Most everyone on the planet has now heard of mRNA, thanks to the vaccines against COVID-19 from Pfizer and Moderna, which are based on messenger RNA. But, before mRNA was used to address COVID, research was conducted into how it could fight cancer. Now, researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have discovered a key connection between mRNA, peptide proteins and tumour progression.
Messenger RNA codes for different proteins, each with a unique function. There are both “long” and “short” peptides. Until now, scientists were not sure if short peptides had any biological function.
Prof. Etta Livneh of BGU’s Shraga Segal Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Genetics has shown that single short peptides in fact have a very important role – as a kinase inhibitor that can slow tumour growth and invasion, cancer cell survival and metastasis.
Proteins (and protein kinases in particular) propagate signals that carry instructions to the cells and dictate cell fate. There are more than 500 different kinases in the human body.
With cancer, a kinase erroneously tells the cells to divide and reproduce in a rapid and uncontrollable manner. But the flipside is also true: if a kinase can be inhibited, it should block the proliferation of cancer cells.
And that’s “just the tip of the iceberg,” said Livneh, whose discovery has been a decade in the making. “Now that we know that at least some peptides have a biological function, we can begin to discover the roles of many more.”
Kinase inhibitors are already one of the hottest areas of cancer research, in some cases replacing chemotherapy. Livneh’s research will allow scientists to better understand how to control this cancer-fighting technology.
The research was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation and published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America).
Israel21cis a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.
A German translation of the Talmud, and the first translation of the book ever completed by a single person, is now available on Sefaria, a free nonprofit online library of Jewish texts. The translation by scholar Lazarus Goldschmidt was the first German translation of the Talmud and was released in 1935. While it is used in German Jewish studies departments and universities, it had not been widely accessible to the general public until now.
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A celebration of the release took place virtually on Oct. 24. One of the speakers was Penny Goldsmith, Goldschmidt’s eldest granddaughter. Goldsmith is a longtime anti-poverty community worker in Vancouver, and owns a small independent publishing company, Lazara Press, named after her grandfather, who died a few months before she was born. She spoke of her grandfather’s books, “beautiful typographical masterpieces.”
“Grandfather was a type and book designer,” she said. Among his books were literature and poetry, including a collection of poetry he wrote in his early 20s, in Hebrew, “a very unusual choice,” Goldsmith noted, “as Hebrew at that time was reserved for religious study only.”
Goldschmidt was a scholar of Near Eastern languages and, in addition to the Talmud, he translated other religious texts, including a Hebrew translation of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch and a German translation of the Koran. Born in Lithuania, he learned German at the age of 18. His translation of the Talmud took 39 years to complete and he continued to make revisions after publication. He was also a collector of rare books and his extensive collection is now part of the Royal Library in Copenhagen.
After the Goldschmidt Talmud translation became public domain in January 2021, a team of four led by Igor Itkin, a rabbinical student at Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin, integrated its 9,434 pages of text into Sefaria’s free online library. The team’s work included manually linking sections of the translation to corresponding Talmud texts in English and Hebrew/Aramaic already in the Sefaria library. The connections allow scholars, educators and others to navigate between the translations and connect them to the larger library of Jewish scholarship. The team’s work was supported by a grant from the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe.
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The Rivals and Other Stories by Jonah Rosenfeld, translated from the Yiddish by Vancouver’s Rachel Mines – who recently retired from Langara College’s English department – has been selected by the Yiddish Book Centre as one of its picks for the 2022 Great Jewish Books Club. The book is available through the Yiddish Book Centre’s store and other online booksellers, including its publisher, Syracuse University Press, which is offering The Rivals at a 50% discount until Dec 1, 2021 (press.syr.edu).
Rosenfeld was a prolific and popular writer from the early 1900s until his death in 1944. Although his writing received critical praise, very little was translated into English until the publication of The Rivals. His stories foreground social anxiety, cultural dislocation, family dysfunction and the search for meaningful relationships – themes just as relevant today as they were to their original audiences. (See jewishindependent.ca/stories-that-explore-the-mind.)
