Opinion – Page 90

Finding love in the JWB – on the occasion of the JI’s 85th

A singles ad placed in the Bulletin by father-son team Ron and Steve Freedman in 1992 led to the engagement (in 1997) of their son/brother David to Betty-Mae Coblenz, who were married in 1998.

Ron Freedman, who passed away in December 2014, worked for the Jewish Western Bulletin / Jewish Independent for 46 years. As we mourned his loss with his family at a ceremony celebrating his life, his son David shared the story of how his father and his brother Steve, who has worked at the paper for more than 30 years, used the power of community media to change his life.

As Alex Kliner explained in his May 15, 1998, Menschenings column:

“David Freedman was baffled. Three young women had responded to his personals column ad in the Jewish Western Bulletin. But wait! He had never placed an ad. But whatta ya’ gonna do? His curiosity was aroused. So he agreed to meet Betty-Mae Coblenz for coffee. They talked for hours. Not long ago, Betty-Mae Coblenz became Betty-Mae Freedman.

“And the mysterious ad? It seems David’s dad, Ron, and brother, Steve, (both JWB staffers) had placed it in the personals under David’s name. It was a joke! Not a bad joke, eh? And what’s more, it obviously pays to advertise in the JWB!”

Sunday’s trio of milestones

When counting blessings, our community has much to celebrate. If proof were needed, there is plenty at the newspaper. Not only have we been sorting through 85 years’ worth of the Jewish Independent in preparation for our special anniversary issue next week, but we joined hundreds of other community members this past Sunday to mark three significant community milestones.

In the early afternoon, a remarkable event took place at Mountain View Cemetery. The city-owned burial site has, since 1892, included a small section consecrated as the Jewish cemetery. In recent years, that section has declined. A dedicated group of volunteers set about to return it to the stature it deserves and, on a very sunny Sunday, the community gathered to see the results and celebrate the place. There was, it’s not inappropriate to say, a sense of festivity mingling with the solemnity of the event. While we were marking the rededication of a Jewish cemetery, we were also explicitly honoring and celebrating the lives of the people who built this community – and all those who are working to maintain and grow it.

Later that day, Temple Sholom held a siyum hasefer, marking the completion of a new Torah commemorating the congregation’s 50th anniversary. This “Torah of volunteerism,” in which the hands and spirits of so many people are ingrained in its beauty, is another symbolic and tangible act uniting the past, present and future of our community.

The day’s festivities drew to a close at the new Beth Israel, one of the oldest congregations in our community. The rebuilt synagogue provides some of the city’s best new meeting spaces and, in this case, we celebrated one of Judaism’s greatest achievements – well, of the modern era, at any rate. Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, Vancouver chapter, convened an evening of education, entertainment and tribute in honor of that institution’s 90th anniversary.

It is hard to overestimate the impact of Hebrew University on the modern life of the Jewish people or of Israel. Founded by luminaries, including no less than Albert Einstein, it is a monument to the Jewish commitment to learning. However, to call it a monument is almost an aspersion, because it is an organic microcosm of Jewish life – and, as Jewish life has been throughout the ages – a light to the nations, welcoming scholars from around the world.

Attending these three milestones was affirming in several ways. It was a reminder of just how many people – of all walks of life, ages and affiliations – are dedicated to this community, working to make it better and trying to make sure that it has a future. It was also a reminder that, while the internet has its many advantages, there is something very special and irreplaceable about tangible records. There is something very special and incomparable to sharing a moment – joyous or sobering – with other human beings.

Headstones in a cemetery, a Torah scroll, the pages of a newspaper – they physically mark the path on our way long after we’ve made our way. We can touch them, which somehow connects us to them and each other in a way that cannot be reproduced in the virtual world. Laying a stone on a grave, scribing or reading from the Torah, even flipping through decades-old copies of the community newspaper – these present-day acts place our lives solidly in the continuum of humanity. This is both humbling and reassuring.

