In March, Young Judaea’s Camp Solelim made headlines for turning away a prospective camper because he’s not Jewish. Before having made their final decision, I wish they would have spoken to Aaron Ingram. A Winnipeg-based real estate and corporate commercial lawyer, Aaron is by all accounts a leader in the Jewish community. He sits on the board of directors of Camp Massad of Manitoba as well as the Shalom Residences; he is a member of the Jewish Federation’s Community Relations Committee, he is a Jewish Federation donor and, as he describes it, is “a longtime supporter of the Jewish community and the state of Israel.”
Did I mention that Aaron is not Jewish?
Let’s back up to when Aaron was a chubby-cheeked, blond 5-year-old in 1989. That summer, he accompanied his mom who had taken a job as the head cook at Camp Massad in Winnipeg Beach, the Hebrew immersion camp that I also attended. Fast forward 18 years, and Aaron had logged 10 years as a camper and eight summers as a counselor, including two as assistant director. (His mom, Marilyn, is still head cook.)
A very agreeable kid with a big personality, as a youngster Aaron quickly landed leads in the camp plays. With no formal Hebrew background, his lines were transliterated for him. Soon enough, he acquired the services of a Hebrew tutor during the school year. By the time Grade 5 rolled around, he was enrolled in one of Winnipeg’s half-day Hebrew-immersion schools. In grades 7 and 8, he attended Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, the Jewish high school, where he earned a spot in the highest Hebrew level. He recalls being able to finally read the camp play scripts in Hebrew letters as a “big moment” for him.
“As a child growing up in the disadvantaged North End of Winnipeg,” Aaron told me in an e-mail interview, “my experiences in the Winnipeg Jewish community, being immersed in the wonderful environment that is Camp Massad, a world of creativity and intelligence, and the lifelong friendships that I have developed … have heavily influenced me.”
I asked Aaron whether he feels Jewish. Not religiously, he tells me; he is an atheist. (That there are Jewish atheists is admittedly a bit of complexity we didn’t get into.) But he considers himself culturally Jewish, and certainly a part of the Jewish community. “I have cried tears of despair in the death camps in Poland,” he tells me, “and have cried tears of joy upon my arrival in Israel.”
And were he to meet and marry a Jewish woman who wanted him to convert, he says he would do so “without hesitation.”
Aaron recalls his early experiences with daily and Shabbat prayers at Massad. “When I was a young camper, participating in the daily prayers and Shabbat tefillah, it felt like being handed the keys to a secret world that was welcoming me. I loved singing the prayers. I still know most, if not all, by heart.”
For his part, Aaron thinks Solelim’s decision to bar access to Tyler Weir is seriously misguided. As a board member at Camp Massad, he personally extended Tyler an invitation to join the Camp Massad community and offered to personally fundraise to offset the cost of airfare from Toronto to Winnipeg.
It’s clear that there’s a value clash between the particularist and insular dimensions of Jewish programming, and especially Jewish camp – fueled, no doubt, by the fear of intermarriage. On one hand is the need to inculcate culturally rich and rigorous experiences in our youth. On the other is the desire to fit in with Canadian multicultural values of openness and pluralism. Even there, though, multiculturalism relies on robust transmission of cultural identity, something that can most easily be achieved in a culturally homogeneous context, some would argue.
Yet, people like Aaron – and I join him in this sentiment – would claim that opening the windows a crack to those who might have their own reasons for wanting to partake of our rich communal traditions may yield unexpected benefits not only for them, but also for the communities of which they may seek to be a part.
Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the Canadian Jewish News.
When we see online memes saying that a Canadian is more likely to die from an interaction with a moose than a terrorist, we can justifiably relax and even admire the characteristics of a country where a gangly antlered mammal is more to be feared than the kind of ideological threats rampant around the world.
The moose meme is part of a campaign that views the federal government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as fear-mongering, trying to drive voters back to the Conservative party lest more “soft on terrorism” parties come to power in this fall’s election. The Conservatives’ weapon at hand is Bill C-51, which is seen by critics as a bludgeon against a mosquito.
It may be true that in the history of our country moose have been more deadly than terrorists, but times change. Moose are not mobilizing globally to attack civilians across the West. Vigilance tempered by pragmatism would seem to be in the Canadian tradition.
The difficulty of balancing overreaction with being prepared has been most evident in the mixed reaction to Bill C-51 from Canada’s opposition parties. Thomas Mulcair’s New Democrats voted against the bill; Justin Trudeau’s Liberals voted for it but Trudeau said he would make changes to the law if he forms government.
Canada has blessedly not suffered the magnitude of terrorist or hate-motivated violence seen in Europe recently, including the brutal Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cache attacks. But we have seen so-called “lone wolf” violence in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, where warrant officer Patrice Vincent was killed and another Canadian Forces personnel was injured, and in Ottawa, where Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was killed while standing guard at the War Memorial.
Barring a stunning reversal in a Conservative-dominated Senate, Bill C-51 will become law in the coming weeks. The legislation will make it easier for government departments to share information about Canadians across jurisdictional silos. It will also give police new powers to “preventatively” detain or restrict individuals who are suspected of plotting a terrorist act. It bans the “promotion of terrorism,” gives the public safety minister the right to add people to the country’s “no-fly list” and increases the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
CSIS is Canada’s spy agency and until now has had a role limited to observation. C-51 would expand that role to something called “disruptive” powers, allowing agents to act more directly in ways that are not fully spelled out.
Critics also fear a loss of individual privacy as, for example, tax information that is now secluded in the Canada Revenue Agency could be shared with other government departments.
These concerns are justified, particularly those that increase the powers of CSIS, which has been criticized for lacking adequate civilian oversight.
Some Canadian Jews, including the recently deceased Alan Borovoy, have been among Canada’s greatest civil libertarians and bulwarks against government overreach in individual lives. With a history deeply affected by totalitarian governments, some in our community may have a special sensitivity to legislation that threatens to impinge on individual rights. Because this is not an exact science, it will always be a matter for disagreement, with some arguing that security legislation goes too far and others declaring it absolutely necessary.
At the same time, though, terrorist attacks and hate crimes in Europe have been disproportionately directed toward Jewish people and institutions. Statistics on hate crime incidents in Canada also indicate that Jewish people and institutions are vulnerable to acts of hate in numbers disproportionate to population.