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The National Autism Research Centre of Israel (photo from Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
The Azrieli Foundation recently donated $15.6 million Cdn to the National Autism Research Centre of Israel, a collaboration between scientists from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and clinicians from Soroka University Medical Centre (SUMC), both in the city of Be’er Sheva, Israel. The centre, originally established by the Ministry of Science and Technology, is dedicated to translational research that aims to revolutionize diagnosis techniques and interventions for autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions. In honour of the donation, the centre has been renamed the Azrieli National Centre for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research.
A dedicated facility inside SUMC will be constructed that will double the space for working with children with autism spectrum disorder and performing research. It will house genetics/bioinformatics, biomarker-detection and neuroimaging labs. Existing data collection will be expanded to many autism clinics throughout Israel, where multiple types of clinical and behavioural data, biological samples (e.g., DNA and blood samples) and neuroimaging data will be collected. This data collection will enable the rapid expansion of the National Autism Database, which will triple in size within five years. New faculty members, post-docs and graduate students, as well as scientific, clinical, technical and administrative support staff will be recruited to manage the data collection and sharing effort.
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Naomi Azrieli, chief executive officer, Azrieli Foundation Canada, and co-chair, Azrieli Foundation Israel, at the Nov. 7 announcement in Montreal, which took place concurrently with the announcement in Israel. (photo by PBL Photography)
The Weizmann Institute of Science and Weizmann Canada recently received a donation of $50 million US from the Azrieli Foundation, to enable catalytic brain research with the establishment of the Azrieli Institute for Brain and Neural Sciences. A longstanding supporter of the institute, this latest donation adds to past philanthropic investments of nearly $30 million US by the foundation towards Weizmann research facilities and fellowships.
Weizmann’s Azrieli Institute for Brain and Neural Sciences, which will be located at the Weizmann Institute campus in Rehovot, Israel, will promote the full spectrum of neuroscience research, from basic, curiosity-driven studies to translational work of high clinical relevance, with global impact. The donation will enable the construction of a new building that will serve as a hub for neuroscience activities, facilities and technologies.
The Azrieli Institute will focus on research in the development of neural networks; perception and action; mental and emotional health, positive neuroscience; learning, memory and cognition; the aging brain; neurodegeneration; injury and regeneration; theoretical and computational neuroscience; development of innovative neurotechnologies; and integrative brain disorders.
Dr. Odeya Cohen (photo by Dani Machlis/BGU) and Dr. Rami Puzis (photo courtesy)
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers discovered patterns of significantly decreased joy, increased sadness, fear and disgust among healthcare professionals (HCP) in the largest social media study to track emotional changes and discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the study, a multidisciplinary BGU team analyzed more than 53,000 HCP tweets from followers of several hundred Twitter accounts of healthcare organizations and common HCP points of interest. The most significant topics HCPs discussed during the pandemic were COVID-19 information, public health and social values, medical studies, as well as daily life and food. Approximately 44% of their discourse was about professional topics during the entire 2020 year.
The research indicates data-driven approaches for analyzing social media networks are helpful as a method for exploring professional health insights during both routine clinical situations and emergencies. The study will be published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. A preprint is already available online. It was funded by the BGU Coronavirus Taskforce and by an Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology coronavirus research grant.
“Our findings, which track increasing sadness and decreasing joy, should be a warning to health organizations of the importance of better mental health support to help HCPs cope with the emotional consequences of the pandemic,” say Dr. Rami Puzis of BGU’s software and information systems engineering department (SISE) and Dr. Odeya Cohen of the department of nursing. “Most interestingly, HCP tweets expressed greater levels of fear just prior to pandemic waves in 2020. This indicates that many HCPs, beyond those working in epidemiology, observed, and were adequately qualified to anticipate pandemic development.”
Puzis goes on to say, “This suggests that decision-makers could benefit from investing additional resources into listening to the broader HCP community to track and anticipate bottom-up pathways for developing health crises.”
