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To Remember • To Congratulate • To Honour • To Say “I Care” •
Volunteers honoured
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page 15
bulletin volume 73, no. 16
june 15, 2009
Ottawa Jewish Bulletin Publishing Co. Ltd. •
21 Nadolny Sachs Private, Ottawa, Ontario K2A 1R9
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Publisher: Mitchell Bellman
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sivan 23, 5769
Editor: Michael Regenstreif $2.00
Hillel Academy students visit Charles H. Hulse Public School for Day of Cultural Understanding By Nicola Hamer Hillel Academy communications director When the Grade 6 students at Hillel Academy were given pen pals to write to in English class, they discovered these pen pals were much closer, geographically, than the people they were used to writing to in Israel, but, culturally, much farther away. At least, that’s what the kids assumed. They were asked to write to a Grade 6 class at Charles H. Hulse Public School in Alta Vista, in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood. The Hillel students did go into the project with assumptions. “I thought she wouldn’t be like me,” admits Talia McCormack, one of the Hillel students. “But, when we were writing letters, I found out we like the same stuff.” The students began to realize their pen pals weren’t as different as they expected. They found out they all liked the same TV shows and the same music. They had the
same types of families and the same concerns about life. On May 19, the Hillel Grade 6 students spent the day visiting with their pen pals at Hulse. There were still some concerns for some kids, but they proved unfounded. “My pen pal is partly [Aboriginal], so I thought she’d look different, but she’s just the same as everyone else,” said Talia. None of this was a surprise to Patrick Mascoe, the Grade 6 teacher at Hulse and organizer of this fifth annual Day of Cultural Understanding. Mascoe reached out to Hillel five years ago, hoping that a connection would help his students apply the principles of tolerance and responsible citizenship he had been teaching them. They were a little nervous, some of the students admitted, once the day came to finally meet their pen pals. But that nervousness quickly evaporated as the two groups teamed up for a giant scavenger hunt around the school. (Continued on page 2)
Rabbi Yehuda Simes, a teacher at Hillel Academy, at Charles H. Hulse Public School (Photo: Nicola Hamer) with Grade 6 students from Hulse and Hillel.
Stephen Victor receives honourary fellowship from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Stephen Victor
By Diane Koven The Hebrew University of Jerusalem recognized his many years of hard volunteer work, and his dedication to and support of the university, by awarding Stephen Victor an honourary fellowship. The honourary fellowship was presented to Victor at a university board of governors meeting, June 8, in Jerusalem. Victor, who has been actively involved in this community’s life for decades, has had a leadership role with the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem since the mid-1990s, serving as national vice-president of Canadian Friends of Hebrew University (CFHU) from 1996 to 2001 and national president from 2001 to 2003. He established the Stephen Victor Academic Exchange Scholarship between the University of Ottawa and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and, as a dinner honouree in 1994, also established the Stephen and Gail Victor Centre for Trial Advocacy in the Faculty of Law. “I wanted to devote some of my
community work and philanthropic activities in a more direct way to Israel and, in particular, to one of the most outstanding universities in the world, Hebrew University. I was fascinated by the excellence of Hebrew University … and through my visits there became acquainted with the high quality of its professors and researchers on the cutting edges of science, technology and education. I also wanted to raise the awareness of Hebrew University in Canada through my communal (Continued on page 2)
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