From 1925 to today, Na’amat volunteers across Canada and the United States continue to empower women and children in Israel and abroad. (photo from Na’amat Canada)
At a time when charities are fighting to survive, an organization that’s been helping women and children in Israel and North America is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
Na’amat Canada and Na’amat USA, which began as a North American chapter in 1925, will mark the centenary at a gala conference in Toronto in May with delegates from across Canada and the United States.
“It’s a huge deal. It’s a milestone,” said Vivian Reisler, executive vice-president of Na’amat Canada. “We’ve come a long way from Golda Meir sending a message that we need $100 to build X, Y, Z.”
The forerunner of Na’amat was founded in 1921, in what would later become the modern state of Israel, to empower women, including providing vocational training and advocating for improved working conditions and equal pay.
Four years later, a North American branch was born and Na’amat chapters were formed across Canada and the United States over the ensuing decades. Today, thousands of volunteers are continuing to empower women and children in Israel and abroad.
“The success of the organization is due to the dedication of the members, volunteers and donors – because, without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” said Reisler.
Na’amat Canada president Susan Inhaber, a member of the organization for 25 years, agrees.
“We just want to keep building, get our name out there, build the membership and thank all the donors, supporters and members who are making everything possible,” she said. “This is an exciting time for us to be together. It’s nice that we have an organization that’s lasted so long.”
While the North American branch of Na’amat (a Hebrew acronym for “Movement of Working Women and Volunteers”) began in 1925, Na’amat Canada and Na’amat USA became two autonomous divisions in 1965.
“We were together, we split, and now we’re back together (informally, at the Toronto conference) celebrating 100 years,” said Reisler.
Na’amat is the largest women’s organization in Israel. It provides a wide variety of services, including a daycare network for thousands of children, legal aid centres, technological high schools for students who have trouble succeeding in other classroom settings, boardingschools for underprivileged students, and the Na’amat Canada Glickman Centre for Family Violence Prevention.
Na’amat Canada members at the Glickman Centre for Family Violence Prevention. (photo from Na’amat Canada)
Established in 1993 in Tel Aviv, the Glickman Centre was the first women’s shelter in Israel. It has three distinct sections: the shelter, a counseling and treatment area, and the Rhodie Blanshay Benaroch Children’s Centre wing, a haven for children living in the shelter.
The Rhodie Blanshay Benaroch Children’s Centre houses a computer room, baby nursery, kindergarten, audiovisual education corner, library, learning centre and outdoor playground, named in honour of Rhodie’s granddaughter, Rho Schneiderman. A musical playground was built in honour of Rhodie’s two granddaughters. Blanshay Benaroch was a dynamic third-generation Na’amat member who was committed to building a safe, loving environment for children who needed it most.
Recently, Na’amat Canada was instrumental in building a new middle school at Kanot Youth Village. More than 300 students will now have a state-of-the-art school to enhance their education.
In the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war, Israel needs Na’amat’s help as much – or even more – than it did a century ago, said Doris Wexler-Charow, past national president of Na’amat Canada.
“I think that Oct. 7 changed everything,” she said of the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust.
Everyone in Israel is suffering from PTSD, said Wexler-Charow, a retired social worker. “Everybody’s been traumatized,” she said,explaining that Na’amat is providing more counseling services than ever. “Israel needs us. It’s important for us to keep going. The cause is a good one and I think we need our young people to continue where we leave off.”
Kelley Korbin, left, and Trilby Smith honour Bernie Simpson, who has been a longtime staunch supporter of Camp Miriam, which he attended, starting in the mid-1950s. (photo by Adi Keidar)
Hundreds gathered Dec. 7 to mark 75 years of Camp Miriam. Generations of campers convened at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver for an emotion-packed reunion of alumni and friends, in which the Habonim Dror-affiliated Labour Zionist camp was fêted for having an outsized impact on building British Columbia’s Jewish community.
The celebration actually marked 76 years since the beginning of the camp, but the event, originally scheduled for last year, was postponed as a result of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks.
Some of those who have strengthened Camp Miriam in recent years were honoured at the celebration.
