The doors and the flooring outside the entrance of Congregation Schara Tzedeck were damaged when an arsonist set fire to them the night of May 30. (photo from B’nai Brith Canada)
Around 9:30 p.m., after evening prayers on Thursday, May 30, a group of people were shmoozing on 19th Avenue, outside Schara Tzedeck synagogue. A passerby alerted them that there was a fire at the main Oak Street entrance to the shul.
The group ran around the corner to the scene and a man used his jacket to put out the fire.
The arson attack was brazen – it was barely past sundown on a busy Vancouver artery. A resident across the street videotaped the scene from their apartment window.
The synagogue’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, was immediately alerted by phone but his reaction was disbelief. The congregant who called him is an Israeli whose first language is not English and the rabbi wondered – perhaps hoped – that there was a miscommunication.
On Rosenblatt’s arrival, two fire trucks were on the scene and the rabbi let firefighters and police into the building, which was pervaded by the smell of the accelerant used to light the fire. The doors and the flooring outside the entrance were damaged, but the fuel had already begun burning out by the time the flames were doused.
Rosenblatt said he wasn’t focused on his emotions in the immediate aftermath.
“Honestly, I went very quickly into crisis management mode,” he told the Independent. “I wasn’t really processing any kind of deep emotions or letting the whole thing sink in.”
He dealt with police, notified the synagogue’s leadership and prepared for what he knew would be a media frenzy beginning the following day.
Support has been encouraging. Civic leaders, fellow clergy, multicultural representatives, members of the Jewish community and strangers have brought or sent well wishes and made donations.
Although Rosenblatt was in disbelief initially, he acknowledged that he and others have been warning about precisely this sort of escalation for months, including in a private meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this year.
No arrests have been made but Rosenblatt said that the perpetrator is “theoretically identifiable” from photographic evidence. Police have asked Rosenblatt and others with firsthand knowledge not to share any additional details as they do not want any potential for affecting witness testimonies.
While the arson attack is deeply alarming, Rosenblatt believes it is a manifestation of a broader “mainstreaming” of antisemitism – a phenomenon he sees worryingly exhibited in last week’s decision by the BC Teachers’ Federation to reject the creation of a provincial specialist association, or PSA, addressing antisemitism and Holocaust education.
“When people ask me what I’m concerned about, I’m honestly more concerned with what’s happening in the public schools,” said the rabbi. “Not that someone being brazen enough to light the synagogue on fire isn’t a horrible thing. It’s reflective of a willingness to go to violence. But the person who did that, at least, was ashamed enough to obscure his identity.”
Those who voted against an association for Holocaust and antisemitism education not only did so publicly but seem to view their actions as a form of righteousness, he said.
“Those people are proud and giving themselves a pat on the back,” he said. “That, to me, is the one which is going to cause more lasting harm.”
Other incidents, in which Jewish artists have been removed from exhibitions and Jewish-themed plays have been canceled, send a dangerous message to young Jewish artists and performers that their identity, and their associations with Israel, could have negative consequences, said the rabbi.
Meanwhile, he is hearing from colleagues across the country about habitual harassment and vandalism, from broken windows to dead animals thrown on synagogue property.
“People are just sort of inching over the lines,” he said.
Rosenblatt said it is vital that all incidents be reported to authorities. The BC government has a Provincial Racist Incident Helpline at 1-833-457-5463. The website of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver has information on reporting hate crimes. B’nai Brith Canada has an app and other resources for reporting hate incidents on their website. Individuals or institutions requiring legal advice due to a suspected antisemitic incident can access pro bono legal consultation through a new helpline, 778-800-8917 or [email protected].
The arson took place less than a week before Mosaic, Schara Tzedeck’s major annual gala celebration. It was referenced at the event, but Rosenblatt said it did not cloud the celebration.
“It has not changed who we are or what we do and how we think about Schara Tzedeck,” he said. “You can’t let antisemites define you.”
Howard Kallner is being honoured at Schara Tzedeck’s MOSAIC gala on June 4 (photo by kenneth88/wikimedia)
“I have been very lucky in my life to be surrounded by lifelong volunteers and builders of community, both my parents, my in-laws and multiple other role models, and it just seemed natural to volunteer and be involved,” Howard Kallner told the Independent.
Kallner is being honoured by Congregation Schara Tzedeck at MOSAIC, the synagogue’s annual gala, on June 4.
“The first thing that came to my mind was discomfort,” said Kallner about finding out he was being recognized. “I was hesitant to accept because there are so many long-time shul volunteers, donors and community-builders who would be deserving of being honoured.”
Kallner has been a part of the congregation since he was 13 years old.
“My family had emigrated from South Africa when I was very young and their synagogues in South Africa were very similar to Schara Tzedeck,” he explained. “My parents, and now my family, have been members for over four decades. On my wife’s side, her great-grandfather, David Davis, was a founding member of Schara Tzedeck, and her grandfather, Charlie Davis, was a past president.”
Howard Kallner (photo from Howard Kallner)
For his part, Kallner was on the board for seven years before becoming president. He served three years as president and three more as past president, for a total of 13 years. He was serving as president when the pandemic hit.