– Courtesy Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Dates being harvested from Hannah, a tree germinated from ancient seeds in Israel. (screenshot from arava.org)
The Mediterranean Diet is not a recent lifestyle development, but rather a form of eating going back to ancient times.
Based on the foods consumed by people living near the Mediterranean Sea, this diet contains lots of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits and vegetables. It includes fish and dairy products, such as cheese and yogurts. It allows for wine drinking and a bit of meat.
From the specialized field of Israeli agro-archeology, we can get an idea of what people once grew and ate – and a number of these foods are mentioned in the Torah.
In some instances, the sages understood why certain foods were healthy, as seen in this quote from Tractate Ketubot of the Babylonian Talmud: “Dates are wholesome in the morning and in the evening. They are bad in the afternoon, but, at noon, there is nothing to match them. Besides, they do away with three things: evil thoughts, sickness of the bowels and hemorrhoids.”
In September 2020, the Arava Institute harvested 111 very special dates – the first fruit of Hannah, a tree sprouted from a 2,000-year-old seed and pollinated by another ancient Judean date tree. Dr. Elaine Solowey, director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture of the Arava Institute, and Dr. Sarah Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Centre of Hadassah Hospital, harvested these ancient dates in the culmination of a decades-long experiment to raise the biblical-era Phoenix dactylifera (date palm) from the dead. The date seeds were originally discovered in the 1960s, when Yigal Yadin excavated Masada.
And, in January 2021, Israeli archeologists published the discovery of thousands of olive pits off the southern coast of Haifa. These pits were embedded in stone and clay neolithic structures in a now-submerged area, but one that was probably once part of the northern coast. They date back to about 4600 BCE.
Tel Aviv University archeologist Dafna Langot points out that these pits were not from olives used for oil because, in the production of olive oil, the pits get crushed and, in this find, the pits were mostly still intact. The site’s proximity to the Mediterranean Sea may indicate that the seawater served to de-bitter, pickle and salt the olives. (To read the article “Early production of table olives at a mid-7th millennium BP submerged site off the Carmel coast [Israel],” visit nature.com/articles/s41598-020-80772-6. BP stands for “before the present.”)
There is no biblical reference to olive eating itself. But, at the ceremony in which Moshe’s brother Aaron and Aaron’s sons become the priests over the ancient Hebrews, they ate matzah with oil olive (Exodus 29:2). Indeed, olive oil seems to have the edge over olives as seen in R. Yohanan’s warning: olives cause one to forget 70 years of study, olive oil restores 70 years of study (Babylonian Talmud, Horayot 13b). Yet, in Numbers Rabbah 8:10, proselytes are praised using a comparison to olives: “just as there are olives for eating, preserving and for oil … so from proselytes came Bible scholars, Mishnah scholars, men of commerce and men of wisdom, men of understanding.”
Around the ancient Hula Lake – referred to by researchers as Gesher Benot Yaakov or GBY – Israeli archeologists have discovered different types of nuts, dating back to the Lower Paleolithic period (1.5 million to 200,000 years ago). Two types of pistachio nuts (Pistacia atlantica and Pistacia vera) are said to have been gathered there. (See “Nuts, nut cracking, and pitted stones at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel,” at pnas.org/content/99/4/2455.)
Pistachios are one of only two nuts mentioned in the Bible. Pistachios may have grown in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 43:11). Legend has it that the Queen of Sheba declared pistachios were to be enjoyed only by royalty, even decreeing that it was illegal for commoners to grow pistachio trees. The nuts were considered an aphrodisiac.
In the Middle East, both Muslims and Jews prepare pistachio-filled baklava for holiday celebrations.
In biblical times, barley was used as fodder for donkeys and horses so, if a person ate barley, it was a sign they were poor. (photo by Alicja / Pixabay)
On the Gezer Calendar, which dates back to King Solomon’s era, the springtime months of Iyar and Sivan are noted as the time for harvesting barley, the first grain to ripen in Israel. On the status scale, however, barley was held in low regard. It was used as fodder for donkeys and horses (I Kings 5:8). Thus, in biblical times, if you ate barley, it was a sign you were poor. At recent Israeli archeology digs, onsite workers collected barley seeds from the epipaleolithic period, some 20,000 to 10,000 years BP.