Most Canadians may be more vulnerable to a moose than a terrorist, but Jewish Canadians understand that terrorism needs to be taken seriously. Of course, so do civil liberties.
Canadians across the country will rally against Bill C-51 Saturday. Even so, it will almost certainly become law. When it does, concerned Canadians should pressure the government to improve civilian oversight of our spy agency, which is perhaps the most crucial measure needed to ensure the law does not lead to lawlessness by government officials.
We should also strengthen public vigilance by supporting organizations that monitor and measure government intrusions into private spheres, such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
And we should do all we can to ensure that Canada remains a place that is both safe from a collective standpoint – and secure in terms of our individual liberties.
What someone writes clearly says a lot about a person. And so do the books one chooses to translate. For Israeli books that make it abroad to an English-speaking audience, an important and sometimes overlooked subset of Israeli literary society is the translators themselves.
Himself an accomplished author based in Chicago (his newest book is a young adult novel called Me Being Me is Exactly as Insane as You Being You), as a translator, Todd Hasak-Lowy sees it as his mission to bring excellent and innovative literature to English speakers. Motti by Asaf Schurr (which also includes an afterword by Hasak-Lowy) is a good example. “You could change 30 words of it and you wouldn’t know it’s an Israeli book. It challenges what people think of about Israeliness. That’s a book I want Americans to read because it’s great Hebrew literature, someone who’s a product of that society, but it’s not Amos Oz.”
As an American who never made Israel his permanent home, Hasak-Lowy spent a year in Israel after high school, took some Hebrew in college, and then pinned himself to a seat in the library in graduate school deepening his Hebrew knowledge, before spending some additional time in the country. “When I graduated high school, I knew around 300 Hebrew words from summer camp; when I got to grad school, I was able to crawl through an early [A.B.] Yehoshua novel over 30 months,” and now he’s a sought-after translator who thinks carefully about which projects he seeks to take on.
Haim Watzman is a translator’s name I had long known, staring at me from the inside front page of some of the most formative books I read about Israel when I was younger, including David Grossman’s first two non-fiction books, The Yellow Wind and Sleeping on a Wire. The first in-depth look at the Palestinian experience of being under Israeli military occupation, The Yellow Wind brought the Palestinian narrative to an Israeli – and then to a worldwide – audience; Grossman’s follow-on treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel was similarly path-breaking.
Watzman and I spoke by Skype, as he and his wife, Ilana, prepared to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary with a trip to the Netherlands. In talking to Watzman about politics, style, culture and translation, there are some technical points I was reminded of. First, English translations of Hebrew books tend to run about 30% longer. The economics of this for publishers can be daunting, so sometimes translators suggest editorial cuts. Second, because of the gendered nature of the language, Hebrew can afford both more passive tense and longer, meandering sentences. As Hebrew writers have become accustomed to using the passive voice that English writers now eschew as being a bad habit, translators have to take on an editing role: fact-checking and at times asking the writer “who” did what, exactly? And as for long, drawn-out sentences, English readers prefer theirs short and breezy.
About The Yellow Wind, Watzman describes it as his “rookie” assignment, which he was fortunate to land. As an undergraduate at Duke University, Watzman had written a thesis on Palestinian citizens of Israel, and as a correspondent for the Chronicle of Higher Education covering Palestinian colleges in the West Bank, he felt it important to bring the Palestinian story abroad. And while he’s careful to insist that these are the author’s works, not his own, today he says he’d do some things differently in the translation. Though he thinks “the translation came out fine – the public loved it; the editors loved it,” he says he “was more deferential then. I’d probably be more demanding of the author today, in terms of needling him for clarifications and suggestions.” Stylistically, he pushed to change Grossman’s present tense to the past, and he chose to keep some Arabic terms in the English translation.
It wasn’t until years later and subsequent translation gigs – including Grossman’s (and other authors’) political petitions published in newspapers – that Grossman finally asked him whether he agrees with the thrust of his political messages. For the most part, Watzman does.
I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the fact that Watzman leans left-liberal while being Orthodox in his religious outlook. (His Twitter profile photo, for example, is a sketch of Grossman working with Watzman, the latter’s kippa dominating the foreground.) Watzman explains that he came to religious observance “gradually,” having been “very taken by Shabbat and the intellectual component, including the debate over texts.” Two things “didn’t work for him,” however: orthodoxy’s attitude towards women, and the tendency within the Orthodox community towards right-wing politics. “I wasn’t going to give up my political principles for religion.” In Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood, Watzman eventually found a like-minded community called Kehilat Yedidya.
And, while Watzman is committed to liberal democracy and human rights, he is no pacifist. Having tragically lost his son Niot in a military accident four years ago, Watzman tells me how he understands the military to be a necessity. Yet, while “Israel has to be vigilant and defend itself,” the country should be searching for peace through “accommodation and understanding.” He believes that “you can be both a Jewish nationalist and a liberal humanist. Not only is it possible, it is essential.” One could say that reading Israeli books, including new literature as well as the kind of searing non-fiction works that Grossman, Tom Segev and others have produced, captures this dualism perfectly: a nation committed to writing in its own land in its own language, while keeping tough questions in the foreground.
Mira Sucharovis an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.
If you’re a member of any law enforcement effort in North America these days you’re not exactly living the dream when it comes to respect.
Stories of corruption and abuse have littered the news the past couple of years with well-known cities like Ferguson and Baltimore fighting off large-scale riots as a result.
On social media it has become the norm to talk about police officers like they are ALL abusive, power-hungry brutes – a label that is a sad contrast to the post 9/11 world.
In Richmond last week, RCMP Corporal Kevin Krygier and his team put on a display that reminded many that the vast majority of our nation’s force are here for much more than crime and punishment. They are here for us.
This particular story started at Tait Elementary School, where Mike Ciu is a fourth-grade student with Down Syndrome. When Krygier visited the school this winter he met Mike, who helped give the corporal a tour of his school.
Soon after, Mike’s educational assistant, Marci Hammer, sent Krygier a video of Mike explaining that when he grew up he dreamed of being a police officer.
“I was so touched, I decided to make his dream a reality,” Krygier explained of what came next.
Krygier rallied his troops, connected with Hammer, started making some plans and put together an assembly presentation for Mike that blew his whole school away.