Sam Bernofsky paid tribute to Leah Levi, who retired after 17 years as camp registrar, in 2023, but continues her involvement as bookkeeper and keeper of institutional memory. She received an ovation and video-recorded greetings from alumni and friends.
Trilby Smith and Kelley Korbin honoured Bernie Simpson who, among other contributions, has ensured that camperships are available for all who need them, guaranteeing that finances are never a barrier to participation. Simpson also nurtured relationships with non-Jewish supporters of the camp, including former BC Supreme Court Justice Angelo Branca, and former Speaker of the House of Commons John Fraser, both now deceased. Through fundraising and personal contributions, Simpson is credited with playing a core role in every capital project the camp has completed in recent decades. He is also Camp Miriam’s unofficial historian and archivist.
Speaking to the Independent, Simpson credited Camp Miriam (along with his wife, Lee) for every success in his life, including his time as a member of the BC legislature.
“It means everything to me,” Simpson said of the camp, which he began attending in the mid-1950s. “It probably shaped my whole life. The Habonim leadership at that time, which was the camp leadership, took me under their wing. I came from quite a disturbed home and they had lots of patience for me and they ended up being my life.
“They had time for a shmuck like me,” he said. “That was remarkable. But I’m not the only person.”
Alan Tuffs was being physically abused in his home, Simpson said. The head of the Jewish welfare agency, Jessie Allman, called Simpson up and asked if Camp Miriam would “take this boy.”
Tuffs went on to study Judaism in Israel and recently retired as a rabbi in Hollywood, Fla., after 45 years.
Shalom Preker was another Miriam success story, according to Simpson, having overcome challenges to become a PhD and a global expert in health financing. Preker has served in senior roles at the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, focused on the health sector in developing countries.
Pioneers of the movement – often kids themselves at the time – were remembered throughout the evening. Michael Livni, né Langer, spearheaded the purchase of the camp on Gabriola Island. As a teenager, Langer/Livnicajoled philanthropists to front the money to purchase the camp’s site from the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, precursor to the New Democratic Party, in 1956.
Until then, Habonim had rented camps for summer programming, and ran youth programs in Vancouver throughout the year. Livni, who made aliyah and went on to be a leading figure in both Reform Zionism and the kibbutz movement in Israel, died this year at age 89.
Simpson credited the late Army & Navy department store founder Sam Cohen, as well as the late Ben and Esther Dayson and the late Norman Rothstein as benefactors who set the foundation for Camp Miriam’s long-term sustainability.
The anniversary event featured a display of the camp over the decades and pioneers, living and departed, were celebrated. Camp “matriarch” Gloria Levi was on hand, and the movement’s leaders of the past and present shared memories.
Miriam alumni Michael Schwartz emceed the evening, provided a moving reflection on the impacts of Oct. 7 on the Habonim community, and recalled his own memories of camp.
“I got to experience moments I will never forget,” Schwartz said, including the staging of a “show trial” of the Little Mermaid. “Through all these experiences – some absurd, yes – Miriam taught me some of life’s most important lessons. It taught me about the so-called big, important things, like history and justice, political philosophy, but it also taught me about the truly important things, like teamwork, leadership, friendship and girls.”
Jay Eidelman, the camp’s new director of fundraising and strategic planning, said that next summer’s enrolment will be a record 360, with a waiting list of others who want to come.
“That’s 5% more than last year, which was also a record enrolment,” he said. “Our retention rate is an astounding 90%.”
Especially in this time of rising antisemitism, Eidelman said, Jewish kids need safe spaces.
“Miriam is that space and for many of our campers,” he said. “Miriam is the only place where they can explore their Jewish identities, their relationship to Israel and their relationship to our community.”
He noted that 85% of Miriam campers attend public schools and more than half come from outside the city of Vancouver.
“We are growing and we need to grow sustainably,” he said. “That’s why, in 2022, with the help of the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation, we started a site master planning process to help us grow sustainably.”
Left to right at Camp Miriam’s 75th anniversary celebration are Sue Siklos (parent), Trilby Smith (past camp committee chair) and Gretchen DuMoulin. (photo by Adi Keidar)
Brian Tucker, chair of the camp’s board, and Ariella Smith-Eidelman, who is going into her second year as rosh machenah (head of camp), spoke from their respective positions. Video greetings were shared from alumni Selina Robinson, former provincial cabinet minister, and Seth Rogen, comedian and actor.
