Afghanistan

Rescuing Afghan women MPs

Corey Levine has helped bring many Afghan women MPs and their families to safety in Canada. She will speak about her experiences at the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society event honouring her. (photo from Corey Levine)

The Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society’s Civil Courage Award honours individuals who help others escape from unjust and dangerous situations at great risk to themselves, as both Sweden’s Raoul Wallenberg and Japan’s Chiune Sugihara did during the Second World War to help Jews flee the Nazis. On Jan. 19, at the society’s 20th Annual Raoul Wallenberg Day event, this year’s award will be given to Corey Levine, who has been helping women flee Afghanistan.

There were 69 women in Afghanistan’s parliament when the country experienced a brief period of democracy. When Kabul fell and the Taliban retook control on Aug. 15, 2021, these women had to flee or they would have been murdered. Most of them made it to Greece, Albania or elsewhere, where they lived until they were able to make their way to Canada or the United States. Others made it to Pakistan, where they live in hiding, in danger of being deported back to Afghanistan if found.

Levine has been doing human rights work in war zones for about 30 years. “I really embrace the idea of tikkun olam, that it is our individual responsibility to contribute to repairing the world,” she said.

Her first trip to Afghanistan, in March 2002, was as a consultant with the Canadian International Development Agency’s peace-building unit. “The Taliban had just been routed, and Western countries were starting to engage,” she said.

That was the start of a 23-year-and-counting relationship with the country, both as a consultant with various international organizations and personally.

The last time she was on a paid contract in Afghanistan, it was with UN Women. She was there for nine months, “seconded to work with Afghan women parliamentarians, to support them and develop some strategies, etc. I left Afghanistan six weeks before the Taliban took over the second time and, basically, from the time that I left, but especially the day that Kabul fell, Aug. 15, 2021, people started contacting me. At first, it was Afghan friends and colleagues – because I’d been going there for 20 years at that point – asking me for help. And I said, I don’t know, I’ll see what I can do. I couldn’t have imagined then that it would end up being a 24/7 crisis management [project] that I ended up doing for the past three-and-a-half years all on my own, voluntarily.”

Calls for help started coming from people Levine didn’t know. “In a way, it was almost like an underground railway,” she said, with so many people, as individuals or as part of organizations, trying to get out of the country, Afghans at risk of being killed by the Taliban. Helping people escape was unfamiliar work for many of the people involved. “We were all kind of flying by the seat of our pants,” she said.

“It’s one thing to get people into safe houses. That’s only a temporary Band-Aid solution. It’s how to help them afterwards, how to help them reach safety. And then I started organizing private sponsorship. Canada has this unique program where groups of people in a community can come together and raise money and privately sponsor refugees.”

Levine has managed to organize seven private sponsorship groups in Victoria, where she lives, and is working on an eighth. Amid this work, she returned to Afghanistan in June 2022. While there on that trip, she tried to help some of the women MPs who had been left behind, and this work became part of her ongoing efforts to rescue at-risk Afghans.

“In September 2022,” said Levine. “I went to a conference in Ottawa and I met a few MPs…. I don’t know how, but I put together an all-party group of MPs that were interested in helping me get these women out.”

The resulting group comprises Bloc Québécois citizenship and immigration critic Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, who was a co-chair of the Special Committee on Afghanistan; Conservative MP Alex Ruff, who twice served in Afghanistan with Canada’s military and was also on the special committee; Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski, who had spoken out, even before the Taliban retook Afghanistan, about the need for Canada to help Afghans; Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who used to be Levine’s MP and who had already helped Levine in this area; NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson and Liberal MP Leah Taylor Roy, who were also keen to participate, said Levine.

“One of the women we were trying to help, and the event is dedicated to her memory, she was killed by the Taliban in January 2023,” said Levine, referring to Mursal Nabizada. “She was one of the women I had met when I was in Afghanistan in June of 2022…. Before that, we had been working under the radar with the government…. But then, once her death happened, because it was international news … the MPs released a statement about it, which got a lot of traction. The government stepped up after that, and we went back underground, so to speak,” mainly for security reasons.

However, the MP group has since become more public – a CBC documentary on their work aired last October. Its members continue to negotiate for more Afghan women MP refugees to be able to come to Canada and, from their efforts so far, seven Afghan families are here safely, said Levine. “One of them is going to be speaking at the event on the 19th.”

Former Afghan MP Gulalai Mohammadi, who escaped to Canada with her family last year, is that speaker. In addition to Mohammadi and Levine, May will also participate, representing the MP panel.

The Jan. 19, 1:30 p.m., event will take place at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture. Admission is free, but donations are welcome, with donations of $36 or more receiving a tax receipt. A reception will follow the program.

