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April 19, 2002
Supporting Israel for 101 years
Federation’s three paths to solidarity with Israel.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Israel is not alone. That was the message delivered at the Jewish
National Fund of Canada’s Negev Dinner Sunday night and that
is the message that Israeli Ambassador to Canada Haim Divon said
he will take back to his government.
Undeterred by the 70-odd pro-Palestinian protestors who marched
in front of the Four Seasons Hotel, where the dinner was held, approximately
450 people came together to celebrate 101 years of the JNF, to honor
Rabbi Dr. Yosef Wosk, to pay tribute to the late Morris Wosk and
to thank JNF supporters.
After Bonnie Belzberg, president of JNF, Pacific Region, welcomed
everyone to the dinner and Arnold Selwyn sang “O Canada”
and “Hatikvah,” emcee Jack Blaney gave his opening remarks.
Blaney, senior fellow of the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue,
Simon Fraser University, praised his friend Morris Wosk, z”l,
and spoke of Yosef Wosk as “one of the gentlest, kindest persons
you’ll ever meet.” He outlined some of Yosef Wosk’s
accomplishments, including the popular Philosophers’ Café,
his donation of more than 1,000 trees in Israel for students in
local Jewish schools and his initiative to twin the Fraser and Jordan
Rivers.
Blaney’s comments set the tone for the evening which combined
joy with sadness. The event mourned the recent passing of Morris
Wosk, honorary patron of the dinner, while paying homage to the
accomplishments of his son, Yosef Wosk, who was not in attendance,
as he was sitting shivah. The evening represented a celebration
of the JNF as much as it did a communal prayer for the safety of
Israel and Jews around the world in the face of what keynote speaker
Prof. Irwin Cotler, MP, called the new anti-Semitism, or anti-Jewishness.
Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen took to the dais after Blaney.
“Yosef is a friend of ours and he is a friend of many people,”
said Owen, who acknowledged Israel’s great need for water and
lauded Wosk’s involvement with the JNF’s Water for Life
project.
The JNF, which is probably best known for its tree-planting efforts,
also focuses on Israel’s water shortage. According to a short
video presentation, the JNF has built more than 100 dams and reservoirs
in Israel. JNF of Canada has undertaken the development of the Ne’ot
Temarim Reservoir, which is south of the Dead Sea. The reservoir
will provide enough water for about 14,000 people a year.
“We have to support the land of Israel and its institutions,”
said Yosef Wosk in the video, which also outlined Wosk’s many
achievements: five post-graduate degrees, being named one of the
top 10 thinkers in British Columbia, appointment to the Order of
B.C., the founding of the Academy for Independent Scholars, Philosophers’
Café, and work with libraries, music programs, galleries,
museums and many other projects.
Ran Bagg, Jerusalem emissary of the JNF, captured the feeling of
the crowd when he stated how difficult it was for him to be at the
dinner without the Wosks. In addition to thanking everyone who attended
and those who organized the event, Bagg referred to the protestors
outside as people who did not believe that Israel has a right to
exist.
“We will carry on. We will overcome,” he said.
Divon echoed Bagg’s determination and applauded the JNF’s
work in Israel.
“Keep up this good work. Now more than ever it is so important,
so important that we know that you are there,” said Divon,
who remarked that he is taking back to Israel the message that all
around the world, Israel has friends and supporters. Sandra Posluns,
national JNF president, received great applause when she said that
the Jewish people will walk on Israel’s soil “forever.”
After the Birkat Hamazon, led by Dr. David Freedman, Naomi Frankenburg,
past president of the national JNF and honorary chair of the Negev
Dinner, said a few words about Morris Wosk, describing the “twinkle
in his eye” and his boyish excitement at receiving an honorary
doctorate from Hebrew University in 1989. She said Wosk knew how
to overcome obstacles, an ability which allowed him to become a
great philanthropist.
Frankenburg also presented the Hon. Grace McCarthy with the Bernard
M. Bloomfield Medal for outstanding community service.
“She has served this province better than anyone I know,”
said Frankenburg, adding that McCarthy has been an exceptional and
unique friend to the Jewish community.
Former lieutenant governor Garde Gardom paid tribute to Yosef Wosk,
calling him “a truly remarkable man.” Two of Wosk’s
children, Avi and Elisheva, accepted a plaque on his behalf and
Wosk responded to the honor via a video recorded earlier in the
day.
Speaking of the JNF projects with which he is involved, Wosk described
himself as someone who, born 10 years after the state of Israel,
took its existence for granted. But his generation has learned otherwise,
said Wosk, who pledged to plant 100 trees for each of the Gardom,
Blaney and Owen families.
“Hope is a waking dream,” he said, but hope is not enough.
We need to continue to search for knowledge and wisom, said Wosk.
The next generation must come forward, however reluctantly, and
say “Hineni, Here I am,” he concluded.
The final speaker of the busy evening was Cotler, who went through
the events leading up to and following the United Nations World
Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which took place
last fall. Cotler warned that the hatred and anti-Semitism manifested
at the conference – the equation of Zionism with racism, for
example – is a sign of things to come and that the Jewish people
must be aware of it in order to confront it and prevail over it.
While Cotler himself noted that his keynote address was somewhat
depressing, he said his view was hopeful.
“As we approach the 54th year of Israeli independence, as we
recall the 4,000 years of Jewish peoplehood, let us remember that
despair would not only be a denial of the Jewish past, it would
be a betrayal of the Jewish future,” said Cotler.
“Whatever 2002 may be, it is not 1942. There is a Jewish state
today as an antidote to Jewish powerlessness. There are Jewish people
today with untold moral, intellectual and material resources. There
are non-Jews and representatives of people here this evening who
are prepared to stand up and be counted because ultimately this
is not simply a Jewish cause but a just cause.”
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