Temple Sholom

Bregmans’ invaluable impact

Rabbi Philip Bregman, rabbi emeritus of Temple Sholom, has spent 45 of his 50 years since ordination in Vancouver, having joined the Reform congregation in 1980. (photo from Philip Bregman)

Temple Sholom and the larger Jewish community came together on erev Shabbat, March 28, to celebrate Rabbi Philip Bregman and his wife Cathy, marking 50 years since his ordination. The dinner and Friday night services were emotional but included a great deal of laughter.

Bregman, now rabbi emeritus of the Reform synagogue, has spent 45 of his 50 years since ordination in Vancouver. Early in his career, after also receiving a master’s degree in social work, he served in New Rochelle, NY, and in Toronto, before coming to Temple Sholom in 1980.

Since retiring from the pulpit in 2013, Bregman has served as Hillel BC’s executive director and as the Jewish chaplain at the University of British Columbia. Under the auspices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, he helped found the Other People, an interfaith and multicultural group that talks about diversity to high school students, among other strategies.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, who is now Temple Sholom’s senior rabbi, spoke of what Bregman has contributed to the community.

photo - Rabbi Philip Bregman in fall 2024, after receiving a King Charles III Coronation Medal, which recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to Canada — Rabbi Philip Bregman in fall 2024, after receiving a King Charles III Coronation Medal, which recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to Canada. *(photo from Philip Bregman)*

“All of the things that we appreciate and love about being Jewish in Vancouver, Rabbi Bregman has had a hand in,” said Moskovitz, who came to Temple Sholom 13 years ago. Motioning his arms to the packed sanctuary, he said: “Rabbi, you have planted the seeds and this is the fruit.”

Moskovitz said he has been guided in his own rabbinate by a rule of thumb: “WWBD – What would Bregman do? And I just did that. I might have done it my own way, but I just did what Philip would do, what Rabbi Bregman would do, and that has served us all so well.”

Moskovitz shared a story about the weekend of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, in 2018.

“I was crushed and devastated,” said Moskovitz. “After the service, I went into my office, which was his office, and I cried. Rabbi Bregman came in and he held me, and I cried on his shoulder. It wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the last time I cried on your shoulder. Thank you for being this rabbi’s rabbi. Thank you for letting us cry on your shoulder, and for those shoulders holding us up.”

Rabbi Carey Brown, who came from the United States to become the shul’s associate rabbi, credited Bregman for helping her become, first, “a rabbi to Canadians” and, in time, “a Canadian rabbi myself.”

She said Bregman told her when she arrived: “The thing to know about Canadian Jews is Israel. Canadian Jews are very connected, strongly, to Israel.

“It’s really through your love of Israel that I have seen that so, so deeply,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the family, Shai Bregman, the rabbi’s son and eldest offspring, joked, “I was saving all this material for the eulogy.”

“Who he is as a rabbi and who he is as a person can’t be separated,”

Shai Bregman said. “His passion for Judaism, his unapologetic Zionism, his determination to teach his grandchildren every swear word, are all what makes him who he is.”

The rabbi, said his son, is “one of the most vicious fundraisers you could ever imagine.”

“I’ve seen him raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in between baseball innings, both for the shul and for individuals in need.”

Speaking to the assembled crowd, Bregman donned a Toronto Blue Jays tallit that the congregation gave him upon his retirement 13 years ago, and reflected on the highs and lows.

On Jan. 25, 1985, at 1:30 a.m., Bregman received a call from Vancouver’s fire chief.

“Rabbi, your synagogue is entirely engulfed,” the head firefighter told him. “We believe it was a Molotov cocktail.”

There had been a previous incident and the congregation was in the process of erecting grates on the windows. Only two windows remained unprotected and one of those was where the firebomb entered. The crime remains unsolved.

For two and a half years, the congregation held its services at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and its religious school at Vancouver Talmud Torah. Bregman recalled being contacted by the late Rabbi Mordechai Feuerstein of the Orthodox Congregation Schara Tzedeck, offering Bregman and his staff office space for the duration.

“You’re going to catch hell,” Bregman told him. But Feuerstein insisted.

“And we paid this much rent,” Bregman said, forming a zero with his thumb and forefinger. “I will always be indebted to my beloved colleague. We had one major, major disagreement. It was not halachic. He unfortunately was a Boston Red Sox fan.”

That cross-denominational cooperation may have been a product of a uniquely Vancouver phenomenon. The Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, which encompasses congregational rabbis across the denominational spectrum, emerged from the first phone call Bregman received from outside the Temple Sholom community upon his arrival in the city. It was Rabbi Wilfred (Zev) Solomon of the Conservative synagogue Beth Israel.

“And that started the most incredible, loving, collegial friendship,” Bregman said. “Zev and I started the RAV, the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, the collaboration that, among many things, I am most proud.”

Bregman credited the Temple Sholom community with providing a second home to his three children, who had the good fortune of remaining in one place for their entire childhoods, something that is rare for “RKs” – “rabbi’s kids,” as Bregman calls them.

The “kids’ (now adults) are daughters Shira and Jordana, and son Shai. Jordana and her husband, Itamar, are parents of Raf and Yoni. Shai and his wife, Michelle, have three children, Maya, Olivia and Talya.

Among other highlights, Bregman recalled mentoring seven individuals who went into the rabbinate and, with wife Cathy, taking “Israel virgins,” totaling about 1,000 people, to the Holy Land over the years.

Bregman credited his wife for the name of the group, the Other People, and said there was a challenge operating under the auspices of both the Jewish Federation and the RAV.

“The question was,” deadpanned Bregman, “who was going to manage him?”

The rabbi and his son, as well as other speakers, singled out Cathy Bregman as an irreplaceable force in the success of Bregman’s rabbinate and the achievements of the congregation, citing her concern for, engagement with and intuitive understanding of individual congregants.

At the dinner before Friday services, Ellen Gordon led a trivia game about events in 1975.

Anne Andrew spoke about arriving in Vancouver in 1980 and going “shul shopping.” She and her then-fiancé Eric attended the High Holiday services that year – “In those days, Rabbi Bregman was a bimah-thumper of note,” she said – and have been Temple Sholom members ever since, she serving as religious school principal when Bregman was rabbi, and Eric serving on the board, including as treasurer.

Jerry Growe, a past president of the synagogue, gave a drash on the week’s Torah portion, drawing parallels between the Book of Exodus and Bregman’s career, which included leading the congregation from the burned-out synagogue to the present structure, in 1988.

MLA Terry Yung, BC minister of state for community safety and integrated services, brought greetings from the province of British Columbia.

Taleeb Noormohamed, member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville, presented Bregman with a parliamentary recognition and discussed participating with the rabbi in interfaith work.

Former MLA Michael Lee and other members of the Other People paid tribute to the rabbi.