As we celebrate the minor miracle of the newspaper’s presence in and contribution to the community for 85 years, we are proud, not only of our own accomplishments, but those of the entire community. Together, may we go from strength to strength!

Perseverance, hope, faith

I was barely 18 when I found myself sitting in the airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, petrified that despite my false Turkish papers, I would be discovered, and returned to Iran to face execution. My forged Turkish passport had brought me to the airport in Saudi, but I spoke not a word of Turkish. I sat in the huge terminal in Riyadh, hungry, thirsty and terrified.

I had finally boarded the Montreal-bound Air Italia flight after three abortive efforts but fate had me in its thrall. One of the airhostesses was Turkish: I was terrified that she would realize that the thin girl masquerading as Turkish could speak not a word of her language, and then inform the captain of the ruse.

At age 13, my passion for social justice led me to defend a Baha’i schoolmate from a bully with Hezbollah connections. While I was surprised that my defence of a friend resulted in my suspension from school, I never dreamed that a spontaneous, spirited comment would lead to my flight.

I am a proud Shirazi woman, and my family can trace our roots back 2,500 years, back to the Babylonian exile. But in the late 1970s, when I was only 13, I joined university students as they protested for freedom: I desperately wanted to read books banned by the shah. I craved freedom as a bird craves flight, but after over a year hiding from Hezbollah, my mother made me realize that to find a life for myself, I first had to court death.

During my time in the desert, I experienced events that made me believe strongly in my faith. My flight was provoked by my defence of a Baha’i friend but it was a Muslim woman who informed my mother that I was blacklisted and a Pakistani border guard who saved me from the smugglers who were swindling me, and ensured that I did not die in the desert.

I had been told that the desert crossing would consist of a short walk and a five-hour journey by car. It turned out to be a forced march of 20 hours across the Kavir-e-Loot desert, and hours of terror as a dozen or more Afghani extremists passed inches away, on the other side of a small sand dune on their journey to join Hezbollah in Iran. They cried out, “Allahu akhbar!” God is great! I was 17, heartbroken at leaving my mother and home. I hope to never again experience the depth of despair that I knew that night as I lay, pressed into the sand beside the smugglers.

But if my desire for freedom and justice had led me into the desert, it was the contrast between the depth of my despair and the sight of the stars so far away that inspired me to this very day. I knew that my distant ancestors had crossed another desert under those same stars and I felt that if I fell down, I would just have to get back up. That philosophy helped me persevere through uneasy days in Pakistan, that terrible flight to Riyadh and further, into my life in Montreal.

I had to leave Iran because I wanted the taste of freedom on my lips, because a life lived in fear is not a life at all, and because only freedom allows the human being to carve out a life of meaning. I knew then and know now that my message of hope, faith and perseverance is important and compelling.

We are all sisters and brothers under our skin. Whether we cover our heads or whether our hair is loose, we are all God’s children and fate’s playthings.

Dr. Sima Goel is the author of Fleeing the Hijab: A Jewish Woman’s Escape from Iran.

Still hoping for equality

At Israel’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration marking the 67th anniversary of the state of Israel, one of the 14 individuals selected for the honor of lighting torches kicking off the celebration was Lucy Aharish, a television newscaster and actor who happens to be an Arab citizen of Israel.

Of course, “happens to be” is an obfuscation given the charged nature of life in Israel and its region. The fact that she is an Arab citizen of Israel is not at all an insignificant fact. That, certainly, was the opinion of critics from across the political spectrum when it was announced that she would be among those centre-stage at the annual Independence Day ceremony at Mount Herzl Cemetery.

Her participation in the ceremony was politicized by both left and right – by the right for reasons that can hardly be described as anything but racist and by the left for reasons that seem based on the assumption that any Arab who participates in an official Israeli ceremony is a collaborator with some sort of Zionist … whatever.

