email group hosted by Cornell University for people whose families come from what is now the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. Once known as “Jerusalem on the Prut,” Czernowitz – as it is still called by those who recall its Habsburg past – was once home to 50,000 Jews. Less than a third of this number survived the war.

Like many third-generation Czernowitzers, I write messages to Czernowitz-L in the hope that someone, somewhere, will remember hearing my family name and be able to point me in the direction of a lost relative. Very often, we hear nothing, but once in a blue moon, we strike gold.

That’s what happened when I sent out an email asking list members if they knew of the family name Brotman. I had just received an image of my grandmother’s birth certificate from Czernowitz in 1902, which showed that Regina Picker’s mother, Betty, had been born a Brotman.

Shortly after I shared this information, I received an email from a lady in Portland, letting me know that she had married into the Brotman family in Oregon. She asked me if I would be interested in contacting one of her in-laws, whose mother had been a Brotman. He was very well-informed, she said. A conversation with him might yield some results. Not knowing that I lived here in Vancouver, she told me that Cyril Leonoff here. Naturally, I was thrilled and eager to talk to him as soon as I could.

Having corresponded with Cyril’s daughter, Anita, for awhile, we set a date and I drove over to meet them both. My children were very excited to find out if this man was a relative. I fielded the same question from them over and over again: “Are we 100% for sure, for sure related to him, Mommy? Or just 99%, do you think?”

On arriving at the Leonoff home, I was greeted by Anita. She showed us into the house, where a beautiful table had been set with fresh fruit and homemade poppy seed cake. Anita showed the children where to find some toy ships and I brought out my family photograph: my one photograph of my great-grandmother, Betty Brotman, stiff-necked and corseted, with her dark hair combed tightly across her head. Betty Brotman, who passed away at a young age, leaving her husband and children behind to survive the fall of the Habsburg Empire and the devastation of two world wars. But, back to the present.

Cyril asked me about the photo. I was eager to ask him a host of questions. Was I about to discover something extraordinary? Would I learn, after almost 20 years in Canada, that I had been living a few miles away from a relative, all this time? And after growing up in England, completely isolated from my extended family, was this man one of my elders? What did he know? What could he tell me? What did he remember of his people and their original home in Europe?

I watched his face as he calmly – and silently – looked at my photo. I tried to guess at what he was thinking. He suggested that we sit for tea before looking at his records upstairs. I accepted, glad of the tea, but thinking that this was a wonderful opportunity to practise mindfulness. Peace. Serenity in the face of burning curiosity and decades of longing for grandparents that I could talk to, family members who were able to tell me about their journeys, their struggles, their triumphs.

We sat quietly and poured tea while I tried not to boil over myself. We drank our tea and talked about the delicious poppy seed cake, which Anita’s daughter had made. And then Cyril asked me, “What are you looking for? What brings you here?”

His gaze was direct, his voice was polite. I told him the truth: I have no story, and I need one. My family was fractured, over and over, between Czernowitz, Cairo, Haifa and London. What little I do know of our history was told to me by an unreliable witness. A witness who had not wanted me, or anyone else, to find other, more reliable witnesses. A man who went to great lengths to separate his children from their story, or anyone that might refute his own accounts. A man who may have survived the war – and wars – physically, but who continued to fight their battles every day of his life, until he died. And, when he did die and I was finally able to say, rest in peace, it was truly the only peace he had ever had. He was traumatized, barely existing, unable to communicate or listen, to tell the whole truth or make any kind of authentic connection with another human being. My father, who I spent a lifetime trying to love, but who would never let me.

Cyril is 10 years older than my father was when he died. His intelligent gaze was steady and he listened quietly when I answered his questions. Difficult questions whose answers may well have been a lot longer than he had anticipated.

He didn’t respond directly, but we finished our tea slowly and he asked me up to his library. He said he had a book to show me. We climbed the stairs and entered a room with a high ceiling, filled with books. It reminded me of the shelves of my own family home, now gone. My father’s books.

Cyril walked over to a shelf by the window and removed a small volume of poetry. He opened it on a table and said, “I think you’ll want to see this.”