A Learning Stones memorial

A newly created monument in the garden of Temple Sholom Synagogue commemorates the victims of Oct. 7, 2023, and the Israeli civilians, soldiers and foreign nationals who have lost their lives since that day. (photo from Temple Sholom)

There’s a newly created monument in the garden of Temple Sholom Synagogue – a serene and contemplative space. It’s not a cemetery, as you might expect, but a place to remember the horrific events of Oct. 7, 2023, and the tremendous loss of Israeli civilians, soldiers and foreign nationals who have lost their lives since that day. The project, envisioned by Temple Sholom Senior Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, draws on the Jewish tradition of placing stones when visiting the graves of the deceased and the “stumbling stones” of Berlin. The monument stands adjacent to the Temple’s Holocaust memorial. The proximity of the two is its own heartbreaking reminder of Jewish loss and tragedy

The new monument is surrounded by 33 large boulders, each inscribed with the name of a town or kibbutz attacked on Oct. 7; there is also one for the Nova Music Festival. Encircling the monument’s base lie some 1,658 small black stones, each one bearing the name and age of a victim.

The act of placing stones on a grave signifies that the person’s soul is remembered and honoured. It reflects the belief that the soul continues to exist in the afterlife and that the memory of the deceased remains alive in the hearts of the living. In this case, Rabbi Moskovitz’s intention was to make sure his community remembers those killed not as one massive number but as individual Jews. Every individual had a unique life story, just as each stone is unique.

It was this topic that the rabbi talked about in his Kol Nidre sermon only days after the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks. A reminder that we must keep the memory of every person who died on that horrible day alive. All members of the congregation were asked to take home a small black polished stone inscribed with the name and age of a victim of the Hamas attacks and the Israelis killed in the war since then.

photo - The Oct. 7 memorial draws on the Jewish tradition of placing stones when visiting the graves of the deceased and the “stumbling stones” of Berlin — The Oct. 7 memorial draws on the Jewish tradition of placing stones when visiting the graves of the deceased and the “stumbling stones” of Berlin. *(photo from Temple Sholom)*

Congregants were asked to research the name engraved on their stone(s); learn their story, their plans, and to even write a message on the stone if they so wished. They were then requested to bring their stone(s) back to the synagogue by Simchat Torah, when the monument would be dedicated. Moskovitz anticipated that the one-year anniversary that falls on the Jewish holiday, marred by the attacks, would be a time of sorrow, reflection and memory as the community gathered for what is otherwise a joyous holiday.

The sermon had a profound impact both in person and online. People wrote back from as far away as Thailand and the majority of synagogue members picked up a rock on their way home.

Inspiration for the monument came from when Moskovitz was a teenager. He recalls wearing a metal bracelet with the name of a Soviet refusenik, a Jew who was denied permission to emigrate to Israel. When the names of the hostages were gradually released, the rabbi said: “The idea struck me that we must hold on to the names of the hostages, share them and never let the world forget their torment and danger. I also wanted to do something to help raise money for the families and all of those in Israel forever changed and impacted by Oct 7. And so began the production and distribution of 10,000 bracelets engraved with the name of each hostage, their age and where they were taken from in a project called Till They All Come Home.”

As the anniversary approached, Moskovitz used the basis of the bracelet project to inspire the memorial stones. Temple Sholom Sisterhood provided the funding for the rabbi to purchase 1,000 pounds of stones and commission a five-foot-tall monument for the synagogue garden. Each stone was personally engraved by the rabbi and his family and the project took more than a month. Every victim was researched on the internet and often the entire family grieved as they reflected upon the age of the victim and the personal stories.

“Chana Kritzman’s was the first stone I picked up,” said Barb Halparin, a Temple Sholom congregant. “Its shape, a glistening black tear drop, attracted my attention. Chana’s age, 88, was etched below her name and I felt the immediate kinship of senior womanhood. Googling Chana’s name only intensified my sense of identification with her. I learned that, as a founding member of Kibbutz Be’eri, Chana had established the kibbutz library, where she ‘raised her children and grandchildren on a love of books, reading, and the art of storytelling.’

“I’ve been an avid reader all my life, and I earned my BA in English literature. I value my membership in the Isaac Waldman Library, and my favourite gift to my grandchildren is a book.”

Kritzman was shot by Hamas invaders while being evacuated from her home. She fought for her life in hospital for two weeks before succumbing to her wounds.

Halparin expressed how reading about Kritzman, her life, her love of words, her senseless, suffering death was a deeply emotional experience for her, as was placing her stone beside the memorial’s larger rock dedicated to Kibbutz Be’eri.

“It felt like I was in some small way bringing her home,” she said. “When Rabbi Moskovitz introduced the stumbling stone concept, I was deeply touched and eager to participate in such a meaningful project of remembrance.”

Another Temple Sholom member, Reisa Schneider, said: “One of the stones I took home was of Tair David, who was 23 years old when she and her sister Hodaya, age 26, were murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. They were from the town of Beit Dagan. Their father, Uri, spent 30 minutes on the phone with them. He could hear blasts of gunfire nearby; he instructed them to lie on the ground, hold hands and breathe. Their connection was cut; he never heard from them again.”

On Instagram, their sister Liza wrote that Tair was “just like her name, a child of light, with a smile that could be seen for miles and a presence that is hard to hide.”

“I found it interesting, maybe even coincidental, that the name of the person who I was expected to remember meant light,” said Schneider. “We gave our middle daughter the Hebrew name Orah, which also means light. Additionally, my maiden name is Smiley. I have tried to keep the name alive by smiling authentically and frequently. I have happily and intentionally passed that quality on to my daughters and grandchildren. I plan to honour Tair’s memory by bringing light into this broken world and by continuing to smile, despite these challenging times.”

photo - The Oct. 7 monument in the garden of Temple Sholom — The Oct. 7 monument in the garden of Temple Sholom. *(photo from Temple Sholom)*

Synagogue member Louise Krivel wrote: “After hearing Rabbi Moskovitz’s amazing sermon on Yom Kippur and learning about the over 1,600 rocks that his family had engraved in memory of the victims of Oct. 7 and beyond, I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to honour the memory of the individuals whose rocks our family had been given.

“I researched each one and reached out to a couple of Israeli families via Facebook to advise them of our synagogue’s memorial and to let them know what Rabbi Moskovitz had been responsible for creating.”

Yoni Znati, the father of Matan Znati, a 23-year-old Nova festival-goer, who died protecting his girlfriend, was one of those grieving family members Krivel contacted. He responded that he was very excited to hear about the memorial. He appreciated it very much, requested photos and hopes that, one day, he can meet Krivel so that he can tell her more about Matan.

“I can’t think of a more meaningful way that we as a congregation could honour the victims of Oct. 7,” Krivel shared. “I am so proud of Rabbi Moskovitz and his family and our congregation for creating this meaningful and beautiful memorial. Am Yisrael Chai.”

These are just three brief stories that Temple Sholom congregants researched from the horrific attack of Oct. 7 and those killed during the year since.

It’s after Simchat Torah. I am standing in the memorial garden. It’s now flooded with the rocks. Inside the synagogue, there’s a bat mitzvah. I can faintly hear the lively sounds of playfulness and laughter.

