Left to right: Laureen Harper looks on as her husband receives a ceremonial souvenir key from the Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein in the Knesset’s Chagall Room. (photo by Ashernet)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife, Laureen, to Israel earlier this week, acclaiming him as “a great friend of the Jewish state.” During his official four-day visit to Israel, Harper addressed the Knesset and also held a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. This was Harper’s first visit to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomes Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at Ben Gurion Airport. (photo by Ashernet)
During his speech to the Knesset, Harper spoke out strongly in defence of Israel. “People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world, instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East,” he said. “This is twisted logic and outright malice. Some civil-society leaders today call for a boycott of Israel – most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state. Think about that. Think about the twisted logic and outright malice behind that. A state, based on freedom, democracy and the rule of law, that was founded so Jews can flourish as Jews and seek shelter from the shadow of the worst racist experiment in history,” he said.
“But what else can we call criticism that selectively condemns only the Jewish state and effectively denies its right to defend itself while systematically ignoring – or excusing – the violence and oppression all around it? This is the face of the new antisemitism. It targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel and attempts to make the old bigotry acceptable for a new generation.”
The Canadian prime minister received a standing ovation after addressing the members of Knesset on Monday, Jan. 20. (photo by Ashernet)
He continued, “Canada will defend Israel’s right to exist, because Jewish people deserve their own homeland after generations of persecution. Jewish people deserve to live safely and peacefully in that homeland. And, just as Canada supports Israel’s right to self-defence, Canada supports a just and secure future for the Palestinian people.” Earlier that day, Harper announced a $66 million aid package for the Palestinians.
Collect postal history and you learn not just how mail has traveled in years past, but also how people lived and functioned. Just ask Ed Kroft, a collector and historian of postal history from Israel who was recently awarded the 2013 Leslie Reggel Memorial Award by the Society of Israel Philatelists (SIP) for his outstanding contributions to Israel philately.
Lawyer Ed Kroft, an avid stamp collector, was granted the 2013 Leslie Reggel Memorial Award by the Society of Israel Philatelists.
Kroft is a Vancouver tax lawyer and ardent collector of postal history who started collecting stamps at the tender age of 10. “My teacher at Associated Hebrew Day Schools in Toronto, Ed Deutsch, would bring his stamp collection to school to show us, and he focused on the stamps of Israel,” he recalled. “We formed a stamp club at school and later, I worked at a stamp store to put myself through university.”
Stamp collecting has changed significantly over the years, as many people have moved from soaking stamps off the paper they were used on, to collecting postal history and learning to understand the postmarks and information on the envelopes that contain those stamps.
“Postal history tells a story about how mail has traveled, which requires you to learn about the area, the population, how to read postmarks and envelopes,” he said. “The beauty of collecting postal history as opposed to collecting stamps is that you’re collecting different pieces of mail and trying to describe the history of the postal services.”
In a room filled with bookshelves containing the vast collection he’s amassed, Kroft has binders containing mail that originated in Israel but was destined for many different corners of the world, from New Zealand and Australia to South Africa, Argentina, the Caribbean islands, Brazil and Chile.
“As a Jew, I care about this because it’s interesting to see where Jews were at that time,” he said. “This collection gives me connections to Jewish culture and identity, Jewish history, geography, events, places, buildings and customs. This is part of our heritage, and we can’t let this history disappear.”
Kroft’s collection of mail from the Holy Land dates from the 1870s to the present day. From one binder, he pulled out an envelope inscribed by Ze’ev Jabotinsky to one of his relatives in 1918, and another written to Jabotinsky by his mother. There’s an envelope written by Captain Joseph Trumpeldor and another by Sir Moses Montefiore. While the letters are often no longer in those envelopes, the envelopes offer evidence about the passage of mail, Kroft explained.
The Society of Israel Philatelists is a nonprofit dedicated to studying and promoting Israel philately, with members all over the world. Kroft joined SIP in the mid-1970s and has been an active member ever since, currently serving as its president.
“My collection of Holy Land philately has helped me make many friends around the world who have common interests,” he said. “It’s taught me a lot about Judaism and brought to life things I learned when I was much younger.”
His collections include the history of Rishon LeZion from settlement through statehood, 1882-1948, a history of prisoners of war in 1948-1949, and the history of the Carmel Wine Co., among others. Each one tells a story through postal history, a story about which Kroft is passionate, eager to learn more about and committed to teaching others. “I’m honored to win the award,” he said. “The people who preceded me were extremely knowledgeable and great collectors.”
For now, he is intent on keeping the future of SIP bright by spreading information about its members and their work, and he is hoping to attract new collectors to its ranks.