Hopefully, the critics were schooled by Aharish’s magnificent, emotional words at the ceremony. Holding back tears, Aharish said that she was lighting the torch “for all human beings, wherever they may be, who have not lost hope for peace, and for the children, full of innocence, who live on this earth…. For those who were but are no more, who fell victim to baseless hatred by those who have forgotten that we were all born in the image of one God. For Sephardim and Ashkenazim, religious and secular, Arabs and Jews, sons of this motherland that reminds us that we have no other place. For us as Israel, for the honor of mankind, and for the glory of the state of Israel.”

Aharish, the only Arab lighting a torch in the ceremony, shifted into Arabic, Israel’s other official language, saying: “For our honor as human beings, this is our country and there is no other.”

A different yet parallel development occurred at the same time, when the annual Israel Prize for poetry and literature was bestowed on Erez Biton.

The Israel Prize is widely considered the country’s highest civilian honor and the jury that selected Biton described his five collections of poetry as “an exemplary, brave, sensitive and deep grappling with the wide range of personal and collective experiences, revolving around the pain of immigration, the travails of rooting oneself in Israel, and the establishment of eastern identity as an inseparable part of the full Israeli profile.”

Biton happens to be the first Sephardi Jew to receive the award in this crucial cultural category. Again, “happens to be” is a phrase that diminishes the cultural and historical realities that make this achievement one that transcends the individual and stands in for the history of neglect felt by this significant minority in Israeli society.

These two stories, each pleasant in their way yet tinged with the deep and diverse troubles of Israeli society, carry innumerable lessons for not only Israel but countries around the world.

There are people in every country who, because of the groups to which they belong, have experienced discrimination, decreased opportunities and, well, far worse. Yet within these groups are individuals who have nevertheless achieved accomplishments that suggest there is room for a better future, one that accepts diversity, that encourages creative grappling with a society’s complexities and that respects those who are unafraid to assert their rights.

Here’s hoping that this year, and in future years, a more diverse and equal world means that “happens to be” becomes the norm, not the exception.

A long wait for redemption

We were fortunate to be guests at two warm and spirited seders this year. As designated song-leader, I tried to ensure that the singing was fulsome and sufficiently rowdy to rescue late-night flagging energy levels. One heartfelt moment was singing Ani Ma’amin. Based on Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith, the song declares, “I believe, with complete faith, in the coming of the Messiah.” It’s a song familiar to attendees of Jewish summer camp and Holocaust remembrance ceremonies. It’s beautiful and haunting and, with its concise lyrics, contagious for group sing-alongs.

There was an Israeli-Canadian couple at the seder and so, after singing about the Messiah’s hoped-for arrival, I grabbed the opportunity to insert another song from my favorite genre: Israeli ’70s and ’80s pop music. Shalom Hanoch’s 1985 hit, “Waiting for the Messiah,” launched onto the Israeli music scene an iconoclastic cry of frustration: “The Messiah isn’t coming – and neither is he phoning.” The few at the seder who knew it sang and air-banded for a bit before turning solemn as we wound down the seder with Hatikvah.

In Ani Ma’amin there is the belief that the world will one day improve, if only we are patient. Hanoch’s song, by contrast, is an attempt at hard-edged realism.

In 1985, Israel was gripped by hyperinflation. “The stock market crashed,” he sang. “People jumped from the roof; the Messiah also jumped, and they announced that he was killed….” Serious political ills were also ramping up, with the Lebanon War fresh in the memory of an increasingly restless nation. And, with the intifada breaking out two years later, more would follow.

Even in the absence of belief, messianiam is an ever-present notion in Jewish culture. In the 17th century, there was Shabbetai Tzvi, known as the false Messiah; later, there was the rejection of modern Zionism among the ultra-Orthodox who believed – and still do – that the experiment in Jewish sovereignty should wait for the Messiah’s arrival. Then there is the belief of some within the Chabad movement that the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson may himself have been the Messiah. For my part, given that I speak only Hebrew to my kids, I’m stuck with phrases that I normally wouldn’t use in English – and which don’t always reflect my worldview – phrases like “what are you waiting for – the Messiah to come?” when my then toddlers would rest in a snowbank between their JCC preschool and the parking lot.