“When the COVID pandemic hit, we needed to pivot immediately to online programming, online services where applicable, continue live services with restrictions and make sure our community members, particularly our vulnerable ones, were connected and taken care of,” he said of how his role was affected. “One of the programs that came out of this was Shabbat in a Box. We recognized a need amongst our members and others in our community and delivered over 450 meals a week at the height of the pandemic. For the Jewish holidays, we were delivering over 650 meals accompanied by holiday-specific items so they could celebrate the holidays.
“Additionally, Schara Tzedeck, being an Orthodox synagogue, could not have Shabbat services online,” said Kallner. “With the exception of a few weeks when the government would not allow any public gatherings, we continued services in person with some significant modifications. When limited to 50 people per gathering, we moved services outside, in a tent in our parking lot. At times, services were held in sub-zero temperatures, with most attendees wearing ski jackets, toques and gloves. For the High Holidays that year, we had nine services a day for a maximum of 50 people. We had to find three sets of Torah readers, shofar blowers and leaders of the services.
“While, during COVID, it was undoubtedly the hardest I worked as president of the shul, it was also the most rewarding,” he said.
Now officially “just” a member and supporter of the synagogue, Kallner continues to be part of the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board and is a governor of the Jewish Community Foundation, as well.
“Giving back to a community that has given me and my family so much was very important,” he said. “With different experiences in my life and my relatives’ lives, including immigrating to a new country with little means and losses during the Holocaust, strong Jewish institutions ready for whatever the world would throw at them seemed crucial, and I wanted to do my part.”
Schara Tzedeck’s senior spiritual leader, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, described Kallner as representing the beginnings of a new generation of leadership. At the time Kallner was getting involved, said the rabbi, “There weren’t a lot of people in their 40s who were stepping up to the highest levels of leadership at Schara Tzedeck.”
Kallner helped take the synagogue from being a 20th-century organization into being a 21st-century organization, said Rosenblatt.
”The backbone of an Orthodox synagogue, certainly in the Pacific Northwest, certainly in Vancouver, is people who have come from much more traditional Jewish communities,” he explained. “For example, Schara Tzedeck has a lot of Holocaust survivors. These are people who came from very traditional Eastern European communities, but you could also have people from Winnipeg or Toronto or Montreal, New York, those places you associate with very traditional, very committed Jewish communities. For a long time, we were able to be a community of people who grew up in that kind of tradition, but there was a recognition at Schara Tzedeck that we needed to be able to be a place which translated topeople who did not have that kind of traditional upbringing.”
Kallner had the analytical, organizational and people skills to help the synagogue do that, said Rosenblatt, highlighting Kallner’s leadership during the pandemic.
“He was practically a paid member of the staff at that point, in terms of generating and developing policy,” said the rabbi. “He was involved in helping us make sure that we were operating on the next level. And he also understood that our organization had to be structured in a way where we could have the manpower to be able to do that, and that outreach. Part of that was that the information technology had to be updated.”
Describing Kallner as “a very humble person but also very hard working,” Rosenblatt said, “one of the things that he was strongest at was helping us transition into a place where we were reaching out more…. One of the programs we developed under his watch was Shabbat in a Box. There were some pre-iterations before that, but it came to its full maturity under him.”
Among the other programs that will benefit from the funds raised at MOSAIC are the synagogue’s education initiatives, some of which reach beyond the shul to the broader Jewish community, such as the series Rosenblatt gave on the history of the Marranos.
“I recognize,” he said, that “one of the great sources of inspiration in Jewish identity is Jewish history.”
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and the subsequent war, his education efforts have been more focused on Israel.
“When Oct. 7th hit, and people started to hear immediately just garbage about colonialization, I realized that there was just so much that people didn’t know or understand,” he said.
The Zionist story most of us have been taught is the inspirational one, he said. “Not that it’s wrong, it’s just not complete, and all histories have complexities. I didn’t want people to be caught flat-footed on these things and be surprised by them.”
He gave the example of a sign he saw on an overpass on the way into Whistler Village recently.
“It says there can be no peace on stolen land. And I’m thinking to myself who stole the land from whom? At what point do you decide that the land belongs to someone? Are you willing to say that 638 is where we’re going to start everything, when Omar ibn al-Khattab conquered Jerusalem, is that the right time? Should we ask ourselves when the Abbasids or the Fatimids or the Umayyads, which one of them? Were the Ottoman Turks? Which one becomes the real owner? At what point do you decide that these things happen? People don’t know – maybe now they do more, but certainly on October the 8th they didn’t know – when was Israel first called Palestine, when did Muslims come to Jerusalem, when were Jews forced out, which empires conquered it … what really happened at Deir Yassin, what were the stages of the War of Independence, what happened? These things, there are a lot of resources on them … and, I thought, Jews didn’t know these things – not to mention that there are libraries full of evidence on Jewish indigenous life in Israel that is far, far older than anything having to do with the name Palestine, and I wanted Jews to be able to know that. I wanted Jews to be able to articulate it. I want Jews to understand a stronger connection to Israel. And I think that has been something that has been a real value added to people’s knowledge base.”