For more information on the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, visit wsccs.ca.

Creating a new home

Khalid Aziz (photo from Khalid Aziz)

Khalid Aziz got out of Afghanistan about six weeks before the government fell. Eighteen months later, he has a job here at a local café/bakery and works part-time with a local advisory group on refugees called Diverse City. In his spare time, he volunteers with Jewish Family Services, who he considers family, and attends JFS events.

“Khalid is amazing. He just lights up the room when he walks in,” said Emi Do, former supervisor of the Community Kitchen.

Recently, Aziz planned and led a JFS Community Kitchen event, where he taught participants to cook Afghan dumplings.

“It’s all about community building, celebrating and sharing skills and knowledge about food,” said Stacy Friedman, director of food security at JFS, about Community Kitchen events, where people meet and cook together. She hopes the program will pick up again later this spring.

“Khalid has a very warm presence and is a good communicator,” she said.

But how did Aziz connect with JFS in the first place?

When he was still new to Vancouver, Aziz found the JFS and Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver websites. He also heard on the news that Israel was taking in 150 to 200 Afghan refugees. That caught his attention and he wanted to find out more about the local Jewish community, so he contacted JFS and spoke to case manager Corrina Frederick. He was going through a rough time and Frederick was happy to listen to him.

“She showed so much empathy towards me … it was unbelievable,” Aziz said.

Soon after, Aziz was invited to a JFS Community Kitchen event, where he chatted with one of the other volunteers.

“While having our coffee, my friend asked me whether I was a Jew. I replied with Muslim. She was surprised and happy that I was among them, sitting next to each other in a beautiful atmosphere, with no hesitation, which was quite amazing to me,” he said.

Since then, Aziz has learned a lot about the Jewish people.

“Obviously, Judaism believes in one God. And its history is phenomenal. And what I learned and liked about the Jewish people is that they practise fasting, almsgiving and follow the dietary laws.” He also learned that Judaism uses the word kosher in the same way that Muslims use the word halal.

Aziz’s gratitude to JFS knows no bounds.

“The JFS assisted me with employment sources and invited me to their educational programs, as well as different events, to have the utmost experience in B.C. It really gives me pleasure to be a part of the Jewish Family Services, which helps others to achieve their goals and live peacefully.”

This is in stark contrast to his life in Kabul, where he received letters containing death threats from the Taliban for his work at the National Bank of Afghanistan, on U.S. embassy projects and at the United Nations, where he supervised and led 16 staff members involved in agriculture projects.

“Definitely, like many others, my life was in danger, without a doubt,” he said. And so were the lives of most of his family members, who were working with other organizations.

While most of his family are now living safely in different countries around the world, Aziz, 30, is still reeling from his experience getting here, and finding food and shelter.

To escape from Kabul, in July 2021, Aziz traveled to Pakistan to apply for a student visa in the United States. He successfully passed his interview at the U.S. embassy and was granted a visa one week before the Afghan government fell. With the help of family and friends, he traveled to the United States to live with his sister.

Due to the financial crisis in Afghanistan, his bank account was frozen. He waited five months for support from the American government. When that fell through, he decided to come to claim asylum in Canada.

It was nightfall and Aziz was able to avoid the U.S. border guards.

“Luckily, I made it to the border and entered Canada with happiness and hope for a better life and leaving all my stress and anxiety behind the crossing line,” he said.

The Canada Border Services Agency stopped him and cuffed him, but told him not to be afraid. They also told him that there was homelessness in Canada and he had better be prepared for that.

Aziz has no ill feelings towards the CBSA, saying they were kind in changing his handcuffs around so that he could have a drink of water.

Even though he had $1,000 when he reached Vancouver, all the hotels he found would only accept debit or credit cards. “After one hour of roaming and looking around for hotels, I ended up spending my night on a footpath downtown in the cold weather of February,” he said.

It was a tough month for Aziz, staying at shelters. “I wasn’t able to sleep well in my first month due to the inappropriate place, with no privacy and I was emotionally and mentally disturbed and stressed about what was going to happen next,” he said.

Aziz finally was able to rent a room and he bought job interview clothing while managing at the same time to volunteer for the Muslim Food Bank as a case worker and translator for refugees – he speaks several languages, including Pashto, Farsi, Urdu, Hindi and basic Arabic.

After about four months, Aziz found a job and, today, lives in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate in Burnaby.

Aziz hopes to engage in more refugee-related work locally, as well as with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Cassandra Freeman is an improv teacher and performer living in Vancouver.