There will always be moments of celebration and sadness. As Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) reminds us, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

Jenny Wright is a writer, music therapist, children’s musician and recording artist.

Processing the tragedy

On Sept. 28, Temple Sholom unveiled a new group exhibition in its gallery. “This is not a regular art show,” curator Rina Vizer told the Independent. “It is a commemoration of Oct. 7, of its hope and memories.”

Vizer has wanted to organize a show that would act as a fundraiser since the horrific terror attack on Israel last year.

“It has been the theme of my art from the moment I heard about the attack. I couldn’t process it in any other way than through my painting,” she said. “Last year, in September, we couldn’t even imagine that such an atrocity was possible. I wanted the other artists to do the same, to express what was beyond words through their paintings and share it with viewers.”

image - “HaTikvah” by Rina Lederer-Vizer is part of the Memory and Hope exhibit at Temple Sholom that Vizer curated to commemorate the terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 — “HaTikvah” by Rina Lederer-Vizer is part of the Memory and Hope exhibit at Temple Sholom that Vizer curated to commemorate the terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. *(image from Rina Vizer)*

At first, she contemplated the Zack Gallery as a venue but it had a schedule to maintain, and its shows were booked well in advance. “Then I discussed with our rabbi some other art installation, and I asked him: ‘What about a show commemorating Oct. 7?’ And he agreed that it was a great idea to reflect on this calamity through art.”

The timeline to find other contributors was very tight. “I started the process at the end of August,” she said. “My only condition [to the artists] was: it had to be new art, created as a reaction to Oct. 7. Nothing old would work.”

Vizer contacted several people she knew personally, including Vivienne Davicioni, Sidi Schaffer and Glenda Leznoff. “I’ve also seen the art of Olga Campbell, and I had heard about Zohar Hagbi and her intuitive art studio. I was sure both of them would be a good fit for this show. The Zack Gallery director, Hope [Forstenzer], recommended Brian Gleckman, who agreed to participate. In all, we have seven Vancouver artists in this show.”

image - “Tikun Olam” by Brian Gleckman is part of the Memory and Hope exhibit, which is at Temple Sholom until Oct. 28 — “Tikun Olam” by Brian Gleckman is part of the Memory and Hope exhibit, which is at Temple Sholom until Oct. 28. *(image from Rina Vizer)*

Vizer and Hagbi were born in Israel, Gleckman hails from the United States, Schaffer was born in Romania, Campbell in Iran, Davicioni in South Africa and Leznoff in Canada. Regardless of their countries of origin, all of them dedicated their artwork for this show to Israel, and all of the pieces reflect the traumatic impacts of Oct. 7.

Vizer’s paintings are not large, but they pack a punch. She signs her art as Rina Lederer-Vizer. “Lederer is my family name,” she explained. “But I only have one sister. When we go, the name will disappear. This way, I hope to keep it a bit longer.” Her painting “HaTikvah” is full of hope and despair in equal measure. A woman gazes up, her palms together in prayer, but her eyes are sad, her expression stark. Is she praying for the hostages’ return? Is she a hostage herself?

Another of her paintings, similar at first glance, is called “101 Days of Awe.” The woman in the foreground is from the diaspora, but her solidarity with the suffering in Israel is unmistakable. Like the figure in her painting, Vizer stalwartly expresses her solidarity with Israel.

“I have been attending the ‘Bring Them Home’ rallies every Sunday since last October,” she said. “We meet at the Vancouver Art Gallery at 2 o’clock. At first, there were thousands of people there each week. Now, it is a hundred or so, but I go.”

At one of the rallies, Vizer carried a banner with the name and image of one of the hostages, Carmel Gat, a therapist from Tel Aviv. Vizer was so moved by Gat’s plight she used the portrait at her family seder. “I was shocked and angry when I learned on Sept. 1 that Gat was executed in a tunnel,” she said. That was when she painted “Light in Tunnel.” There are darkness and death in those tunnels, but, contends Vizer, light always comes after darkness.

image - “I See You” by Olga Campbell — “I See You” by Olga Campbell. (image from Rina Vizer)

Like Vizer, Campbell’s paintings are mostly figurative. “I See You” depicts a face, fearful and anxious. There is a catastrophe unfolding in front of this person, and they are helpless to prevent it. Another of Campbell’s paintings, a number of shadowed figures on a foggy background, bears a fateful title: “I Didn’t Get a Chance to Say Goodbye.” Campbell’s third painting, a black and white collage reminiscent of an old-fashioned newspaper, has an even more explicit title: “October 7.”

The same title applies to one of Schaffer’s paintings. In a short email exchange with the Independent, she said about that horrible day: “The event had and still is impacting me very much. Early every morning, the first thing I do is turn on the TV to hear what’s happening in Israel. I am a child survivor of the Holocaust, and I hoped nothing like that would happen again, but the reality of today is different.”

Schaffer has two paintings in the show, and she explained her symbolism. “The small one is titled ‘October 7.’ It’s a collage. I have done it this year, not long ago. You can see prayer hands and a memory candle for those we lost. There is a child’s wooden rocking horse left without a child. In one of the videos after the horror, I saw a house totally destroyed. Only this horse alone remained on the front lawn.

“The second work is bigger and is titled ‘The Phoenix Reborn from Ashes.’ I worked on it for a few years, but, this year, inspired by the October tragedy, I finished it. I feel it gives hope of renewal, of better days to come, of freedom and joy.”

Leznoff, who is also a writer, talked about her experience joining this show. “I was invited to participate by Rina Vizer, who I met about a decade ago at Israeli dancing. This year, I have been very active writing letters to governments and organizations about antisemitism in Canada since Oct. 7. I had an op-ed in the National Post last January, when two British Columbia theatres canceled the play The Runner. Rina knew me as both an artist and a writer. She knew I have been very moved by the events, both in Israel and in Canada, so she asked me to contribute works I’ve done in response to the war.”

Leznoff’s two pieces in the exhibit are titled “Shattered” and “Morning Light.”

“The first painting is a mixed media piece that uses black ink and paint, yellow paint, a photo, dried flowers from my garden, and charcoal. The painting is abstract, however, there is a sense of something explosive and raw with the black paint,” she said. “For me, the yellow is a sign of hope, and the falling flowers are in memory of the tragedy of the flower children at the music festival.

“The other piece,” she continued, “is connected to a poem I wrote called ‘Winter Light’ that accompanies the painting. The poem is framed with the painting, and it’s about how the hostages and soldiers are always on our minds, and we are not giving up. Ironically, although I am a published writer, I hardly ever write poetry. I think both abstract painting and poetry handle emotional issues that are sometimes difficult to convey in a straight narrative.”

The Memory and Hope exhibit will be displayed at Temple Sholom until Oct. 28. The art is for sale and all proceeds from the sales will go to Hostages and Missing Families Forum: Bring Them Home Now, and Magen David Adom in Israel.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Heroic survival at kibbutz

A photo Dekel Agami took Oct. 7, 2023, of Kibbutz Nir Oz in flames. (phot by Dekel Agami)

On Oct. 7, Kibbutz Magen, from which residents can see the Gazan city of Khan Yunis, was infiltrated by dozens of terrorists from Gaza. While two of the approximately 400 kibbutzniks were murdered and two seriously injured, a more horrific outcome was avoided, thanks to the heroic acts of a small squad of kibbutz civilian defenders, who held off the terrorists during a seven-hour gun battle.