The congregation has several individuals who have gone to do military service in Israel. “They are primarily Israelis who are here for various purposes, as shlichim [emissaries] or for educational reasons, and we’ve had real success in having them share their experiences and stories over the past number of months,” said the rabbi.
These types of programs have been a priority, said Rosenblatt, “to make sure that our communityreally stays close and understands the nuances and the issues. Every time we have the opportunity to give further insight, we do that.”
One of the people from Schara Tzedeck who has gone to serve was Assistant Rabbi Ishay Gottlieb. “He’s a major in the reserves in the IDF, and he left on Oct. 9th and wasn’t really back until the beginning of January,” explained Rosenblatt. “You’re essentially funding a staff member, like many Israeli organizations [are having to do], but there’s lots that had to be compensated for in that context.
“In some ways,” added Rosenblatt, “we’ve doubled our programming – run a regular program plus an Israel program. Not that we’re that different from the other synagogues [in that respect] but everything costs money and this is part of a case for giving. Since Oct. 7th, we really have been prioritizing the connection with Israel.”
He said, “When you walk into Schara Tzedeck, we want you to feel like you’re in a little embassy of Israel in this building. And participating in MOSAIC means that’s what you’re doing, you’re helping to support that – you’re helping to support a branch of Am Yisrael that is in Vancouver.”
To attend MOSAIC, RSVP by May 28 to 604-736-7607 or [email protected].
Left to right: Rabbis Susan Tendler, Hannah Dresner, Philip Bregman, Carey Brown, Andrew Rosenblatt, Jonathan Infeld, Philip Gibbs and Dan Moskovitz in Israel last month. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Eight Vancouver-area rabbis recently visited Israel where, among many other things, they handed out cards and letters prepared by Jewish day school students and members of Vancouver’s Jewish community to soldiers and other Israelis. The response, according to one of the rabbis, was overwhelming.
“I saw soldiers taking these cards and then dropping down to the sidewalk and crying,” said Rabbi Philip Bregman. “Holding them to their chest as if this was a sacred piece of text and just saying, ‘Thank you. To know that we are not forgotten….’”
The rabbis’ mission included the delivery of thank you cards to Israeli soldiers. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Bregman, rabbi emeritus at the Reform Temple Sholom, was almost overcome with emotion while recounting the experience, which he shared in a community-wide online presentation Dec. 17. The event included seven of the eight rabbis who participated in the whirlwind mission, which saw them on the ground for a mere 60 hours. Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of the Orthodox Congregation Schara Tzedeck was part of the mission but did not participate in the panel because he extended his time in Israel.
According to Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, who emceed the event, the Vancouver mission was unique in Canada and possibly in North America for bringing together rabbis from across the religious spectrum. The close connection of most local rabbis, facilitated by the longstanding Rabbinical Association of Vancouver (RAV), set a foundation for the mission, which took place in the second week of December.
The eight rabbis transported 21 enormous duffel bags, filled with gear like socks, gloves, toques and underwear, mostly for military reservists.
The rabbis delivered warm clothing, including socks, to Israeli soldiers. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Shanken, who visited Israel days earlier with Federation representatives and five Canadian members of Parliament, said nothing prepared him for what he encountered there. Bregman echoed Shanken’s perspective.
“It’s one thing to have that as an intellectual understanding,” said Bregman, “It’s another thing when you are actually there to witness the absolute pain and trauma. People have asked me how was the trip. I say it was brutal.”
The reception they received from Israelis was profound, several of the rabbis noted.
“I’ve been to Israel dozens of times,” Bregman said. “People are [always] happy to see us. Nothing like this.”
Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, said the mission was to bear witness and also was a response to what rabbis were hearing from congregants about the centrality of Israel in their lives. He told the Independent that he was able to connect with two philanthropists in Los Angeles who funded the mission. Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi at Temple Sholom, and Rabbi Susan Tendler, rabbi at the Conservative Beth Tikvah Congregation, in Richmond, handled logistics, with input from the group.
The unity of Israelis was among the most striking impressions, said Brown.
“It’s so all-encompassing of the society right now … the sense that everyone’s in this together,” she said. The unity amid diversity was especially striking, she noted, when the rabbis visited the central location in Tel Aviv known as “Hostage Square.”
Brown said Israelis asked about antisemitism in Canada and seemed confounded by the fact that there is not more empathy worldwide for the trauma their country has experienced.
Tendler reflected on how Israelis were stunned and touched by the fact that a group of Canadians had come to show solidarity.
The rabbis were able to experience a microcosm of Israeli society without leaving their hotel. At the Dan Panorama Tel Aviv, where they stayed, they were among only a few paying guests. The hotel was filled with refugees from the south and north of the country who are being indefinitely put up in the city.
Several rabbis spoke of incidental connections in which they discovered not six degrees of separation between themselves and people they ran into, but one or two.
Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel, who is chair of RAV, told of being approached by members of a family staying at their hotel who heard they were from Vancouver. They asked if the rabbi knew a particular family and he replied that he not only knew them but that a member of that family had just married into his own.
Likewise, Tendler ran into people who went to the same summer camp she did and the rabbis found many other close connections.
“The idea [is] that we are spread out but, at the heart of it all, we honestly really are one very small, connected people,” said Tendler. “We are one family, one community and that was the most important, amazing thing of all.”
Close connections or not, the rabbis were welcomed with open arms. Rabbi Philip Gibbs of West Vancouver’s Conservative Congregation Har El told of how he was walking past a home and glanced up to see a family lighting Hanukkah candles. They insisted he come in and mark the occasion with them.
Gibbs also noted that the political divisions that had riven the society before Oct. 7 have not disappeared, but that the entire population appears to have dedicated themselves to what is most important now.
The rabbis met with scholars, including Israeli foreign ministry experts and many ordinary Israelis, including Arab Israelis, as well as the writer Yossi Klein Halevi, who told them that many Israelis feel let down by their government, intelligence officials and military leadership.
The rabbis traveled to the site of the music festival where 364 people were murdered, more than 40 hostages kidnapped and many more injured on Oct. 7. They saw scores of bullet-riddled and exploded vehicles. All of them will be drained of fuel and other fluids before being buried because they contain fragments of human remains that ZAKA, Israel’s volunteer rescue, extraction and identification agency, could not completely remove from the vehicles.
Rabbi Hannah Dresner of the Jewish Renewal-affiliated Or Shalom Synagogue was not the only rabbi to compare the mission with a shiva visit.
“I was just so amazed at the care that was being given, that each of these vehicles was now being siphoned of any remaining flammable materials so that each one of them could be buried according to our halachah,” Dresner said, “so that none of the human remains would be just discarded as junk. I found that overwhelmingly powerful.”
Relatedly, the group visited an exhibit at Expo Tel Aviv, which recreates the music festival site and features unclaimed property from the site, including the historically resonant sight of hundreds of pairs of shoes.
The visiting rabbis went to an exhibit at Expo Tel Aviv, which featured unclaimed property from the music festival site where hundreds were murdered. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
The rabbis visited Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than 100 people were murdered, and saw the devastation and destruction, some of it not from Oct. 7 but from days after, when explosives planted on that day detonated. It was also at this kibbutz that the Israel Defence Forces found a copy of the Hamas playbook for the atrocities.
“It sounded as if it could have been written by Eichmann or Hitler,” said Bregman. “[The intent] was not only to destroy the body but to destroy the mind, the soul, the psychology, the emotional and spiritual aspect of every Jew.”
The plan included strategies for setting fire to homes in order to force residents out of safe rooms, then specified the order in which family members were to be murdered – parents in front of their children.
As part of their mission to Israel, Vancouver rabbis visited kibbutzim that were attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
While the trip may have had the spirit of a shiva visit, the mood of the Israelis, Dresner said, was “can-do resourcefulness.”
“It’s felt to me over the past couple of years that Israelis have been kind of depressed,” she said, referring to divisive political conflicts. “But they are full force embracing their ingenuity and turning the energy of the resistance movement into this amazing volunteer corps to supply really whatever is needed to whatever sector.”
Groups that had coalesced to protest proposed judicial reforms pivoted to emergency response, she said, ensuring that soldiers and displaced civilians have basic needs met and then creating customized pallets of everything from tricycles to board games, bedding and washing machines, for families who will be away from their homes for extended periods.
The rabbis also went to Kibbutz Yavneh and paid their respects at the grave of Ben Mizrachi, the 22-year-old Vancouver man and former army medic who died at the music festival while trying to save the lives of others. They had a private meeting with Yaron and Jackie Kaploun, parents of Canadian-Israeli Adi Vital-Kaploun, who was murdered in front of her sons, an infant and a 4-year-old.
On the final evening of their visit, the rabbis hosted a Hanukkah party for displaced residents of Kiryat Shmona, the northern Israeli town that is in the Vancouver Jewish community’s partnership region.
At the party, Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Brown spoke with a woman whose two sons are in Gaza fighting for the IDF.
“I told her that we do the prayer for tzahal, for the IDF, in our services in our shul,” Brown said, “and she was so surprised and touched, and she said, ‘Keep praying, keep praying.’”
Zoom presentations became a regular affair at Beth Israel during the pandemic. Inset: JFS director of programs and community partnerships Cindy McMillan provides an overview of the new Jewish Food Bank. (screenshot from BI & JFS)
As Vancouver-area synagogues cautiously edge their way toward reinstituting in-person religious services, many rabbis are doing a rethink about the impact that the past 17 months of closure has had on their congregations.
Finding a way to maintain a community connection for thousands of Jewish families became an imperative for all of the synagogues early on in the pandemic. Not surprisingly, for many, the answer became cutting-edge technology. But careful brainstorming and halachic deliberations remained at the heart of how each congregation addressed these urgent needs.
“We immediately realized that services per se were not going to work over electronic medium,” Congregation Schara Tzedeck’s Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt told the Independent.