The anniversary celebration was emotional, said Leya Robinson, who took over as Camp Miriam’s community director last year, succeeding Levi. Before returning to her hometown of Vancouver, Robinson (a second-generation Habonimnik, thanks to her mother Selina) worked for the North American Habonim movement in New York as director of education and then spent five years in Israel, where she directed programs in Israel for Habonim Dror campers and university students worldwide.
“It was very heartwarming, almost in an overwhelming way,” Robinson said of the event. “Just to have that deep a sense of belonging and to look around and see how many other people felt that same sense of community and belonging to Camp Miriam. I just feel so lucky to be a part of the community and to have the experience at Camp Miriam.”
In these challenging times, she said, that connection is vital.
“It’s really easy to fall into despair seeing what’s happening, and having community helps to build up that sense of hope or to maintain that sense of hope and to see that we are not isolated and we have friends and partners and people to talk with,” she said.
David Bogdanov told the Independent that his camping experiences in the late 1970s and early ’80s were “very transformative and almost lifesaving.”
“It gave me a strong love of Israel,” he said. “It really enhanced my relationship with the Jewish community and really informed my whole life to a very large degree.”
Michelle Plotkin, a member of the committee that put the anniversary event together, wasn’t a camper herself but has seen the camp’s effects on her daughter.
“It just offers so many opportunities for the kids to be independent and learn how to be comfortable outside their comfort zone and stretch their minds and imaginations,” Plotkin said. “My daughter does things I never would have expected her to be comfortable doing.”
It was Plotkin’s idea to put together a one-time band for the event. The six-member group was made up of three professional and three amateur musicians, all of them Miriam alumni. The musicians, who dubbed themselves the Final Messiba, were Yonni Silberman (drums), Sunny Zatzick (guitar), Daniel Pimentel (bass guitar), Ira Cooper (vocals), Roy Vizer (percussion) and Jessica Stuart (lead guitar and vocals, and music director).
Gretchen DuMoulin, who chaired the evening’s organizing committee, has experienced almost all aspects of camp, from being a camper herself, a madricha (counsellor), a parent to campers and madrichim, and an organizer of family camps and then the 75th anniversary celebration.
She said Camp Miriam “is a whole Jewish and cultural experience. Every aspect of camp is thoughtfully planned with aspects of Jewish values, equality, social justice and leadership woven throughout. Every camper has an opportunity to become a leader at some level and for their voice to be heard and counted. It is 100% a youth leadership-run camp.”
DuMoulin cites lasting friendships as an enduring legacy of camp.
“There is something about spending weeks at a time, day and night, independently but together,” she said, “that just allows you to form friendships in a different way than when you are at home and in school.”
On the afternoon of Nov. 24, NCJW Vancouver celebrates its 100th anniversary at Aberthau Mansion, which is evocative of the era in which the organization planted its roots in Vancouver. (photo by Chris10Chan / wikipedia)
A century is a long time for any organization. For a Jewish women’s organization on the West Coast of North America, that is an especially major milestone. National Council of Jewish Women Canada, Vancouver section, is marking 100 years since its founding with a Roaring ’20s party this month.
Jordana Corenblum, president of the chapter, said the celebration location – Aberthau Mansion in West Point Grey – is evocative of the era the organization planted its roots in Vancouver. Era-appropriate dress is encouraged at the afternoon event, but not mandatory. The fact that Corenblum has a collection of flapper-era dresses is coincidental to the party’s theme, she said.
The organization itself was founded in Chicago in 1893 to engage Jewish women in social justice work, especially around issues of poverty affecting women and children. The first Canadian chapter started in Toronto in 1897 and the Vancouver branch began 27 years later.
Jordana Corenblum, president of National Council of Jewish Women Canada, Vancouver section. (photo from Jordana Corenblum)
Corenblum emphasized that she is a relative latecomer to the group. Her ascendancy to the presidency represents a generational shift, she said, but she sees herself and others of her age as carrying on the traditions of their mothers and grandmothers while adapting NCJW’s work to women who are deeply involved in careers.
