Category: News
Poverty among Canadian Jews increasing
The poverty rate among Canadian Jews is increasing, according to the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA’s 2011 National Household Survey, and social-service providers across the country are weighing in on the issue.
“For the first time in two decades, Jewish poverty in Toronto is on the rise,” said Nancy Singer, executive director of the Kehilla Residential Program, a nonprofit housing agency in Toronto.
The survey reported that the Jewish poverty rate is climbing across the country. There are 57,195 Jews living below the poverty line, which translates to 14.6 percent of Canada’s Jews, compared to 14.8 percent among the wider Canadian population. In 2001, the Jewish poverty rate was 13.6 percent.
Montreal has the highest rate of Jewish poverty of Canada’s major cities, at 20 percent, while Ottawa has the lowest rate of 8.9 percent. Vancouver sits at 16.1 percent, Toronto at 12.9 and Calgary at 10.8.
Robin Gofine, vice-president of strategic community planning and engagement at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, said the statistics on poverty highlighted in the survey are “sobering.”
“Poverty in the Jewish community is an issue that affects more than one in 10, certainly in Toronto, and it is imperative that poverty be atop the communal agenda,” Gofine said.
“It is not just people with low socioeconomic standing, but people who are suffering from mental and physical illness, people with disabilities, new immigrants, seniors, Holocaust survivors and single parents,” she said.
More than 24,000 Jewish people in the GTA live under the poverty line, said Fran Chodak, a Jewish Family and Child (JF&CS) social worker and coordinator of the agency’s STEP – Striving to End Poverty – project.
“We also know that the line is somewhat arbitrary and that there are a whole lot of people who struggle financially, even though they may not be defined as poor, among the working poor.”
Referring to the increased number of Jewish people in the GTA living under the poverty line, Singer noted that the cost of living in Toronto has increased. “Rents have certainly gone up and the stock of affordable housing has not,” she said. “People are struggling … and these are hard-working people who can’t make ends meet, who have two jobs.”
The numbers suggest that Montreal’s Jewish community has been hit the hardest.
“In 2001, 18.6 percent of the population was considered living in poverty, and now we’ve reached 20 percent,” said Leah Berger, senior planning associate for Federation CJA in the department of strategic planning and community relations.
“What we’re observing in Quebec is that there is a progressive offloading of services from the government on to community organizations, on to families and individuals. Services and programs that were initially provided by the government are no longer being provided and there is still a need for these. So, in response, communities, families and individuals are having to offer responses without necessarily the financial means to do so,” Berger said.
“We know government-mandated health-care premiums have increased over the last few years, while services have been reduced. Transportation costs have increased; the price of a bus pass increase[d] almost annually over the past 10 years. Finding a subsidized spot in a day care is another challenge, particularly for single-parent families. The cost of rent has increased.”
Susan Karpman, director of community services and immigration at Ometz, an employment and social service provider in Montreal, said the reason why Montreal’s Jewish community has the highest poverty rate in the country is due in large part to the city’s aging community.
Seniors make up 20.4 percent of Montreal’s Jewish community, compared to 16.9 percent in Canada’s Jewish population as a whole.
“We also have significant numbers of large families with lots of children in the observant community, and that also tilts the balance, because that community has its own challenges in terms of supporting the larger and growing communities,” she said.
In Vancouver, the most recent statistics indicate that 16 percent of Jews here live below the poverty line, an increase of about two percentage points since 2001, said Susana Cogan, housing development director at Tikva Housing Society, a nonprofit agency that works to provide affordable housing for working-age, Jewish, low-income adults and families.
Cogan also attributed Vancouver’s growing poverty rate to an “increase in [the number of] seniors and the difficulty for people to get full-time positions.
“Vancouver has the most expensive housing – rental and ownership – costs of the whole of Canada. Yes, there is an affordability problem that affects everyone, including members of the Jewish community,” Cogan said.
Mark Zarecki, a Montreal native who serves as the executive director of Jewish Family Services of Ottawa, said the poor in Ottawa used to be more diverse when immigration rates were higher, but the demographics in Ottawa have changed dramatically.
“The elderly community is much larger than it was 10 years ago, and the youth community, from ages zero to 14, has shrunk by 500 kids. It is an aging community,” he said.
Chodak, of JF&CS in Toronto, said poverty numbers are rising in the Jewish community for the same reasons they’re going up in the general community.
“The systemic issues that everyone faces in the community, Jewish people face, too. So whether there is a great deal of youth unemployment, we know that newcomers face poverty. We know single parents, when there is a family breakdown, we see single women raising children facing poverty. There are a lot more elderly living in poverty, and there are a great deal of people who are precariously employed,” Chodak said.
“Twenty-two percent of jobs in Ontario are precarious, meaning not stable, not full-time. There is no pension, no union, and these are often the jobs that youth have, that women have, that newcomers get, that older people might have, that the disabled might have, and that is where we are seeing a huge rise in poverty.”
Perhaps the first step to eradicating poverty in the Jewish community is raising awareness about the fact that it is an issue at all, Singer said.
“It’s a myth that we don’t have Jewish poor. The starting point is making the community aware that we are not much better off than the rest of the community at large. We are maybe a percentage point or two below the national average, and that is nothing to be proud of. The fact that we are [also] a well-off and generous, philanthropic community, we should be addressing the problem and helping people,” Singer said.
Robyn Segall, programs and marketing director at Ve’ahavta in Toronto, said she has encountered many people who are shocked to learn there are poor Jews.
“When we talk about our program to serve the homeless, very often the first question is, ‘But are there Jewish homeless? That’s impossible,’” Segall said.
“There certainly are Jewish people living on the streets…. People live on the street for so many different reasons – they’re escaping abuse, they are escaping myriad things, dealing with mental illness and, for each person, there is a different appropriate response, and sometimes what the community has to offer isn’t always what they need.”