A member of that response team was in Vancouver last week, sharing his story.

Kibbutz Magen is a kilometre away from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a village with a similar population, but which suffered exponentially more tragic outcomes that day – 46 Nir Oz residents were murdered and 71 taken hostage.

One reason for the less catastrophic death toll in Magen is that the terrorist infiltrators blew apart the perimeter fence a good distance from the kibbutz’s residential area. But the heroism and tireless response of Magen’s civilian emergency squad played a big role.

photo - Dekel Agami, left, and his partner Nufar Gal-Yam, share their Oct. 7 experiences with Vancouver audiences April 14. Itai Bavli, right, a University of British Columbia academic, grew up with Agami on Kibbutz Magen, near the Gaza border — Dekel Agami, left, and his partner Nufar Gal-Yam, share their Oct. 7 experiences with Vancouver audiences April 14. Itai Bavli, right, a University of British Columbia academic, grew up with Agami on Kibbutz Magen, near the Gaza border. *(photo by Daphna Kedem)*

Dekel Agami, who grew up on the kibbutz, and his partner, Nufar Gal-Yam, who grew up in Sde Boker, the kibbutz most noted as the home of David Ben-Gurion, had moved in together on Kibbutz Magen on Oct. 4.

Since both had grown up in southern Israel, close to Gaza, the red alerts on Oct. 7 did not disturb them unduly. Around 7 a.m., Agami, an Israel Defence Forces veteran who served in the special forces, headed out with his weapon to meet other members of the security squad, a group of civilians and off-duty soldiers ranging in age from 20 to 70. He quickly realized this was not a routine day.

As he walked to meet his colleagues, Agami saw figures near the kibbutz border. The first one he encountered was wearing an Israel Defence Forces uniform – as numerous terrorists were that day – and so he did not shoot.

He came across the head of his security team, Baruch Cohen, who had been shot in the leg. As Agami was delivering first aid, an anti-tank missile hit the vehicle they were next to. Agami does not know how they survived.

In the event of an emergency, civilian and off-duty military personnel on kibbutzim are expected to manage on their own for 20 to 30 minutes until the arrival of the IDF. On Oct. 7, the dozen emergency squad members in Kibbutz Magen battled 30 to 40 terrorists on their own from 7 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.

The terrorists breached the fence at a location relatively remote from the residential area of the kibbutz, giving the defenders a small tactical advantage. Fighting soon moved to the terrorists’ targets, the kibbutz’s homes, and, after providing first aid to Cohen, Agami fought the terrorists from one of the houses. The kibbutzniks successfully flushed the infiltrators back to the fence, where some of them fled – maybe back to Gaza, possibly off to murder easier prey.

During the fighting, Agami took a photo of nearby Nir Oz, where multiple plumes of smoke were rising in an ominous foreshadowing of their potential fate. The photo went viral in Israel.

“When I took this picture, I thought we were next,” Agami said to an audience at Temple Sholom on the evening of April 14. He and Gal-Yam also spoke at the weekly rally earlier that day, outside the Vancouver Art Gallery.

When the IDF finally made it to Kibbutz Magen, about 2 p.m., they killed the remaining terrorists. Then the larger trauma began to dawn on Agami and his fellow kibbutzniks.

Agami’s two daughters from a previous relationship were with their mother at a moshav a few kilometres away. During the battle, he didn’t worry about them – partly because, he said, he “couldn’t go there” but more because it never crossed his mind that the battle he was engaged in was part of a much larger crisis. When he finally did get in touch, he found out the three were safe.

The Magen fighters were too occupied keeping the terrorists at bay – Agami alone expended 15 magazines, about 450 bullets – to check their phones to see what was going on elsewhere. They did, though, have cellular connectivity, which was not the case in many kibbutzim. The terrorists were strategic, first targeting army bases and bringing down communications systems.

As the smoke cleared midafternoon on Oct. 7, several stunning realities came to light.

Three wounded residents – Cohen, Nadav Rot and Avi Fleisher – had been transported by the kibbutz doctor to a nearby community, from which they were helicoptered to hospital. Fleisher did not survive. Cohen would eventually have his leg amputated. No one – including those who made the journey – understand how they made it to safety. The terrorists had taken control of all the roads in the region, killing every Israeli they encountered. Even the military had not breached the area by the time the medical transport got through.

The exhausted kibbutz defenders soon discovered that what they had experienced was a comparatively small part of the worst terror attack in Israel’s history. In just a hint of the depths of preparation that went into the attacks, the fleeing terrorists left behind not only weapons, flashlights and food for an extended siege, but even supplies of blood for infusions.

Agami and Gal-Yam were brought to Vancouver by Itai Bavli, a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in public health at the University of British Columbia. He and Dekel grew up together in Magen.

The friends estimate that 60 alumni of their regional high school died on Oct. 7. Including those killed in the subsequent war, they estimate 100 of their circle of friends are dead, including Bavli’s stepbrother, Tamir Adar, who lived in Nir Oz.

Agami downplays his heroism, but Bavli is emphatic.

“He saved my family,” Bavli said.

Gal-Yam, who is expecting a baby in July, just completed a five-month call-up as a major in the IDF. She and Agami are now in temporary accommodations on her home kibbutz of Sde Boker. Agami spent five months relocated in Eilat.

“It’s like some area after a hurricane,” Gal-Yam said of the chaos at Kibbutz Magen, which was founded in 1949 and is one of the oldest communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

She has since returned to her day job, but everything has changed, she said.

“It seems unimportant to do again whatever it was I was doing before Oct. 7,” she said, noting that creating a normal routine is impossible. “Nothing is normal now. I’m not normal. I’m a completely different person. We are living completely different lives than before. Nothing is the same. Nothing at all.”

The Israeli visitors demurred from making predictions about the political or military ramifications of events.

“Some people are going to have to give answers after all this will be over,” Gal-Yam said.

The length of time the hostages have been in captivity – more than six months – is something that was unimaginable on that first, terrible day, she said. “Not a person in Israel thought it would take more than six months to bring them home,” she said. “This is a reality none of us expected.”

An audience member asked how they view residents of Gaza now.

Bavli reflected on how, before Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, workers from Gaza came to their kibbutz, even staying overnight.

“People from Gaza worked on our kibbutz and were treated as family,” he said. “We wanted to have them as neighbours, to find political solutions, to find a way to live together.

“We don’t have anything against people from Gaza,” he said. “What broke our hearts was, at Kibbutz Nir Oz, the first wave [of infiltrators on Oct. 7] was Hamas, but the second wave was just people who came to steal. But they also killed people. That’s what broke our hearts, confused us.”

For the future, Bavli sees the willingness of Gazans to live in peace as key.