But what really struck me that night at the seder as we sang Hanoch’s lyrics was a two-fold question. First, which stance better fulfils the Judaic imperative of tikkun olam: the traditional belief in messianic redemption, or the belief that it is all up to us? And second, how can we agree on what of the many problems in the world are deserving of fixing in the first place?

Clearly, the world is in disrepair. Just within the last few weeks, for example, two infants died in unregulated South Tel Aviv day cares serving African refugees; Islamic militants of the al-Shabab Somali group slaughtered 148 Christian students at a university in Garissa, Kenya; bloodshed continues in Syria and Yemen; antisemitic attacks are on the rise, especially in France; and, in Canada, according to Make Poverty History, one in 10 children here lives below the poverty line.

Certainly, none of us in our lifetime will solve all the world’s ills, and with humanity’s imperfections, including our own mental and emotional flaws, our lust for power and the natural drive for accumulation amid scarcity, it’s hard to believe that widespread suffering will ever be overcome. Some believe that messianic yearnings lead to passivity; others that it spurs us to action.

But perhaps the biggest conundrum is how to agree on which of the world’s ills we should actually care about. For some, the criterion is whether the problem is local; for others it is the perception of how the solution will implicate their own well-being; for others it hinges on whether they think the problem is actually the fault of the sufferer. Whether or not one believes in the possibility of messianic redemption, or whether one believes that it is up to us mortals to repair the world, we would do well to start with something that is hard to contest: the importance of compassion for suffering wherever it is found.

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.

The future to imagine

In the past several weeks, we have celebrated liberation and redemption on Passover. On Yom Hashoah, we mourned the victims of Nazism and the generations that never were. On Yom Hazikaron, we honored the brave defenders of Israel who gave everything for the dream of the Jewish people’s right to live as a free people in our own land. Then we joyously celebrated the realization of that dream on Yom Ha’atzmaut.

These four commemorations are drawn together in many ways by rabbis and thinkers. We are mere journalists, but if you give us a moment, we, too, have some thoughts that may be worthy.

There is a troubled narrative connecting the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel, a connection that is sometimes misunderstood and often deliberately misrepresented.

Critics have called Israel a “reparations payment” given to the Jews as recompense for the Holocaust. This formulation is a desecration, because there could be no recompense for the Holocaust. More to the point, it is false history. Israel was not given to the Jewish people. The Partition Resolution, significant as it was as a fulcrum for historical events, turned out to be another hollow United Nations vote. Israel came into being only because the Jews of Palestine, some from the Diaspora and a small group of idealistic non-Jews from abroad fought – some to the death – for the dream of a Jewish homeland.

The connection between the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel is not, as the popular narrative has it, because the world felt sympathy. If anything, the world wanted to create a place for the surviving remnant so that they wouldn’t have to take responsibility for them.

Where the genuine connection lies between the tragedy of the Holocaust and the joy of independence is in the realization that the Holocaust was a direct result of Jewish statelessness. Had Israel come into being a decade earlier, there may have been no Holocaust, or its magnitude would have been much diminished. That is one connection.

Another is the psychological effect the creation of the state had on Jewish people individually and collectively, in Israel and in the Diaspora.

After the Holocaust, the Jewish people worldwide could have been expected to plummet into individual and collective despair. Instead, Israel gave hope – and a future to imagine and to build after the collective future was almost destroyed. Whether Jews made aliya – or even visited – or not, Jewish Canadians helped build the state of Israel through a million acts of philanthropy and volunteerism.

Israel is many things to many different Jews. It is a resolution to 2,000 years of statelessness, the fundamental fact that was at the root of our tragedies. It is the culmination of the quest for sovereignty and freedom and, while Israel is not perfect by any stretch, we endeavor to work toward that ideal. Israel is the dream for which so many have given so much, as well as a complex, thrilling, sometimes infuriating, always cherished reality.