Zarecki illustrated the fact that this issue is of vital importance to the Jewish community by referring to a quote he heard from a social- work professor at McGill University that stuck with him.
“A Jew is poor among Jews and Jewish among the poor,” Zarecki said. “So poverty has two impacts. It marginalizes Jews because they are not fully accepted within the Jewish community, and they are not fully accepted in the poor community [either].”
Zarecki also suspects that the Jewish poverty rate is higher than is being reported. “When you look at government statistics, they don’t include Jewish quality of life. What I mean by that is, for somebody who wants to affiliate with the community, it costs money. Eating kosher food, sending a child to a Jewish school, going to a synagogue, living near a Jewish facility – often the rents are higher in an area where there is a concentration of Jews,” he said.
“My thesis is that Jewish poverty increases assimilation…. That is why it is incumbent on Jewish communities to reach out to low-income people because … they will vanish from the community if they’re not reached out to.”
– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.
Seeking restitution, justice
In late August, a $250 million fund for Jewish child survivors of the Holocaust was established. (photo from Memorial de la Shoah, Paris, via claimscon.org/2014/09/child-survivors)
On Wednesday, Aug. 27, a symposium was held at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin. The topic was Lost Childhood, referring to the impact of the Shoah on Jewish children who survived and continue to live with its consequences to this day. The audience was comprised of German government officials, members of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and child survivors of the Holocaust.
Among those present were members of the negotiating committee, including Ambassador Colette Avital from Israel, Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat from the United States, Roman Kent, treasurer of the Claims Conference, and Greg Schneider, who serves as executive vice-president of the Claims Conference. From Germany, representative Rüdiger Mahlo and deputy director of negotiations Konrad Matschke were in attendance, as was Stefanie Seltzer, president of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Descendants, and Max Arpels Lezer, its European representative.
A variety of speakers, from historians to psychiatrists, politicians to psychoanalysts, participated in order to press the case for restitution to previously overlooked Jewish children, now aging in trying circumstances connected directly to their early childhood deprivations and traumas. The negotiations following the symposium took place on Aug. 28, and resulted in the recognition of child survivors as a distinct entity deserving of restitution. Mahlo noted, “German politics has been made aware of the particular fate of the child survivors and its negotiations with the German government, the Claims Conference succeeded in establishing a Child Survivor Fund. With this, the loss of childhood is recognized for the first time as a case of damage.”
A fund of $250 million was established for Jewish child survivors worldwide. My address, entitled The Continuing Struggle to Survive After Survival, follows:
I stand before you keenly aware that I am here only because of a narrow escape from those who sought to murder me. As a Jewish child born in 1940 in The Hague, Holland, my family was ordered to report on Aug. 19, 1942, for “resettlement to the east.” That meant being assembled at Westerbork and, from there, deported primarily to Auschwitz or Sobibor.
My mother and I would have been killed shortly after arrival. Mothers with babies were doomed. One hundred and eight thousand Dutch Jews were sent to the factories of death. About 5,500 returned.
I stand before you keenly aware that I am in Berlin, the city in which were conceived the most grotesque crimes in human history. It was here that the minds of well-educated and presumably civilized Germans formulated plans for the annihilation of Europe’s Jews: men, women and children. And, by war’s end, in German occupied countries, 93 percent of Jewish children had been murdered.
I survived in the care of my Dutch Christian rescuers, Albert and Violette Munnik and their daughter, Nora, who I shall visit in The Hague in two weeks. Nora is 83 years old, nearly the age of Anne Frank had she lived. But the Frank family was betrayed and deported on the last train to leave Holland, on Sept. 3, 1944, destination Auschwitz.
And I stand before you also aware of the great strides that Germany has made to preserve this history and to remember not only what it has done but to teach this history to succeeding generations, indeed, to the world.
For those who pose the question concerning whether there are long-term consequences, a story. One day, my mother, in her mid-80s, suddenly apologized for giving me away into hiding. I was stunned. I told her she had been heroic; there was nothing to apologize for. Her response, “When I left you, you tried to follow me pulling a little suitcase, and I looked into your eyes and knew you would never forgive me.”
And it is true. She was so smart. She knew that having saved my life through her uncommon courage that I would nevertheless be unable to truly forgive her for abandoning me. A child cannot comprehend the reasons for such a rejection. That, we learn only as adults. We live with such complexities, we Holocaust children.
What was done to us involved not only physical annihilation. Those who survived also experienced the touch of death, the murder of the soul. My parents, who miraculously survived in frightening circumstances, never recovered. How could they?
In 1945, my father learned that his parents and two sisters were dead; my mother was informed that her parents, two brothers and little sister were dead. And so, there were three of us. Only the son of one of my father’s sisters survived also.
We spent those postwar years in shock. While Dutch citizens resumed their lives, traumatized by years of occupation but largely intact, Dutch Jews were shattered. I saw them. They came to our home, some with whip lashes on their backs. I heard them describe the horrors of the camps, the smell of the crematoria. It was too much for a little boy aged 5 or 6. And you may ask, even today, were there consequences and did they last all these years? The answer is, “What was done to us, never, ever left us. The Shoah envelops us like a shroud. But we put it aside so that we can function as if normal.”
For children under the age of 16 in 1945, there was little help. Most surviving children were orphaned and housed in orphanages or shelters such as Ecouis in France, where 426 boys from Buchenwald were looked after by the OSE [Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants]. And yes, of these boys told by a psychiatrist or psychologist that they would never recover, the majority led productive lives, even attained great achievements. They included Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, a chief rabbi of Israel, George Goldbloom, a U.S. businessman, and Kalman Kalikstein, a physicist who worked with Einstein.
