Rabbinical Association of Vancouver

A solemn anniversary

The Vancouver and Victoria Jewish communities will each hold a memorial ceremony Oct. 7 to honour and remember the victims of the attacks on Israel a year ago.

Led by the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver (RAV) and in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and many others, an evening event in Vancouver will be an opportunity for people of all ages to come together.

A special gathering for young adults will take place from 6 to 7 p.m., providing a space for reflection and connection. The main ceremony will begin at 7 p.m., and will include what is being described as a poignant tribute led by our community’s rabbis. The location of the event will be emailed upon registration. Register at jewishvancouver.com/october-7th-memorial.

Following the ceremony, Jewish Family Services will offer “living rooms,” in both Hebrew and English, where attendees can share their thoughts and find comfort. An Israeli sing-along will also take place, with the intention of helping participants find strength in unity and to support one another.

Relatives of Oct. 7 victims will present representative stories of the heroes and victims and organizers are planning interactive elements so participants can actively memorialize. There is an intention to ensure that all the victims’ names, as well as fallen soldiers’ names, can be articulated in the course of the program.

Politics – local or international – are to be kept out of the program. Elected officials may attend but the focus is on memorializing and honouring the dead.

While Oct. 7 created an unprecedented new world, in many ways, there is a precedent for the sort of memorial event planned, according to Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, who is head of RAV.

The Yizkor service will be the template for this commemoration, said Infeld.

“We know that the Yizkor service is something that the synagogue-going Jew can relate to, but we know that not all the members of our community go to synagogue on a regular basis,” he said. “We want to make sure that it works for everyone. Yizkor is the framework, but there will be creative pieces in it as well that will work for everyone in the community.”

As the anniversary approaches, Infeld said the community should be “thinking first and foremost of the memory of those who were murdered in this horrific, horrible terror attack.”

There are 97 hostages still being held in captivity in Gaza of the more than 240 Israelis and others kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7. (Four other hostages have been held since 2014/15.)

People need to be reminded of the absolute necessity to support the people of Israel at this moment, and to support fellow Jews here in Canada and around the world against the rise of antisemitism, said Infeld. “We would like to see everyone really rally together and gather together to support each other and to show our support for Israel and the Jewish people, and to comfort each other as well.”

A memorial in Victoria will take place at the same time on Oct. 7, at the Esquimalt Gorge Pavilion. Pre-registration is mandatory at jewishvictoria.ca.

On Sept. 28, as part of Beth Israel’s Selichot service, Rabbi Infeld will lead a conversation with Thomas Hand, whose daughter, Emily, was a hostage in Gaza. Emily, who turned 9 in captivity, was kidnapped along with her friend and the friend’s mother. The two girls were released in November. Hand will talk about the “spiritual, emotional and moral roller coaster” of his daughter’s captivity and eventual freedom.

Premier hears concerns

Premier David Eby announces on Nov. 15, 2023, that the province is taking action against hate-motivated violence in British Columbia by supporting community organizations throughout the province and by providing resources to individuals. (photo from Province of BC / flickr)

Jewish community leaders met with BC Premier David Eby March 8 in what participants describe as an emotional, intense and frank dialogue around antisemitism in British Columbia and the added impact of the loss of the community’s most prominent voice in government, Selina Robinson.

The meeting was convened by the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver and seven speakers from the Jewish community shared their experiences around antisemitism with the premier and three of his staff. Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, head of the rabbinical association, spoke, as did Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, and others about incidents in the public school system, the post-secondary sector, healthcare, the legal profession, unions and the public sector.

“The general vibe was one of significant sadness, particularly around Selina’s departure from the NDP caucus and from cabinet, but also around just an array of examples of antisemitic activities in British Columbia that have been experienced by community members,” Eby told the Independent.

Even Jewish participants said that hearing the numerous personal encounters with antisemitism shared by various participants was emotionally taxing. Speakers conveyed not only their firsthand experiences but advised the premier and his staff on a range of incidents reported by civil servants and by students and families in public schools.