In the context of millennia of Jewish civilization, the comparatively new state of Israel is a part of all of us and we are all, in some way, a part of it.

Nostalgia’s place in progress

There were no doubt many emotions surrounding the Israel Prize this year: disdain over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu intervening to disqualify some judges apparently on ideological grounds, pride for the winners and disappointment among those forgotten. Even Chaim Topol, this year’s Israel Prize winner for lifetime achievement, said he had mixed feelings about his victory since other deserving candidates have been shut out in recent years. And for those who think about Topol in what is his most popular role, that of Tevye in the 1971 film (and some of the stage productions of) Fiddler on the Roof, there is likely one other emotion: nostalgia.

Nostalgia often gets a bad rap when it is talked about in the context of social maturity. But as I’ve argued elsewhere, the collective experience of nostalgia can also be a source of psychological sustenance for mourning an apparently simpler past in order to embrace a more complex present. In 20th-century Jewish popular culture, nowhere has this been more apparent than in the case of Fiddler on the Roof.

This was a time of emerging feminism and rising divorce rates. Races, religions and ethnicities were mixing as never before. The nature of Jewish religious practice was becoming viewed as a personal choice – something that Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen have described as the emergence of a “Jewish sovereign self.” On this backdrop, Fiddler’s audiences were given a “safe space” – in today’s parlance – to mourn patriarchy, cultural homogenization, and collective adherence to folkways and cultural conventions.

Consider the dream sequence. In presenting his concocted reverie as a divine omen in order to convince Golde that Tzeitel should marry Motel, Tevye pulls a trick out of the bag of shtetl superstition. And the conceit works. Though we know it’s a ruse, we become caught up in the ghoulish spin of the costumes, choreography and music. For a few minutes, we bid farewell to outmoded beliefs and traditions without feeling that we are abandoning our past commitments outright.

Or the ironic and comical number “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” where the comfort of convention is as thrilling for the daughters initially in the show, as is their fierce independence by the end.

Or Tevye conceding in the prologue that he doesn’t know the origin of some of the community’s customs. As Judaism becomes increasingly infused with contemporary values – the ecological dimension of powering down on Shabbat; the blending of new food politics with kashrut and the search for personal spirituality – Tevye’s proverbial wink directed at the audience allows us to keep one foot in the present of personal autonomy and choice, while the other dips into the comfortable past where automatic adherence to Jewish tradition formed the bonds of community.

American Jewish writer Cynthia Ozick complained that Fiddler portrayed Sholem Aleichem’s stories as “naive,” with “the occasion of a nostalgia for a sweeter time, pogroms notwithstanding.” Fiddler’s Broadway director and choreographer Jerome Robbins was concerned about the play appearing overly nostalgic, writing to his costume designer that he didn’t want audiences viewing the characters “through the misty nostalgia of a time past….”

For allowing Americans to come to terms with a changing America, however, and for American Jews to reflect on the rapid changes within their own communities, the nostalgia in Fiddler has been important. As Stephen J. Whitfield has written in his history of the show, Fiddler “had the advantage of distance: play-goers were far enough removed to memorialize without honoring any particular claims it might make, and without submitting to any moral mandates it might demand.”

Thinking about the role of Fiddler in today’s Jewish landscape, I think about the constant tensions between history and tradition on one hand, and modernity and contemporary values on the other. This has been especially important in how Jewish communities negotiate difference.

From the ashes of the Holocaust, the Zionist struggle for sovereignty and postwar North American Jews fighting against prejudice and discrimination, Jewish concerns now include many additional tensions. There’s intermarriage – how to broaden the tent enough to include intermarried families who may wish to be part of the Jewish people, but not so much that the meaning of being Jewish is lost; increased women’s ritual participation in North American synagogues and in public space in Israel; and LGBTQ Jews looking to take their place in Jewish communities. For their part, Israelis struggle – not hard enough, perhaps – to honor their state’s Jewish identity while extending full equality to the Palestinian minority and contending with the ongoing occupation, all while confronting the difficult plight of African refugees and asylum-seekers.