For earlier generations of women who may not have worked outside the home, Corenblum said, groups like National Council, Hadassah and others allowed women – even in the era when they could not vote – to contribute to the larger society.
Corenblum’s profession is youth work and so she is bridging generations.
“I have a lot of exposure to what young people are doing,” she said, “so I am in the space of honouring all of the beautiful feminist work that has been done, all of the things that I’ve seen that the generations ahead of me have done. I’m really trying to bridge what the younger generations are coming up with. They are very socially justice-minded. They have all different ideas of gender and religion and culture and what all of that looks like, so I’m trying very hard to be this person that can bridge both and honour both, honour the past and move forward into the future.”
The 100th birthday party is a welcoming way to bring light into the figurative and literal darkness, she said. It takes place on a Sunday afternoon – Nov. 24, from 2:30 to 5 p.m. – so people who don’t want to drive in the dark can comfortably attend.
“Especially after the year that we’ve had, we need a feel-good event,” she said. “There is no agenda to this other than ‘Come celebrate.’”
There will be mocktails and a grazing table, as well as professional childminding, live music and swing dance lessons.
Congregation Schara Tzedeck is celebrating 20 years since Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt and Dr. Cirelle Rosenblatt arrived in Vancouver, and 115 years as the city’s flagship Orthodox congregation. (photo from Schara Tzedeck)
Members of Congregation Schara Tzedeck are celebrating 20 years since Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt and Dr. Cirelle Rosenblatt arrived in Vancouver. And, while gala festivities are slated for June 14, the rabbi wants members of his congregation and the larger community to focus less on the individuals than on the role the synagogue has played in the past – and could play in the future.
Schara Tzedeck, which is marking 115 years as the city’s flagship Orthodox congregation, has been a central institution of the community, though Rosenblatt balks at the word “institution.”
“It’s more than a registered authority with CRA,” he said. “It is more than an organization with a letterhead. It’s even more than the sum of its membership because plenty of people who feel a connection with Schara Tzedeck may not currently be paying members but they may have a historical connection. They may live elsewhere now but feel very close to Schara Tzedeck.
“The thing that I want our community to appreciate and to value and perhaps give more attention to is that they are part of this very long story and, if they treat it well, it can play a very important role in their lives,” the rabbi said. “It can play a very significant role in their future and in the security of their family and the emotional health of their family.”
While Rabbi Rosenblatt has been tending to the spiritual and other needs of his congregants, Dr. Rosenblatt has been tending to the medical needs of individuals with brain injuries. As founder and director of Advance Concussion Clinic, she is a leader in the field of neuropsychology and has applied interdisciplinary expertise in concussion as a neuropsychologist and consultant to amateur and professional athletes and teams, including in the Olympics, the National Football League and the National Hockey League.
Reflecting back on two decades, Dr. Rosenblatt believes that it was no accident they landed in Vancouver.
“The primary feeling I have is one of gratitude,” Dr. Rosenblatt told the Independent. “I’m really grateful – I guess it’s appropriate for a rabbi’s wife – I’m really grateful that we were guided to Vancouver. I have a very strong sense of faith and belief that we were meant to be here and that there was a plan in place for us. [I’m] really grateful that God led us to this place but really also to the community and for the community and for the opportunities that Vancouver specifically provided for us and for our family.”
It is partly because of Dr. and Rabbi Rosenblatt’s scientific and theological intersections that the guest speaker for the gala, which is called Mosaic 2023, is Yeshiva University’s president, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman.
“The reason that we thought it was such a good idea,” explained Rabbi Rosenblatt, “is that Yeshiva University’s motto is ‘Torah Ummada’ [‘Torah and Science,’ or secular knowledge]. The idea of sophisticated wisdom and intellectual disciplines coupled with Torah is going to be something that makes them both better on some level.”
Dr. Rosenblatt was educated in the Yeshiva University system from high school, through her undergraduate studies, to her doctoral work.
Rabbi Rosenblatt, a native of Baltimore, Md., received his smicha, rabbinic ordination, from Yeshiva University. He earlier completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry and English literature and a master’s in bioorganic chemistry at Columbia.
Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt and Dr. Cirelle Rosenblatt (photo from Schara Tzedeck)
The gala will celebrate the two decades of the Rosenblatts’ service to the community but also the much longer history of Schara Tzedeck, which began as B’nai Yehuda, in 1907, and has been at the heart of Jewish Vancouver almost as long as there has been a Jewish Vancouver. But the rabbi worries that social changes are affecting his congregation and all religious assemblies, and community groups more broadly. Among these are declining engagement at religious services, the omnipresence of social media, the alienation from community connections and related phenomena that author Robert D. Putnam outlined in his 2000 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
“Those kinds of group spaces, those kinds of community living, are extremely powerful for the need of the individual in terms of their emotional health,” he said. “That, too, is under threat.”
For 115 years, under successive rabbis, Schara Tzedeck has been much more than the sum of its parts, said Rosenblatt.
“You have this network, this community, this thriving ability to provide help and resources and support in a rotating fashion,” he said. “The value of this community has lent emotional and financial and physical and every other kind of support you can possibly imagine. That’s severely threatened now in the 21st century.”
Being spiritual leader of Schara Tzedeck is to play a leadership role in maintaining the infrastructure of Jewish life in the city, including the mikvah (ritual bath) and the cemetery, as well as what is, in the context of those two community assets, a far more recent addition: the 32-kilometre eruv, the spiritual boundary that allows observant Jews to carry certain items outdoors on Shabbat, which Rabbi Avi Baumol created more than 20 years ago.
Taking wisdom that has been passed down for millennia and making it “speak in a modern voice” is what Rosenblatt calls his stock-in-trade, with the late chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sachs, being a model he cites.
“We also try to do things that are a little bit on the creative side in terms of how people can access these mitzvot, but have very long-standing or deep roots in the Torah,” he said, citing a “sukkah-raising” that allowed people to get involved hands-on in the tradition.
“I guess that’s the Jewish equivalent of a barn-raising,” the rabbi said with a laugh. But the congregation also took the opportunity of the ancient tradition of constructing a temporary shelter to discuss the very modern reality of housing security.
Food security is another area that Rosenblatt has emphasized. For years, volunteers from the shul were involved in a vegetable garden at Yaffa House, Vancouver’s Jewish group home and centre for adults with mental illness. The rabbi would take bar mitzvah classes to the garden and talk about the importance of food and sustainability. He also takes great pride in the long presence of members of the Schara Tzedeck community as volunteers in groups like Yaffa House, Tikva Housing and other agencies.
Rosenblatt has trouble believing his family has been here for 20 years, but that passing of time has a very physical manifestation, in the form of the youngest of the Rosenblatts’ five children, the daughter the rabbi calls their “anchor baby,” who was born a few months after the family’s arrival.
“It’s hard for me to believe that her entire life is here,” he said, noting that all five (now adult) children love Vancouver. “They think it’s a really special place.”
As come-from-aways themselves, the Rosenblatts understand the long history of newcomers arriving, often from inhospitable places, to start a new life here. In the days of Schara Tzedeck’s Rabbi Nathan Pastinsky, who began his long service in 1918 and continued until his passing in 1948, the spiritual leader would meet migrants at the train and set them up with a cart from which to sell wares and begin a career.
“I’m not giving people carts anymore,” said Rosenblatt. But he is still very much involved in easing the way for newcomers to navigate the immigration system, find a job and housing and settle into the community.
Shelley Rivkin, vice-president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, is just one person with accolades for the contributions the Rosenblatts have made to their chosen home.
“Rabbi Rosenblatt is a consummate bridge-builder,” Rivkin told the Independent. “He is always willing to reach out and have a conversation with anyone regardless of religious practice and beliefs. When you attend his Zoom classes, you see participants from across the Jewish community who are actively engaged in what he has to say.
“Cirelle (Dr. Rosenblatt) is a role model for modern Orthodox women,” Rivkin continued. “She is very learned. She is a highly respected professional and successful businesswoman and she is the mother of five children. When she gives a class, she is able to effectively weave together Torah study with contemporary issues.”
Rabbi Rosenblatt, though, deflects back to the longer history of the shul.
“I want people to understand that the anniversary of this milestone is a moment to appreciate how valuable this institution is,” he said.