In addition, Israeli archeologists have identified 1,000-year-old eggplant seeds. They found the seeds in cisterns located in an ancient market complex that was discovered in Jerusalem’s Givati Parking Lot dig, more or less across from the Old City’s Dung Gate. The cisterns apparently had been left behind in either cesspits or garbage pits and the eggplant seeds had neither rotted nor disintegrated. Researchers surmise that the market stall owners used garbage pits to hold their unused stock or to discard damaged produce. Eggplant seeds found in cesspits were seeds consumed and naturally eliminated.
Eggplants are well-traveled. According to the late Gil Marks, in his cookbook Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, eggplants originated in India some 4,000 years ago. By the fourth century CE, eggplants arrived in Persia. From, there they were “picked up” by Arabs, who probably brought them to Spain in the ninth century. Claudia Roden writes in her book The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York that Jews came to be associated with eggplant when they fled the Almohades and Almoravides and when the Inquisition banished them from southern Italy.
Seeing that pomegranates are part of the Rosh Hashanah table, I’ll close with some information about the ancient fruit, one of the seven species mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8. The Roman Pliny the Elder, who died in the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius, also had something to say about this juicy fall fruit – he wrote that the wild pomegranate seed, taken in drink, is curative of dropsy (edema).
Pomegranate seed oil contains high concentrations of Omega 5, which is believed to be one of the most powerful antioxidants in nature. Prof. Ruth Gabizon and Prof. Shlomo Magdassi from Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital are hopeful that their pomegranate seed oil research will lead to a way of slowing down or lessening the effects of degenerative brain diseases.
A 2020 report by other researchers, which was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqz241), contends that pomegranate juice helps maintain visual memory skills in middle-aged and older adults. The authors of the study state that it could have a potential impact on visual memory issues commonly associated with aging.
The old Mediterranean diet continues to provide new promise.
Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
Israeli actor Shira Haas was the featured guest at the Canadian Associates of Ben Gurion University of the Negev’s virtual gala July 7. (photo byShula Klinger)
On July 7, the Canadian Associates of Ben Gurion University of the Negev held their second virtual fundraising gala. More than 1,200 participants logged on to the An “Unorthodox” National Virtual Gala event, which raised $850,000 for brain research at BGU’s Zlotowski Centre for Neuroscience.
The Zlotowski Centre is a group of researchers dedicated to finding cures and management tools for neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and epilepsy.
As part of the gala event, attendees received a special dinner package. (photo by Shula Klinger)
Months in the making, the virtual gala was the work of a countrywide team of BGU staffers and numerous volunteers. Every participating household in Metro Vancouver received sweet and savoury kosher treats from Café 41. The accompanying gift box also brought olive oil from the Negev, a copy of Deborah Feldman’s memoir, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (Simon & Schuster, 2012), appetizer dishes and a commemorative cutting board.
Danny Chamovitz, BGU’s president, spoke about the work of BGU’s academics in general, in disciplines ranging from public health to brain research. Canadian Senator Linda Frum conducted the feature interview – with multiple-award-winning actor Shira Haas.
Describing herself as “very, very shy” as a young person, Haas said she had considered psychology or graphic design as professions, until a casting director approached her on Facebook. Sixteen years old at the time, she said, with respect to that first project, “I understood that this is what I want to do, it was like the door to Narnia.”
Haas does not take her success or popularity for granted. “It was always a dream to work internationally, in different languages, for different audiences, but I never imagined it,” she said. “It was always about the work. I am very, very lucky to be in this position.” She added, “My parents deserve to be talked about! They are the most supportive and amazing parents.”
Known for taking on demanding roles, Haas approaches acting in a scholarly fashion. She studied musculoskeletal diseases to play a terminally ill woman in the film Asia, and researched Russian, Yiddish and Charedi culture for the series Shtisel and Unorthodox. She said she finds beauty in hard work, explaining that Asia was “challenging in the most beautiful way. It was a lot of physical and emotional work, and very personal for me.”