That day Mike Ciu was named an honorary Police Chief, given a uniform and marched into the gym with his new peers to roaring cheers from his younger peers. It was a day he and his family won’t soon forget.
Corporal Kevin Krygier and Mike Ciu
While the gesture turned into a nice community story, it was also a reminder that many of our uniformed defenders of the law are genuinely here to keep us safe AND make our lives better. So next time you hear a story of an officer abusing his power, share this one of our officers spreading the glory instead.
“I joined the RCMP to make a difference in people’s lives,” Krygier said. “I have done many things as part of the RCMP – some I have had to do and they have been sad and difficult. But this was so enjoyable for me and my colleagues. It took a lot of collaboration to make it happen, but comparably, it was easy and very meaningful for all of us who were involved.”
Rolling Stone magazine recently completely retracted a story purporting to delve into an incident of gang-rape on the campus of the University of Virginia. The story was so devoid of basic journalistic processes and fact-checking that it is destined to go down as an object lesson in journalism schools for years to come.
Other incidents, less egregious but still dubious, popped up in the last few days.
Social media was ablaze last week over news that the federal government was preparing to criminalize critics of Israel, specifically by applying Canada’s hate laws against supporters of BDS, the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel.
Advocates of free speech were up in arms – and rightly so. BDS is a movement that seeks the destruction of the state of Israel, in the guise of a one-state solution, and is discriminatory in its targeting of products, people and ideas based on their national origin. It is the contemporary equivalent of book-burning. It is deserving of scorn and contempt. But it is not deserving of legal prohibition in a country that respects free expression.
As it turns out, the very idea that Canada was about to criminalize the BDS movement and its supporters was fabricated almost from full cloth by CBC reporter Neil Macdonald. Macdonald, who has been the subject of years of complaints for anti-Israel bias for his reporting from the Middle East and Washington, had a brief (and somewhat snarky) email exchange with a spokesperson for Canada’s department of public safety.
The exchange began because Public Safety Minister Stephen Blaney, in a speech to the United Nations, promised to take a “zero tolerance” approach to those who boycott Israel. Macdonald demanded clarification of what “zero tolerance” meant.
In the email exchange, the spokesperson cites hate speech legislation, as well as laws around mischief involving religious buildings, and she noted the security infrastructure program that funds communities, such as the Jewish community, to improve security in communal buildings.
The response from the government was probably inadequate and Macdonald should have gotten a comment directly from the minister explaining what he meant by “zero tolerance,” and not used boilerplate from a civil servant (something he himself acknowledged in his exchange). Instead, he went ahead with an inflammatory story that was more conjecture than news, but which had the effect of rousing the reliably tetchy anti-Israel crowds.
This, too, could be an object lesson for future (and current) journalists. As could a story more visible than either of these: the story that Pope Francis declared Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas an “angel of peace.”
The story of the old terrorist being dubbed an “angel of peace” by the head of Roman Catholicism alarmed those of us who have been impressed with Francis’ approach to world affairs. However, the fault did not lie with the pontiff but with the media.
What Francis said was that Abbas could be an angel of peace – if he made peace with Israel. What the Pope said to Abbas – “May you be an angel of peace” – is a far different thing than what was reported. It was a wish, not a declaration. And it is a wish we could not more heartily share.
Journalism struggles today in the changing landscape of media, tighter budgets, fewer staff doing more tasks – we understand all this. But when some of this country’s and the world’s leading voices of reporting get things so wrong, the institution of journalism suffers even more.
In a world where information (and misinformation) has never been so plentiful, what readers really need are the critical tools to discern fact from fiction and half-truths. In a world of 140-character attention spans, though, do we hope for too much?
I always enjoy seeing my kids bring home assignments from Hebrew school, and last week was no exception. On a map of Israel were labeled five major cities whose names the students had to write in Hebrew. For my part, I delighted in reminding my son that we have relatives or friends in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, and near Be’er Sheva. There was only one problem with the map, I noticed. There was no Green Line. So, to the untrained eye, it looked like Israel’s borders span from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
As I often do when I want to tease out a political conundrum, I took to social media. On my public Facebook page, I offered to donate $36 to charity for the first person who can show me a Green-Line-indicated map of Israel currently being used in any Jewish educational setting. Laurie MacDonald Brumberg wrote that a Washington, D.C., Jewish day school has a National Geographic map containing the Green Line hanging in the classroom. Karin Klein of Chicago showed me a Green Line map she said was used at a Schechter day school. And from Gabriel T. Erbs I learned that J Street U has launched an initiative to circulate Green Line maps to educational institutions. Apparently, URJ President Rabbi Rick Jacobs has agreed to champion this among URJ camps and Hebrew schools, according to a March 22 article published on JewSchool by David A.M. Wilensky. Gila Miriam Chait added that Yachad, a pro-Israel, pro-peace group in the United Kingdom, is following suit.
What is at stake in the mapping debate? We all know that Middle East maps are heavily invested with the symbolism of legitimacy and delegitimization. The Palestinians have long been accused of erasing Israel from their school maps of Palestine – both from the Palestinian Authority and from Hamas. An article in the current online Jewish virtual library makes precisely this point. It’s clearly ironic that we are doing the same thing we accuse our adversaries of doing.
Some might argue, however, that since the Green Line is an armistice line, not a border, that there is no need for Israel to include it. It is true that it is not a border, but neither does Israel’s international territory extend eastward from Jerusalem all the way to the Jordan River. The point is, the West Bank is under occupation – whether one sees the occupation as justified or not – and maps should reflect this geopolitical reality.
Now, beyond simply making more accurate and, therefore, educationally useful maps, what might a more politically informed Israel curriculum entail? From my kids, I have heard about the ingenious ways that Israel foiled the Egyptian invasion of 1948, including placing stones in irrigation pipes to create noise simulating artillery. My 8-year-old was impressed. I know that for Yom Ha’atzmaut, their Hebrew school served falafel, and I hoped and expected that my kids will learn some Israeli folk songs. Some folk dancing would be great, too. What I remain less certain about, however, is how much complexity about Israel’s future our kids’ schools are willing to impart. Will kids learn who the “Palestinians” are? I know that I am guilty of frequently muttering to them about “Israel and the Palestinians” without proper context. While narratives of inter-state war can be much simpler to impart, when it comes to the Palestinian civilian aspect of Israel’s founding, and the current military occupation over millions of Palestinians, it’s difficult to know where to begin.