But who can say that they recovered from the Shoah? Elie Wiesel, who devotes his life to healing, injustice and Holocaust remembrance and education? Rabbi Lau, who is now the director of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust Remembrance Authority? Their lives remain rooted in Holocaust memories. The Holocaust’s imprint was too traumatic to overcome, too painful for healing, and medical professionals shied away from us in the postwar years. There was no help.
Think of it. Before the war, every psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychologist focused on the traumas visited upon a child in the developmental years. Anna Freud discussed the vulnerability of a child’s ego. One symptom, and therapists recommended years of individual or play group therapy to heal children suffering from anxieties. But postwar, where was this legion of therapists? They were nowhere to be seen. They were not prepared to deal with us, we were the carriers of traumas too great to confront.
We left for Canada in 1951 and I set about becoming a normal Canadian. With after-school jobs and summer work, I put myself through medical school, then psychiatry in Philadelphia and Stanford, and became professor of child psychiatry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
In the 1970s, Holocaust survivors brought me their children and I worked with Holocaust survivor families struggling with overwhelming memories, some of which complicated the lives of the entire family. I helped some of the adults fill out restitution forms. A particularly poor and troubled survivor patient who had worked in the mines as a slave laborer, and who lost eight brothers and sisters, was awarded $1,300. I was furious upon hearing this. He saw it differently: “They acknowledged my suffering. They owned up to what they did to me.” I learned from him that reparation is not just about money, it is also about justice.
I soon discovered that Holocaust survivors who sought restitution were, in many instances, directed toward German psychiatrists for evaluation. Can you imagine it?
One child taken by her mother in an effort to obtain some financial help faced a particularly gruff doctor who yelled at her in German. This particular child, who, when hidden with a Polish family, had sat in total silence under a dining table at which German soldiers had a meal. Had she spoken, moved or coughed, her death was inevitable. And, years later, she endured this harsh treatment from a German physician. Dr. Kurt Eissler, in his powerful article “Perverted Psychiatry” in the American Journal of Psychiatry (1967), cites instances of reparations exams performed by appointed German psychiatrists:
“A Jewish woman aged 23 years lost her father and two younger sisters upon arrival in Auschwitz. She went through four concentration camps in which she often had to collect corpses. Amongst her complaints during examination were lack of initiative, difficulty in concentrating, poor memory and hypermnestic preoccupation with traumatic events. The psychiatrist’s diagnosis was ‘anxiety neurosis, unconnected with the persecution.’
“A woman was interviewed whose parents, brother, three sisters with their children, husband and 8-year-old daughter had been killed during the course of the persecutions. She herself spent years in a ghetto and in several concentration camps and had frequently been beaten to unconsciousness. She complained of depression, anxiety, phobia, feelings of guilt. The doctor denied any connection between these symptoms and the experience of persecution. He included in his report, ‘despite such grave experiences, of which no one is spared, most people continue their lives and have no chronic depressions.’”
It may stretch belief, but these psychiatrists frequently attributed the excruciating symptoms of atrocity to the patient’s prewar personality or to that of their upbringing.
It is no wonder that children who survived the Shoah all but disappeared into their own lives. The few who tried to talk were told that, as children, they had no memories and, therefore, did not suffer; or, if it looked like they were suffering, were told to forget it and get on with their lives. The comparative few who applied for compensation were humiliated and shamed again.
I got on with my life. My Holocaust preoccupations never stopped. I did not let on. But, when I presented myself for a Dutch restitution program to personally experience the process, the examiner, a pleasant lady representing the Netherlands, asked me why I thought I should seek compensation. After all, her Dutch husband had been a child during the war and he did not need any help. She did not even recognize that her non-Jewish husband suffered neither loss of family nor required hiding, at risk of discovery and death. Yes, he was hungry also.
As protocol dictated, she referred me for a psychological interview. I felt confident. After all, I was a 60-year-old professor of psychiatry, successful in my career and with a lovely family. I was asked the reason for my assessment and then I cried for two hours. I remained in therapy for five years.
I became deeply involved in the self-discovery of child survivors and our emergence as a distinct group of Holocaust survivors that culminated in the 1991 Hidden Child Conference in New York. From 1982, I worked with Prof. Sarah Moskovitz, author of Love Despite Hate, concerning 24 child survivors found in Terezin and brought to England for their recovery, and followed up by her nearly 40 years later. In 1982-83, I helped found the Los Angeles Child Survivor group and we began to write about child Holocaust survivors and their coping skills and adaptation.
In the course of that work, we defined child survivors generally as those children who were aged 16 and under by 1945, and we also examined restitution issues concerning children.
In 1998, Sarah and I coordinated a survey of child survivors to inquire about their experiences for war-related consequences. One thousand questionnaires were sent out. At that time, child survivors were aged mid-50s to mid-60s and were asked, “As you look back on your life, how do you think you were affected by your Holocaust experiences in childhood, physically, socially, emotionally, educationally and economically?” Six hundred and sixty-four child survivors responded.
The general findings revealed a staggering number of separations from parents with three-quarters of fathers and two-thirds of mothers never returning. More than half of respondents lost both parents.
Three-quarters of the child survivors in this survey reported themselves to have suffered serious to severe lifelong effects emotionally as a result of their traumatic past.
With respect to restitution, there were at that time, six main road blocks to obtaining restitution.
- Missed deadlines: Many children did not know how to make claims. Nor did they know if their families had property or insurance. Children placed in adoptive or foster homes were not in touch with the community. They were taught not to think of themselves as survivors. When they did, it was too late to apply. According to our survey, over half never applied or had applied and been rejected. One third of those who applied received a one-time lump sum payment, one half of them less than $700 US.
- Documentation requirements: In most cases, young children had neither the knowledge nor resources to obtain proof of country of origin, birth certificates, death certificates or names of witnesses. As one respondent stated, “First they killed my family and now they want proof that they existed.”