When playing a part, Haas said she is motivated by two things. First, she must be passionate about the role because “that’s what brings everything alive.” About Shtisel, she said, “I fell in love with it immediately.”
Her second principle is to portray “subjects that matter to me.”
Haas’s idealism was evident in the way she spoke about Asia. “It’s not really about death,” she said. “It’s about relationships, about appreciating the time we have and what we do with it. The highest form of art is to bring light to the darkness.”
About Unorthodox, she said, “It didn’t occur to me that it is about the Orthodox world. It was just a story about people who want to be loved, their doubts, desires and failures.”
And Shtisel, she noted, had a huge impact on people all over the world. The show helped change people’s view of Orthodox communities, she said: “It’s universal.”
Of her forthcoming portrayal of Golda Meir in her early years, Haas described a woman with “a very interesting life. She was very passionate, with many dreams and desires.”
Since David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir were friends, she laughed, “this event was meant to be!”
Haas spoke of her personal connection to BGU. Her sister studied at the university and a close friend is there now. Haas wanted to participate in the gala for several reasons, including, she said, “I am Jewish, I am an Israeli. I want to keep on doing events like this! I am even more proud to do it for Ben-Gurion.”
As for the brain research being conducted at BGU, which the gala funds will support, there has already been groundbreaking progress. Claude Broski’s group has identified a protein that can slow down the degeneration brought on by Parkinson’s. The social robots developed by Shelley Levy-Tzedek and her team will have an impact on stroke patient recovery – the robots offer motivation, feedback and performance-tracking during the rehabilitation phase. Epilepsy researchers are developing wearable hardware and software that could alert patients to an oncoming seizure, an hour before it happens. And Deborah Toiber’s Alzheimer’s team is exploring questions about brain aging, such as, Why does the disease affect so many of us, when only 5% of cases are genetic?
David Berson, executive director of CABGU, British Columbia and Alberta, said, “It has been very gratifying to see how the Metro Vancouver community has embraced BGU students and faculty in recent years. Many new supporters have stepped forward during the last year to engage with us. We are especially grateful to our community partners, who helped us promote this Unorthodox event.”
Among the many contributors to the gala were board members Jay Eidelman and Si Brown. Rachelle Delaney helped Berson with the goodie boxes at the crack of dawn on July 7, while volunteer drivers delivered the boxes. Adrian Cantwell and I were co-chairs for the Metro Vancouver team.
Shula Klingeris an author and journalist living in North Vancouver. She was Metro Vancouver co-chair of the CABGU gala with Adrian Cantwell.
Shira Haas is the featured guest at the July 7 event organized by Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. (photo from CABGU)
Israeli actress Shira Haas, star of the popular Netflix series Shtisel and Unorthodox, has been busy in recent months. Not only is she preparing to take on the role of a young Golda Meir in the upcoming series Lioness, executive produced by Barbra Streisand, but she is also the featured guest at the Canadian national virtual gala in support of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) on July 7.
An “Unorthodox” National Virtual Gala for Brain Research, organized by Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University (CABGU), BGU’s Canadian fundraising arm, will raise money for the Canada Fund to Advance Brain Research.
“We are thrilled to share this exciting announcement with our community,” said Mitchell Oelbaum, national president of CABGU.
“According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 50 million active cases of dementia worldwide, with an estimated 10 million new cases being added each year. Ten million people battle Parkinson’s each year globally. And, according to the World Stroke
Organization, 13 million people suffer from stroke annually. We wanted to do our part to help improve the chances of finding a cure for these debilitating diseases.”
The numbers are large, and there are no signs of a slowdown. That is why the fund was established by CABGU, with the goal of supporting groundbreaking and cutting-edge research for neurodegenerative diseases at the university’s Zlotowski Centre for Neuroscience.