When we learn about the past, it’s equally important to consider the future. In fact, no one knows more about the importance of historical memory in shaping today’s collective political outlook as the Jewish community. As Wilensky writes in the context of the maps, “it’s unpleasant for many to hear, but the final status of a two-state solution – if such a thing can ever be achieved – is going to rely heavily on the Green Line. Putting visual depictions of that reality before the eyes of American Jewry will go a long way toward showing them the somewhat unpleasant truths that will help build a more absolutely pleasant future.”
As for the J Street U’s map initiative, given that Jacobs has pledged to roll them out at Reform schools, I hope he will make Ottawa’s very own Reform Judaism supplementary school an early stop.
Mira Sucharovis an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the Canadian Jewish News.
Portrait of Max Malit Grossman, circa 1926, copied from the book The Jew in Canada. Grossman’s mimeographs were the start of it all. (photo from Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia L.00011)
From 1930 until Abraham Arnold’s arrival in 1949, there was a new editor and/or publisher of the Jewish Western Bulletin every couple of years. Arnold lasted 11 years, Sam and Mona Kaplan about 36 all told. My first article ran in the JWB on March 28, 1997. I was listed as a contributor for the next year, becoming editorial assistant in May 1998, and assistant publisher that September. When Kyle Berger, Pat Johnson and I bought the paper, they graciously agreed that I become the publisher. Since that first issue, June 4, 1999, I have held that title. That makes 16 years. The second-longest term in the paper’s history.
For more than 10 years, I’ve been the sole owner of the Bulletin / Independent. While Kyle still contributes occasional articles and blogs, Pat is on the editorial board with former editor Basya Laye and me, and contributes weekly. I have worked with countless talented and kind people, many of whom have stuck with me, the paper and the community through some tough times, especially since the 2008 economic downturn. It is us, a handful of people, along with a few regular freelance writers, who get this paper to press every week. It is a labor of love for all of us. We do it for very little pay.
Financial struggle is as much a characteristic of this paper as is its Jewish character and its communal foundation, though that is one tradition I would happily leave to the dustbin of history.
Reviewing the 85-year history of the paper affirms my conviction that it is an absolute treasure, one of immeasurable value to Jewish life and this community. Yet, it is largely taken for granted. True, it has its admirers – thank you to all the organizations and businesses who advertise, and to all the readers who subscribe, donate or support our advertisers. But, on the whole, it is undervalued. And it has been almost since Day 1.
The newspaper got its start in 1928 as a mimeographed newsletter whose goal was to generate the funds and enthusiasm for a Jewish community centre. It succeeded in that regard, though the JCC would experience existential difficulties more than once in its life. Today, thankfully, the JCC is a strong and vibrant fixture in the community. When the mimeo became a tabloid in October 1930, its name was borrowed from a 1925 publication that was well-loved but, evidently, not well-funded, as it didn’t last for long.
More than one editor of the JWB has exhorted readers to pay their subscriptions and pleaded with organizations to buy advertisements. The relationship between editors and readers was much more contentious and frank during the 1930s and 1940s than it has been since. Reading these editorials every time I organize a special anniversary issue – this is my fourth – I am both saddened and heartened by the fact that, at their core, the issues remain the same.
This year, I have been particularly affected by the missives of editor and publisher Goodman Florence as he neared what turned out to be his last several months with the JWB. In the latter half of 1948, he starts to air some of the dirty laundry that has obviously been accumulating between himself and the Vancouver Jewish Administrative Council that took over control of the paper when the Jewish Community Centre, Jewish Community Chest and Hebrew Aid Society formed it in 1932, as well as other community organizations and even readers.
In August, he tackles head on the idea that readers have somehow gotten that “the Bulletin is a highly profitable proposition and is fought for. Such is not the case.” He points out that “subscriptions pay for only postage, paper and addressing, if it does that much. An attractive, newsy and acceptable publicity medium such as the Bulletin, is expensive to produce and its cost must be borne by advertisers.” This remains the case today.
That October, Florence’s one-year contract was coming to a close. Among his “many problems and many anxieties” is “the matter of the financial loss so far sustained in publishing for the community” under the terms of his contract, which he describes as “hastily arranged.”
He sums up his difficulties in being the publisher of an Anglo-Jewish weekly in November of that year, yet still holds hope that the situation is improving. In January 1949, he writes about all the ideas he has for the paper’s future, with only “a few final details” to be organized regarding a new contract. “I am hoping in the coming year to be able to devote more time and space to national and international affairs and will express a viewpoint in ‘editorials’ – and will endeavor to get prominent members of our community to also take their ‘pens in hand.’
“It will be my continued policy to assist every organization now in existence and which might come into existence, so long as the purpose is lawful and of good intention – to place itself before the public in as accurate a light as possible.”
After talking about an increase in the price of subscriptions and new help in finding advertisers, Florence concludes, “For 1949 I hope with your cooperation to make of our paper ‘one of the best’ – and to help build a progressive integrated community – and to spread the story of its good works throughout the land.
“For the opportunities of the past and the promise of the future, I wish to say, ‘Thank you.’ I will continue to do my best to serve you well.”
Less than a month later, his farewell editorial was published by the new team at the helm.
“Readers want world news, features, editorials . . . officers of all local organizations want their activities to be publicized. Up to date, I have not yet been able to completely sell the simple fact that to do all this requires considerable revenue,” Florence writes. “Some headway has been made in recent months, and there are now signs that more organizations are becoming aware of the need to place advertising that would be considered commensurate with the amount of news publicity their various activities require. There are signs also that more of the Jewish business men are coming to realize that there is after all some virtue in advertising in the Bulletin and doing business with the members of this growing Jewish Community.
“My decision [to leave] was arrived at after I realized that I had not been getting sufficient advertising support, and that without such assistance, progressive development could not be undertaken. I feel certain that now that the position has been drawn to your attention, the new publishers, Abe Arnold and Asher Snider, will get the support necessary to continue the venture, and I bespeak for them your utmost cooperation.”
When I look at the state of the publishing and newspaper industry today, I take heart that there have always been challenges and, despite the often-dire-sounding editorials of Florence and many of the paper’s other editors and publishers, here we are today. Many recessions have come and gone. Heck, the newspaper survived the Great Depression. Will it survive the internet? I certainly hope so, and not just because I would like to own a successful business.