- Time requirements for those in hiding or in ghettos: In order to qualify, a child was required to have been in closed hiding (confined) for 18 months. “Open” hiding (able to be outside) did not warrant restitution – as if these children had not also suffered loss of home, family, identity and religion, leaving them with feelings of abandonment, identity confusion and loyalty conflicts. A 1987 study by Moskovitz had also revealed that over one half of child survivors in hiding were harshly treated, beaten, and one in five were sexually abused.
- Time requirements for six months in concentration camp: In Treblinka and Majdanek, young children were unlikely to live more than one day. In Auschwitz, the majority of adults lived no longer than three months. It raises the question, “How many days in Auschwitz are required for the experience to have left its mark on a child?”
- The means test: One’s economic status was required to be at poverty level, precisely the persons who cannot afford legal advice or the resources to pursue rightful compensation. Even today, the annual net income for residents of Canada to meet the income eligibility requirement for a monthly pension is $29,103.
- Requirement to be interviewed by German psychiatrists: Under certain circumstances, such as continuation of pension, an interview is arranged with a German psychiatrist rather than simply a board-certified psychiatric practitioner. This raises a single question: Where any Jewish child survived the Nazi occupation, what could possibly be grounds for discontinuing a pension? Each and every child has suffered enormous losses, profound disruptions, fear and malnourishment, and lifelong consequences.
To summarize, in our survey, child survivors reported themselves, despite personal successes and achievements, as seriously and permanently affected to this day: emotionally, 81 percent; socially, 69 percent; educationally, 66 percent; physically, 67 percent; economically, 65 percent.
We are 15 years beyond our 1999 survey and child survivors are now aged mid-70s to mid-80s. And, for many, the war’s memories are returning to cripple them once again. For those persons who have had reasonably normal lives, childhood recollections are a nostalgic review of mostly cherished memories. For child Holocaust survivors, it is a trip back into bottomless despair.
It should be noted that in Los Angeles this year there is a shortfall of $1.1 million for the care of Holocaust survivors. This is being raised by the local Jewish community. A typical account follows:
“I am a 78-year-old survivor of the Holocaust. I was a child during the Nazi occupation and I was hidden in the countryside by a Christian farm family. Both of my parents perished in German concentration camps. I immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s.
“I live on a limited income. I receive $800 in monthly income from social security and a $1,100 monthly pension from Holland. I rent a small apartment on the west side of Los Angeles that costs $1,180 per month. I have a lot of medical bills related to hearing loss, arthritis and psychiatric care relating to chronic depression.
“Last year, I was granted about $4,800 from the Holocaust Survivors in Urgent Need Fund. This was a life saver for me. I used the funds to cover dental work and bills relating to my apartment. I am feeling much better and able to eat and chew without pain.”
I suggest you view those who express need with compassion. Do not humiliate them with seeking proof beyond establishing they lived under the Nazi domination and survived. And do what is right and just to ensure their remaining years are dignified.
Remember that it is not only about establishing a degree of
financial security. It is also about assuring a measure of justice. And justice demands an official acknowledgement by responsible governments, particularly those that collaborated in the murders of my people.
It is growing late in the day. Our sun is setting.
Help financing new startups
Starting a small business can be an exciting prospect that brings with it the potential to be your own boss, follow your passion and create passive income for retirement.
But even the best ideas that generate strong markets can fail if the financial structure doesn’t have a solid foundation. That’s why every new-business owner should make their first priority collecting advice from experts in business planning.
This is especially true if you are looking for startup capital. Most people think three options – personal, family/friends or a bank – are the only sources of funding available. Often overlooked are specific small-business loans and grants from the federal government.
Eli Joseph, a senior account manager, business and personal, with RBC, is often surprised at how few people know about government funding options.
Joseph works with businesses on day-to-day banking, as well as lending solutions through the Canada Small Business Financing Loan (CSBFL) or the Business Development Bank of Canada.
Clients who fall in the “small business” category typically have gross sales under $2 million, with fewer than 15 employees, and who need loans up to $250,000.
“Ninety-eight percent fall under this category,” he said.
The CSBFL has very specific applications, however, such as investing in new equipment or trucks, buying furniture or expanding a business. It won’t cover the cost of hiring staff, a franchise fee or planning a marketing campaign. For that, Joseph suggests looking at a line of credit.
But even before signing up for some fresh cash, Joseph cautions business owners to take stock of where they are.
“Ninety percent start their business asking for money,” said Joseph. “I try to slow down the conversation, I ask, ‘Do we have a business here?’ There were three examples where we had to slow it down and go through the numbers; in all three, after doing footwork, they realized they didn’t have a valid business.
“That’s where people jump the gun – they haven’t done the research; and they don’t have a business plan.”
Tax planner Alexei Schwartzman also underlines how important it is to get professional advice before heading too far into the business.
“It is important to involve someone who understands the tax implication of the business, but it’s essential to get someone involved before the business is officially running,” he said. “Often people do not think of asking the questions until they are already operational and, by that point, it might be too late for certain things.”
This is particularly important if your business has an innovative component that might be eligible for tax credits through the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Tax Incentive Program (also known as SR&ED). Businesses wanting to take advantage of this government credit need to incorporate before incurring research and development costs. A good tax consultant can help determine if the cost of incorporation and filing SR&ED tax returns, which can be substantial, will be worth the actual money saved.
Also be sure to look at the Public Works and Government Services Canada’s Build in Canada Innovation Program (buyandsell.gc.ca), as well as the National Research Council Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/ irap/index.html). Both of these have loans and grants that help kickstart businesses to get their innovative products and services from the lab to the marketplace.
No matter what type of funding you’re looking for, both Schwartzman and Joseph agree that the biggest mistakes business owners make are not having a business plan, not doing proper market research or trying to do everything themselves rather than turning for advice to experts who have already done the legwork.