“We are getting closer to determining the causes of age-related neurodegenerative diseases,” explained Dr. Debra Toiber of the department of life sciences in the faculty of natural sciences at BGU. “It’s an exciting time to be a scientist and uncovering the mechanisms of aging.”
Toiber is one of 67 researchers at the Zlotowski Centre. Her lab recently discovered that the SIRT6 protein is critical for the prevention of neurodegeneration, which can lead to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Colleague Dr. Shelly Levy-Tzedek’s lab studies the impact of age and disease on the control of body movement and how best to employ robotics to facilitate a fast and efficient rehabilitation process. Meanwhile, Dr. Claude Brodski, also with the Zlotowski Centre for Neuroscience, is currently conducting a study, albeit in its early stages, that may offer a disease-modified drug target to address the impact of Parkinson’s. While these findings are encouraging, more research needs to be conducted.
“CABGU launched the Canada Fund to Advance Brain Research at BGU in April,” said CABGU chief executive officer Mark Mendelson. “Our team has been hard at work ever since, and there is a strong appetite for this subject matter here in Canada. The sad reality is that we all know someone, whether it is a relative, a friend or a neighbour, who is struggling with one of these devastating brain diseases.”
The national virtual gala is already more than 50% sold out. To learn how to become a sponsor or to purchase tickets, head to bengurion.ca.
Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of the Office for Science and Society, McGill University, presented on The Chemistry of Wine and Its Many Benefits, at Canadian Friends of Sheba’s virtual event on May 2. (screenshot)
Canadian Friends of Sheba hosted Sheba Under the Stars on May 2, raising close to $100,000 for Israel’s Sheba Medical Centre. More than 100 guests attended the virtual evening featuring live entertainment, wine tasting and presentations on lifestyle choices from leading world experts.
Guests received a complimentary gift bag of wine and chocolates, and were treated to numerous performances from host Stacey Kay, Juno Award-winning singer/rapper and finalist on America’s Got Talent. The hour-long show also featured live wine tasting with Michael Avery, winemaker at Galil Mountain Winery, in Israel, as well as a presentation on The chemistry of Wine and Its Many Benefits, by Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University.
Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, director general, Sheba Medical Centre, opened the event by highlighting Sheba’s global fight against the coronavirus through its recent support of missions to India, northern Italy, Cyprus and Uruguay, and called on the guests to be “inspired by Sheba’s vision to transform into the city of health.”
Presentations from “Sheba’s stars” included Redefining the Field of Lifestyle Medicine by Dr. Rani Polak, founding director of Sheba’s Centre of Lifestyle Medicine, and from Prof. Michal Schnaider Beeri, director of Sheba’s Joseph Sagol Neuroscience Centre, who shared tips on how wellness and lifestyle affects the brain.
Sheba Medical Centre recently published a study undertaken over three years by its department of obstetrics and gynecology in conjunction with Sheba Genetic Institute and the Genetics Institute in the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre, which found that women of Ashkenazi descent were twice as likely to have a baby born with Fragile X syndrome (FXS) compared to Jewish non-Ashkenazi women.
Nearly 600 female carriers of the FXS gene from various Jewish heritages participated in the study, which was published in the peer-reviewed publication Nature. Previously, it was known that only CGG repeats and AGG interruptions affect the risk for a child with FXS. This new research adds a third identifier, children of two Ashkenazi parents, allowing for better personalized genetic counselling for carriers who are trying to conceive.
FXS is the most common genetic cause of mental disability in an unborn child and causes intellectual disability, behavioural and learning challenges, and various physical characteristics. The prevalence of carriers in the Jewish population stands at about one in 150 women.
Dr. Noam Domniz of the IVF unit at Sheba Medical Centre said: “The new information from this study regarding the influence of ethnicity stresses the importance of providing more accurate and personally targeted genetic counseling to each woman, according to her personal level of risk. At Sheba, we aim to use this new approach to better evaluate each carrier’s risk level, empower them to make informed choices, leading to a clearer and safer road to motherhood.”