With Passover just behind us – and, for many, its nostalgia-drenched experience of gathering around the seder table – we might pause to consider how to navigate the uncertain waters of change while being anchored by tradition. And yes, a little nostalgia now and then might just help.

Mira Sucharov is 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.

Time to truly celebrate

This month – and in this issue – we celebrate Israel. Few regular readers would disagree with the assertion that the state of Israel represents a modern miracle. For whatever criticisms are fairly and unfairly leveled at Israel and its governments, this tiny country, populated mostly by refugees and their children, has accomplished and built one of the greatest societies in the world in what is, by historical standards, a blink of an eye.

There are so many quantitative examples of Israeli achievements: per capita numbers of Nobel prizes and other recognitions of achievements, world-leading academic publishing, number of businesses launched and successes reached, diverse and life-altering scientific breakthroughs and exceptional contributions across almost every discipline of human endeavor.

Then there are the incalculable measurements that are what strike so many of us when we visit Israel – or when we are visited by Israelis. In just the coming weeks alone, we are offered numerous samples of the cultural richness of the country.

The community-wide Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration on April 22 features Micha Biton, whose music is an example of the beauty that can emerge even in places and times of challenge, he being a part of the music scene in Sderot. A week-plus later, we will be treated to Ester Rada, an actress and singer who just emerged on the international scene.

These are just two of the most immediate examples of Israeli culture offered to local audiences year-round, including an embarrassment of riches during festivals like Chutzpah!, the Jewish book and film festivals, and during regular programming at the J. Israeli artists and photographers are regularly featured, as are speakers on diverse topics, brought here by local affiliates of Israeli universities and institutions.

To say that we – even 10,000 kilometres away – are enriched by the abundance of culture and knowledge that defines Israel is to underestimate the blessing it is to us. But this is not a one-way relationship. There is a greatness, too, in the way our community has mobilized for seven decades to help Israelis flourish. These bilateral connections are deep and important. From the moment the state of Israel was proclaimed 67 years ago, Vancouverites have been integrally involved with Israel in countless ways.

Before intercontinental travel became commonplace, stories appeared in the pages of this newspaper about locals traveling to Israel – as tourists, as volunteers, as dreamers seeking to see in their lifetimes the reality of a revived Jewish nation. More common still was the plethora of organizations emerging to assist in the nurturing of Israel through acts of tzedaka and volunteerism here at home. Women’s groups, youth movements, Zionist agencies of all stripes, “friends” of universities and hospitals, and so many other great institutions popped up, mobilized by the passion local community members felt for the rebirth of the Jewish nation.

Though these connections have changed, they have not diminished. Thanks to improved technologies and transportation, our community sends athletes to meet and compete with their Israeli cousins – and welcome Israelis here in return. We continue to support so many projects and institutions in Israel that “Vancouver” and local family names proudly adorn countless buildings, facilities, medical machinery, ambulances and other resources in Israel.

In a world that sometimes seems mad to us (as well as mad at us), there are few in our community who take for granted the blessing that Israel is to us and to the world.

As we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut this year, marking Israel’s 67th anniversary, let’s make a commitment to ourselves, a new year’s resolution of sorts for Israel’s new year.

Let’s be even more conscious of our relationship with Israel. Let’s go out of our way to buy Israeli products and support Israeli initiatives. Find an Israeli cause you haven’t yet supported – there are plenty of advocates right here in town for universities, charities and other great projects – and make it one of your causes. Take more of the opportunities offered to us throughout the year as Israeli speakers, performers and artists visit. Head to the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library and learn about an aspect of Israel that’s new to you. Watch more Israeli film. Take Hebrew lessons. The options are endless without even leaving the comfort of your hometown.