He said Orthodox rabbis across the world were already discussing halachah (Jewish law) in light of the pandemic when the province of British Columbia announced the shutdown in March of last year. “We realized that we weren’t going to offer any services,” he said. “We can’t have a minyan online.”
But that didn’t mean they couldn’t offer support. Schara Tzedeck’s answer to that need was only one of many innovative approaches that would come up. For example, to help congregants who had lost family members, the Orthodox shul devised a new ritual, as the reciting of the Mourner’s Kaddish requires a minyan (10 men or 10 men and women, depending on the level of orthodoxy, gathered together in one physical location).
“What we did is immediately [start a Zoom] study session in lieu of Kaddish. [The Mourner’s] Kaddish is based on this idea of doing a mitzvah act, which is meritorious for the sake of your loved one, so we substituted the study of Torah for the saying of Kaddish,” he explained.
For many other communities, such as the Conservative synagogue Congregation Beth Israel, the deliberations over how to apply halachah in unique moments such as these were just as intense. For these instances, said BI’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, rabbis saw another imperative.
“This is what is called she’at had’chak, or a time of pressure,” Infeld said. “It’s a special time, it’s a unique time, and so we adapted to the time period.”
The concept allows a reliance on less authoritative opinions in urgent situations. So, for example, with respect to reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, Infeld said, “We felt that, especially in this time period, people would need that emotional connection, or would need that emotional comfort of saying Mourner’s Kaddish when they were in mourning, and so we have not considered this [internet gathering to be] a minyan, except for Mourner’s Kaddish,” Infeld said. He noted that the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, which reviews halachic decisions for the Conservative movement, has adopted the same position.
Rabbi Shlomo Gabay, who leads the Orthodox Sephardi synagogue Congregation Beth Hamidrash, said that although his congregation would not hold Mourner’s Kaddish online, venues like Zoom played a vital role in allowing the congregation to meet during shivah, the first seven days of mourning. Like a traditional shivah, which takes place in the mourner’s home, often with a small number of visitors, an online shivah gave community members a chance to attend and extend support as well.
“That was actually an especially meaningful [opportunity],” Gabay said. “The mourners, one after another, told me that, first of all, you don’t often get the opportunity to have so many people in the room, all together, listening.”
For members of the Bayit Orthodox congregation in Richmond, an online shivah meant family on the other side of the country could attend as well. “What was most interesting, of course, was the people from all across the world,” remarked Rabbi Levi Varnai. “You can have people who are family, friends, cousins, from many places in the world, potentially.”
Temple Sholom uses a variety of online media to provide inclusive content for those members who can’t attend in person. Pictured here are Rabbi Dan Moskovitz and Rabbi Carey Brown. (screenshot from Temple Sholom)
Vancouver’s Reform Congregation Temple Sholom also came to value the potential of blending online media with traditional venues. Rabbi Dan Moskovitz said the congregation had been streaming its services and classes as much as a decade before the pandemic arrived. But lifecycle events, he said, demanded a more personal approach, one that would still allow families to actually participate in reading from the Torah scroll, while not violating the restrictions on large public attendance.
“The big change is that we brought Torah to everybody’s home,” he said. Literally. Moskovitz or his associate, Rabbi Carey Brown, would deliver the scroll in a large, specially fitted container, along with a prayer book, instructions and other necessary accoutrements.
“We had a document camera so, when we streamed, you could look down on the Torah as it was being read on screen. Those were very special moments on a front porch when I would deliver Torah, socially distanced with a mask on, early on in the pandemic,” he said. “I had a mask and I had rubber gloves and they had a mask, and you put something down and you walked away. We got a little more comfortable with service transmission later on.”
International classes
Switching to online media also has broadened the opportunities for classes and social connections. Infeld said Beth Israel moved quickly to develop a roster of classes as soon as it knew that there would be a shutdown.
“We realized right away that we can’t shut down. We may need to close the physical building, but the congregation isn’t the building. The congregation is the soul [of Beth Israel]. We exist with or without the building,” he said. “And we realized that for us to make it through this time period in a strong way, and to emerge even stronger from it, we would have to increase our programming.”
He said the synagogue’s weekly Zoom and Learn program has been among its most popular, hosting experts from around the world and garnering up to 100 or more viewers each event. The synagogue also hosts a mussar (Jewish ethics) class that is regularly attended. “We never had a daily study session,” Infeld said. “Now we [do].”
For Chabad centres in the Vancouver area, virtual programming has been a cornerstone of success for years and they have expanded their reach, even during the pandemic. “We have had more classes and more lectures than ever before, with greater attendance,” said Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman, who runs Chabad Richmond.
Zoom and other online mediums mean that the centres don’t have to fly in presenters if they want to offer an event. Like other synagogues, Chabad Richmond can now connect their audiences directly with experts from anywhere in the world.
“We can’t go back”
All of the synagogues that were contacted for this story acknowledged that online media services had played an important role in keeping their communities connected. And most felt that they will continue to use virtual meeting spaces and online streaming after the pandemic has ended.