I have looked through the physical pages of almost every JWB and searched through them online (multiculturalcanada.ca/jwb) ad nauseam for various people and events. I have read every single copy of the JI. Every time I look back at the articles and images in the papers, something surprises me, something sparks my imagination, something makes me think or makes me laugh.
I don’t know anyone who owns a community newspaper or any similar business. When I read that other editors, publishers and owners of the paper have had similar concerns, challenges and joys, there is a sense of solidarity, of not being alone. When I read about what various people in this community have had to endure, what they’ve accomplished, I am inspired. When I attended the rededication of the Jewish section of Mountain View Cemetery earlier this month, I felt like I had personally known many of those buried there. My connection to this community through its newspaper of record for 85-plus years is that strong and goes back that far.
But, ultimately, I didn’t know any of those people. I was born in Moncton and grew up in Winnipeg. My immediate family now lives in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor and I came to Vancouver from Ottawa in 1992. My Winnipeg-based aunt had lived here in the 1960s. After I got my MA and a job – i.e. once it looked like I was staying awhile – she connected me with the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir via her longtime friend and former musical colleague Claire Klein Osipov. It was one of my first connections to the Jewish community here and it has, obviously, led to other connections, including being the editor of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia’s annual journal The Scribe for the last seven editions.
I’ve always liked history, and I love having 85-plus years’ worth of it at my fingertips. It wasn’t until this special issue though that I decided to do a search for my aunt’s name – she passed away last fall.
My searches yielded more than a dozen results from 1962 through 1966, including the birth announcement of one of my cousins, her third son. And there was a photo of her, which was published twice, once with the wrong caption, a correction being noted in the following week’s paper. I knew that Aunt Chickie (married to Nathan Frankel at that time) was involved in the Peretz Centre and that she accompanied Claire on the piano, but seeing some of the committees she was on, the events she helped organize, the music she performed … seeing her face – I can’t describe the feeling, except to say, once again, this newspaper is such a vital resource in ways that I’m still discovering after almost 20 years working here.
S.A. Goldston, in the JWB.
The JWB had two fifth anniversary issues, one in 1934, another in 1935. In the first, editor S.A. Goldston writes, “It seems hard to realize that time has flown so quickly. We all remember well the small mimeographed copy first issued in the office of Max Grossman, and we wonder how many thought that the day was not far distant when it would grow to a regular weekly newspaper.”
He wonders whether the Bulletin had “filled the mission for which it was first intended? Is it any use today?” He leaves the answer to readers, “for naturally we are somewhat prejudiced in our personal views on the matter.
“The paper was first produced to act as the voice of the Community and to bring its readers in closer touch not only with the happenings in its own surroundings but with Jewry all the world over – to awaken Jewish consciousness, and if possible to create a deeper sense of unity among the Jewish residents of this City. In this way we can, without exaggeration, say [we] have been fairly successful.”
I love this last sentence, which, to me, shows clearly Goldston’s great humility. Yet his purpose is grand: publishing news of all the city organizations and devoting “considerable space to world happenings,” trying “hard to preach through the columns of this paper the absolute necessity of a United Jewry not only in Vancouver but throughout the world…. We have also, during the past year, continued to spur on our readers in civic, philanthropic and educational services and have received congratulations from non-Jewish communities on our work.”
But, he notes, as others would, “There are two things apart from the reading matter that is necessary to make a paper a success…. We need subscribers and advertisers.”
Of the advertisers the paper did have, he says, “We get a very fair share…. But we also owe a duty to every advertiser who uses our columns. We must give them our patronage whenever possible. They have confidence in us and [we] must show that this confidence is not misplaced. We would therefore respectfully suggest that in making your purchases those who advertise in the Bulletin be given preference.”
Goldston and his colleagues have “the great ambition of doubling the size of the paper,” which was then eight pages, within the next year. He asks for help in getting there, saying he has “much to be thankful for,” despite his “failing health,” and is proud to hold the position of editor.
The very next issue carried a front-page obituary. Goldston had passed away suddenly, at age 63. According to B.C. Archives records, he died April 11, 1934. His given names were Sim Alfred.
David Rome, in the JWB.
In the 1935 editorial marking “Five years of the Bulletin,” editor David Rome echoes some of Goldston’s remarks. He, too, speaks of gratitude and writes that the Bulletin’s “being taken as a matter of course by Western Canadian Jewry” is “the greatest compliment that can be offered to it,” showing that it “is not a freak venture but part of the life of its readers.
“But this sometimes blinds its readers to the phenomenon of a relatively small community successfully publishing a weekly newspaper for a number of years. Those who are daily in contact with the workings of the community publication realize fully the efforts that have to be made to maintain the standards set and to elevate them.”
Rome thanks all “those anonymous workers who have devoted unselfishly of their time and energy for this community enterprise. The Bulletin is a fairly big business and it needs a large amount of work and application to run this business. This devotion was given it by the members of the [Council’s Bulletin] committee and it is no more than fitting that thanks be given to them for their work.”
He notes that this anniversary of the paper also marks the first year since Goldston’s passing: “It is not at all an exaggeration to say that he worked beyond the limits of health, and the community should honor his memory and recognize his sacrifices for the community newspaper.”
Somehow I feel that, with every issue of this paper, we are honoring the people in this community who have made – and are making – sacrifices for whatever people and causes that are important to them. Every event, interview, photo, birth announcement, obituary … everything that gets recorded is proof of existence, of purpose, of being part of something larger than oneself.
This newspaper has always had a grand, even grandiose, view of the impact it could have on the community. But, looking back at 85 years – 90 if you count the original Bulletin, 87 if you start at Grossman’s mimeo – I’d say it has exceeded even the grandest of its expectations. And I’d like to see it continue to do so, whether or not I’m involved. But, as pretty much every publisher of the paper will tell you, “There are two things apart from the reading matter that is necessary to make a paper a success….” The future of this community treasure is, quite literally, in your hands.
The community has always enjoyed a good contest, JWB, December 1948.