A tragedy in progress

(photo from internationalaffairs.org.au)

The interview was a moment of clarity and despondency. A cable news anchor asked an Afghan-Canadian activist what the West should do to save the Afghan people, especially women and girls, from the Taliban.

The hesitation by the interviewee probably conveyed the hopelessness so many feel in direct proportion to their geographic or familial proximity to the crisis. The most powerful, heavily resourced military the world has ever known left Afghanistan this month after almost 20 years. Instantaneously, it seems, all the work of nation-building, developing security capacity and attempting to instil the structures of civil society, evaporated. If that force, backed by other Western powers, including Canada until 2014, could not hold back the tide of the Taliban, what can ordinary Canadians possibly do?

Based on the lessons of history, and the comparatively recent invention of the concept of “responsibility to protect,” the world, by any measure, should be coming to the aid of the Afghan people. But U.S. President Joe Biden is also correct, declaring, “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” U.S. leaders faced an impossible choice, probably with no possible good outcome.

It is unquestionably inhumane for the world to leave the Afghan people to the whims of tyrants. But the American people, particularly military families, have understandably had enough of “endless wars.” Who will step up to fill that vacuum? The United Nations was created, in part, for precisely this sort of moment but it has been, in many ways, corrupted and deracinated from the humanitarian foundations on which it was created.

If there were an easy solution to this quagmire, you wouldn’t be reading it in the pages of a small Jewish newspaper on the Pacific fringe of the continent. We have little beyond hopes and prayers to offer the Afghan people.

The fall of Kabul almost certainly represents something enormous, although we may not understand yet the full implications.

The beginnings and ends of historical eras are not always visible to those who live through them. Our current era, which began almost exactly 20 years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, in some respects, came to an end this month with the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan.

Many observers have compared the chaos at Kabul airport with the Saigon airlift in 1975, when America fled, as some put it, with its tail between its legs. Forty-five years later, America remains a force not to be trifled with. But neither is it the undisputed powerhouse it was since the Second World War. Whether it remains a recognized (and feared and respected) superpower – or whether the fall of Kabul is a bookend to the fall of Saigon in the longer fall of America – remains to be seen. Whatever eventuality, America is no doubt diminished.

This comes, not coincidentally, as central Asia and the Middle East roil with instability and the broader troubles of that part of the world will certainly present problems for Israel. But Israel has faced existential threats throughout its history and will most likely adapt to the new reality.

The events of recent weeks will have many consequences we cannot yet foresee. One thing is particularly notable, however. Hamas, who control Gaza, sent a message of congratulations to the Taliban for “defeating” the United States.

With thankfully few exceptions, no one believes the Taliban to be a force for any sort of good. When people who for decades have defended or apologized for Hamas violence against Israel are faced with the realization that Hamas and the Taliban are ideologically adjacent, will that alter the attitudes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

We won’t be holding our breath.

Get involved in election

Canadian elections do not generally pivot on issues of foreign affairs. Yet, the split screen image Sunday of Justin Trudeau calling a federal election juxtaposed with images of the Taliban seizing control of Afghanistan was a stark one. Canada left Afghanistan in 2014, having joined an international coalition after 9/11 to attempt to bring the terrorists who found free rein in that country to heel.

The remaining American forces were slated to leave this month, with U.S. military officials candidly acknowledging that their departure would almost certainly result in a Taliban revival. They were wrong only about the timing. Estimates were that it might take the fundamentalist Islamist sect weeks to take back the country. It took mere days.

The implications for Afghan citizens are bleak. Desperate Afghans were hopelessly clinging to U.S. military aircraft taxiing on the runway at Kabul airport. Afghan women will, based on prior experience under the Taliban, become some of the most oppressed in the world. There are also expectations of violent retaliation against anyone and everyone who, in the past two decades, “collaborated” with Western forces. The possible scenarios for Afghan people are horrible to envision.

And the implications go beyond the borders of that country. Optimists, such as they may be on this subject, say that the 20-year Western engagement in Afghanistan has not been for naught. The United States captured Osama Bin Laden and has not experienced another 9/11-type terror attack in that period, though whether Americans are actually safer, with other forms of domestic extremism and violence on the rise, is another question. Regardless, in a region with so much instability and contending factions, the Afghan situation further disrupts an already deeply troubled part of the world.

We may not immediately see the consequences of what is happening halfway around the world, but already domestic politics are being affected by the developments. Canadian military planes are rescuing interpreters and others who assisted our forces when they were in Afghanistan. There are calls for Canada and other Western places of refuge to accept more refugees from what seems destined to become a theocratic dystopia. But we cannot, apparently, save the entirety of the Afghan people and their country from the grips of their oppressors. Western powers held the Taliban at bay for 20 years but understandable domestic pressures to put a halt to “endless wars” inevitably brought us to this point.