“Hopefully,” he said, “there are enough good people there to find a way to live together.”

Thought-provoking speakers

Dr. Gil Murciano of Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, and Uri Weltmann of Standing Together, spoke April 17 at Temple Sholom. (photo by Pat Johnson)

For months, weekly rallies across Israel after Shabbat have demanded the return of the hostages from Gaza. These rallies have often coincided with separate protests, which have been going on much longer, against the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu generally and its proposed judicial reforms specifically. These two streams of protesters have coalesced in recent weeks, according to an Israeli activist leader who spoke in Vancouver last week, because, he said, many Israelis are convinced that Netanyahu is not advancing freedom for the hostages, but hindering it, for his own political advantage.

Uri Weltmann, field organizer of Standing Together, made the claim April 17 during an event at Temple Sholom organized by New Israel Fund Canada.

“What happened three weeks ago is that it stopped being two different protest movements,” said Weltmann. “They are basically changing their strategy. They are calling for early elections and for [Netanyahu’s] government to be removed and replaced with a different government. [Activists are] pointing their finger at him as the obstruction, as the obstacle toward advancing to a ceasefire agreement.”

Weltmann argues that Netanyahu is concerned not only for his political survival, but for his freedom.

“For Netanyahu, the protraction of this war, the continuation of this war, is in his political interest,” said Weltmann. “He knows that a temporary ceasefire might lead to a permanent ceasefire. A permanent ceasefire would mean an end to the war. An end to this war would bring an end to this coalition government because the extremists he huddled with have already said publicly that, if they will end the war before total victory, they will topple the government.”

The end of the current government and the ousting of Netanyahu, he said, would have more than just political ramifications for the prime minister, who opinion polls suggest would be soundly routed if an election were held now.

“New elections mean him losing the majority and him losing the majority is not only Netanyahu the politician being ousted from office. It’s also Netanyahu facing corruption charges, having his trial resume, [and he] might lose his personal liberty. For him, it’s intimately linked to the continuation of the war.”

The consensus among these activists is that Netanyahu is seeking to prolong the war and the captivity of the hostages to protect his political and personal interests, said Weltmann.

“It’s an incredibly important political development within Israel that a broad movement around the families and friends of the hostages have made this link,” he said.

Weltmann’s group, Standing Together (known in Hebrew and Arabic as Omdim Beyachad-Naqif Ma’an), was founded in 2015 and is one of the on-the-ground groups New Israel Fund supports.

Among the goals of the group is to build a grassroots movement for peace and progressive politics in Israel, including in rural and peripheral areas of the country. Making such a movement successful beyond the activist hub in Tel Aviv is the only way to advance Standing Together’s goals, Weltmann said. Even a more centrist or progressive government, if elected tomorrow, would not necessarily advance meaningful steps to peace and coexistence if there is not a broad popular movement in support of such a policy shift, he said.

Without a national movement for peace, he said, a new prime minister, however well-intentioned, would not feel the pressure to abandon the status quo and take steps for a changed future.

“We must, as a strategic starting point in our process of progressive transformation of Israeli society, be present in the Negev, be present in the Galilee, be present in those parts of Israeli society that for too long have been the playing ground of the right-wing with left-wing actors completely non-present,” he said. “We must be there organizing local communities.”

Jewish citizens cannot do it by themselves, said Weltmann, and neither can Arab citizens.

“We must have Jewish-Palestinian unity and cooperation within Israel for this change to be effective,” he said. An example of this strategy was a slogan adopted by a joint Jewish-Arab slate in Haifa during the recent municipal elections. The far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party of Itamar Ben-Gvir ran slates across the country trying to solidify the party’s roots at the civic level. The joint slate in Haifa played off Otzma Yehudit’s xenophobia with the slogan “Jewish Arab Power.”

“We are at a crossroads,” said Weltmann. “Every Israeli should choose which side am I on: the side that leads to a continuation of the status quo, a continuation of the state of affairs in which the Palestinians live in the occupied territories under military rule devoid of citizenship, devoid of rights, a situation that can lead to Oct. 7 one after another unless we put an end to it, or the reality of an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will guarantee both people safety, security and an imaginable, livable future?”

Weltmann spoke alongside Dr. Gil Murciano, an Iran expert and chief executive officer of the think-tank Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, which one journalist has called “the diplomatic wing of the protest movement.”

Like Weltmann, Murciano longs for a “new majority” in Israel’s body politic. “A new majority that will allow us to advance toward a state where we live in peace, we live in dignity, we live in equality, without the occupation, without the injustices, throughout our society,” he said.

A fundamental shift in perspective is needed, argued Murciano.

“We used to speak about ‘wars of no choice’ in Israel,” he said. “We need to start thinking in terms of ‘peace of no choice.’”

On the one side, he said, the extreme right has a plan of annexation, with Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s minister of finance and head of the far-right National Religious Party, calling for the government to “encourage” migration from Gaza to Egypt. On the other side, he said, since Oct. 7, people on the left have been motivated to seek an alternative to the status quo.

Dr. Maayan Kreitzman, a local food systems researcher and activist who moderated the event, challenged Murciano on this point. Rather than progressive voices calling for more coexistence, she said, she has heard the opposite. People that are “quite dovish” have had second thoughts about their worldview and transformed into a more hawkish, securitized attitude, she suggested.

Murciano acknowledged that all Israelis share one overriding priority. “For Israelis, it’s pretty clear,” he said. “The first, second and third priority of Israelis right now is security.”

That is a prerequisite to any advancement, he said.

Murciano proposes something he acknowledges to be “a little bit symbolic,” an international peace conference to kick off a new process between moderate Israelis and moderate Palestinians. This could be a first step to breaking an impasse that has existed in recent years, he said.

“Some people have described the last decade as the lost decade of Israeli diplomacy,” he said, a period where “conflict management” has been the priority; effectively, a maintenance of the status quo.

“I think that’s the right description, actually. It’s a strategy of not having a strategy,” said Murciano. “Coming to terms with the fact that there is no political way out and basically every couple of years we’re going to have a bit of violence.”

This approach sees Israelis forfeiting the initiative to Hezbollah and Hamas, he said, “Basically setting yourself in a situation where you only respond to a reality that is forced upon you.”

Oct. 7, he said, destroyed this conceptual framing.

Part of any future needs to include a multilateral project to “rebuild life-sustaining systems” in Gaza, he said, not a “peace-keeping force” but a “multinational force” that will be an on-the-ground part of a larger process toward peace and coexistence.

Ben Murane, executive director of New Israel Fund Canada, spoke of the emotional impacts of recent months.

“If you’re like me, what has been excruciating the past six months has been not just holding my pain, our Jewish pain, the pain of my Israeli coworkers, my family, my friends there, the pain of the Israeli people, but also, in my heart, holding the pain of the Palestinian people too,” he said.

Since the earliest days of the current war, Murane said, there have been countless glimmers of hope in the form of cross-cultural dialogue.