“This” was the inside cover of an old book inscribed in sepia copperplate. “Betty Brotman.”

“May I take a photograph of it?” I asked, after a few seconds, feeling a little superficial but not knowing where to put my happiness or my hands, other than on a camera.

“Yes,” said Cyril, so I did.

When the emotion had subsided and reason returned, I considered the facts: Cyril’s Betty may not be my great-grandmother, but still: there have been not one but three women named Betty in my family and the first was Betty Brotman. It isn’t impossible that his Brotmans were cousins to mine. It’s tenuous but, still, it’s a trace. A faint trace that proves we exist. That we left our mark on the world somewhere. That I am still connected to my people, even with my father’s concerted efforts to keep us all apart.

Cyril brought me to another room, where he kept his family records. He laid out a map showing where his family had come from. Indeed, our families were from nearby cities, again suggesting a possible link. He showed me his work on the history of Jewish farmers in Canada, where his branch of the Brotman family had homesteaded in 1889, and gave me some of his books to read. I thought about taking notes but was too moved to multitask. Simply sitting down with a man who might be a member of my family, who cared so deeply about his roots and was so proud of his family’s achievements, was overwhelming. He had done his own research and he had written it down – he had not hidden from it, or excised the story from memory. He is devoted to talking about and preserving it, just as I am.

And not only that, he wanted to talk to me, and he wanted to listen. To find out what I knew that might prove to be an irrefutable link between our families. He was curious; wanted names, dates, places.

“How old are you?” he asked me.

“Forty-four,” I replied, and cringed, feeling self-conscious. There was a pause.

“That old, eh?” he said, sounding shocked. Then he smiled – with his bright blue, 90-year-old eyes.

We looked around the room at framed photos and other artifacts of his family’s past. His record was abundant, both in photographs and documents. He pointed out a carved wooden picture frame that had been made by one of his relatives. I told him that my great-grandfather and my uncle were both carvers, that our family had worked in the lumber industry in Czernowitz. That our family had worked with trees for generations, in one way or another – whether as lumber, through sculpture or carpentry, or tree-planting in Israel in the 1940s. Another connection. Maybe.

image - The author’s grandmother’s birth certificate from Czernowitz in 1902, which shows that Regina Picker’s mother, Betty (“Betti”), had been born a Brotman (“Brutmann”). It also shows that Regina’s father, Betty’s husband, Simon Picker, was a carpenter — The author’s grandmother’s birth certificate from Czernowitz in 1902, which shows that Regina Picker’s mother, Betty (“Betti”), had been born a Brotman (“Brutmann”). It also shows that Regina’s father, Betty’s husband, Simon Picker, was a carpenter. *(image from Shula Klinger)*

When it was time to go, my older son asked me again. “Is he a relation? Is he ours?” I told him, “Very possibly.” And, again, he wanted to know the percentage probability. “Ninety-nine percent, then,” Benjamin decided.

It was hard to leave. After so many years, I wanted to stay until I dealt with that niggling one percent of doubt. I wanted to be sure. I had to know.

I don’t know how much of Cyril’s story is really my story, which he has taken such pains to write down. I don’t know if his Betty knew my Betty, if they were cousins, second cousins, or even more remotely related than that – or not at all. And I may never find out.

But, then again, even if we are just an appendix to his main narrative, I had a chance to read between the lines. To meet the Leonoffs, to eat with them and to ask questions about our fractured family stories. Because what matters is that we tried to knit those fractures together, to heal the tremendous wounds created by the past and the efforts made by those who refused – or were unable – to heal them on their own.

Months later, my children still talk about “our 99% relative.” They are proud to have an elder in Vancouver and they mention Cyril regularly. I love to hear them talk about him with affection and respect.

When it comes to family, I have discovered that 8- and 4-year-olds aren’t too worried about evidence. They really don’t care about that missing one percent. And now, as my children are also my teachers, neither do I.

Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver. This article is written with grateful thanks to Anita and Cyril Leonoff.