This week’s election call comes amid a conflagration much closer to home as well. British Columbia is seeing wildfires and weather events unlike anything we have witnessed before. The hypothetical impacts of the climate emergency have gotten very, very real for Canadians with any sense of cause and effect. Appropriately, opinion polls suggest that Canadians view climate and the environment as a top – if not the top – issue as they ponder for whom to cast their ballots.

One problem with democracy is that those who seek public approval are disinclined to tell voters things they do not want to hear. Canadians (and other earthlings) need to understand that this crisis demands that our leaders impose potentially painful policies that will impact our emissions-producing lifestyles. We say we need to address the climate emergency, but will we be so enthusiastic when it impacts our own pocketbooks and comfortable routines?

One might imagine that scenes of the province on fire might make voters look seriously, finally, at a political party with the climate as its No. 1 priority. But the Green Party of Canada has been in turmoil since the Israel-Hamas conflict last spring. Annamie Paul, the Jewish, Black leader of the party, has been fighting an internal battle against insurgents in her own ranks. We hope that her voice will be heard and that all parties will take this existential issue with utmost seriousness.

The continuing pandemic will play a role in this campaign as well – both as Canadians assess the achievements of our government during the crisis and, more immediately, in the way candidates and campaigns pursue votes while adhering to safety protocols. The parties should be judged on what kind of COVID recovery plan they propose, and how they intend to follow through on supporting the most vulnerable Canadians through this health, economic and social crisis.

Whatever issues are important to you, this is the time to make your voice heard. Consider reaching out to your local candidates. Discuss your concerns with them. Volunteer for or contribute to their campaign if you like what you hear – consider connecting through the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs distils information about various party platforms and policies. Our country and our world face urgent issues. An informed, active electorate is the key to ensuring that our elected officials reflect the concerns that matter most to us.

Seeking siddur’s return

Afghanistan is seeking to repatriate a 1,200-year-old siddur, which is currently housed at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. (photo from Museum of the Bible)

The National Museum of Afghanistan, established in 1919 at the former Bagh-i-Bala royal palace overlooking Kabul, reflects both the multifaith heritage and tortured history of the Central Asian country that once dominated the Silk Road linking Europe and East Asia.

Following the outbreak of Afghanistan’s civil war in 1992, the museum was repeatedly shelled. It suffered heavy damage in a May 12, 1993, rocket strike. The combination of Taliban mortars and looters resulted in the loss of 70% of the 100,000 prehistoric, Hellenistic, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Islamic and Jewish objects once in its collection. Those pilfered artifacts flooded antiquities markets in London, Paris, New York and elsewhere. Now, the pro-Western regime of President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai – formerly an anthropology professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. – wants its cultural legacy returned. Among the treasures it is seeking to repatriate is a 1,200-year-old siddur (prayer book) – the world’s oldest Hebrew manuscript after the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“It is our responsibility to get back our ancient treasures,” said Abdul Manan Shiway e-Sharq – the country’s deputy minister for information and publications in the Ministry of Information and Culture – in the first-ever on-the-record interview between an Afghani official and an Israeli journalist.

Shiway e-Sharq said photos of the ancient siddur in Kabul’s National Museum, dating from 1998, contradict the ownership documents provided by the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. The MotB says it bought the siddur in 2013 from antiquities dealers in the United Kingdom who provided provenance documents showing the manuscript had been in Britain since the 1950s. The MotB paid $2.5 million for the prayer book. Though Shiway e-Sharq appraised the unique volume at $30 million for insurance purposes, it truly is priceless.

The prayer book may have belonged to the Radhanites, a little-known group of medieval merchants, some Jewish, who traded along the Silk Road linking Christian Europe, the Islamic world, China and India during the early Middle Ages. The Radhanites’ entrepôts and Afghanistan’s early Jewish community were likely destroyed in the 12th and 13th centuries, as the Mongol Empire grew from the steppes of Mongolia to extend from Europe to China.

Responding to a query, MotB’s chief curator Jeff Kloha said the museum will share results of an investigation when completed.

“As noted on the museum’s provenance research web page, museum staff continues to work with external scholars and experts to research this item’s historical and religious significance, as well the item’s history in (apparently) Afghanistan and later Israel and the United States,” Kloha said. “That research is progressing and nearing completion.”

The allegation that the MotB’s rare Afghan Hebrew prayer book is another ancient Near Eastern treasure that was smuggled out of its country of origin is the latest in a series of scandals about looted and forged antiquities that has rocked the Museum of the Bible since its 2017 opening.