If you can, of course, travel to Israel. An “on-the-ground” education is invaluable. One of the best ways to express your curiosity, and support Israel is to spend time there, meeting Israelis, investigating for yourself aspects of Jewish history and culture, experiencing new tastes, sounds, smells and sights. And, while you’re there, open your heart and mind to the realities of this great country; pledge to learn more about the land, its people, its creatures, its ecology, the good, as well as the more challenging aspects that could use some work. Pack up the family, join a community mission or grab a backpack and head over on your own – the mishpacha is waiting for you.

Happy birthday Israel and moadim l’simcha.

Antisemitism so engrained

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” – Rabbi Hillel

I was more than incensed when a teacher at our public elementary school in Southern California decided to have her second grade students color paper Easter eggs and hang them in the hallway outside the classroom. The large sign that was attached read, “Happy Easter.” How appropriate this would be in a private religious school, but not in a setting where everyone does not celebrate Easter. I was so tempted to have my students paint matzos and hang them in the hallway with a sign that read, “Happy Passover.” I was even more tempted to ask her what kind of curricular connection she was making. How did this fare at our school site? Nobody even batted an eyelash. People walked up and down that hallway for weeks and it seemed like her display was commonplace to most. Of course, I would not classify this as an act of antisemitism just an act of insensitivity.

This is the world we live in as public school educators in the United States. We are to treat all holidays equally and not focus on one at the expense of another. We must always consider “separation of church and state.” But this is a huge misnomer! It is 2015 and, during my last 16 years of teaching in the district, meetings have consistently been scheduled during Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover. Am I to believe that this is just a simple mistake? After so many mistakes, I don’t think so. My only other Jewish colleague on campus suggested we not acknowledge this issue. According to her, it would “open up a big can of worms.” I said, “ It is indeed time to let the worms run wild!”

I think of all the public schools, colleges and universities that have recently been confronted by some terrible acts of antisemitism. Perhaps it’s naiveté on my part, perhaps I’m thinking that Jews and non-Jews have forged harmonious relationships with one another over the years, perhaps I am entirely wrong.

I am given shocking reminders of what it was like growing up in the mid-sixties and seventies. I was frequently called a “dirty Jew,” knowing full well that I had bathed before coming to school that day. During Yom Kippur, the administration at school did not acknowledge that this was a significant holiday and wanted to count it as a sick day. My mother fought a good fight but to no avail. Furthermore, tests were given during the High Holidays when the Jewish students were not there to take them.

I was a member of the speaker’s bureau in college. It was our job to bring to campus a good cross-section of individuals with varying viewpoints. To think that Yitzhak Rabin could not even speak that day over the chanting, booing and epithets being thrown his way by some students. It took an inordinate amount of security to stop this from getting really ugly. That incident is still engrained in my mind. I thought that something like this could never have happened on our campus. I was indeed wrong.

Some 50 years later, and I literally feel sick to my stomach knowing how Rachel Beyda, a student at the University of California, Los Angeles, running for a seat on the judicial council, was treated or, shall we say, mistreated. To think that her Jewish background would have been considered a “conflict of interest.” Is this a return to Nazi Germany, where Jews can be interrogated? Poor Rachel Beyda had to endure at least four hours’ worth. No matter the response from the chancellor’s office or the public and private apologies, a fellow Jew had been mistreated in the worst way.

I didn’t believe things could get worse until I recently visited my parents in Vancouver. Alas, a referendum vote at the University of British Columbia among the student population: “Do you support your student union (AMS) in boycotting products and divesting from companies that support Israeli war crimes, illegal occupation and the oppression of Palestinians?” What an absolutely frightening proposition. How fortunate the majority of students had the decency and intelligence to not vote for this most disturbing proposal.

When antisemitism hits your backyard, it’s time to bring in all the “heavy hitters” you possibly can and appeal to the members of one’s community. Unfortunately, this antisemitism is so deeply entrenched it may never go away. What a frightening phenomenon.

Linda Raphael Young was born and raised in Vancouver. She lives in Pasadena with her husband, Mel, a retired educator, and their 5-year-old Havanese, Dudley.