“In the first few months, we were astounded to see, across Israel, dozens of gatherings, conferences, events with hundreds of Jews and Palestinians standing together holding up those now-iconic purple signs saying ‘Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,’ ‘Jews and Arabs stand together’ or just simply ‘B’Yachad,’ together,” said Murane. “We were astounded to see Jewish citizens of Israel respond to the needs of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinian citizens of Israel making calls to families of the hostages, joint Jewish-Arab humanitarian aid missions to the south and to the north. As the war in Gaza accelerated, those Israeli voices also said, ‘We do have choices, even now. We have lots of choices with how we execute a just war justly.’”

Any long-term solution to the decades-long conflict must bring safety and dignity to both peoples, said Murane, “and anything else, anything short of fairness to both sides, will perpetuate this for another generation.”

New Israel Fund partners with and supports, according to its website, “organizations in Israel that fight for socioeconomic equality, religious freedom, civil and human rights, shared society and anti-racism, Palestinian citizens, and democracy itself.”

The April 17 event was hosted by Temple Sholom and co-sponsored by JSpaceCanada, which calls itself the advocacy voice of Liberal Zionism, Ameinu Canada, described as the voice of labour Zionism in Canada, and Canadian Friends of Peace Now, as well as the speakers’ organizations.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, said he had received emails expressing concerns about hosting a perceived left-wing event.

“I get the same emails when we host people to the right of centre,” he said.

One of the purposes of a synagogue, he said, is to engage with ideas that “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

“You may find your truth by agreeing with what you here tonight,” he said. “You may find your truth by disagreeing with what you hear tonight. The important part is to engage with it.”

Vancouver activist David Berson promoted the opportunity to listen to the Israeli guests as a chance to gain a perspective apart from the most common refrain he hears on social media and WhatsApp threads.

“There’s another way you can look at what’s going on,” he told the Independent after the event. “Come out and hear a different perspective. I invited people to come tonight and listen to a different narrative.”

The 200 to 300 people at the event was about double what organizers had earlier expected, he said.

Community milestones … Rabbi Carey Brown

photo - Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Sholom — Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Sholom *(photo from templesholom.ca)*

Rabbi Carey Brown of Temple Sholom will be part of the next cohort of Shalom Hartman Institute’s Rabbinic Leadership Initiative (RLI).

The intensive three-year fellowship program immerses North American rabbis of all denominations in the highest levels of Jewish learning, equipping them to meet contemporary challenges with ever-increasing intellectual and moral sophistication. It is one of the few structured frameworks for ongoing rabbinic study, enrichment and intellectual leadership training. In addition to rigorous study, the program fosters a deep sense of community for diverse rabbis in an environment of open dialogue, collaboration, peer-learning and personal support. The next cohort begins next month.

Reflections on Shoah

For 20 years, on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, Prof. Chris Friedrichs delivered a lecture to the congregants of Temple Sholom on the subject of the Holocaust. It started in 2004, when Rabbi Philip Bregman, now rabbi emeritus of the shul, asked Friedrichs to speak on the most solemn day in the liturgical calendar. The rabbi asked him to reprise the lecture the following year, and it became an annual event.

After the 2014 passing of Friedrichs’ wife, Dr. Rhoda Lange Friedrichs, like her husband an historian, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz announced that the presentation would be known as the Rhoda Friedrichs Memorial Lecture.

Two decades of Prof. Chris Friedrichs’ Yom Kippur lectures at Temple Sholom have been compiled into a book, Reflections on the Shoah. (photo from Chris Friedrichs)

Friedrichs, now professor emeritus of history at the University of British Columbia, decided to end the tradition after 20 years and his friend and UBC colleague, Prof. Richard Menkis, suggested the idea of compiling the lectures in a book.

The volume, Reflections on the Shoah: Yom Kippur Sermons Given at Temple Sholom 2004-2023 is a small but irreplaceable volume offering deep and original insights on the lessons of history from a leading thinker on these subjects.

In these lectures, Friedrichs does not dwell on the facts of history so much as draw broader insights into their meaning. In 2005, he reflected on the term “martyrs,” which is often used in reference to the victims of the Nazis.

“A martyr is someone who has accepted death rather than renounce his or her Jewish faith,” he said. Yet, he noted, among the six million were many, like the Jewish-born Catholic nun Edith Stein, who were not killed because they refused to renounce their faith. Indeed, he said, renunciation would not bring redemption. It was Jewish “racial” identity, not adherence to Jewish ideas, that drove the Nazis’ murderous objectives.

In an historic sense, though, Friedrichs argues, Jews were murdered in the Holocaust because generations of ancestors had refused, against all pressures, to abandon their identities. “And, therefore, it is in fact right to honour those who died as martyrs,” he said.

In 2007, Friedrichs struggled with theologians’ explorations of the meaning of the Shoah, as though some divine purpose could be discerned from it.

“The Shoah was an entirely human event,” he said. “But that hardly removes the question: where was God while it took place? Why did God allow it to happen?”

God gave humans free will, he concluded, but this does not answer the unknowable question.

“In a world we cannot begin to understand, we can still hope for mercy, and we can pray for strength,” he said.

In a brief postscript to this lecture, Friedrichs writes that the daughter of a friend, having heard the sermon, asked her father “Where was God?” In response, the father said, “Where was man?”

In 2012, Friedrichs spoke of the first Holocaust memorial ever created, in May 1943, in the Majdanek death camp, where a group of prisoners persuaded the SS administrator that the camp could be made more beautiful if they could erect a pillar topped by a statue of three eagles about to take flight. The commandant never knew that under the base of the pillar the inmates had buried a container of ashes of the victims taken from the crematorium.

In 2013, Friedrichs addresses the problem with the very word Holocaust, which means a burnt sacrifice.

“What a meaningless term!” Friedrichs declared. “Six million Jews were sacrificed? Sacrificed to what God? Sacrificed to what end?”

In 2020, when his lecture was recorded and shared virtually because of the pandemic, Friedrichs spoke of the sanctity of life.

The next year, after unmarked graves were discovered adjacent to a former residential school in Kamloops, he spoke of the “humanitarian obligation to go beyond just our circle of Jewish concerns.” He drew parallels between the MS St. Louis, the ship of Jewish refugees turned away from ports of refuge, including Canada’s, and the Afghans clambering through the Kabul airport, struggling to escape the country before the takeover of the Taliban.

In 2022, he invoked a very different piece of history. In high school, his most memorable teacher was Anne Schwerner. When the news came, in the summer of 1964, that three civil rights workers had been murdered by white supremacists in Mississippi, one of them Michael Schwerner, Friedrichs realized this was his favourite teacher’s son. He reflected on the lessons of obligation to universal freedom and rights embodied in Jewish tradition.

In his last lecture in the series, Friedrichs spoke of how, when he speaks to audiences of high school students, as he frequently does, he makes the lessons relevant to young, multicultural Canadians.

“I tell the students that it is normal to dislike somebody because that person, as an individual, is bad or unkind or unpleasant,” he said. “But to dislike or hate somebody not because of their own characteristics but because they happen to belong to a group, to hate them just because they are Chinese or Filipino or South Asian or Black or members of any other group, is to take the first step on a path that has led and could lead again to things like the Holocaust.”