The MotB recently shipped 8,000 clay tablets back to Baghdad that may have been taken from the Iraq Museum in 2003, when looters overran it during the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. At the end of January 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security returned 5,500 papyrus fragments from the MotB with “insufficient” provenance to Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, concluding Cairo’s efforts since 2016 to regain its antiquities. And, the museum has acknowledged that all of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments it acquired are forgeries.

MotB founder Steve Green, an evangelical Christian whose family owns the Hobby Lobby craft store chain, and chief curator Kloha have worked to tighten the museum’s acquisition policies after the U.S. government reached a settlement with Hobby Lobby in 2017 requiring the chain store to pay a $3 million fine for illegally importing ancient artifacts.

Leon Hill, the in-house counsel for Transparent Business Solutions, a Dutch company that specializes in corporate integrity management, is keen to see a resolution to the dispute over the ancient siddur. He is dismissive of Green’s explanation that he and Kloha are novices in the museum business and the acquisition of artifacts. “They can’t continue to say that. They’re no longer new. They have a duty to know better. They have a duty to the history and heritage of the artifacts they purport to protect.”

He accused the MotB of “cultural imperialism.” He said, “We hope that we won’t need to be hired by the Afghan government, and that the Museum of the Bible will do the right thing in the right way quickly.”

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.

Business of building peace

Barbara Stegemann’s 7 Virtues perfumes help farmers in war- or weather-torn countries rebuild. (photo from Barbara Stegemann)

Barbara Stegemann (née Rabinovitch) was born and raised in an Anglophone neighbourhood in Montreal. While her Catholic mother disallowed any practise of Judaism, Stegemann recalled having begged her zaida to take her to synagogue to meet the rabbi.

“My soul felt very Jewish,” Stegemann told the Independent. “As Ben Stiller says, ‘When I look in the mirror, I see a Jew.’ That’s how I feel. My 23andME report came back and said I am 47.7% Ashkenazi Jew – so, science even accepts it.

“Interestingly, this genetic DNA test does not tell you if you’re Christian, Catholic or Muslim, but your DNA tells you that you are Jewish. For me, that is how powerful the connection is to being Jewish. It’s undeniably in our DNA.”

After earning a degree in journalism in 2006, Stegemann moved to British Columbia and settled in Port Moody, where she started a boutique PR firm, providing community economic development and strategy to clients from the City of Coquitlam to Mitacs, which designs and delivers research and training programs.

Then, something happened that shook Stegemann to the core. Her best friend from university and mentor, Capt. Trevor Greene, took off his helmet in a village in Afghanistan during a discussion about the need for clean drinking water and healthcare for the residents. A man attacked Greene, taking an axe to his head.

“We didn’t think he would make it through the night,” said Stegemann. “I prayed harder that night than I have ever prayed in my life. He made it through the night and, together with his fiancée, Debbie, and family, we all went on a healing journey. Since then, he married Debbie and they now have two children, Grace and Noah.

“I was blessed that I had my own company, so I could visit him in the Vancouver General three times a week. I lived in Port Moody, so it was not far. And, in the hospital, I promised him I would take on his mission of peace while he healed. Then, I realized, as a female in this patriarchy, I didn’t have a way to touch peace.”

Stegemann knew that, if women could find a way to harness their power – their buying and voting power – they had a chance to end war and corruption, two roots of poverty and suffering. With this in mind, she wrote the book The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen: A Woman’s Guide to Living & Leading in an Illogical World, which was published on International Women’s Day (March 8) in 2008. A bestseller, it will see its seventh edition this year.

“I took all of the stoic wisdom of Socrates and Aurelius, the great leaders who guided [Winston] Churchill and the leaders who had to guide us out of hell,” said Stegemann. “I realized that our mothers didn’t talk to us about Adam Smith, capitalism, Plato and the polis … and that, if we, as women, were to take our rightful places changing policy and leading to an end of the cycles of war and poverty … we needed to have that same wisdom men have been given for 2,400 years.

“I used to walk around as a child with my Bible story records and play them for anyone who’d listen. My favourite story was The Wisdom of Solomon. I became entranced by the virtues and how they could change your life through their daily practice – wonder instead of judgment (which gives you all the resources you need on this earth), balance, truth, courage, justice, wisdom and beauty.”

One day, while Stegemann was studying about Afghanistan, she read about Abdullah Arsala in Afghanistan and about how Arsala was growing legal rose and orange blossom crops to liberate the farmers from growing illegal poppy crops.

She learned that the same people who had attacked her friend, Greene, were knocking over Arsala’s distillery, which made his flowers into essential oils for use in perfumes.