For general information on government loans/tax credits for small business, contact Rob McGarry, concierge service, National Research Council Canada, c/o Small Business BC, 601 West Cordova St., 604-499-2804, [email protected], concierge.portal.gc.ca.
Baila Lazarus teaches media communications at Small Business BC. Register for her courses at phase2coaching.com.
Upcoming Events
- Oct. 17, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.: Small Business Advice-A-Thon, presented by Benchmark Law, Guildford Golf and Country Club, Surrey. eventbrite.com/o/benchmark-law-corporation-7221486009.
- Oct. 30: Money Money Money: How to Get It, Manage It and Grow It, a keynote session highlighting how to access different levels of financing to support your business, presented by Futurpreneur as part of the all-day SOHO SME Business Expo at the Sheraton Wall Centre. vancouversme.soho.ca.
- Nov. 6, 13 and 20, 10:30 a.m.-noon: How to Do Business with the Federal Government, three-part series at Small Business BC, 601 West Cordova St. smallbusinessbc.ca/seminars.
Radical innovation requires changes to law
Left to right: Bo Rothstein, CFHU Vancouver president Randy Milner, Prof. Michal Shur-Ofry and Justice Bruce Cohen. (photo by Michelle Dodek)
The main boardroom at Farris was full of lawyers who had come to hear Prof. Michal Shur-Ofry of the law faculty at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Oct. 6 event began with a brief presentation by University of British Columbia law professor Christie Ford on her experience at Hebrew University in the spring as part of the Mitchell Gropper Law Faculty Professorship Exchange. Bo Rothstein, a partner at Farris, gave a warm welcome and introduced the keynote speaker, an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property (IP).
Shur-Ofry’s lecture was titled From Newton to Shechtman: Can Intellectual Property Facilitate Nonlinear Innovation? She told the story of Dr. Dan Shechtman, an Israeli researcher who observed “quasicrystals” in 1982, a discovery that scientists were convinced was impossible; Shechtman nearly lost his career as a result of publishing his findings. In 2011, however, he was vindicated when he was awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry for this discovery. The dramatic story of this Israeli Nobel laureate illustrates aspects of nonlinear innovation, those that shift existing paradigms.
Another example of such a paradigm shift, said Shur-Ofry, was the introduction of cubism by the artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Their movement away from the representational depictions that had previously dominated art was at first ridiculed. Once accepted, however, their innovative contributions became a crucial building block of 20th-century art and beyond.
The world is currently biased against radical innovators, Shur-Ofry maintained, but she believes that “a de-biasing mechanism” is possible through IP law. This area of law, which encompasses copyright and patent law, can help artists, scientists and other innovators to be brave and to contribute their novel innovations without the kinds of risk taken by the Picassos or Shechtmans, she said.
“If an artist first sells a piece for just $900, and then it is resold for $85,000, the artist is entitled to a share of that sale price.”
Citing droit de suite, a law adopted by the European Union and 70 other countries that gives artists protection by entitling them to part of the proceeds of subsequent sales of their art, Shur-Ofry explained by way of example, “If an artist first sells a piece for just $900, and then it is resold for $85,000, the artist is entitled to a share of that sale price.” She acknowledged that while this type of remuneration exacts a cost on doing business, its benefit to artists who are innovators can drive others to produce novel works, instead of commercially proven, formulaic art.
It is this type of law, along with other incentives to inventors, that Shur-Ofry champions. She described patent laws that would grant access to the successful results of works protected through patents, as well as the “negative knowledge” that results in even greater innovation and discovery. Great problems are often solved by discovering an error in the paradigm, she explained. Therefore, access to the challenges and roadblocks in developing technologies may be the key to solving even greater problems. She said that she hopes to convince lawmakers that changing IP laws will encourage non-linear innovation and be universally beneficial.
The Mitchell Gropper Law Faculty Professorship Exchange facilitates annual exchange between Hebrew University and UBC law professors, and enables annual lectures by visiting Hebrew University law professors. For more information about the exchange or the programming of CFHU in Vancouver, visit cfhu.org or contact executive director Dina Wachtel at 604-257-5133.
Sexual harassment still a problem
When Winnipeg lawyer Yude Henteleff tried to change the way in which sexual harassment was viewed in Canada 25 years ago, he had hoped for more change by 2014.
At the time, he was the judge appointed to a case that involved a waitress who was being sexually harassed by another employee at the restaurant where she worked. After going to the owner of the restaurant and asking for his help and getting nowhere, she turned to the courts. While her case followed another with similarities, which ruled that the accused was not guilty, her case landed in Henteleff’s courtroom.
In Janzen v. Platy Enterprises Ltd. (1989), Henteleff found in favor of the plaintiff. His verdict was 144 pages long and included substantial evidence to support his decision, which he hoped would help the case stand the test of time.
The case went through appeals that won but, in the end, it went on to the Supreme Court of Canada, where the verdict was reinstated. It has since been referred to more than 500 times in cases and verdicts throughout Canada.
Henteleff would be the first to say that we have a long way to go until sexual harassment disappears from the Canadian landscape, as it “continues to happen every day to hundreds of thousands of girls and women around the world to an extent that never seems to diminish.
“There are many instances that one can point to, which seem to indicate that, at least in Canada, as a result of the decision in Janzen v. Platy and other decisions which have since occurred dealing with the issue of sexual harassment, that, indeed, positive transformation has occurred – and that is marvelous,” he said.
“On the other hand, when you read recent studies, you really have to sit up and take notice that so much more has to be done, that sexual harassment is still rampant and widespread. We have legislation passed against bullying and the like, but why do these attitudes still persist to such a degree that it’s still so much to the continued disadvantage of women and girls?”
At the time of his Janzen v. Platy decision, Henteleff awarded lost wages plus exemplary damages to each of the two women. He did so because he “felt the economic consequences, amongst others, to women being sexual harassed was quite severe and no previous case I’d read had taken that into account. And, I thought it was about time that employers realized that, not only would they lose a case, but they would lose money out of their pocketbooks.
