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April 29, 2011
The start of a lasting dialogue
First Nations and immigrant communities come together.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Dialogues between First Nations, Urban Aboriginal and Immigrant Communities in Vancouver (Dialogues Project) was initiated last year by the City of Vancouver and several local partners. With the goal of promoting “increased understanding and stronger relationships between indigenous and immigrant communities within the city,” the most recent cultural exchange took place at Temple Sholom Synagogue.
“First Nations people have been living here for thousands of years,” offers the background material on the project’s website, vancouver.ca/dialoguesproject. “The city is within the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people, including the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, who still live here today. They are thriving communities with unique, living cultures rich in heritage. Many aboriginal people from other communities have also come here and now call Vancouver home, adding their experiences to the cultural tapestry.”
Recognizing that “there is limited inter-cultural interaction between aboriginal and immigrant Canadians,” a “key goal of the project is to help bridge the information and communication gaps between these communities.” Officially launched on April 13, 2010, at the University of British Columbia First Nations Longhouse, the project aims to meet this goal by focusing on five components:
• Story gathering and community research, wherein interviews have been undertaken to determine the level of understanding of issues relating to aboriginal and immigrant communities and a literature search and review has been conducted on the information provided to new immigrants on aboriginal-related issues. A survey took place between May and July 2010 and a summary of the results eventually will be released.
• Dialogue circles, which were held between April and July 2010. At the sessions, participants shared their stories and experiences “on social inclusion and relations between aboriginal and immigrant/non-aboriginal communities.... Each dialogue group met three times to focus on a particular theme at each session (past relations, current relations and future relations between aboriginal and immigrant/non-aboriginal communities). All dialogue circles were facilitated and recorded.”
• Cultural exchange visits, which “serve as significant learning opportunities for the visitors to engage with the histories and cultures of the groups hosting the exchanges.”
• Youth and elders program, where speakers from different generations talk to interested communities and groups about the project.
• Legacy projects, which will be undertaken “to create something tangible and longer-lasting, with wider impact on community members who may not have directly participated in the Dialogues Project.”
Temple Sholom member Annie Burkes works in social policy at the City of Vancouver.
“My role is on the grants team, which is connected to the group that has been organizing the Dialogues Project,” she told the Independent. “The city put out a call to all multicultural communities interested in being a part of the project, and the Ismaili, Jewish and Chinese communities are the three who [hosted] events as part of this project.” There also have been several exchanges hosted by First Nations communities or organizations.
“We have a project steering group, comprised of representatives from the various First Nations, urban aboriginal, immigrant-serving and other stakeholder groups,” explained Dialogues Project coordinator Karen Fong to the Independent. “Generally, for the cultural exchange visits, we advertise them through the steering group and other partner organizations, as well as the people who have participated in past initiatives of the Dialogues Project. For this particular visit, we emphasized aboriginal invitees, as this one was hosted by a non-aboriginal community. On the Jewish side, we worked with the rabbis from Temple Sholom to connect with representatives from the Jewish community. As well, we invited some participants of the project who are from the Jewish community.
“The program for the cultural exchange visits usually includes an introduction about the host community (which may include a presentation, guest speakers or a tour of the site) and some discussion/Q&A about the history, culture and current issues of the host community. Generally, a meal is included, as it is a good way for people to connect with each other. And, if possible, we try to arrange for a performance as a way of cultural sharing.”
The invitation to the April 10 evening at Temple Sholom was headed, “Telling the Jewish Narrative: Cultural Visit with the Jewish Community.” It featured a work of art by Jewish community member Linda Dayan Frimer and Cree artist George Littlechild called “Persecute Us Not,” from the series In Honor of Our Grandmothers. The description read: “Frimer and Littlechild painted their separate belief systems while sharing reverence, dignity and empathy between nations. The series involved researching and painting on parallel issues of oppression, segregation and attempted genocide. This work resulted in aboriginal and Jewish community family history art workshops, a traveling exhibition, presentations and a published book.”