“I decided, that is it! I am going,” said Stegemann. “I flew to Ottawa and met with CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) and told them to help me find Abdullah. I bought what little orange blossom oil he had on my Visa and launched The 7 Virtues [perfumes] in 2010, on International Women’s Day.

“Two weeks later, we were on the front page of the Globe and Mail. And, eight weeks later, I was on Dragons’ Den, pitching to venture capitalists. By then, I’d moved back home to my province of Nova Scotia and became the first woman from Atlantic Canada to land a venture capital deal on the popular CBC show.”

Stegemann helps farmers transition into growing legal crops, and make twice as much profit as they did growing poppies. According to Stegemann, when a farmer in Afghanistan grows legal crops for her perfumes, “His daughters are safe from being taken by the Taliban opium traders if the poppy crop fails. There is less heroin that ends up on the streets, destroying lives. And, when a farmer grows legal crops, he is honouring his faith. It goes against Islamic law to grow the illegal poppy crop.”

By helping the farmers, Stegemann believes she is helping bring peace. “It may not be my faith, but the truest way to peace is to honour one another and our beliefs,” said Stegemann. “The Taliban are completely going against their faith, forcing their neighbours to grow the illegal poppy crop. So, we must help one another.

“Our legal essential oil purchases in Afghanistan began this peace journey by liberating farmers from the illegal poppy trade and all of the abuses they and their families endure at the hands of the Taliban.

“Then, countries rebuilding after war or strife began coming to us, asking us to purchase from their distilleries to further build peace in nations rebuilding. The next country was Haiti. We began sourcing their vetiver oil.”

Stegemann travels often to Haiti to volunteer. On a trip after Hurricane Matthew hit, she was devastated to learn of a boatload of aid being turned away from the south, where not a mango stick stood and people had no shelter, as a result of the hurricane. The local official had asked for a bribe so large that the aid workers on the ship could not pay it.

“Haiti is the 10th most corrupt country in the world,” said Stegemann. “We have to engage our world leaders to end the culture of corruption in Haiti, in Afghanistan, and other nations that can’t take care of their people because their leaders are corrupt and don’t pay their police fair wages.

“There are many steps that have to be taken, but sourcing from a nation, spending time there and getting to know the issues, allows us to not only purchase fair trade products that give people dignity and jobs … but I can then write articles and be a voice as a trained journalist and activist to push our government to expect more from these countries.”

Stegemann believes social enterprise is a key way to build peace. She also believes that these cycles of war and poverty will remain if we expect our military and government to do the heavy lifting. According to Stegemann, we need a cavalry of businesses to come and buy saffron, pomegranates, essential oils or any other ethically sourced product, and this will help build peace.

It wasn’t until Stegemann moderated a panel discussion on the Middle East at a German Marshall Fund of the United States-hosted forum in Halifax that she realized the potential. On the panel were then-deputy minister of defence for Israel Matan Vilna’i and the minister of housing for the Palestinian Authority Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh – and everyone got along.

“I feel strongly that destruction takes no imagination, no creativity, no intelligence, and it is actually boring,” said Stegemann. “I am not going to give my energy to it. Now, rebuilding, that is exciting! My real job is to make building more exciting than destruction.

“I do this through perfume. I decided to make a perfume of harmony from the Middle East. I sourced sweetie grapefruit from the Sharon region of Israel, with the help of ambassador [Miriam] Ziv. And we tried to get oils from the Palestinian region but could not.

“When I learned of Israeli Ronny Edry’s ‘We Love you Iran’ campaign, I decided to put Israel and Iran together with lime and basil essential oils from the Shiraz region of Iran. In our classic collection at the Hudson’s Bay stores, it is called Middle East Peace. It’s our bestselling fragrance and sells out quite often.”

In their new contemporary collection, launching at Sephora this month, they have a fragrance with the same oils, named after the oils – Grapefruit Lime – and the story is on the packaging, as is information about the oils’ healing properties.

On Stegemann’s most recent volunteering trip to Haiti (after Hurricane Matthew), she learned of the Sephora Accelerate program for female founders in the beauty business. As fewer than four percent of beauty company chief executive officers are women, Sephora decided to mentor, empower and create a network for these women.

“I felt so alone before,” said Stegemann. “I never had other female social entrepreneurs to share knowledge and suppliers with, and to bounce ideas off of. I wanted the program so badly that, when I first met with my Sephora buyers, I asked about this program. They immediately connected me with the women in San Francisco who run the program. They wanted the trailer to our doc film, Perfume War (perfumewar.com), and said they loved it. So, I got in. I was mentored by the director of Sephora Canada, Will Chung. They gave me the confidence to stretch out of my comfort zone and hire a branding agency.”