Simon Fraser University Prof. Lara Aknin (photo from SFU Communications & Marketing)
There are several paths to finding happiness, according to Prof. Laura Aknin. “But a central theme that rises above the rest is that a lot of happiness comes from our relationships with other people, and how we help and give to others.”
Aknin will deliver the talk A Reality Check, for Good: A Talk on Happiness via Zoom on Feb. 22.
“Guest speaker Lara Aknin is a distinguished associate professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University, and director of the Helping and Happiness Social Psychology Lab at SFU,” said Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman, director of Chabad Richmond. Born and educated in Vancouver, Aknin became interested in social psychology and human emotions while studying as an undergrad and graduate student at the University of British Columbia. According to Aknin, “Human emotions colour our existence, and bring meaning to a lot of what we do.”
Among Aknin’s research interests are well-being, happiness, social relationships, prosocial behaviour and altruism. She established the Helping and Happiness Social Psychology Lab, which studies the predictors of happiness and what makes people happy, the emotional consequences of kind and generous behaviour, and the well-being outcomes of specific spending choices. The lab also looks at how people can increase their happiness.
“Happiness is broadly universal, yet religious people tend to report higher levels of happiness,” said Aknin, when asked how happiness relates to Judaism. “One of the major lessons emerging from our helping and happiness lab and our study of well-being is that it’s not just what we do for ourselves, it’s what we do for others. When we help others and give to others, that’s when we find happiness.”
While not overtly connected, it appears that happiness aligns with Judaism’s emphasis on giving tzedakah and doing mitzvot.
“Helping others is a pretty clear and reliable path to experiencing greater well-being,” confirmed Aknin.
While acknowledging that religion is not her specific area of research, Aknin said, “The notion, or central message that giving to others, whether it be G-d or other people in your community or beyond is a meaningful source of finding joy, reward, value and meaning in life, is certainly aligned with the evidence in the literature.”
A fundamental concept in Judaism is the importance of serving G-d with joy.
“The emotional rewards of giving are a psychological universal, not just particular to the Jewish faith, but it might align with many of the teachings of the Jewish faith and others,” said Aknin. “Researchers see this not just in North America, but in rich and poor countries around the globe. We see it in kids under the age of 2 … we see it in ex-offenders. People experience emotional rewards when they engage in kind behaviour. Many religious principles regularly espouse the value and virtue of giving to others … these ideas have been around for centuries, but the evidence is now documenting the importance of this.”
The topic of helping and happiness resonates with people.
“At some level,” said Aknin, “our intuition says that giving to others is emotionally rewarding but, in real life, people are spending more on themselves – out of necessity, for things like paying their bills, [but] we often overlook opportunities [to give] and would be better off spending the money in our pocket on someone else, rather than on an extra coffee.”
Is it always about our own sense of well-being or is happiness a byproduct of something more altruistic? Is it selfish, for example, to donate clothes to a homeless shelter because it makes us feel good? Is it wrong to have a sense of well-being when we give to others?
“Those questions are central to the work that I do,” Aknin said. “It’s important to distinguish what the motives are for giving in the first place, versus how do you feel afterwards. There’s no question that there are emotional benefits for the giver, and that donating one’s time or money to others promotes well-being and increases life satisfaction. Sometimes, people give to feel good but, by and large, people are giving because they think it’s the right thing to do, and they want to help the person in need. Feeling good about it afterwards isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, I think that’s a beautiful feature of human behaviour. It serves a purpose to help inspire us to do it again. It’s indicative of a care for humanity. Feeling indifference after giving would be more surprising.”
Aknin said happy people tend to have strong social relationships, they tend to be individuals who donate. and they tend to be relatively comfortable with where they are in life, not only financially, but also proud of what they’ve accomplished. Happy people also tend to live in a safe environment, she said, so being able to trust your neighbours is important.
Aknin is working on a commission that’s studying the trends around happiness and physical/mental health. Findings show that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, most people’s physical and mental health has suffered.
“Negative emotions are up, mental distress is up, depression and anxiety are up. Yet, despite all that, there is still some resilience and stability,” she said. The pandemic has given people time to evaluate their lives, and there is still much stability to be seen.