Rabbis join thousands

Eight of 11 B.C. shluchim joined 5,200 other Chabad rabbis and guests in New York City Nov. 4-9 for the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries. (photo by Shneor Shif)

Eight local B.C. rabbis made their way to New York City Nov. 4-9, joining a group of 5,200 Chabad rabbis and guests from 86 countries for the annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries (Kinus Hashluchim).

The conference, now in its 32nd year, offered a chance for the rabbis to recharge their batteries in an atmosphere of camaraderie and inspiration before returning to their communities. It also gave community members the opportunity to better appreciate the global impact of Chabad-Lubavitch and its underlying philosophy, and spend some quality time with fellow Jews from around the world.

Known as shluchim – the plural of shaliach, which means agent or emissary – these rabbis were dispatched by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, zt’l, to communities all over the globe to dedicate their lives to serving the Jewish people. They work to connect Jews to their heritage, raise Jewish awareness and mitzvah observance, and teach Torah. Yet their mission is not only a spiritual one; the Rebbe charged them to discover what the unique needs of their respective communities are and to meet those needs by opening their hearts and homes to help every Jew in any way they can.

The rabbis arrived on Nov. 4 for five jam-packed days, which included extensive Torah classes, prayer with thousands, a range of workshops and talks and, of course, a visit to the Ohel, the resting place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and his father-in-law, the previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, zt’l.

This year’s conference carried added significance, being a Hakhel year, a year focused on unity gatherings in rededication to Torah and mitzvot. The biblical Hakhel took place once every seven years at the conclusion of the Sabbatical (Shmitah) year, and brought Jewish men, women and children to the Temple in Jerusalem to be inspired by the Torah, which was read by the king. During Hakhel in years past, the Rebbe would regularly urge Jews worldwide to assemble and inspire one another to increase their Torah observance and study.

This unity and rededication was perhaps best exhibited at the gala dinner on Sunday night in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Powerful presentations on Hakhel were given by a Chabad Hebrew school student, a CTeen participant, an active student leader in Chabad on Campus, a middle-aged professional who first met the Rebbe as a young man and is now a member of his local Chabad community, and a Holocaust survivor. They all mentioned increasing their observance as a result of interaction with Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries.

Moshe Holtzberg, who is nearly 9 years old, is the surviving child of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, shluchim who were murdered in a November 2008 terror attack on their Chabad House in Mumbai, India. Moshe led the crowd of thousands in the recitation of psalms during the banquet.

The eight B.C. shluchim who traveled to New York were Rabbi Yitzchak Wineberg, executive director of Chabad-Lubavitch BC, Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman of Chabad of Richmond, Rabbi Binyomin Bitton of Chabad of Downtown Vancouver, Rabbi Meir Kaplan of Chabad of Victoria, Rabbi Schneur Wineberg of Chabad of East Vancouver, Rabbi Chalom Loeub of Chabad of the University of British Columbia, Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld of Chabad-Lubavitch BC and Rabbi Mendel Mochkin of Chabad of the North Shore. Rabbi Falik Schtroks of Chabad of Surrey, Rabbi Bentzi Shemtov of Chabad of Nanaimo, and Rabbi Shmuly Hecht of Chabad of Kelowna were unable to attend the conference this year.

Tikkun olam as focus

Leah Stern in Haiti, where she was helping orphaned and abandoned children. (photo from Leah Stern)

While London-based journalist and content producer Leah Stern was unable to be the guest speaker at this year’s Choices, the annual campaign event of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s women’s philanthropy, the Jewish Independent had the opportunity to chat with her over the phone prior to her scheduled talk. Hopefully, she will have the chance to come to Vancouver on another occasion, as she is a fascinating and accomplished person.

Born and raised in Miami, Stern made aliya after graduating university. In her career to date, she has been the face of the evening news on the Israel Broadcast Authority and a correspondent for CNN, she has liaised with the Vatican on behalf of the Israeli government and worked with nonprofits in South America. She is currently communications director in London, England, for OurCrowd, a high-tech, crowdfunding platform created by venture capitalist John Medved, for which she travels to Israel every couple of months. This is only a partial resumé.

JI: You made aliya in 2002. What led to that?

LS: Growing up in Miami Beach, everyone was very materialistic, focused on clothes, cars, houses, etc., and I wanted to run away from it all. My brother went to Israel to serve in an elite military group during the Second Intifada and my mother and I decided to follow him there. She went first, I came after.