Going with Sephora was a hard decision for Stegemann, as that meant she had to leave the small boutiques she had built. But she was determined to stick with her mission of helping as many farmers as she could, and going big was the only way to do that.

The 7 Virtues perfumes can be found at Sephora online (sephora.com) and in stores, including the Robson, Park Royal and Richmond stores in Metro Vancouver.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

בויל יופיע בבית המשפט

ג’ושוע בויל (צילום: cbc.ca)

הקנדי שהוחזק בשבי באפגניסטן ונעצר על ידי משטרת קנדה בחשד לתקיפה מינית כליאה, ואיומים ברצח יופיע בבית המשפט בסוף החודש

ג’ושוע בויל הקנדי שהוחזק בשבי באפגניסטן ופקיסטן במשך כחמש שנים ביחד עם אשתו קייטלן קולמן ושלושת ילדיהם (שנולדו בשבי), ונעצר ע”י משטרת קנדה בחשד לתקיפה מינית, כליאה ואיומים ברצח, יופיע בבית המשפט ביום שישי הקרוב (ה-26 בחודש). תהיה זו הופעתו הרביעית בבית המשפט בדיון המתנהל נגדו. הדיון יתקיים שוב באמצעות שידור ווידאו ממקום מבית המעצר באוטווה בו שוהה בויל מאז נעצר. בויל השתתף בראשית החודש בדיון הראשון בבית המשפט, גם כן מבית המעצר. הדיון שהיה בעצם שלב ההקראה והנאשם רק ציין את פרטיו האישיים. בויל כאמור נמצא במעצר מאז נעצר וכנראה גם לאחר יום שישי לא ישוחרר בערבות.

העברות הפליליות החמורות המיוחסות לו כוללות חמישה עשר סעיפי אישום ובהם: שני סעיפים של תקיפה מינית, שני סעיפים של כליאה בלתי חוקית, שמונה סעיפים של תקיפה, איומים ברצח, הכריח את הקורבן ליטול חומר רעיל והטעיית המשטרה.

בויל בן השלושים וארבע, אשתו והילדים הגיעו לקנדה ב-13 באוקטובר, ולפי כתב האישום העברות המיוחסות לו התרחשו כבר מייד למחרת, בין ה-14 באוקטובר עד ל-30 בדצמבר (שזה היום בו הוא נעצר על ידי המשטרה).

בשלב זה לא נמסר מידע נוסף על הפרשה המוזרה הזו ולא נחשפה זהות קורבנות התקיפה. עורך הדין של בויל שאישר בפני התקשורת שאכן הוא במעצר ציין, כי מרשו יטען לחפותו בבית המשפט. אשתו קולמן (שהיא אזרחית אמריקנית) מסרה בתגובה, כי הטראומה שהוא עבר עם הסבל הרב במשך השנים בשבי עשו את שלהם והשפיעו עליו לרעה. לדבריה ברור שהוא אחראי למעשיו והיא מקווה שיזכה לריפוי ולטיפול לו הוא זקוק. לאור תגובת אשתו והעובדה שמייד עם חזרתו לקנדה עבר את העברות המיוחסות לו, ניתן להניח שהקורבנות בפרשה זו הם בני משפחתו: אשתו וילדיו (או לפחות אחד מהם). באופן רשמי המשטרה לא מסרה עדיין שום מידע בנושא ובית המשפט אסר לפרסם את פרטי הפרשה.

בויל ואשתו שהו בשבי מאז 2012 לאחר שטיילו באפגניסטן (בעת שקולמן הייתה כבר בהריון). השניים טענו כי קולמן נאנסה בשבי ונאלצה להפיל את ילדה הרביעי. בנוסף הם טענו כי הם הוחזקו בתנאים קשים על ידי קבוצת טרור המזוהה עם הטאליבן. כל זאת עד לשיחרורם על ידי צבא פקיסטן. לאחר מכן המשפחה טסה לקנדה והחליטה להקים את ביתה כאן. כל זאת כמובן עד למעצרו של בויל שזכה לפרסום נרחב באמצעי התקשורת בעולם.

בשל העבודה שבויל עטור זקן וקולמן מכסה את ראשה כל הזמן, עולה הסברה כי השניים התאסלמו במהלך השבי.