Paging through 85 years of this newspaper reveals a stunning consistency of recurring phenomena, repetitious concerns, familiar family names, perpetually unresolved issues across decades and a solid tradition of community-building from generation to generation. The reporting across the decades reveals a comfortingly familiar refrain of the paper rallying the community to support the UJA Campaign, the Home for the Aged, Israel Bonds,
Hebrew University, Talmud Torah, Histadrut, summer camps, and the full range of communal organizations and causes, many of which continue to thrive today. Individuals are fêted for service to the community, for becoming bar or bat mitzvah, for graduating from university.
So perpetual are some of the issues facing the community and the Jewish world that headlines could be plucked form one decade and dropped unobtrusively onto the pages of the paper many years earlier or later. For fun, try to guess the years when these headlines appeared: “The past year will long be remembered as one of stress and strain;” “Jews must help Israel regain ‘positive image’”; or “Religious storm in Israel.” (Answers: the 1931 Rosh Hashanah issue editorial; 1985; 1950.)
Or these ones: “US won’t accept Likud position on territories”; “The trend of the time is toward the elimination of useless and duplicating organizations”; or “… it has been said that our loyalties are divided. That, in being Zionists, we fail as Canadians.” (Answers: 1977; 1925; 1929.)
Of course, some headlines are unique. On Nov. 3, 1988, the paper’s headline blared: “Israel achieves UN victory.” This was about a failed attempt led by Arab states to have Israel thrown out of the General Assembly.
Philanthropy is a continuous thread joining the decades. As early as 1930, the editorial was acknowledging that “The residents of the Vancouver Jewish Community doubtlessly at times become impatient with the term, ‘A worthy cause’” … before inveigling upon readers to support another commendable undertaking.
Warning of the dangers to communal well-being at the start of the Great Depression, an editorial in December 1930 takes a very Keynesian tone: “The foolish philosophy of tightening the purse-strings during a business depression, although the purse-holder is still well able to spend, becomes a selfish and heartless philosophy when applied to philanthropy. To deny assistance to those who are gripped in the vise of illness or need when the horizon looks darkest, is to display a false attitude to the charitable ideal.”
Pressure, sometimes not at all subtle, urged readers to give generously to the community chest campaign. “Larger Pledges Needed for Success of Chest,” the headline of October 9, 1936 read. “Open Your Door to Your UJA Canvasser,” pitched an issue in 1951.
Also unsubtle, but justifiably so, was the ominous plea for the 1940 campaign aimed at sending aid to the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe: “Vancouver Jewish External Welfare Fund seeks support for Jews in Hungary, Poland, Germany and Romania … Tomorrow may be too late.”
Running in 1930, this headline nevertheless could have been from any decade in the paper’s history: “Bronfman Family Create Scholarship.” In this case, it was for the Talmud Torah and a Jewish orphanage in Winnipeg, but more than half a century later, the Bronfman family was instrumental in the creation of the Birthright-Israel program, which has sent thousands of young Jewish Canadians to Israel.
The paper routinely stressed the community’s loyalty to the Crown, JWB, May 1939. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth are pictured here.
In decades when Jewish allegiance to Canada was sometimes implied or openly expressed, the paper routinely adopted a highly patriotic tone. From heralding King George VI to lamenting his death with pages of editorial, there were also major assertions of Jewish allegiance to the new Queen Elizabeth II at the time of her coronation in 1953. Meetings of Jewish communal officials with elected leaders, including prime ministers, have been prominently reported, including just weeks ago when Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Sephardi Canadians in Ottawa.
Emphasizing the responsibilities of citizenship has been a recurring theme. In 1930, the editorialist noted: “Indifferent people are often heard to say, ‘It doesn’t make any difference to me what party is in power, so why should I vote?’ Such a statement is the furthest thing from the truth and reflects an attitude which is to be strongly deplored.”
Although allegiance to Canada has been conspicuous, so too has been this community’s deep connections to the Jewish homeland.
In 1930, the paper reported on the appointment of a commission “to investigate the Moslem and Jewish Claims to the Wailing Wall.”
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, anti-Jewish riots and pogroms in Palestine killed hundreds and shattered hopes of a peaceful existence in the Yishuv.
“As these words are written,” an editorial in 1936 lamented, “Palestine is again the scene of disorders, riots, bloodshed, sniping, isolated attacks and agonized mistrust, fomented hatred and international complications. The land of peace is again being ravaged by hate, and the eternal people of peace is again forced to consider problems of defence and even to raise physical means to ensure its own safety.”
These riots had the intended consequence of leading the British authorities to end Jewish migration to the Mandate. While met with outrage and agitation by Jews worldwide, the catastrophic historical impact of that decision would not be fully recognized until the endangered Jews of Europe suffered the Holocaust.
Even so, the paper recognized surprisingly early on the threat coming from Germany’s far right. In 1930, three years before Hitler took power, the Bulletin was already warning of the threat posed by the Nazis: “The Hitlerites, who, at the recent election in Germany made such tremendous gains, are marching to power on the wave of a dangerous and prejudiced nationalism. Their anti-Semitic policy is definite and has already manifested itself in many outbreaks and disorders of a most distressing kind.”
Concern for Jews all over the world has been constant in these pages. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the paper expressed fears for the Jews in China, noting that … “After Palestine, the United States and Latin America, China was the largest recipient of Jewish refugees in the 1930s.”
Jews and Christians packed Vancouver Lyric Theatre to overflowing after news of Kristallnacht signified what we now understand to have been the unquestioned beginning of the Holocaust.
By 1944, the realization of what had happened to European Jews was widely understood and an above-the-banner editorial held no punches: “To anyone working for one Jewish cause or another it becomes increasingly apparent that there are those among us who are SHIRKING THEIR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
“Yes, there are those among us who are too busy with their own affairs to think of their fellow man.
“Many of our fellow Jews never care to remember that somewhere in the darkness of Hitler’s Europe thousands and thousands of men and women and children are hiding in basements, in walled ghettos and in dismal forests in an attempt to escape certain death, while we abide in the glorious freedom and abundance of Canada.
“At this moment half the Jews in Europe are dead. WHAT IN GOD’S NAME WAS THEIR CRIME?
“You know, and I know, that their only crime is that THEY WERE BORN AS JEWS.