In most of his lectures, Friedrichs describes predations that are difficult to read and must have been more difficult to hear on a Yom Kippur afternoon, in a room that includes survivors of precisely such atrocities. This, though, is one of the invaluable aspects of Friedrichs’ approach. Whatever reservations might exist in this time of safe spaces and trigger warnings, one can hardly make the case that it is too burdensome to listen to a few examples of the barbarism for the sake of education, memorialization and understanding, when there are people in our community, including in the congregation Friedrichs was addressing, who experienced the cruelties themselves.

Anyone who heard these lectures when they were delivered, or has heard any of Friedrichs’ many presentations elsewhere, can hardly help but hear his deep voice and commanding delivery while reading his words. Those who haven’t had the privilege of hearing him speak are fortunate to have these lectures compiled in this new book.

Reflections on the Shoah is available at templesholombc.shulcloud.com/form/reflections.

Learning opportunities

While a report this spring by the New York-based Jewish Education Project showed a decline in Jewish supplementary education in North America over the past 15 years, participation in after-school and weekend educational programs in British Columbia is on the rise.

Since the 1990s, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver has provided small grants to local supplementary schools; at present, it funds 11 programs. And, in 2015, Federation convened the Jewish Education Task Force to look into the state of part-time education.

“Through this work, we recognized the importance of focusing on innovation and change to attract a new generation of families,” said Shelley Rivkin, Federation’s vice-president of local and global engagement. “We were able to provide innovation grants and professional development opportunities for supplementary school educators to learn new and diverse ways to offer Jewish education. More importantly, we expanded the definition of fundable supplementary schools to include Shabbat, family and Hebrew literacy programs.”

According to Rivkin, while the Jewish Education Project report brought attention to the fall in enrolment elsewhere (see jewishindependent.ca/drop-in-jewish-learning), Federation’s experience has been that enrolment here has either remained stable or grown in the last few years.

“We have seen significant gains in supplementary school enrolment in both the regional and emerging communities, where families are seeking opportunities to connect with other Jewish parents and provide opportunities for their children to have Jewish experiences,” Rivkin said.

For example, BC Regional Hebrew Schools, operated through Chabad and funded in part by Federation, has become an important part of building Jewish community life in places like Langley, Coquitlam and Whistler. Likewise, programs directed toward Hebrew-speaking families, which have a broader focus on Israeli culture, are attracting new families who are looking for different content.

“We have seen all of our supplementary school providers adapt and change in response to changing demographics. All offer a range of activities utilizing innovative teaching methods and engaging content to appeal to a diverse group of children and their families,” Rivkin said.

The same is true for the Lower Mainland, where Federation notes that supplementary schools are making a difference as well.

“The Jewish Federation’s Supplementary School Grant helps us in many ways,” said Noga Vieman, education director of Congregation Har El in West Vancouver. “First, we believe that every child in every Jewish home deserves an enriching Jewish education and experience. The grant helps us keep the program reasonably priced, and offers us the opportunity to create scholarships for those in need, so that financial challenges will not prove a barrier to getting quality Jewish education and becoming part of the Jewish community.”

The grant also helps Har El provide its teachers with fair compensation, allowing the North Shore Jewish centre to attract and retain quality educators with a passion for working with children and building the future of the Jewish community in the region.

Further, part of the grant Har El receives is dedicated to funding classroom assistants to help increase inclusion.

“In our program, this money goes towards paying for an education assistant for a child who is blind, and also for teens who help children with different learning abilities, and who need personal support during class,” Vieman said. “This helps to create intergenerational connections, and keeps the teens involved in the community past their own education in our program.”

At the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, the Federation grant has been used for Pnei Mitzvah, its secular humanist program for youth aged 10 to 14 that focuses on the Hebrew language, Bible stories, Jewish holidays and Jewish culture.

“We have been growing the program in recent years and have expanded it province-wide through an online cohort,” said Maggie Karpilovski, executive director of the Peretz Centre. “This growth would not be possible without Federation’s funding. It allowed us to attract expert teachers and innovate the delivery model so that it is accessible to more Jewish families throughout the region. As we are the only secular Jewish humanist organization in BC, and the Jewish community is spread out quite widely, it is important for us to make our programs accessible.”

Jen Jaffe, school principal at Temple Sholom, confirms the value of Federation’s financial support. “The grants allowed us to become more accessible to students of varying learning needs,” she said.

At Temple Sholom, the funding has been used to contribute to the school’s madrichim program and create a “learning hub” space for students with needs including sensory materials and furniture. The space is used each time school is in session.

“We need to celebrate these successes,” said Rivkin, “and applaud the educators and parents who are ensuring the survival of part-time Jewish education.”

To donate to Federation’s annual campaign, visit jewishvancouver.com.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Talking on democracy

Left to right: Ora Peled Nakash of the America-Israel Democracy Coalition and Michal Muszkat-Barkan of Safeguarding Our Shared Home listen to a question posed by Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Moskovitz at an event Sept. 26. (screenshot)

More than 300 people pre-registered to attend Hear From Leaders in the Israeli Protest Movement at Temple Sholom on Sept. 26 and the sanctuary was full. Presented by the synagogue, UnXeptable Vancouver, the America-Israel Democracy Coalition, and Safeguarding our Shared Home, in partnership with JSpaceCanada, New Israel Fund of Canada, Ameinu Canada and Arza Canada, this was the first time that a Canadian Jewish establishment hosted protesters from Israel’s pro-democracy movement on Canadian soil.

Speaking before the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 6, Michal Muszkat-Barkan of Safeguarding Our Shared Home, and Ora Peled Nakash of the America-Israel Democracy Coalition were touring as part of an effort to educate North American diaspora Jewry on the judicial coup attempt and other fundamental issues with which Israel’s society has been grappling this past year. The unprecedented protest movement was, at 39 weeks, the longest sustained protest movement in modern Israeli history. In response to the war, however, the movement suspended protests in Israel and around the world, including Vancouver, standing in solidarity with their fellow Israelis.

The Sept. 26 evening began with Rabbi Laura and Charles Kaplan singing Oseh Shalom, Salaam (Od Yavo) and Lu Yehi followed by Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Moskovitz’s introduction of the partner organizations. He said, “We have tried to partner at every opportunity we can to bring a dialogue about Israel, to bring an understanding of the challenges Israel faces and the reality that it faces, as well, through a lens of Zionism that is pro-Israel, pro-democracy, pro-human and civil rights.”

Daphna Kedem, lead organizer of UnXeptable Vancouver, spoke about the global protest movement started by Israeli expats, which has grown from 24 to 70 cities, with chapters in five Canadian cities. She said, “The only reason [the current Israeli government] has not succeeded [with the judicial coup] is millions of determined protesters in Israel and around the world who have been fighting for 38 weeks in a row to save Israeli democracy.”