JI: How did you get into journalism?

LS: That started with a program I saw in Miami on CNN with coverage of Scuds falling in Sderot and I saw a woman running in fear along the street. Suddenly, I thought, I need to be there in the thick of it all. When I finally went, I was only 21. At first, when I arrived, I could not find a job, so I folded laundry, made pizza and worked as a housekeeper.

JI: What happened next?

LS: I decided to volunteer for the Magen David Adom (MDA). That consisted of a week indoctrination course and then riding in the back of an ambulance to callouts. My first call was to a bus bombing in Jerusalem on May 18, 2003. I remember riding in the back of the ambulance, going at 100 miles an hour, running through red lights and then we came upon the shell of the bus. My first memory is seeing the bodies of college students my age, all sitting exactly as they were in that last moment before the explosion, one was reading a book, one was eating a sandwich. That picture still resonates with me today.

JI: Did that experience have an impact on your career?

LS: I did the MDA job for about three months. I was so affected by it I decided to … blog about it. I sent articles back to Miami. I wanted to give a different view than the jaded coverage by CNN and Fox. I thought I could make an impact on people by reporting the truth of what was happening through my eyes, and not through the eyes of the foreign press that did not understand the contextual background to the story.

JI: You also worked for the Jerusalem Post?

LS: Yes. I applied and got an internship as the funeral reporter. I did that for awhile but I wanted to go to the next level. So, I applied to IBA, the Israel Broadcast Authority, the only government-run, English-speaking channel in Israel, to be a news anchor. I bombed the audition. I said, “Baby Netanyahu” instead of “Bibi Netanyahu.” I thought I would never get the job. But the bureau chief called me that night and said, “You were absolutely terrible but there is something about you. Come in tomorrow for another screen test.” So, I studied the names of all of the people in the Knesset and practised in front of the mirror, and I got the job.

JI: What happened at IBA and where did you go from there?

LS: I started off as a newsreader but eventually my boss let me go out in the field. I went out as a one-woman band. I went and bought a video camera and all the equipment. I would mic myself up and take my camera out on a tripod and do the interview, write the text and send it to my editor in three-minute news package format while sitting in the front seat of my Peugeot. These were some of the most incredible days of my life, being in the thick of things.

photo - Leah Stern on a CNN mentorship program with Wolf Blitzer at the Republican National Convention in Florida — Leah Stern on a CNN mentorship program with Wolf Blitzer at the Republican National Convention in Florida. (photo from Leah Stern)

It was during this time that I came to realize that there were so many stories that were not being covered, i.e. co-existence, Israeli doctors working with injured Palestinians, stories that I felt would change the world’s perception of what was happening in Israel. So, I started to tell them and sent some to CNN and they must have liked them because I got invited to Atlanta and met with Ted Turner, who offered me a job as a correspondent. Wolf Blitzer sort of took me under his wing.

JI: What were some of the stories you covered for IBA and CNN?

LS: I was sent all over, to Ethiopia to cover the migration of the Ethiopian Jews to Israel … to the Vatican to cover the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. I went to Baghdad and Kabul and all over the Arab world.

JI: Were you concerned about any danger in covering some of these assignments?

LS: No. I was a CNN producer, an American journalist on an American passport and did not at any time feel in danger. I was running on pure adrenalin, and was determined to tell the story for people who did not have a voice.

JI: You accompanied the Israel Defence Forces during the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. What was that experience like?

LS: For me, this was the first time that I found myself reporting on a big story alongside the major players of the world media…. I had just interviewed Ariel Sharon and was forming my own opinion on this. I was conflicted, lots of questions were running through my mind, like, was the government right? What were these people entitled to? [Stern ended up making a documentary about the experience, called Disengagement (2006).]

JI: Were you treated any differently for being a woman reporter?

LS: War reporting is a man’s world. Here I was a young, blond, American, female journalist with not great Hebrew, with an English accent, with very seasoned male war reporters, trying to be one of the guys. I had to earn the respect. It was not easy. It took time.