“As our biggest barrier to Friday night participation was the fact that many families were trying to also fit in a Shabbat dinner with small children, the convenience of the Friday livestream is worth including in the future,” said Rabbi Philip Gibbs, who runs the North Shore Conservative synagogue Congregation Har El.
“We’re scoping bids to instal a Zoom room in our classroom space so that we can essentially run a blended environment,” Rosenblatt said. “We anticipate, when restrictions are lifted, some people will still want to participate by Zoom and some people will want to be in person.”
However, some congregations remain undecided as to whether Zoom will remain a constant in their services and programming.
Rabbi Susan Tendler said that the virtual meeting place didn’t necessarily mesh with all aspects of Congregation Beth Tikvah’s Conservative service, such as its tradition of forming small groups (chavurot) during services. “We are talking about what that will look like in the future,” she said, “yet realize that we must keep this door open.”
So is Burquest Jewish Community Association in Coquitlam, which is looking at hybrid services to support those who can’t attend in person. “But these activities will probably not be a major focus for us going forward,” said board member Dov Lank.
For Or Shalom, a Jewish Renewal congregation, developing ways to bolster classes, meditation retreats and other programs online was encouraging. Rabbi Hannah Dresner acknowledged that, if there were another shutdown, the congregation would be able to “make use of the many innovations we’ve conceived and lean into our mastery of virtual delivery.”
For a number of congregations, virtual services like Zoom appear to offer an answer to an age-old question: how to build a broader Jewish community in a world that remains uncertain at times and often aloof.
The Bayit’s leader, Rabbi Varnai, suggests it’s a matter of perspective. He said finding that answer starts with understanding what a bayit (home) – in this case, a Jewish house of worship – is meant to be.
The Bayit, he said, is “a place for gathering community members and for coming together. The question, how can we still be there for each other, causes us to realize that we can’t go back to as before.” After all, he said, “community service is about caring for each other.”
Jan Lee’s articles, op-eds and blog posts have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism, Times of Israel and Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.
The bodies of 215 children were recently discovered buried adjacent to a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. (photo from flickr.com/photos/bcgovphotos)
Jody Wilson-Raybould, member of Parliament for Vancouver-Granville and a member of the We Wai Kai Nation, told students at Vancouver Talmud Torah Elementary School last week that most of her family members attended residential schools and she spoke of the tragic legacy of that project, which devastated Indigenous communities for generations.
“Residential schools, these institutions, are a very dark part of our history,” she said, speaking directly to students at a ceremony organized to mourn the 215 children whose bodies were recently discovered buried adjacent to a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. Most of the city’s rabbis were also in attendance.
“They were in existence for over 100 years in Canada, from the 1870s to 1996, when the last one closed in Saskatchewan. The last one closed in British Columbia in 1984,” said Wilson-Raybould of the residential schools. “These institutions were created by the law of Canada and run by churches. There were 139 residential schools across the country and it’s estimated that 150,00 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended the schools, forcibly removed from their homes, compelled to attend, and the purpose of residential schools, as stated by the first prime minister of this country, was to remove the Indian from the child, to get rid of the ‘Indian problem’ in this country.”
She added: “People have asked me, as I know they’ve asked many Indigenous peoples, how do you feel? I feel angry. I feel frustrated. And I feel a deep sense of sadness, because this is not an isolated incident. There will be more that will be revealed and we have to recognize that every Indigenous person in this country has a connection to residential schools and the harmful legacies that still exist. But I am still optimistic. Optimistic that, through young people like you … that we can make a change in this country.”
Speaking of her family’s experiences, Wilson-Raybould singled out her grandmother, who she has frequently cited as her hero, and talked of the courage and resilience her grandmother exhibited.
“Most of my relatives went to residential schools,” she said. “My grandmother, Pugladee, was taken away from her home when she was a very young girl and forced to go to the Indian residential school St. Michael’s, in Alert Bay. She faced terrible violence at that school, but she escaped from that school and she made it home and she is the knowledge keeper in my nation.”
Emily Greenberg, Vancouver Talmud Torah head of school, welcomed guests in person and online, expressing empathy for Indigenous Canadians, faced again with the reminder of this country’s past.
“Their wounds have been reopened once again and their suffering renewed,” she said. “Today, our community gathers to grieve with them and open our hearts to their struggles.”
Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom contrasted the lives of the children buried in Kamloops with the lives and educational experiences of the Talmud Torah students attending the ceremony, who, he said, “are immersed in their own language and culture and traditions” – the very things Canada’s residential schools system was designed to extinguish in Indigenous young people.
“Our hearts break today not only for the loss of life,” said Moskovitz. “They break for the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, the loss of joy, of play, of family, of heritage that was stolen from those children by the misguided aims of our nation. It was a different era. It was a different time, but if our people, the Jewish people, have learned anything from our history of trauma and persecution, it is these words: that those who do not study history are bound to repeat it. Echoed by the warning of the Jewish people from the Holocaust, from the Shoah – never again – we have learned, and we know in our souls, that the greatest tribute we can offer these children and their families is not words of condolence, but acts of conscience. The purpose of prayer is to lead us to action, to make our prayer real, not in heaven but here on earth.”
Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel said that “the children who we are remembering today were forced to go to schools and to a specific school that ripped away their culture, attempted to take away from them their language, attempted to take them literally away from their families.” Addressing the students, he emphasized the message Moskovitz shared: “Today, we are remembering children who had the exact opposite of the opportunities that you have.”
Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner expressed the unity of Jewish, Indigenous and all peoples. “We share a destiny as co-inhabitants of this land and because we are of the same holy stuff, the same flesh and blood and the same God-breath,” she said, encouraging members of the Jewish community to “respond not just in our sentiments but through ongoing engagement service and grace.”
Dresner said: “Justice is what love looks like in the public sphere. Loving our neighbours, our fellows, as ourselves. And so, we stand with Indigenous fellows in love, for justice, for the actualization of recovered records and supportive measures for holistic, multifaceted healing and reparation.”
Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of Congregation Schara Tzedeck spoke of the Jewish concept that one who extinguishes even a single life is considered to have destroyed an entire world. “Today, we remember, at a minimum, the destruction of 215 worlds,” he said. “A significant portion of these children died while trying to escape to reunite with their families. They died of exposure in the cold, the frost, simply trying to do one thing that every human being would … simply trying to return to their own families.”
Carrie Plotkin, a Grade 5 student, read the poem “You hold me up,” by Monique Gray Smith. “It was written to encourage us young people, our care providers and our educators to talk about reconciliation and the importance of the connections children make with our friends, classmates and families,” she said.
Rabbi Shlomo Gabay of Beth Hamidrash read a 1936 poem from Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Carlebach of Hamburg, Germany. Cantor Yaacov Orzech sang Psalm 23.
The 215 bodies were discovered using ground-penetrating radar. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that 4,100 children died at residential schools from abuse, neglect, diseases and accidents. Many were never repatriated to their families and communities and, in many cases, deaths were sloppily recorded using just a given name or a surname and sometimes even completely anonymously. Advocates are calling on the government to commit to identifying more remains and to releasing archival documentation on the schools that has remained sealed.
Sarah Haniford’s granddaughter, Alice Campbell, with Schara Tzedeck Synagogue Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt at the unveiling of Sarah’s headstone. (photo from Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View Restoration Project)
“You live as long as you are remembered.” – Russian Proverb
Fifty people gathered together on Aug. 3 to remember and honor the life of Sarah Goldberg-Haniford at the Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View. As Alice Campbell, Sarah’s granddaughter, said in her opening remarks to the family and friends there for the unveiling of the headstone, “a bridge to the past is a pathway to the future.”
Campbell shared some of the highlights of her grandmother’s life, which began with her birth in 1878 in Glasgow, subsequent marriage in 1890 to Louis Haniford (Ljeb Hanoft) from Poland, journey to Winnipeg in 1902, then to a farm near Hanna, Alta., in 1907.
Sarah Goldberg-Haniford’s headstone. (photo from Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View Restoration Project)
Life was very hard for Sarah and Louis, with the harsh climate and work on the farm, to which they were far from accustomed, having been in the watch-making business up until the move. In 1922, Sarah, who had by then given birth to nine children, was in very poor health, and Louis, not knowing what else to do to help her, sent her to St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. Unfortunately, her health deteriorated and she passed away here, all alone, on Oct. 6, 1922.
As Jewish custom dictated, Sarah was buried in the Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View. After her death, according to Sarah’s wishes, Louis moved his family of the seven surviving children away from the farm, to the town of Hanna. With Sarah’s passing, Judaism disappeared from the Haniford family until October 2012, 90 years later, when Campbell discovered through genealogical research that Sarah was buried at Mountain View Cemetery. Beryl and Christi Cooke, Sarah’s granddaughter who lives in Kelowna and great-granddaughter who lives in Vancouver, went to the cemetery for the first time.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Shirley Barnett had just embarked on her project to restore the Jewish Cemetery at Mountain View and their paths collided. In October 2013, along with 146 other unmarked burials, Sarah’s life and death were recognized, with the placing of a temporary marker as the first step in restoring the Jewish cemetery to its former significance in the community. With this mitzvah, the plan to place a permanent monument was born.
Among those attending the Aug. 3 ceremony were 25 family members, including grandchildren and great-grandchildren, none of whom had ever known Sarah – and many of whom had not seen each other in at least 15 years. Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt and Rev. Joseph Marciano, along with members of the Vancouver Jewish community, were witness to the unveiling of Sarah’s headstone. Sarah brought everyone together and, in doing so, helped rekindle her family’s connections to each other and to Judaism.
Standing, from left to right, are panel facilitator Michael Levy, CFHU board member Stav Adler, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, Prof. Raphael Mechoulam and Dr. Kathryn Selby. (photo by Michelle Dodek)
It may be a common occurrence in many parts of the city, but it is still a rare thing to pass through marijuana smoke while entering an Orthodox synagogue. But that was the case on June 24, when a panel discussion took place at Schara Tzedeck on the topic Should I Change My Mind About Weed? A small number of attendees, unsatisfied with a merely academic consideration of the topic, opted for a more psychoactive engagement.