“Ultimately, I felt it was the strongest message one could give to potential harassers – that, hey you know what, this is going to cost you and you better think twice about doing what you’re doing or think twice about not speaking with your employees in such a way, that they wouldn’t continue to harass co-employees.”
Henteleff added, “When it was appealed to the Court of Queen’s Bench the first instance, they reduced it [the financial aspect] quite considerably,” he said. “When it went to the Court of Appeal, they reduced it even more, to the point where it just became a light slap on the wrist.
“The fact that, for the first time ever, the Supreme Court of Canada not only dealt with this issue, but dealt with it in a way that made it very clear sexual harassment was simply not acceptable.”
Henteleff views the current legislation and policies at various workplaces as quite adequate. But, he said, “Where the fault lies is in attitude. Attitudes have to be changed. The only way you can change it effectively is within the school system and that isn’t being done. But, it also has to be with society as a whole. Why school systems have been so resistant, why faculties of education have been so resistant, is a real puzzle to me.”
While Henteleff acknowledged that nowhere else in the world is doing a better job than Canada with respect to dealing with sexual harassment, he said, “We know it’s bad enough here and that should be enough for us to say we need to do much more than we’ve been doing so far to deal with this problem.”
As for Dianna Janzen, she continues to share her experience, because she knows from her work with Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund that the issue is very much alive.
“She is an example of how a young woman who wasn’t the least bit active in this area has become active because of her own personal experience,” said Henteleff about Janzen. “She isn’t afraid to share all the nuances of it, which shows a great deal of courage on her part.
“On the other hand, we know of thousands of women to whom this happened that are scarred forever, who remain silent, where it continues to eat at them because of how horrible that experience is to them psychologically, emotionally and physically. There are many statistics as to the long-term consequences, the negative ones, the serious ones, on women who suffer sexual harassment. They still have to deal, for the rest of their lives, with this horrific, horrible experience.
“One of the greatest problems facing mankind and womankind,” he continued, “is exemplified by the continued horrible violence against women – and this is because of attitudes rooted in thoughts and ideas that should no longer be parts of who we are as a society.
“Human beings have been searching for human rights, harmony, equality, respect and dignity for all. What we’ve done post-Janzen v. Platy falls far short of achieving these objectives for women and girls.”
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
Untangling the womb maze
Fluid-filled structures in the placenta. (photo from wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il)
The fetus in the womb totally depends on the blood bond with the mother. Spotting irregularities in the flow across the placenta could therefore be crucial for detecting fetal distress,
but currently no reliable method is available for monitoring the flow or detecting other signs of the distress in its early stages.
Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, can be safely performed during pregnancy, but currently available MRI methods are not suitable. Problems include the motion of the fetus or mothers’ breath, the varied structure of placental tissue and the tangled maze formed by maternal and fetal blood vessels.
In a new study in mice conducted with advanced MRI methods, Weizmann Institute scientists have now revealed in unprecedented detail the dynamics of the flow of fluids within the placenta. This feat was all the more impressive, as a mouse placenta is around the size of a dime. As reported recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they managed to identify three different types of fluid-filled structures: maternal blood vessels, which account for two-thirds of blood flow in the placenta; fetal vessels, which account for about one-quarter of the flow; and embryo-derived cells infiltrating the mother’s vasculature, which account for the rest of the flow and in which the exchange of fluids between mother and fetus takes place. The researchers also found that in maternal vessels, blood flows by diffusion, whereas in fetal vessels, the flow, stimulated by the pumping of the growing fetus’ heart, is much faster. In the cells that have infiltrated the mother’s vasculature, the dynamics of the flow follows an intermediate pattern, driven by both diffusion and pumping.
Two sophisticated MRI methods were combined to enable the study: one geared toward monitoring diffusion and another directed at identifying structures with the help of a contrast material. They could be applied successfully in large part thanks to an innovative scanning approach, spatiotemporal encoding (SPEN), a Weizmann Institute technique. Because SPEN is ultra-fast and makes it possible to separately encode signals from such different materials as air or fat, it allowed the researchers to overcome disturbances created by movement and the variability of placental tissue. If developed further for safe and reliable use in humans, this combined approach holds great promise as a noninvasive means of detecting fetal distress caused by disruptions in the placental flow. It can be particularly valuable when fast decisions about inducing labor need to be made, for example, in such complications of pregnancy as preeclampsia.
The study was a joint effort of two laboratories: one headed by Prof. Michal Neeman of the biological regulation department and the other by Prof. Lucio Frydman of the chemical physics department. The research was performed by two graduate students, Reut Avni from Neeman’s lab and Eddy Solomon from Frydman’s lab, together with Ron Hadas and Dr. Tal Raz of the biological regulation department, and Dr. Peter Bendel of chemical research support, in collaboration with Prof. Joel Richard Garbow from Washington University in St. Louis.
For more Weizmann news, visit wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il.
Soup ladled with love
Sharon Hapton (photo from Random House of Canada)
When she first got together with friends to make soup for women and children fleeing domestic abuse in Calgary, Sharon Hapton recalled how the chef at the shelter broke down in tears when she saw their delivery of kosher-style chicken soup.
“The reason the chef was overcome with emotion was that there were Jewish women at the shelter at that time, and she knew how much it would mean to them,” she explained.
Hapton and her friends were overcome, too, but more with surprise than anything else. They were stunned to learn the shelter was accommodating Jewish women. “Not one of us had thought we were making soup for someone in our own community,” she admitted. “It was a humbling and defining moment to know that domestic abuse crosses all cultures.”