“Do you ever stop to ponder that it is only a curious turn of fate that led you or your parents to leave Europe and that you or your children might otherwise be among those who were exterminated by the Nazi slaughterhouses of Europe. WE MUST LEARN TO FEEL THE PAIN AND SUFFERING OF THOSE POOR BROKEN, BLEEDING PEOPLE AND DENY OURSELVES, IF NECESSARY TO SAVE THEM.”
When the war ended and the camps were liberated, the local community came together, helping in different ways, special prayer services among them.
Awareness of the extent of the Holocaust – and the role of Jewish statelessness in allowing it to happen – was made plain immediately after VE Day in an editorial penned by M. Freeman, president of Vancouver Zionist Organization: “For the Jews who have managed to survive this holocaust, Palestine and Palestine alone stands out as their only refuge. Only in a Jewish fatherland will they be safe. Only in Palestine can they start the broken lives anew with hope of ultimate restoration. We can help make this possible. We betray our own birth-right if we do less. No Jew, whatever his shade of opinion can withdraw from co-operating with the resurgence of his people. If we gave everything we ever owned, it still could not measure up to what they have already paid.”
From 1945, the issue of Soviet Jewry made top news month after month until 1989, when a new revolution allowed Jews across Eastern Europe to emigrate, changing the face of Israel and Vancouver, among other places.
The pages of the Bulletin also show that global events had unexpected ripples for Israel and the Jewish people. In 1973, the paper noted that, with the ceasefire in Vietnam, left-wing and other protest groups were turning their attentions to “Middle East peace.”
The connection between Jewish British Columbians and Israel leaps off the pages of the paper (including before Israel was “Israel”). The passing of the Partition Resolution was reported with jubilance and, months later, the dangers facing the new state were downplayed, declaring “A Nation Reborn.”
In 1954, in an event typical of discussions in the paper and in the community in the intervening years – and continuing today – a forum at the community centre mooted “What does Israel mean for us here?”
After the 1967 war, before the moral and military practicalities of occupying the West Bank took over the pages, the paper celebrated news of a reunited Jerusalem: “After 1900 Years City of David Returned to Israel.”
The paper has also highlighted the achievements of Jews around the world, from the first Jewish governor of Oregon to the appointment of a Jewish American ambassador to Albania. In 1930, the paper hyperbolically declared: “Of interest to every Jew in Canada is the recent election of David Arnold Croll, 30-year-old Jewish barrister as Mayor of Windsor, Ontario.” This item may not have had the universal interest the author believed, but Croll did go on to serve in the Ontario and Canadian parliaments and became the first Jewish senator in Canada.
Closer to home, the chronicling of events and achievements large and small has been the paper’s life’s blood. “Hadassah Chapter has Successful Year,” said a 1931 headline. “Permanent Camp Site Purchased by Jewish Council Women,” in 1937, was the first of many articles about the birth of what became Camp Hatikvah, originally in Crescent Beach, near White Rock, which was deemed by the reporter to be “the finest bathing resort in British Columbia.”
Since its beginning, the paper has been reporting on community-held contests of various sorts, including photo and public-speaking competitions – the latter still held annually despite worries as early as 1966 that, “These days when the custom of watching television has caused sociologists concern over the possibility of mankind forever losing the art of conversation …” began one editorial.
And, through it all, the community and the paper has managed to keep a sense of humor. From 1958:
Scrap collector: “Any beer bottles lady?”
Lady: “Do I look like I drink beer?”
Scrap collector: “Well, any vinegar bottles, lady?”
This photo and caption appeared in the Jewish Western Bulletin, Aug. 23, 1946.
May 5, 1945, is firmly etched in my “child’s” mind for that was the day of my family’s liberation or, more accurately, what remained of my family. The German occupation had been brutal and, with the collaboration of thousands of Dutch Nazis, 108,000 Dutch Jews had been deported and nearly all were murdered. Of those sent to Auschwitz and Sobibor, approximately 4,500 survived. Of Holland’s total prewar Jewish population of 140,000, fully 80% were murdered.
I had survived with my Christian hiders, Albert and Violette Munnik, and my “sister” Nora, their 12-year-old daughter. When I was reunited with my parents who had miraculously survived also, I had come to love the Munnik’s as my own family, and I was Robbie Munnik, not Robbie Krell. But I was given back, not without protest, a Jewish child who had no experience with Judaism but was nevertheless hunted for being a Jew.
In Nazi-occupied countries, 93% of Jewish children were murdered. Some escaped just before the war, a few thousand during the war through clandestine operations. But overall, no more than one in 10 survived. That is the nature of genocide. Murder the children.
Holland has somehow managed to maintain a reputation of comparative decency during the war years. Some of this good will emanates from the story of Anne Frank who left behind a diary written during her days in hiding in an attic in Amsterdam. The Frank family did in fact receive heroic assistance from Miep Gies, as did I from the Munniks and my father from the Oversloot family.
But of roughly 14,000 Dutch Jewish children in hiding, over half were betrayed. And, of course, so were the Franks. That adorable, intelligent adolescent Anne and her family were deported on the second to last train from Westerbork to Auschwitz on Sept. 3, 1944, three months after D-Day! She died an agonizing death of hunger and typhus in Bergen-Belsen. Only her father survived.
I write this piece on the 70th anniversary of liberation, a gift of 70 years of life. Who could imagine it? During the war, death had been a close companion, confirmed shortly after the war by the chilling reports that came our way from the few survivors that returned and from the photos that formed part of the news. I heard the descriptions of torture and murder from eyewitnesses. They were there. They had seen and suffered. And their lives and ours had been destroyed. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles. Two other children in our family survived, one also spared in hiding, the other, smuggled into Switzerland. That was it.
And what have I learned over these 70 years? The Holocaust imprint never leaves and no day passes without reminders. Had we tried to forget, it would have proved impossible. From the moment that the world discovered what had been done, the antisemites began their effort to deny what happened. Holocaust denial followed the campaign of murder with the effort to murder memory.
No wonder. Nearly everyone had blood on their hands. The British Mandate of Palestine was closed to Jewish immigration, preventing European Jewish refugees from fleeing. Canada and the United States had closed their doors. The Jews of Europe were trapped and murdered with technological efficiency, aided and abetted by Jew-hating collaborators in almost every country dominated by the Nazi invaders. The only way to be freed from guilt would be for the Shoah not to have happened. But the perpetrators were unable to erase the evidence. The Holocaust is the best-documented massive crime of murder and theft in human history.