Among many examples drawn from the Vancouver school district alone, there was a teacher on call who asked if there were any Jews in the class. When two students self-identified, the teacher asked them to explain to the class, on the spot, what Israel was doing. In a Grade 9 science class, a teacher called Jews genocidal murderers. There have been multiple incidences of antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas and SS symbols, as well as students yelling “Heil Hitler” in hallways. Some teachers are wearing or displaying symbols indicating allegiance with a side in the conflict, such as wearing keffiyehs or displaying Palestinian flags in their classrooms. An elementary teacher made derogatory comments about Israel and Jews and, when a student complained, the student was made to sit in the hallway. A student overheard another student say “Allahu akbar, Hamas for life!” – when she told the principal, she was accused of calling the other student a terrorist. A librarian asked students: “What do you think about what is happening in Gaza?” One student said, “They’re doing what they did here to the Indigenous people” and another said, “They’re killing a lot of babies” and the instructor said “That’s right! It’s genocide!”

According to incident reports from civil service employees, a hostile atmosphere for Jews exists in many segments of the public service, with one-sided expressions of support for Palestinians being demonstrated in online meetings, on government bulletin boards and in staff meetings. One public employee was asked not to wear their Star of David necklace in meetings “as it may make my colleagues of colour uncomfortable because it is a symbol of genocide.”

Participants in the Jewish community meeting took particular exception to Eby’s statement in the Legislature denying systemic antisemitism and contended that a litany of examples from the public service refutes his assessment.

“It was extremely important that the premier heard what various leaders of the Jewish community had to say,” Infeld told the Independent after the meeting. “We are at a precarious moment in Jewish history in the province and in the country and the premier has let us down in a significant way.

“He seemed somewhat shocked by the degree of antisemitism that people are facing in the province,” the rabbi said. “He knew that there was antisemitism but, as people ran through case-by-case of experiences they know of, or that they experienced, he seemed surprised.”

Eby acknowledged that, after Jewish community members spoke, it did not seem appropriate to say, “Let me present to you this list of things [that we’re prepared to do],” noting that such a response would have “almost trivialized the emotion in the room and where everybody was at.”

“The next steps are about us working together,” the premier told the Independent. At the same time, he said, “I made a couple of commitments in the room.”

These included, said Eby, working together to weed out antisemitism anywhere it is identified in the province, including in government, and assisting with the “overwhelming security costs that have been incurred by the community.”

The premier admitted a reflexive response to Robinson’s allegations that the government has not adequately responded to antisemitism.

“I have to admit, my first instinct is to say, we have,” said Eby. “We’ve done these pieces around mandatory Holocaust education, around the Crown counsel definition of hate crimes, being present with the community in key moments.

“But, on reflection, here is someone who has the lived experience of being a person who has relatives in Israel that were called up to military service, that she knows through family and friends who died in the Oct. 7 attacks, and she hears every day from people in the Jewish community about the anxiety and the fear of the rise of antisemitism that we’ve seen following those attacks, across Canada and certainly in British Columbia, and so is it really up to me to tell her that we have done everything we can? So, instead, my response was, this is a time for me to reflect.”

Shanken said the meeting highlighted the seriousness of the issue.

“I’ve heard stories about people’s interaction with antisemitism and Jew-hatred within our province, but to hear it all together in one room, one speaker after another, it was really stomach-churning,” Shanken said. “I think the premier listened, I think his staff listened, so I do believe that people realize how serious this problem really is.”

On the issue of Robinson’s removal from cabinet, Shanken said, the premier has work to do.

“We need to be addressing the double standard that existed with Selina Robinson, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But we also need to be addressing the issues that people are facing.… We rely upon him to really set that tone for our community and for all the communities of British Columbia.”

Breaking new ground

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner is both the first woman and the first Jewish Renewal rabbi to be elected head of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver. (photo from Or Shalom)

“I grew up in a household of many amazingly powerful spirits,” Rabbi Hannah Dresner of Or Shalom Synagogue told the Independent. “My parents’ circle of friends loomed larger than life.”

Dresner has memories of playing ping-pong with Jesse Jackson, making paper dolls with Abraham Joshua Heschel and being read bedtime stories by Elie Wiesel. Her father, Samuel Dresner, was a rabbi and a renowned scholar of Chassidic thought. He was a close personal disciple of Heschel, who is widely regarded as one of the most important theologians and Jewish ethicists of the 20th century.

Dresner, herself an artist, dancer and academic for years before heeding the call to become a rabbi, walks softly and carries a big soul. Since coming to Vancouver to head Or Shalom after Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan stepped down from the pulpit to take on a role at the Vancouver School of Theology, Dresner has made waves by bringing a new range of creative programming to the shul. Events have included a dance troupe performing an interpretation of a Chassidic tale to live jazz music, a Shabbaton on Jewish wisdom about the afterlife, and guest Rabbi Benay Lappe teaching how to queer the Talmud.