A shortened version of the speech that American-Israeli author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi, this year’s resident scholar at Temple Sholom, gave at the synagogue during Rosh Hashanah was played. Klein Halevi said: “Now, in Israel, we’re confronting a situation for the first time that I’ve experienced where there are no two sides. There are no two legitimate sides – one side is trying to destroy the foundations of Israeli democracy and the other side, the side that is in the streets every week for the last 37 weeks, sometimes more than once a week, waving giant Israeli flags, that side is trying to save the Israel that’s embodied by the two flags on the bima [pulpit of Temple Sholom]. These two flags represent the entwinement of Jewish and democratic values – that is the Israel that the diaspora fell in love with and that is the Israel that we’re fighting to preserve.”

Temple Sholom member Rina Vizer, in introducing the two main speakers of the evening, dubbed them “the new wonder women, ahead of Gal Gadot,” for their dedication to their cause, taking a 17-hour flight just as Yom Kippur ended in Israel, landing in Seattle, and driving to Vancouver, arriving mere hours before the event.

Peled-Nakash is a software engineer from Kibbutz Ramat David, just outside of Haifa. She was the first woman to graduate the naval officer’s academy and first woman to serve on a missile ship. She is a member of Forum Dvorah, a nongovernmental organization with a network of professional women in an array of fields relating to Israel’s national security and foreign policy.

Muszkat-Barkan is a professor of Jewish education at Hebrew Union College. She is the director of the department of education and professional development and heads the Rikma program in pluralistic Jewish education in partnership with the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at Hebrew University. She is also the founder and head of the Teachers’ Lounge, a professional development program for Arab and Jewish Educators in Jerusalem.

Peled-Nakash presented a slideshow about what brought her to quit her day job at IBM and volunteer full-time with the protest movement. As the first woman to graduate from the naval officer’s academy, she was inspired by the Alice Miller Supreme Court ruling in 1995, she said. When Miller – who had made aliyah from South Africa with her family when she was 6 years old – applied to the Israeli Air Force Flight Academy in 1993, she was rejected based on her gender. Miller sued the Israel Defence Forces, with the case ending up at the Supreme Court, where the rejection was deemed unconstitutional.

Tying the Miller case to the current attempt by Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin to weaken the Supreme Court, Peled-Nakash said, “Alice’s appeal to become a fighter pilot, that completely changed the course of my life…. I didn’t become a fighter pilot but I became a naval officer … following the same steps [as Miller], of opening equal opportunities for women in military service, which is a fight that is actively going on.”

Peled-Nakash has two daughters, ages 8 and 12, and regularly brings them to protests. She sees this act as a continuation of her family’s long Zionist legacy – to fight for Israel as a democracy, whether you live in Israel or in the diaspora.

Muszkat-Barkan grew up in an Orthodox Zionist home in Jerusalem. She spoke of the liberation of Jerusalem following the Six Day War in 1967 and how the night of celebration was also one that opened her eyes to those around her. “I just looked up, I don’t know why, and I saw a hand closing a window and I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, someone is living there and it’s four o’clock in the morning. How come I didn’t think about that? How come we are all here singing and shouting and we didn’t think that someone is living up there?’”

This experience is what led her to dedicate her life to multiculturalism and pluralism, her realization that we are not all the same, but we must live together and respect one another.

It was a WhatsApp message that led Muszkat-Barkan to begin the Jerusalem-based protest group Safeguarding our Shared Home with a few of her friends. The movement grew, with more people coming out to the streets every weekend. “If you came to Jerusalem to protest with us,” she said, “you would see groups of people against the occupation … you would see groups of religious people, you would see Reform people, educators, many groups all together.”

In wrapping up the question-and-answer period, Peled-Nakash left the audience with two messages for diaspora Jews.

“I would ask each and every one of you to take a hard look at how you are supporting, financially, current causes,” she said, “and to make sure that they are in line with your values because the fact is we’ve seen a lot of this coup has been funded by well-intended people that actually thought they were supporting Israel but they weren’t aware of which kind of Israel they were supporting. So, start with an audit to make sure that the causes you’re currently supporting are in line with the values we’re talking about.”

A recording of the entire presentation can be found on Temple Sholom’s YouTube channel.

Maytal Kowalski is a board member of JSpaceCanada and the New Israel Fund of Canada. Based in Vancouver, she serves as the executive director of Partners for Progressive Israel, a New York-based nonprofit dedicated to the achievement of a durable and just peace between the state of Israel and its neighbours.

Dialogue on democracy

Next week, Temple Sholom and UnXeptable Vancouver, with Israeli protest group Safeguarding our Shared Home and US-based registered charity America-Israel Democracy Coalition, will host a discussion about how the Jewish community in Vancouver can support the pro-democracy protest efforts in Israel.

The event, scheduled to take place at Temple Sholom on Sept. 26, beginning at 7 p.m., will feature a discussion with Michal Muszkat-Barkan, PhD, of Safeguarding Our Shared Home, and Ora Peled Nakash of the America-Israel Democracy Coalition. Attendees will hear their perspectives and engage in a dialogue about the efforts by the Israeli democracy movement to build a strong civil society upholding Israel’s Declaration of Independence and its commitments to Jewish history, Jewish values, democracy, equality and justice.

Israel’s pro-democracy movement brings together nearly 200 different organizations. These organizations span various facets of Israeli society, including religious and secular groups, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights advocates, military veterans, medical professionals, anti-occupation activists, and many community-specific groups.

“The pro-democracy movement isn’t about politics, it is about the soul of the country,” said Jonathan Barsade, president of the America-Israel Democracy Coalition. “In modern history, the soul of Israel has been a critical element for the well-being of the Jewish community worldwide. That is why it is so important for the Israeli movement to engage and include the international Jewish community in this momentous event.”

In partnership with JSpaceCanada, Arza Canada, Ameinu Canada and the New Israel Fund of Canada, the gathering at Temple Sholom mirrors in many ways the inclusivity of Israel’s pro-democracy movement, by bringing together the leading organizations of progressive Jewry in Canada to engage in dialogue at a critical time in the history of the Israel-Canada relationship. It will be the first opportunity in Canada for Canadian Jews to meet with Israeli protest leaders live and in-person.

“We are honoured to host this event at Temple Sholom, which provides a platform for open dialogue and the exchange of ideas,” said Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom. “By bringing together these influential Israeli protest leaders and showcasing the multifaceted nature of Israel’s pro-democracy movement, we aim to promote understanding and empathy while answering their call for solidarity from diaspora Jews.”

Daphna Kedem, lead organizer of UnXeptable Vancouver, added, “as an Israeli expat and proud member of the Vancouver Jewish community, I know how much pain both these communities feel about the current political climate in Israel. It is my hope that, through listening to those on the ground most affected by the potential regime change in Israel, we can work together – diaspora and Israeli Jews – to keep Israel Jewish and democratic, as stated in its Declaration of Independence.”

The Sept. 26 event is open to the public, and all interested individuals are encouraged to attend. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be provided following the discussion. All those wishing to attend should RSVP at bit.ly/SaveIsraeliDemocracy.

– Courtesy Maytal Kowalski, Press Pause Collective