That was five years ago and since then Hapton has been busy with Soup Sisters and Broth Brothers, her nonprofit social enterprise that organizes soup-making events in some 20 cities nationwide. She visited Vancouver on Oct. 8 to launch her second cookbook, The Soup Sisters and Broth Brothers Cookbook, featuring soup recipes by acclaimed B.C. chefs, including Vikram Vij, Karen Barnaby, Rob Feenie and Lesley Stowe, among others. Hapton’s favorite, though, is the recipe she grew up with, her mother’s potato leek soup. “There’s so much memory and nostalgia in it, it’s really delicious, simple and beautiful,” she says of the recipe.
The mandate for Hapton’s organization is to nurture and nourish women and children fleeing domestic abuse and family violence and seeking shelter in some 30 shelters across the country, including those in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, TriCities, Kelowna, Victoria and soon Penticton, too. Participants pay $55 to attend an event in partnership with a cooking school, where they help to make up to 200 servings of soup under the guidance of a chef facilitator. Afterwards, participants enjoy a meal of soup, salad, bread and wine with other cooks in the kitchen. “It’s a night out where you learn about the shelter you’re supporting and enjoy the camaraderie in the kitchen,” Hapton said. Ninety-five percent of the participation fee goes to the culinary partner, which supplies the ingredients and the kitchen where the soup is made. By uniting with a culinary partner the organization ensures participants will receive good service, fresh ingredients and operational excellence as they make their soup.
Since March 2009, more than 500,000 servings of soup have been delivered to Canadian shelters, thanks to a network of 12,000 participants. Hapton said the need in women’s emergency shelters is endless. “Most of those shelters are unfortunately always full, typically with up to 50 women and children at any time.”
Soup Sisters and Broth Brothers has also been supporting youth in crisis, specifically kids aged 16 to 24 who are transitioning from being street involved. While women being housed in the shelters don’t tend to communicate much to the organization (perhaps because of security concerns, or the stigma associated with being a victim of domestic abuse), the kids are really communicative, she said. “We receive letters from them with thanks, telling us how the soup made them feel, and the results of a simple, simple gift are very tangible.”
Batches of fresh soup are delivered in containers adorned with handwritten labels. Quantities are supplied to last until the next event when soup is made, which can be up to a month away.
“My experience of being a soup maker led me to understand that soup is a very powerful way of taking care of people,” Hapton reflected. “I believed very strongly five years ago that this could be something bigger, and that’s exactly what has happened now.”
These days, she receives emails from people all over Canada who have heard or read about the program. When new communities show an interest in starting the program, she asks to meet three main coordinators for each group and helps them implement it.
“Every city, big or small, has a shelter,” she said. And many of them are now being supplied with tasty, fresh, regular batches of soup.
In Vancouver, Soup Sisters supplies soup to Kate Booth House, Imouto Housing for Young Women and Koomseh transition house, in partnership with the Dirty Apron Cooking School. The next soup-making event is Jan. 25, at 11 a.m. For more information, visit soupsisters.org or email [email protected].
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
No more ice scraping
Who would have thought a solution to ice stickiness would come from a semi-tropical country like Israel?
Prof. Hanna Dodiuk heads up the department of polymers and plastics engineering at Shenkar College in Ramat Gan. She specializes in adhesion and adhesives science and technology, characterization and formulation of polymer adhesives, special coatings, surface and interfaces analysis, nanotechnology and aging of polymeric materials.
Born in 1948 in Krakow, Poland, to two Schindler’s List Holocaust survivors, the family made aliyah to Israel in 1949. Dodiuk served in the air force, and then studied chemistry at Tel Aviv University. In 1979, she joined the Israeli Armament Development Authority (ADA), also known as Rafael. From September 1991 to June 1997, Dodiuk was the ADA’s director of its materials and processes department.
Her research led to the creation of a surface to which ice cannot stick, a material she created while on sabbatical with a large bio company in Germany. “They invited me to develop surfaces that don’t adhere to anything, that are easy to clean, and that have super-hydrotropic surfaces,” she said. The company needed this to develop what Dodiuk referred to as “a microfluidic machine.”
“This small machine can only work with very small water droplets at minus-12 degrees,” she said. “To take such a little amount, you have to ensure the fluid is not absorbed on the surfaces.”
In her research, Dodiuk turned to biology and nature, studying how leaves react with water.
“While most leaves are weighted by water, lotus leaves, even if in mud and water, aren’t, so they remain fresh and clean forever,” she said.
Using a high-resolution microscope, Dodiuk found that the morphology of the lotus leaf is very unique. “It has small mountains of microns that have a very small circle in the diametre of a nano range, which is 10 to minus-nine metres. A water drop cannot enter the width between two nano particles, so it begins to fall off and slide. Therefore, the water doesn’t add weight.”
Dodiuk said this is not a new chemistry concept. It has been used in Teflon-like materials for years. But, while Teflon works well with oil, water can still get it wet and weigh it down.
Early on, Dodiuk found great success with the lotus leaf. Three years into the research, ADA asked her to help create a super-hydrotropic coating usable on glass to prevent ice from interfering with navigational systems by sticking and blocking the view. Dodiuk found a lab that would allow her to imitate ice adhesion in Quebec, where she conducted the experiments.
“We’re the only [technology] in the world that can reduce the adhesion of ice,” said Dodiuk. “You cannot avoid it totally, but you can reduce by a factor of 18. If you reduce the adhesion of ice by a factor of 18, you really avoid ice adhesion.”
This surface has numerous significant applications. “Airplane wings can take off, but the special coating that was so great at reducing the adhesion of ice was simply not durable,” she said. “If, for example, they were to apply very high winds, it would start coming off and nano particles would be lost, as the adhesion of the micro and nano particles wasn’t good.
“With the lotus plant, if its surface is damaged, it will repair itself. But, technology doesn’t know [how] to repair itself, so they had to find another solution. That is when the University of Massachusetts stepped in with funding and lab facilities.”