Kroft will be speaking on The Relevance and Enjoyment of Philately, the Hobby of Stamp Collecting, to Jews in the 21st Century, on Jan. 30, 7:30 p.m., at Temple Sholom Synagogue.
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
The Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society will mark Vancouver Raoul Wallenberg Day on Jan. 19 with the screening of the documentary Nicky’s Family, about Holocaust hero Nicholas Winton.
Now 104 years old, Winton lives in England (where he was born). The story of his heroism during the Holocaust starts in 1938, when he was a stockbroker. Receiving a letter from a friend in Prague about the plight of Jews in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, he traveled there to assess the situation for himself. Shocked at what he witnessed, he established an organization to aid children from Jewish families, setting up office in his hotel room in Prague, from which he eventually expanded.
Nicky’s Family will be screened in Vancouver on Jan. 19.
The director of Nicky’s Family, Matej Minac, said in an interview on Czech Radio in 2003: “When he came here to Prague, and wanted to rescue all these children, and he had a plan how to do it, everybody was telling him – you know, it’s absurd. You can never manage it. The British won’t let the children in. The Gestapo won’t let the children out. You don’t have the money, so how do you want to do it? It’s crazy. And Winton said that anything that is reasonable can be achieved.”
After Kristallnacht, in November 1938, the British Parliament approved the entry of refugees younger than 17 into the country, if they had a place to stay and a warranty was paid. Knowing this, Winton left his friends in Prague to manage the gathering of the children there and returned to London, where he started a campaign to find foster homes and the necessary guarantees for as many children as he could.
Winton also organized for the Jewish children to be transported on trains and then on to ferries to England, where the foster families met them. The operation later became known as the Czech Kindertransport. It lasted until the official start of the Second World War on Sept. 1, 1939, by which time 669 of “his children” had arrived in England. He kept records of the names and addresses of the children, their parents and their foster families. Most of the Jewish parents in Prague perished during the Holocaust.
Winton never told anyone of this enterprise. Fifty years after the fact, his wife found a suitcase in the attic with all his wartime documentation. She contacted the BBC, and they sent letters to the addresses of the foster families. Several dozen people responded. Most of them didn’t know the identity of their rescuer. His “children” and their children and grandchildren now number more than 6,000.
A 1988 TV program about the reunion of Winton and dozens of the children he had saved started a snowball of recognition; among the honors, Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
In the late 1990s, Minac was searching for a theme for his next film. The Czech director read Pearls of Childhood by Vera Gissin, in which she mentions Winton and his rescue operation.
“I was astonished,” said Minac in the aforementioned radio interview. “That’s exactly what I needed for my story. I wrote a film treatment and I asked one lady, Alice Klimova, whether she could translate it into English. She said: ‘Matej, I think you have a few mistakes in your treatment, especially the scene in the train station, when the children are leaving for Britain.’ I said: ‘How do you know?’ And she said: ‘I know because I was one of those children, of Winton’s children…. I was only four-and-a-half years old. I don’t remember it so well. Why don’t you call Nicky, Nicky Winton?’ And I said: ‘How do you mean Nicky Winton? He’s still alive?’ She said: ‘Yes. He’d be very happy to talk to you, he’s a nice person, and I’m sure he would help.’ Two months later, I visited Nicky. We spent a beautiful afternoon together, and I knew that I can’t do only one film … but I will have to do also a documentary….”
In the end, Minac made three movies about Winton: one feature, All My Loved Ones (1999), the documentary The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton (2002), which won an Emmy Award, and Nicky’s Family (2011), which includes reenactments and never-before-seen archival footage, as well as interviews with Winton and a number of those he rescued.
The Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, which is hosting the Nicky’s Family screening and reception here, incorporated in April 2013, Deborah Ross-Grayman, one of the society’s founding members, told the Independent. “This was the natural outgrowth of the Raoul Wallenberg Day event, which began in 1986 with the placement of a plaque in Queen Elizabeth Park. It was revived on the 20th anniversary in 2006, as a cooperative event sponsored by the honorary Swedish consul, Anders Neumuller, and the Vancouver Second Generation Group…. We formed the society in order to be able to formally present an award for civil courage, and so acknowledge and support such heroic acts today.”
She added that approximately 50 diplomats from different countries risked their lives and careers to save the lives of Jews during the Second World War. “We have shown films highlighting the acts of Wallenberg, Sweden, and Chiune Sugihara, Japan, [whose visa saved Ross-Grayman’s mother’s life] as well as people from Chile, Portugal and Spain. Wallenberg saved approximately 100,000 people and Sugihara saved approximately 6,000. Their names stand as a symbol for all such courageous and heroic acts.”
Nicky’s Family will screen at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Rothstein Theatre on Jan. 19 at 1:30 p.m.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