טורוננטו עלתה לגמר: בין 20 הערים ברשימה של אמזון שמבקשת להקים מטה נוסף בשורה טובה לטורונטו ומחוז אונטריו: העיר משובצת ברשימת הערים הסופית שבאחת מהן יוקם מטה נוסף של אמזון. זאת במקביל למטה הנוכחי של החברה האמריקנית שנמצא בסייאטל. בשלב ראשון התמודדו 238 ערים מצפון אמריקה על הפרוייקט היוקרתי, בהן ונקובר.

אמזון החליטה כאמור כי בשלב הגמר יתמודדו 20 ערים: אחת מקנדה (טורונטו) ו-19 מארה”ב בהן ניו יורק, וושינגטון, בוסטון, שיקגו, לוס אנג’לס, מיאמי, אטלנטה, דלאס, דנוור, ניוארק, פילדלפיה, אוסטין, קולומבוס, פיטסבורג, ריילי, וירג’יניה הצפונית ונאשוויל.

המטה החדש של אמזון שיוקם באחת מהערים האלה יעסיק כ-50 אלף עובדים במהלך 10-15 השנים הבאות, וחברה תשקיע בפרוייקט כ-5 מיליארד דולר.

Prisoner swaps: painful, ugly, necessary choices

The release of American soldier Bowe Bergdahl has raised in the United States many of the same difficult questions and recriminations Israel has faced over the years.

The Bergdahl trade, in which five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were released in exchange for Bergdahl, has sparked intense discussion about the efficacy and morality of such trades.

For people familiar with how Israel has dealt with similar decisions, the trade was less shocking than it seems to have been for some American observers. The moral difficulty of freeing terrorists in exchange for a captive soldier was last a matter of front-page news with the release of Gilad Shalit in 2011.

Some Canadians, including us, were aghast at comments made in advance of Shalit’s visit here last year. The Jewish Tribune, the voice of B’nai Brith Canada, published an inflammatory letter calling Shalit a “stumblebum” and blaming him for his own misfortune. A tepid article in the same newspaper seemed to draw into question the decision to fête the young man with a cross-Canada tour. Shalit, who spent more than five years as a Hamas captive in contravention of the Geneva Conventions, was freed in exchange for the release of 1,027 Palestinian and Arab Israeli prisoners, some of whom were top-level terrorists. The freed Palestinians were greeted as triumphant heroes on their return to their homes, with crowds in at least one West Bank town waving Hamas flags (at a time when Hamas was out of favor in the Fatah-controlled area) and chanting, “We want another Gilad Shalit.”

The Bergdahl case has added complications. While the Tribune published speculation that effectively any soldier who allows himself to be captured has failed in his duty and contributed to his own situation, Bergdahl’s abduction was a direct result of his decision to walk away from his base in eastern Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, given the location, he fell into Taliban hands and was held for five years. Some of the American commentators have suggested that their country traded five Taliban not for an American soldier, but for a deserter. In fact, Bergdahl was promoted in rank during his captivity, so military brass clearly do not view his actions that way.

Fears arose for Bergdahl’s long-term health when a video was released earlier this year showing him gaunt. President Barack Obama took a “no apologies” approach to criticism, insisting that the country he leads leaves no soldier in the field.

Responding to fears that the five Taliban releasees might return to kill Americans, Obama’s Secretary of State took on a familiar pose. John Kerry called such concerns “baloney.”

“I am not telling you that they don’t have some ability at some point to go back and get involved, but they also have an ability to get killed if they do that,” said Kerry.

To make the issue more inflammatory, the New York Times and other media have explored theories – advanced by some within the military, including at least one member of Bergdahl’s battalion – that the search for Bergdahl led to the deaths of six to eight fellow soldiers. The Times concluded that circumstances around “the eight deaths are far murkier than definitive.”

The United States is dealing with the moral quandary of trading human beings in war. The Israeli military, governments and public have faced this unsavory choice many times over the years in the country’s extraordinary situation of almost ceaseless war, insurrection or threat of external violence. Just as some Palestinians chanted, “We want another Gilad Shalit,” American critics of the trade have warned that the deal puts a price on the head of every American soldier and might encourage future abductions.

One of the striking things about the American and Israeli examples of prisoner swaps is that, in Israel, politicization of such deals has been somewhat muted, particularly in the context of the vibrant discourse of Israeli politics. In the United States in recent days, however, these issues have been grist for the mill. There should be a degree of transparency around such prisoner exchanges and a society should openly discuss the morality behind them and the compromises we might be expected to make in life-and-death military situations. Still, the American discussion seems overly politicized.

These are painful, ugly and nauseating choices. There are many variables in each individual case. Ultimately, there is a reliance on the value respective militaries place on protecting their own. In a better world, people would never be forced into these kinds of decisions. The world that we live in, sadly, makes such choices sometimes necessary.