JI: How did people react to you in the various areas you visited?

LS: Good reporters get people to open up to them and to trust them. You have to ask the tough questions, be relatable, get people to be real. I let people know I would tell their story … like they told it to me.

JI: Has your attitude towards covering the news changed over the years?

LS: I always remember the quote from Abba Eban, “To be a realist in Israel, you have to believe in miracles.” My time in Israel was one miracle after another. When I did my first stand up in front of the camera during the Second Lebanon War, a rocket landed near me and I was not afraid. I felt as if the camera would protect me and I was so dedicated to telling the story that I did not think of any danger. But one of my colleagues, Steve Sotloff, was beheaded by ISIS, and that was a wake-up call for me. I would not go back to some of those countries now even though I have been offered opportunities to report in Iran and Syria.

JI: In addition to reporting, you did a three-year diplomatic stint at the Vatican as a liaison for the Israeli government. What was that like?

LS: I studied Italian because I had to read 20 newspapers a morning and brief the Israeli ambassador on what Italians were saying about Israelis. Twice a week, I also got to sit in on meeting with Pope Benedict XVI and his cardinals…. I learned what it meant to be an Israeli diplomat in the Vatican. It was very interesting but it was also the first time I had to be careful about being open about my Israeli and Jewish status.

JI: What does your future hold?

LS: I am writing a book, but I am not sure what to focus on. I think writing a memoir is a bit egotistical at the age of 35. I have been roaming the world for 15 years, I am ready to put down some roots and I am getting married again next year.

JI: Do you have any advice for women considering career options like yours?

LS: I believe in tikkun olam, to make the world a better place. I think the best advice I can give is to be strong and to follow your dreams. Remember that small things make a difference. Don’t be afraid to try. Put yourself out there. Make an impact.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Shepherding biblical sheep

Jacob sheep Molly and Leah. (photo by Mustard Seed Imaging)

Chabad Rabbi Falik Schtroks of the Centre for Judaism of the Lower Fraser Valley delivered a lecture on the meaning of the Jacob sheep in conjunction with parashat Veyetzei during a visit to the flock in Langley on Sunday, Nov. 15. He was accompanied by his students and invited guests.

The rabbi explained how the sheep look just as they are described in the Tanach: they have spotted ankle bands (akudim), spotted and speckled patterns (nikud), patches (tiluyim) and bands (broodim), all of which are mentioned in the Bible.

“It is very likely that the animal we are looking at is the Jacob sheep, as there are no other sheep in the world that have all these characteristics. If I would have ever imagined Jacob’s flock, I wouldn’t have imagined them any different than the flock in your field,” he said.

photo - Rabbi Falik Schtroks holds Moshe, while Isaac and Solomon look on. The Jacob sheep’s “shepherds,” Gil and Jenna Lewinsky, are trying to get their flock back home to Israel — Rabbi Falik Schtroks holds Moshe, while Isaac and Solomon look on. The Jacob sheep’s “shepherds,” Gil and Jenna Lewinsky, are trying to get their flock back home to Israel. *(photo by Mustard Seed Imaging)*

In his lecture, Schtroks taught that the patterns of the sheep have relevance for day-to-day living by comparing the patterns to the progression of human civilization, as well as to personal growth. The ankle bands represent the incubation phase or childhood. The speckles represent individualism, but the blotches represent our growth in this world, which allows us to recognize and include others. The goal is for the blotches to “bleed” into each other to form a band, for individuals to live in harmony with the outside world.

“It is not very often that one can be down to earth, mingling with sheep, and find there vivid clarity of mystical teachings. What is usually an obscure narrative comes bursting into life,” said Schtroks.

The rabbi was very excited to observe the sheep’s behavior. The sheep operate as a collective, he noted. If one sheep were to go missing, it would cause mass distress in the flock. “Take a look at how these sheep behave only as part of a herd and none act truly independently … it is comparable to the Jewish people who are compared to one flock.”

He continued, “Seeing the Jacob sheep as they have survived until this day, as an heirloom breed with the biblically described characteristics, seems to parallel the miracle of the Jewish people and their survival – despite all odds – for the duration of the past 4,000 years.”