Aided by two university students in the plastics engineering department working to create a special film with the right properties at a very low cost, Dodiuk said they are now halfway to completion. The final product will be a stick-on film, like Scotch tape, but with nano particles on one side, not visible to the naked eye. It will be able to be applied to anything, from windows and wings of airplanes to car windows during the winter.
“We always laugh at the end of the day,” said Dodiuk. “Israel [doesn’t] have an ice-adhesion problem, yet we invented the solution.
“Once you talk about super-isophobic, easy-cleaning or self-cleaning [technologies], everyone is sold.
“Even with textile, it would be one that never gets dirty. For things to get dirty, the dirt has to adhere. If you avoid adhesion, you’ll stay clean forever. Can you imagine not needing to wash your things, as nothing will adhere to [them]?”
“Can you imagine all of New York and Vancouver never needing to be cleaned?”
The potential application possibilities are endless and multi-directional, with spin-offs that can be used in elemental technology, like car or high-rise windows with no need to clean off dust or dirt. “Can you imagine all of New York and Vancouver never needing to be cleaned?” asked Dodiuk.
“With this special coating, those windows will remain totally clean. Just a little bit of rain will take off all the dust. The rain won’t stick to the window, only to the dust.”
Through it all, Dodiuk emphasized, she succeeded in accomplishing all of this work, to date, in a “male-dominated environment. I really think [women] should go into science and technology. [Many women] are going into many areas today, but not science and technology.”
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
Doctor trailblazes in Toronto
With its Centre for Bedouin Studies and Development, Israel’s Ben-Gurion University (BGU) encourages Bedouin students to enrol at the Negev university by providing financial assistance and programming aimed at retention and academic success. One of the first students to go through the BGU program is Dr. Rania Okby, who is currently doing a fellowship in advanced obstetrics in Toronto.
At the young age of six, Okby, who was born in Be’er Sheva, decided she wanted to become a pediatrician, because, she said, “I really loved my pediatrician. I never had any problems going there when I was a kid, and I kind of wanted to be like her.”
Okby’s parents divorced when her father expressed his desire to marry another woman. “Polygamy is a common practice in the Bedouin community,” she told the Independent. “About 30 percent of Bedouin women are in a polygamy system. My mom didn’t agree to that. She said, ‘OK, whatever, you want to get married? OK. But, I’m going to leave the house.’ She left the house with six kids – four girls and two boys.”
Okby, while in high school, spent one day a week at BGU, part of the university’s recruitment programs for Bedouin high school students. One such program, Seeds of Medicine, helps identify the best students, those who have a chance to be accepted into medical school.
“We were two female students who did very well in the project,” said Okby. “We went through interviews like other candidates for medical school. And, that’s how I became a medical student.”
In her first year in medical school, Okby had the opportunity to help deliver a baby. “I remember how it felt to be part of giving birth, dealing with birth and helping women … so, I fell in love with obstetrics and gynecology … and that’s how I decided to do that,” she said.
As it happened, Okby went on to become the first female Bedouin doctor in the world.
“My whole family was proud I was accepted,” she said. “They saw how hard I worked. I studied in high school five days a week and then I went another day to study in the university. And, you know what? On the seventh day, I would volunteer on a few projects.”
Financing was not an issue, as BGU covered expenses and the university is supporting Okby while she is doing her fellowship in Toronto.
“Being at the university at large, the fact that there’s more and more Bedouins going to BGU – especially girls – because of the Centre for Bedouin Studies, connects the Jewish community with the Bedouin community in an interesting way,” said the doctor.
The way Okby sees it, “If you’re more exposed to different people or cultures, you understand that they are human beings, just like you. It doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish, right? So, being exposed to one another at the university, for sure, makes it better. And the more educated people are, the more they will hopefully accept one another.
“There are many friendships between Arabs, Bedouins and Jews. It’s normal, because if you’re in contact with people, you become more comfortable with them. There’s a lot of Jews who volunteer in the Bedouin community, and there are some Bedouin who volunteer in the Jewish community – not necessarily in their own community.”
What is paramount in Okby’s mind is, “Education, education, education. To become equal, we have to first become empowered. Bedouins suffer from very low social economic, education and health status … everything is lower. So, to become equal, we have to be empowered.”
Life in Toronto
During the first two months Okby was living in Toronto, a friend stayed with her, and the doctor’s mom also joined her during the second month. Since September, Okby has been living on her own, along with her two daughters, in an area referred to as “the Kibbutz.”
According to Okby, “There are about 35-40 families, Israeli families, in the area, and 97 percent of them are Jewish. Most of them are doctors who came to do their clinical fellowships, but some of them are post-doc. We live in the same area and most of our kids go to the same school, so the older kids help the new kids adapt to school.”
Okby’s youngest daughter just started Grade 1, and the parents had a party for all their kids who were starting first grade.
“Now, during Sukkot, everyone is celebrating,” said the doctor. “On exchange day, everyone who has things they don’t need brings them, and everyone picks what they need. We support each other, help each other, do trips and Friday night dinners together.”
Understanding the issues
Bedouins make up 25 percent of the Negev population. But, Okby said, “In labor and delivery, we’re about 55 percent, because we give birth to a lot of kids (the average is six to seven kids), we suffer from a lot of gynecological problems, we have a high rate of relative marriages and we have a high rate of malformation.
“We have three times the rate of neonatal deaths compared to the Jewish population. Forty percent of that is due to malformation, which is a result of relative marriages. Bedouin women [also] suffer from postpartum depression – 30 percent compared to 10 percent in Jewish society.
“It’s similar to the indigenous people here, in Canada. We have many of the same problems as the aboriginals.” This is one factor Okby plans to focus on when she returns to Israel. “The university is very interested in the issue, too,” said the doctor. “Maybe we’ll have a minorities health department or something like that to research it further, to make the situation even better for those kids and mothers.”
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.