Campus, church extremism

Last week, students at the University of British Columbia rejected a referendum question that would have urged the student society to boycott Israeli businesses and products.

But the news was by no means all good when the results came in last Friday night. In fact, more students voted yes in support of BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) than voted no. The question was defeated effectively on a technicality, with the number of students voting yes failing to reach quorum. Therefore the question failed.

Students were asked: “Do you support your student union (AMS) in boycotting products and divesting from companies that support Israeli war crimes, illegal occupation and the oppression of Palestinians?” The yes side received 3,493 votes, 2,223 students voted no and 435 registered their abstentions. To pass, the vote required 4,130 yeses, representing eight percent of eligible students.

In this, too, there is good news and bad news. The low turnout indicates that students at the university have better things on their mind than the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the anti-Israel movement on college campuses in North America is comparatively small. Yet the damage this narrow group of extremists can do to the comfort and security of Jewish and Zionist students – and to the broader objective of an inclusive, welcoming environment – has been serious and detrimental.

The BDS movement has had few tangible successes and plenty of failures, if measured by their effectiveness at actually boycotting, divesting from or sanctioning anything. What they have been wildly successful at is spreading messages that single out Israel as the fountainhead of all things evil.

Also mixed news is the fact that, while campaigns like BDS are finding it difficult to rustle up serious numbers of equally agitated fellow travelers, Jewish students, too, are challenged in finding substantial numbers of allies when confronted with a campaign of targeted aggression against the Jewish homeland. There might be only a few thousand out of more than 50,000 students who succumb to anti-Israel messaging, but there are even fewer who observe that messaging and are moved to come to the aid of Israel – and/or Jewish students – when it is attacked in this fashion.

Which raises another issue facing our Vancouver community.

Later this month, Canadian Friends of Sabeel will hold a conference on “overcoming Christian Zionism.” Sabeel describes itself as an “ecumenical Palestinian liberation theology centre” that is “working for justice, peace and reconciliation in Palestine-Israel.” In reality, it is a group that promotes a misrepresentation of events in the Middle East. The conference slated for Vancouver is explicitly aimed at undermining Israel among its North American Christian supporters.

Conservative Christians have been among Israel’s most reliable bloc of friends in troubled times. Like any bedfellows, the Zionist-Christian alliance brings with it complexities. While some Christians use Zionism as a back door to evangelizing or view Christianity as a “successor” religion to Judaism, for example, there are also many in the Christian Zionist movement who respect the integrity of Judaism.

The upcoming conference is co-sponsored by three Christian churches.

The United Church of Canada, for decades but especially in recent years, has adopted a heavily anti-Israel approach to global affairs. Their sponsorship of this event is not surprising. The Presbyterian Church in Canada is also supporting this event, though this, too, is not shocking, given that the American branch of the Presbyterian Church has been beset by anti-Israel agitation and last year voted to divest itself of some Israeli holdings.

What is surprising – and worrisome – is the role of the Anglican Church of Canada as co-sponsor of this conference. Two years ago, the church passed a resolution that made some attempts at balance but was marred by typical anti-Israel boilerplate. With their co-sponsorship of this Sabeel event, the Anglican church has thrown itself unequivocally off the fence.

There are parallels between these two developments – the UBC vote and the involvement of erstwhile moderate Christian groups in a blatantly anti-Israel conference. The fact is, probably most active Anglicans, Presbyterians and United churchgoers have no idea what their national bodies are up to. Of the millions of Canadians represented by these three denominations, the vast majority probably do not have an opinion on – or do not agree with – the approach of this month’s conference. As we saw at UBC, the anti-Israel movement tends to be a small group of zealots who get involved in a legitimate body and turn it into a platform, a rabidly anti-Israel tail wagging an otherwise amicable dog.

Like the impact of anti-Israel extremism on campus, the involvement of mainline Christian groups in this anti-Israel conference shows how a small group of dedicated individuals can create nasty, lasting divisions in a multicultural community.