Schtroks said he hoped that the sheep’s transition to life in Israel would be easy. The flock’s “shepherds,” Gil and Jenna Lewinsky have been lobbying the Israeli government to allow their Jacob sheep to return to the Golan Heights. The couple would like to establish a heritage park where this endangered breed of four-horned and speckled, spotted and ankle-banded sheep can be preserved, and put to their biblical and original use.

Rabbi Amram Vaknin, the rabbinical mystic from Ashdod, Israel, endorsed the Lewinskys’ Jacob sheep in October, telling Friends of the Jacob Sheep, later reported to Breaking Israel News, that the sheep do not belong in Canada but rather “in the land of Israel.” He told the news outlet and the couple that it is permissible for the sheep to return as long as the shepherds are G-d fearing.

Following the rabbinical endorsements, the Lewinskys are optimistic about the prospect of negotiating for the return of the Jacob sheep and feel that their flock will bring a tremendous blessing to the nation of Israel. “It’s the spiritual wealth of Jacob and the national animal of the Jewish people according to the Tanach,” they said.

For more about the Jacob sheep, visit friendsofthejacobsheep.weebly.com. To see the sheep in action, check out youtube.com/watch?v=asI7tSB6p_w.

Pollard back at home

Jonathan Pollard and his wife Esther in the first photograph following his release from prison. (photo from Justice for Jonathan Pollard via jns.org)

After spending 30 years in a U.S. federal prison, American-Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was freed on parole on Nov. 20, one day ahead of schedule to allow him to observe Shabbat.

“The people of Israel welcome the release of Jonathan Pollard,” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “As someone who has raised the issue for many years with American presidents, I have dreamt of this day. After three long and hard decades, Jonathan is finally reunited with his family. I wish Jonathan a quiet and joyous Shabbat.”

Pollard was the only person in U.S. history sentenced to life in prison over spying for an American ally (Israel). Advocates in the Jewish community as well as experts in the U.S. intelligence community had long called for his release both due to the severity of his sentence and on the humanitarian grounds of his failing health.

The National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) said on Nov. 20 that it is “extraordinarily grateful that Jonathan Pollard is now out of prison and reunited with his family.”

Videos teach sign language

Israeli politicians learn to sign on the day that the Institute for the Advancement of Deaf Persons in Israel inaugurated a new online dictionary at the Knesset on Oct. 21. (photo from Institute for the Advancement of Deaf Persons in Israel)

A new online Israeli Sign Language (ISL) dictionary is helping people communicate by teaching hearing people via short video clips how to sign words. It is Yael Kakon’s vision come to life.

Kakon is the executive director of the Institute for the Advancement of Deaf Persons in Israel (IADPI).

“Our institute is working in several fields and one of them is to increase the use of sign language, especially with the people working with [those who are deaf], but also in the general population in Israel,” said Kakon, whose parents are deaf. “We have done several smaller dictionaries that were meant for specific industries. This is the first one that is online that people can reach anywhere.”

The previous dictionaries were on CD-ROM disks. These versions became outdated, as operating systems changed to the point that people could no longer use them.

There was a Signs in Crisis dictionary that was widely used by Magen David Adom and in hospitals. Signs of Judaism was another, as was Dictionary for Terminology, which was designed for high school science and math and was also translated into Arabic. The newest lexicon incorporates all of these versions, as well as additional words. Its video dictionary currently has just over 3,000 clips of signing in four languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic and Russian.

The limit on words and languages is because the cost was prohibitive to go further at the moment, said Kakon, who is hopeful that more clips will be added along the way.

Every 10th word out of the dictionary was chosen, followed by a manual check to ensure that all the important words were on the list. This is a systematic method that linguists use when compiling dictionaries, she explained.

“The translation into four languages was very complicated,” said Elias Kabakov, director of program development. “Even translation into Hebrew, because, if there are two languages, each one can have synonyms and each one can mean different things in different contexts…. English can have different context. It’s the same with Russian and Arabic. This must have delayed completion of the dictionary by two years. It’s not just a matter of translating a bunch of words, but making sure the intention of each sign was right.”