Over the years, I have also learned of the systematic betrayal of visionary Jewish leadership who fought for the reestablishment of a Jewish nation-state in what is now Israel from the 1890s. No, Israel is not the result of the genocide inflicted upon European Jewry. If it were, Jews would not have had to fight the British colonialists in 1945-1947 to achieve freedom. And Holocaust survivors trying to reach Palestine would not have been incarcerated in camps in Cyprus.
The victory over the Ottoman Empire led to the establishment of a number of Arab states. Only the British promise of the 1917 Balfour Declaration’s intent to establish a home for the Jewish people went unfulfilled. The 1920 San Remo Conference affirmed that intent, only to witness the British carve off 80% of the territory known as British Mandatory Palestine to create the Emirate of Trans-Jordan. To add insult to injury, it was decreed that no Jew could settle there. This travesty resulted in the remaining 20% to be contested by Jews and Arabs to this day.
I was in Israel in 1961. The Western Wall of the Temple, the holiest site in Judaism, was controlled by Jordan and Jews were forbidden access. During Jordan’s illegal occupation from 1948-1967, all the synagogues in east Jerusalem were destroyed. Nor had Jordan advanced the cause of their Arab brethren or established a Palestinian state in the territories held.
I was at the Eichmann trial. I saw the architect of the annihilation of my people. Over time, it appears that a great deal of European posturing over Israel and its policies are an attempt to deflect attention from the horrendous misdeeds of the European past. There is a concerted effort to make Israel look like a nation with a brutal bent and whose activities, even those in self-defence are painted with the brush of Nazi and/or apartheid terminology. How offensive! How cruel! Its practitioners deny antisemitism for they have found a new outlet for Jew hatred, anti-Zionism. Israel has become the Jew of nations.
It is disconcerting, indeed, to witness the dawn of liberation 70 years ago descend into a night of renewed hate. I seek a measure of comfort in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman philosopher. Dr. King wrote, “Israel is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.” And Hoffer, “I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all.”
I have to hope that antisemitism will be opposed and extinguished wherever it flourishes and that Israel’s right to exist will be protected. Then our liberation will have acquired meaning.
Robert Krell, MD, is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, and founding president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
Growing up, the writer was involved in community campaigns to help free Soviet and other Jews suffering state-sponsored, organized persecution. These campaigns were international and Vancouver youth also participated in them. Here are but two of the many items in the JWB about these causes: top one is from 1982; below, from 1976.
I was recently reminded of a fashion-activist item many Jewish teens of my generation wore: the stainless-steel Soviet Jewry bracelet. Etched with the name and date of arrest of a single Jewish dissident in the Soviet Union, each bracelet transmitted to the wearer a deep and penetrating sense of social justice and tribal consciousness. I wore mine proudly, and recall being equally pleased to be selected from my seventh grade class to present handmade cards of encouragement to Avital Sharansky, the wife of jailed activist Anatoly Sharansky (later Israeli politician Natan Sharansky), when she visited Vancouver in the mid-1980s on her global campaign to secure his release.
With the last of the Jewish communities having been freed from state-sponsored, organized persecution (other campaigns as my generation was growing up included the freeing of Ethiopian and Syrian Jews), there is little in the way of that Soviet Jewry bracelet campaign to bind today’s Jewish teens together in such a single, uncontroversial way. The modern state of Israel represents an ongoing cause, of course, but that issue is much more fraught: should a Jewish teen wear a bracelet etched with the name of a fallen Jewish soldier, or the name of one of the 182 Palestinian children currently (as of February 2015) being held in Israel detention – according to data provided by Defence for Children International? When it comes to social justice and activist solidarity, the issue of Israel is clearly complex.
I decided to poke around to see what Jewish teens these days are concerned with when it comes to issues and activism. What I found was a dizzying array of causes. From the website of the Orthodox NCSY (National Conference of Synagogue Youth), I found reports of teens volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and with Oklahoma tornado victims. Both USY (Conservative Judaism’s United Synagogue Youth) and NFTY (the Reform movement’s North American Federation of Temple Youth) select an annual theme to guide their social action and tikkun olam efforts: for 2014, USY chose “a focus on acceptance and tolerance including but not specific to gender, special needs, LGBTQ and racial equality,” according to its website. NFTY chose a similar theme for 2014-15: sexuality and gender equality. Habonim-Dror, which has various active local chapters, or kenim (nests), included a Maryland referendum initiative, for example, to campaign for undocumented high school graduates to become eligible to pay in-state university tuition fees.
Other Jewish educators I polled from the Jewish educators’ network JEDLAB reported that their teens are involved in various issues, including suicide prevention, food banks, poverty, water issues, peace/conflict resolution, mental health awareness and advocacy, women’s rights and empowerment, LGBTQ activism, medical marijuana, vaccines, human trafficking, transgender acceptance, orphans in western Kenya and child soldiers.
A report from the Jewish Teen Funders network attempts to aggregate data from 71 Jewish teen foundations in the United States and Canada during 2013-14, showing where the total of nearly $1 million in philanthropic dollars went. Across 362 grants awarded, the top five issue-areas in descending order were: youth, education, special needs, chronic illness and poverty.
And none of this even begins to capture the array of charitable and social awareness efforts represented in today’s mitzvah projects popular among 12- and 13-year-olds marking their bat and bar mitzvahs, a trend that was absent in my generation, as I recall, anyway. As a complement to that, here in Ottawa, my own shul has been running a monthly b’nai bitzvah class by Cantor Jeremy Burko, which has been including discussion of Jewish-history-informed social justice topics, such as labor conditions in the fashion industry.
What’s the takeaway from this big picture? On one hand, there is no longer a single cause (if there ever was one) that unifies Jewish teens. And that means that tribalism is likely being replaced by a sense of universalism: the sense that social justice must necessarily cross ethnic and religious boundaries. On the other hand, today’s Jewish teens are no doubt indeed being united in the very belief that through Jewish social action, they can repair the world in a global, nuanced and holistic sense. So, while I admit to feeling some nostalgia for the simplicity of the worldview embodied in the Soviet Jewry bracelet I wore with pride and even some excitement, I think we should feel buoyed by the youthful energy and optimism in our midst that the world is ours – and theirs – for the repairing.
Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.
