Love Israel more openly

Editorial

The lighting of the Silber Family Agam Menorah on the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery has become a delightful, uplifting and important symbolic annual event for Vancouver's Jewish community. This year's lighting, reported in last week's Bulletin, was no exception. Despite the darkness that tends to overtake us as we consider the frightful situation in Israel and in other parts of the world, the light that raises our spirits during these midwinter holidays is a welcome respite.

Around the fringes of the crowd at that Sunday noontime event, there was a small band of Vancouver police officers and hired security people, a reminder of the dangers that seem ever-present, even amid a holiday that celebrates escape from oppression millennia ago. Beyond the security at the edges of the art gallery property, though, were small milling crowds of people. These were not people to be feared, thankfully, but rather those who happened to be walking along Georgia Street and stopped, wondering what was going on.

In the course of their Sunday afternoon errands, these people were treated to an interesting spectacle of a religious celebration occurring in the heart of the city. While most of the city was preparing for Christmas, a few hundred people bundled against the cold to celebrate Chanukah and express solidarity with Jews in Israel and around the world. It was a pleasure to see the looks of curiosity and smiles on the faces of passersby. It was, in fact, a pleasant feeling to remind those who happened to stop by that Christmas is not the only holiday that takes place at this time of year.

Moreover, the words from speakers on the steps of the art gallery may have reminded some Vancouverites that, though foreign affairs may seem a remote distraction in this busy season, world events have a very direct and personal impact on many of us who have family and other loved ones in Israel.

The menorah lighting – and similar events like it in other communities across Canada – are public for a reason. Chanukah is a time when Jews openly share their traditions with anyone who wants to experience the warmth of those eight days and nights in one of the coldest months of the year. Looking at the faces of the passersby that day might have led participants to ask themselves why we don't do that more often. The annual public menorah lighting is a celebration for the Jewish community, but it also has the happy byproduct of creating positive, if relatively passive, outreach.

The fact that police were on hand "just in case" is one reason why public events like these do not happen more frequently. There is, sadly but understandably, a long tradition in the Jewish community to keep our heads down. Discretion has been the better part of valor for generations of Jews and that tendency has come to Canada and, in some instances, been reinforced here. Scars of oppression are hard to heal. There are many people in Vancouver's Jewish community for whom public demonstrations are frightening, whose experience has taught them to keep their Jewish identity close to their vests.

But there are those in the community for whom public expressions are not so daunting and there should be more opportunities for these people to express themselves.

At the Townhall meeting of the Israel Action Committee last Sunday, many in the audience spoke of a desire to show support for Israel any way they could. The most important way of doing that remains visiting Israel, but many in the community cannot afford the expense of a trip halfway around the world. For those, there are other options, such as buying Israeli products. However, there is another option that is too often overlooked.

We should take the opportunity to show our support for Israel in as public a way as we can. It is wonderful that a community vigil is slated for Thursday, Jan. 2, to show support for Israel. The event takes place, once again, in the atrium of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC) and we urge all members of the community to attend. But having it at the JCC will be a missed opportunity.

The onlookers who passed by the menorah lighting at the art gallery downtown would not have witnessed the moving event had it been held in the confines of the JCC. This is an important lesson that should not be overlooked.

A vigil has many purposes, and one of them is to send a message to the general public that Israel has plenty of friends in Vancouver. Is that message going to be delivered effectively from inside the JCC atrium? It would make more of a positive statement – and one that more Vancouverites could experience – if we stood, as we did at Chanukah, in solidarity, with our candles burning in the heart of the city.

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