“Although we just started,” Kakon said, “I can tell you that there has been a huge celebration in the deaf community. People felt pride. They felt like a unit, a big unit, a unit that got a lot of attention.

“One deaf person came and told us that he came to work the day after the release, at the place he had worked for several years, and one of the workers, a hearing person, came to him and told him in sign language, ‘Good morning. How are you?’ And he was shocked, and said, ‘I worked here for seven years. He never came to me and told me good morning.’

“He continued by asking the person, ‘What’s going on? How do you know how to sign?’ And the answer was, ‘I looked on the dictionary.’ He was very proud to tell us the story.”

Kakon said that all the people in the videos are deaf, as IADPI gives priority to employing deaf professionals. “Although I sign very well myself, due to my parents being deaf, I will never be in the front, because I think the deaf person should be in the front and I can hear,” she explained.

According to its website, the dictionary was produced with contributions from Alex Garfeld and the late Prof. Miriam Shlesinger, “who actively supported linguistic accessibility for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing population of Israel.”

Visit isl.org.il to use the dictionary or get the Signs in Crisis app. For more information about IADPI, including information about donations, visit dpii.org.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

A platform for giving

Naomi Brounstein, left, and Vivi Mann working on Ten Gav. (photo by Hindy Lederman via Israel21c.org)

In the Israeli port city of Ashdod, two families with blind babies were eager to take courses at the country’s sole training centre for parents of vision-impaired infants. But the centre is in Petah Tikva, a three-bus journey from Ashdod, and these families did not have cars. How could they get the specialized guidance they needed?

Their municipal social worker appealed to a new nonprofit, Ten Gav, a crowdfunding site for relatively small needs identified by Israeli social workers and vetted by the two volunteer founders. Following a successful campaign, a van was hired to transport the families to and from the training sessions.

The funding needs presented on Ten Gav never exceed $1,500, and every dollar donated goes directly to the chosen campaign, so even a small contribution counts large. Since December 2014, Ten Gav has fully funded 80 projects, among them a refrigerator for a destitute family, beds for new immigrants, an air conditioner for the bedroom of a child with cerebral palsy and a washing machine for an elderly woman.

The founders, Ra’anana residents Vivi Mann and Naomi Brounstein, are professional women with a soft spot for charitable endeavors. They wanted to find a worthwhile project they could start and run together. Mann is a management consultant and Brounstein – who is from Ontario – has degrees in law and social work.

“Vivi and I looked for challenges that needed to be faced, and we developed this model for the Israeli market based on similar sites operating in America,” Brounstein told Israel21c.

They began Ten Gav as an online crowdfunding platform to match donors with modest needs in Israel that cannot be funded by the state or existing charities. “We are very careful not to present stories where another organization can easily provide what is needed,” said Brounstein.

With startup capital from supporters including Joseph Gitler, founder and head of the Leket Israel national food bank, they began making contact with municipal social workers across Israel.

They weren’t quite ready to launch when the 2014 summer conflict with Hamas escalated into Operation Protective Edge, but a Canadian friend of Brounstein’s wanted to make an immediate donation to families affected by the rocket fire, and asked if she could do so through Ten Gav.

“So, we built our first site using Wix, as Vivi ran around to communities in the south to find needs from social workers,” said Brounstein. “Sderot social workers deal with a lot of elderly residents, and we filled a number of requests for air conditioners and washing machines. This was not a directly war-related need but, in times of uncertainty and insecurity, any help you give goes a long way in making people feel they are supported by others.”

After the ceasefire in late August, the women took Ten Gav offline until they truly felt ready to launch at the end of the year.

“Ten Gav is all about empowering donors to select the cases their money will go to, and empowering the recipient,” said Mann.

Many of the cases brought to their attention by social workers don’t fall under the rubric of traditional charity. For example, a social worker in one city thought that joining an afterschool soccer program would help two boys in therapy to release their aggression in a fun and disciplined manner, and that they would benefit from being part of a team. Since their parents could not afford the fee, Ten Gav raised it and the boys were able to join.

The two founders say they are impressed by the sensitivity and creativity of the welfare authorities they meet in each municipality. “They see things in homes that you and I do not see,” said Brounstein.