Dayan Frimer was one of the speakers in the program, which started with a welcome by Temple Sholom Rabbi Philip Bregman, who emceed the evening, noting several of the similarities between the Jewish and First Nation communities, including an appreciation of tradition and storytelling and the importance of land. Temple Sholom Rabbi Daniel Mikelberg and Or Shalom Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan introduced the 90-100 attendees to the basic tenets of Judaism, Jews’ connection to Israel and the meaning of several important objects in the sanctuary, such as the Torah and the Ner Tamid (Eternal Light). Beth Israel Rabbi Jonathan Infeld shared not only a few thoughts on Passover and kashrut, but also some of his family history, which was touched by the Holocaust.
Other Jewish community members who spoke were Rabbi Claudio Kaiser-Blueth of Beth Tikvah, who introduced and then led the Birkat Hamazon, and organizational representatives Shelley Rivkin of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Joel Kaplan of Jewish Family Service Agency and Romy Ritter of Canadian Jewish Congress spoke about the “material” side of Jewish communal life, as Rivkin phrased it.
About the evening at her synagogue, Burkes said, “I felt the event went really well, and I was actually blown away by how powerful it was to hear so many different rabbis and lay leaders come together to tell our common story.
“The purpose of the event was to introduce Judaism and the Jewish community to Vancouver’s aboriginal community by talking about the religion, the culture, the role of the individual and the collective community. Despite religious differences, I was moved by how our leaders each focused on the common threads that tie our community together, and made a direct connection to many elements that both the Jewish and aboriginal communities have in common, like a shared experience of recent trauma, the importance and meaning of our homeland, and negative perceptions of our cultures in the media.”
At this writer’s table during the dinner portion of the evening, there was particular excitement among the First Nations’ guests about the aspects of Judaism that overlapped with their spiritual traditions, such as the Torah containing stories in which animals speak, as Duhan Kaplan mentioned, and the Jewish expression of gratitude through blessings, as Kaiser-Blueth explained. Many guests empathized with the speakers’ remarks about the Holocaust and having to bear that pain through generations, as well as the effects of antisemitism, because they, too, carry the pain of injustices done to previous and current generations.
“We may never forgive, but we have to be able to reconcile that,” project steering group co-chair Wade Grant told the exchange participants about the immense harm caused by the residential school system to First Nations people across Canada. “And it’s things like this, it’s opportunities like this, that we come together and ... we learn that we’re not so different ... aboriginal people, the Chinese community, the Jewish community, we have shared experiences that we can all talk about and, once we learn that we are not so different, then we can move forward and have a better understanding of one another.”
After dinner and the Jewish organizations’ presentations, there was a question-and-answer period. One questioner wanted to know what it meant when Jews spoke about being indigenous to the land of Israel, and how that affected Palestinians’ claim to part of that land for their own state. Bregman briefly explained the long Jewish history in the area and some of the complex issues involved in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, stressing the desire for a peaceful solution.
The evening concluded with a traditional song performed by Kathy Charles and Charleen Grant of the Musqueam Warriors, as well as more thank yous.
“In our tradition, we didn’t have a written language, we have passed on our history, we have passed on our stories, through oral tradition and we hope that each and everyone of you go out, pass on what you saw here tonight,” said Wade Grant. “Pass it to your family and your friends and your loved ones and let them know, if you want to learn a little bit more about our culture, and I’ll let them know that, if they want to learn a little bit more about your culture, just ask somebody.”
About the project’s impact, Fong told the Independent, “Certainly, we feel the project has made a significant contribution to bringing together diverse communities from the First Nations, urban aboriginal and immigrant/non-aboriginal communities. To date, we’ve had hundreds of people participate in the project’s initiatives, including the launch, dialogue circles, community survey, cultural exchange visits, and elders and youth programs. Of course, the broader goal is to promote stronger inter-community relations among the wider community, reaching beyond the immediate participants of the project. By the end ... we will have a ‘story’ document and DVD, which will address the goals and achievements of the project and tell some of the community and individual stories that have come out. The story document and DVD will be widely distributed to the various communities.
“Additionally, we have applied to the province to continue funding the project for another year,” she continued, as current federal and provincial funding is only to July. “If our application is successful, the next phase of the Dialogues Project will focus on ideas, particularly those arising from the project in this phase, to foster sustainable inter-community relations. We will focus on specific legacy projects to build on the connections that have already been made and encourage continued engagement.”
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