Aknin said some behaviours that are “protective,” such as exercise, make us feel better. “But people still feel better when they’re helping others,” she said.
According to Aknin, most people are happy, because “we’re very adaptive”; even though we think we aren’t, we are.
When asked if she’s happy doing what she’s doing, Aknin replied: “Yes, there’s great meaning and purpose in what I do.”
Shelley Civkinis a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.
At the second program of the season in the Jewish Seniors Alliance Snider Foundation Empowerment Series, a few Simon Fraser University graduate students shared their research interests with the 70-plus participants who tuned in via Zoom on Jan. 15.
Jointly sponsored by the JSA and Sholem Aleichem Seniors of the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Studies, the Gerontology Research Panel: Eager to Share our Interests and Help our Community – What’s Up With Seniors event featured master’s students Lindsay Grasso and Kishore Seetharaman, and PhD student in gerontology Eireann O’Dea.
Grasso became interested in exploring the impacts of separating couples in long-term care settings when her own family experienced it. She said this problem of separation will become more severe as more couples age together. Current long-term care settings separate couples, depending on each partner’s individual needs.
The effects of dementia on couples is profound and, often, one partner ends up as the caregiver for the other, she said. When the point is reached that institutional care is required, being together would alleviate a lot of the pain, believes Grasso, who has received a grant to look into the long-term effects of separating couples, as well as the effects on visiting spouses, when only one partner is in care. In both scenarios, there is the loss of a shared life, shared memories and the beginning of mourning. It is important to continue the relationship through visiting, sharing activities and eating together, she said. The healthier spouse would need to monitor care and advocate for their partner. For her research, Grasso will be conducting in-person interviews with couples, and will also meet with staff to review their understanding of the issues surrounding separation.
The second presenter, Seetharaman, has a background in architecture and is interested in planning and designing dementia-friendly neighbourhoods, especially in Metro Vancouver.
Worldwide, 70% of dementia-affected adults live at home, so dementia is more than an individual health issue, it is a community issue. Communities must be more inclusive, he said. He would like them to focus on eliminating stigma, raising awareness, social engagement, accessibility to services, improving planning and design of public spaces and support given to caregivers.
In terms of design, he said, familiarity and easy recognition are important. Signs should be clearly visible and easy to read. Distinctive landmarks are helpful for finding the way, he added. There is some work being done in Vancouver in this area but it is not clear as yet how it will be implemented. Seetharaman would like to create a body of knowledge for designers. He is hoping to interview both dementia patients and public servants.
O’Dea is looking into volunteerism and cultural generativity. She became interested in these topics as an undergraduate, when she was volunteering at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and its L’Chaim Adult Day Centre. There, she encountered seniors who were volunteering with other seniors, and she is looking into the benefits on health and sense of purpose in life, as they move away from former roles. The strengths and capabilities of these older adults motivated other seniors to become involved, she noted, adding that each person’s aging process is unique.
O’Dea already has interviewed a number of senior volunteers regarding their motivation. She said many spoke of being motivated by the values of tzedakah (charity) and tikkun olam (repairing the world), and the passing on of Jewish culture. These responses led her to the exploration of cultural generativity, i.e., the desire or need to keep cultural identity alive and pass it down to future generations. This is especially relevant to ethno-cultural minorities, she said, and O’Dea will be researching four minorities: Jewish, Chinese, South Asian and Iranian. She will be studying the effects on both the volunteers and the members of the communities.
During the Q&A session, there were queries about dementia villages; the design and cost of facilities for couples in long-term care; and retention and recruitment of volunteers. The City of Vancouver is apparently looking into an age-friendly action plan that could include persons with dementia.
JSA co-president Gyda Chud reminded everyone about the evaluation questionnaire, then Shanie Levin, program coordinator for JSA, thanked the presenters. The entire program, including the PowerPoint images, is available via the JSA website, jsalliance.org.
Shanie Levin is program coordinator for Jewish Seniors Alliance and on the editorial board of Senior Line magazine.