Sharon Friedman, a social worker in the Department of Youth at Risk of Jerusalem, describes Ten Gav’s assistance as “oxygen to breathe” for some of her clients. Among requests her office has submitted and that have been successfully crowdfunded are piano lessons for a girl whose family could not afford them, a ping-pong table for a child with social difficulties, an afterschool program for a child from a single-parent home and a computer to enable a woman to work from home.

Cheques are made out to the service providers and handed over by the social workers. All administrative costs are covered separately by grants from supporters such as the U.S.-based Good People Fund.

“We are looking to expand slowly so we can control the types of cases and level of due diligence we can do so our donors can always be confident their money is going to the right place,” said Brounstein.

Mann explained that the name Ten Gav was chosen for a few reasons. The expression loosely translates to “watch my back” and portrays the idea of helping out rather than handing over cash. “Everybody gives something and gets connected to a personal story, knowing their money won’t get lost in a big pool.”

For more information, visit tengav.org.

Abigail Klein Leichman is a writer and associate editor at Israel21c. Prior to moving to Israel in 2007, she was a specialty writer and copy editor at a daily newspaper in New Jersey and has freelanced for a variety of newspapers and periodicals since 1984. Israel21c is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.

A laptop for every teacher

Teachers at CHW Hadassim with the new computers. (photo by Amir Alon)

Last month, the Athena Fund announced that three Israeli youth villages – CHW Hadassim Children and Youth Village, Mosenson Youth Village and Ayelet Hashachar Youth Village for Girls – have joined the Laptop Computer for Every Teacher in Israel program. The program provides laptops and 120 hours of professional training to teachers across Israel, with the aim of empowering teachers and improving student learning.

photo - Uri Ben-Ari, president and founder of Athena Fund, left, and Zeev Twito, director of WIZO Hadassim — Uri Ben-Ari, president and founder of Athena Fund, left, and Zeev Twito, director of WIZO Hadassim. *(photo by Amir Alon)*

Athena’s Laptop for Every Teacher in Israel program has so far distributed laptops to more than 11,000 teachers in 939 schools and kindergartens in 430 towns, cities and small communities in regional councils, together with professional training courses. The laptop distribution is made possible by contributions from Athena Fund’s various partners, including United Jewish Appeal, Bank Massad, the Israel Teachers Union’s Fund for Professional Advancement, WIZO, local authorities and others.

CHW Hadassim is located north of Tel Aviv and has 1,300 students. It is one the largest youth villages in Israel. Local area students attend the school, in addition to 200 from difficult or new immigrant backgrounds, who reside in campus dormitories.

Hadassim High School offers a full academic course of study in preparation for university. The youth village also provides a wide range of specialized studies tailored to the interests and needs of outstanding students, as well as those who are experiencing scholastic difficulties. Among the subjects offered are criminology, natural sciences, agriculture, horse breeding, therapeutic horse riding, art and sculpture, and photography. There is also a musical group called Ethiopian Sun, which performs all over Israel.

Mosenson Youth Village is in Hod Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, with more than 800 students, nearly 130 of whom come to study in Israel from North America and countries around the world. The youth village consists of a high school and a boarding school where about 220 students live. The high school is known for many special programs, including one in agro-ecology that deals with environmental issues; a sports program that is ranked in the top five in Israel; a film and communication class; and an excellence class that studies science subjects such as math, chemistry, physics and biology at the highest levels.

Ayelet Hashachar, located on the Golan Heights, is a religious boarding high school, where about 100 girls live and study. In addition to standard subjects such as math, English, history and science, students also have an opportunity to focus on special subjects, such as communications, film and agriculture. The girls also attend a variety of enrichment classes, including nutrition, consumerism, the environment and art.

“The impact of computer use on the quality of teaching and learning in classrooms that participate in the Laptop for Every Teacher in Israel program can be clearly seen,” said Uri Ben-Ari, president and founder of Athena Fund. “Athena’s approach is to bring teachers to the digital world in which their students live. The fund believes that the computer and the accompanying training will help teachers cope with the information revolution and become mentors highly appreciated by their students.”