The director of the local Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, Dina Wachtel, was inspired to convene a panel on marijuana after watching Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN documentary on the topic.
Prof. Raphael Mechoulam, a Hebrew University chemist and a leading expert on the subject, said that marijuana has been used in societies from India and China to the Middle East “forever.” Queen Victoria’s doctor, J. Russell Reynolds, used it to treat the queen’s migraines.
Mechoulam said that cannabidiol (CBD), a component in marijuana, may have medical uses “in almost all diseases affecting humans.” Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the component that causes a high, CBD does not deliver a high and has no known side effects. However, there have been almost no clinical trials on humans, probably because pharmaceutical corporations would not be able to patent it and governments, for various reasons, have avoided the matter.
Cannabinoid receptors are abundant in multiple brain regions, he said, including those affecting movement control, learning and memory, stress, cognitive function and links between cerebral hemispheres. Marijuana can impact appetite, blood pressure, cerebral blood flow, the immune system and inflammation.
In tests on mammals, such as mice, marijuana reduced brain trauma and reduced or eliminated cancerous tumors. There was a clinical trial on its use around epilepsy and its effect on patients experiencing 10 to 30 seizures per day. Cannabinoids were tested on people for whom existing drugs do not work and resulted in positive outcomes in large numbers of adult patients. “This is the only clinical trial that has ever been reported – 35 years ago,” he said.
Infants undergoing cancer treatment that causes vomiting were given small amounts of THC. “We saw a complete stop of all vomiting and nausea,” with no side effects, he said.
In treatment of schizophrenia, current drugs have some extremely unpleasant side effects, he noted, while CBD has none. Even so, in most jurisdictions, marijuana is in the same legal category as heroin.
Dr. Kathryn Selby, a clinical professor in the University of British Columbia’s pediatrics department specializing in developmental neurosciences, spoke on marijuana’s effect on the adolescent brain. She spoke of the “enormous plasticity of the teen brain” and said that THC can alter the brain’s structure and function, and that the neurotoxic effects can be lifelong. Maturing of the human brain continues into the 20s, she explained, and the prefrontal cortex, which involves judgment and executive functions, develops last. There are two peaks in brain maturation and cerebral volume, happening in early childhood and then, for boys, at age 14-and-a-half and, for girls, at 11-and-a-half. Trauma, stress, substance abuse and sedentary habits can negatively affect development.
The effects of marijuana use in the short term can be loss of motivation, fatigue and, in about 10 percent of users, addiction. Neuroimaging indicates that the longer-term impact of marijuana use by adolescents is strongly associated with psychoses such as schizophrenia later in life. Selby said there is a 40 percent increase in prevalence of psychosis among users, with a 50 to 200 percent increase in psychoses among heavy users and, among those who use marijuana daily during high school, there is a 600 percent increase in depression and anxiety later in life. Correlations also include lowered IQ, intellectual and emotional issues.
The frontal lobe, which is not completely formed by adolescence, is also the most affected by alcohol and drugs and leaves users vulnerable to the “adverse developmental, cognitive, psychiatric and addictive effects of marijuana.” Selby recommended that, if marijuana is used at all, that it be “as late and as little as possible.”
Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, Schara Tzedeck Synagogue’s spiritual leader, also has a biochemistry degree. Although the Torah does not say anything specifically about marijuana, Rosenblatt made the comparison to what the Torah and Talmud say about other forms of altered states, particularly drunkenness. If there were any questions about the severity of potential outcomes from inebriation, Rosenblatt said, the drunkenness and castration of Noah is a cautionary tale.
Rosenblatt also mentioned the story of Lot, whose daughters got him drunk and seduced him, resulting in Amnon and Moab, who were both Lot’s sons and grandsons. Rosenblatt cited it as an indication that drunkenness and disinhibition is to be avoided.
The holiday of Purim is of particular interest in this discussion and Rosenblatt said there is a modern interpretation of the old dictum that Jews should become so drunk on Purim that they cannot tell the difference between the names of the villain Haman and the hero Mordechai. The modern view, the rabbi said, is to drink a little, get tired, fall asleep and, when asked who is Haman and who is Mordechai, to roll over and snore.
Rabbis in recent years have overwhelmingly concurred that use of, say, morphine for terminal patients is justified, but the use of untested alternative measures is not.
“Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence,” said Rosenblatt. If studies indicate that marijuana were clinically proven to assist in recovery or treatment for various diseases, he said, it would almost certainly become acceptable.
Prof. Raphael Mechoulam at CKNW. (photo from CFHU)
The panel was moderated by Michael Levy, CKNW radio and Global TV personality. Stav Adler, president of CFHU Vancouver chapter, introduced the evening. Hodie Kahn, president of Schara Tzedeck, invited the audience to stay around for munchies after the event.
Were minds changed? After Mechoulam’s presentation, he received an enthusiastic standing ovation from about half the audience of 200 or so. After her presentation, Selby was greeted with polite applause, while one man jumped to his feet.