Most recently, Dresner has again broken new ground in Vancouver, by being chosen head of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver. She is both the first woman to hold the position and the first Jewish Renewal rabbi.

The Jewish Independent spoke to Dresner just days after she had convened her first meeting as chair. She said she was heartened to see that her election was a comfortable choice for the mainly male membership of the RAV – Rabbi Carey Brown is also a member – and an exciting opportunity for her to serve both her own shul community and the wider Vancouver Jewish community.

“I see this as a way for Or Shalom to be more visible as a legitimate part of the Jewish community of Vancouver, to bring our own sensibility to fostering kinship between rabbinic colleagues, and an opportunity for myself to serve the Jewish people,” she said.

So far, Dresner – who said she is very much still learning the ropes of the RAV – has innovated by introducing a session of group Torah study into the association’s meetings.

photo - Rabbi Hannah Dresner — Rabbi Hannah Dresner *(photo from Or Shalom)*

Dresner is known for combining traditionalism and progressive Judaism, including a commitment to “deep ecumenicism,” an openness to the wisdom not just of the different denominations of the Jewish community but the different religious traditions of humankind. This is what drew her to the Jewish Renewal movement founded by Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi. Renewal is known for its embrace of both traditional liturgy and observance and Torah study with feminist, ecological and ecumenical perspectives.

She said, “My job here [at Or Shalom] is to really nurture the historic members and create a space that is bold and fresh and open and willing to embrace our contemporary thoughts and needs, and to be truly inclusive; to nurture the old and to welcome and open as many portals as possible.”

Before becoming a rabbi, Dresner went to Barnard College to study dance and art then taught at the Ramaz School in New York. She went to graduate school at the University of Chicago and got her master’s in fine arts, becoming an exhibiting painter at a blue-chip gallery, with a career as a working artist while teaching in MFA programs. Her longest tenure was at Northwestern University for 10 years, where she was tasked with inventing new undergraduate courses across the arts.

When Dresner got married and had children, she felt the need for a prayer space tolerant of young mothers, a community in which to raise kids. She founded the Lomdim Chavura, which some quipped stood for “lean, mean davening machine.” The group met on Shabbat mornings and co-parented – they “birthed each other’s babies into life, and doula’d community members into death as well,” said Dresner.

“It was spiritual improvisation,” she said, noting that the chavura regularly gathered to experiment with new forms of expression. It was within that space that Dresner became interested in leadership and discovered davening and ritual as new spaces for her creative expression. She began seeing Jewish communal life as another way of being an artist in the world.

“Everything was woven together in our communal life,” said Dresner. “We made sukkot out of gourds or sunflowers. Ritual life was part of gardening, was part of cooking, was part of life and dance and art.”

Dresner said her discovery of the seamlessness of those things made her transition into the rabbinate very natural. “It is about translating those family expressions into a larger family,” she said.

Dresner had begun studying Chassidic texts while still an MFA advisor, to feed her soul and connect again with the spiritual milieu of her childhood. “We used to study the Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov every Shabbat afternoon,” Dresner said of her early childhood immersion, “and we sang niggunim until dark and then made Havdalah.”

Dresner’s study of Chassidus gradually blossomed into studying for the rabbanut. “I’m not really in rabbinical school,” she told herself. “I’m just taking these classes.”

Dresner was eventually ordained as both a rabbi and mashpia ruchanit (spiritual counselor). She has been two different kinds of CLAL fellow, in the Rabbis without Borders and Clergy Leadership Incubator programs.

During her rabbinic studies, Dresner was close with Daniel Siegel, the founding rabbi of Or Shalom, and she was excited when a job opening arose at the synagogue. “Coming here to the congregation that he founded had a lot of meaning to me and I had a lot of respect for Laura, the previous rabbi, as an intellectual as well,” said Dresner.

In 2001, Dresner had gone to Berkeley with husband Dr. Ross Andelman to focus on integrating their families. They made a deal: she had left her dream job and moved for him, and he would repay the favour after the kids had graduated high school. Once Dresner was ordained as a rabbi with ALEPH, Andelman, who is known in the Or Shalom community as “the rebbetz” (a play on the traditional name for the rabbi’s wife, rebbetzin) was true to his commitment and left his job as medical director of a county mental health system in Northern California to come here. “He’s a man who acted on his feminism,” said Dresner.

One of Dresner’s first calls to public duty as head of the RAV came on Oct. 28, when she led the vigil remembering the victims of the Pittsburgh massacre, which claimed the lives of 11 Jews.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.