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Shana Tova!

volume 75, no. 20

september 19, 2011

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Editor: Michael Regenstreif $2.00

Sheldon Friedman is new principal at Ottawa Jewish Community School

By Ilana Belfer After 15 years as principal of the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (CHAT), Sheldon Friedman thought about retiring.

“But,” he said, “people bring interesting propositions.”

Six years and two schools later, Friedman is taking on his next endeavour as principal of the Ottawa Jewish Community School (OJCS), the amalgamation of Hillel Academy and Yitzhak Rabin High School. He spoke with the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin last month while preparing for the new school year.

Born to Polish Jewish parents during the Second World War, the family survived in hiding and came to Canada in 1948 via displaced persons camps.

Once Friedman received his BA in history from the University of Toronto, he became eligible for a bursary from the university: either $250 to get his MA or $500 to go to teacher’s college.

“At that time, finances had a great deal to do with some of the decisions you made,” he said. “So I went into teaching and I haven’t looked back since. I loved it.”

Throughout his career, Friedman taught at an array of Toronto public schools: Central High School of Commerce, which had a high immigrant population; Brockton High School, a technical/vocational school; Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute; and West Toronto Secondary School, where he served as vice-principal.

In January 1990, he became principal at CHAT. “I asked for a leave of absence from the Toronto District School Board for one year and it ended up being 15. I got my foot into Jewish education at that point,” Friedman said.

It was at his CHAT retirement party in June 2005 that he accepted an offer to help stabilize United Synagogue Day School (now Robbins Hebrew Academy) in Toronto by becoming principal for one year.

At the same time, Friedman started a tutoring and consulting company called Pathways Academy and Learning Services, which led him to Italy’s International School in Genoa (ISG) as a consultant. He agreed to spend one year there as director of education. That one year turned into three.

“There were factions in the school that were argu(Continued on page 2)

Sheldon Friedman starts the school year as new principal of the Ottawa Jewish Community School.

(Photo: Ilana Belfer)

Guest column

No time to lose confronting many pressing problems

By Shimon Fogel Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs As we launch the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the new advocacy body representing Canadian Jewry, our community is in a unique position. We enjoy equal rights, full participation in Canadian society, and complete freedom to practise our faith and traditions without fear – indeed, often with the full support of our neighbours.

The recent incident at Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto is especially

telling, but not because of the appearance of the anti-Semitic graffiti itself.

Rather, the heartfelt response of the shul’s non-Jewish neighbours, including those companies that offered to remove the graffiti free of charge, should give us all pause to reflect on the fortunate position we enjoy as Canadian Jews in 2011, an exception to most of our people’s history.

In the midst of these blessings, we stand before a number of escalating and quickly evolving

challenges. Anti-Semitism is, of course, unacceptable in Canada.

But, at the same time, anti-Zionism has become increasingly fashionable. Whether on campus, within the trade union movement or inside some churches, the questioning of Israel’s very right to exist – far beyond any reasonable criticism of Israeli policies – has gained momentum. Although we have many nonJewish friends who see this trend for what it is, it has flown under the radar for far too many others.

The blurring of the line between

anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism resulted in overlapping mandates between previous advocacy organizations. Take the example of Israeli Apartheid Week. When Jewish students are intimidated on campus during anti-Zionist demonstrations, is this an Israel advocacy issue, or a matter of domestic security and anti-Semitism?

The answer, of course, is both.

Our community has long perceived its own security, as Canadian Jews, in response to the level of hostility (Continued on page 2)

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shana tova

Page 2 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Friedman plans to build on school’s excellence (Continued from page 1)

ing with one another; the board wasn’t functioning well; people were leaving; and enrolment was declining. So, I turned things around in a few years,” said Friedman, who received a certificate of appreciation from the U.S. Department of State for his work there.

Friedman accomplished this, he said, by ensuring the school fulfilled its mission statement: ‘Tolerance, respect, democracy and also commitment to knowledge and excellence.”

“It’s not very different from the mission here,” noting to add the components of Jewish heritage, Jewish values and Jewish continuity.

The OJCS mission statement is currently being finalized by the school’s board of directors. Friedman said this is important because

it will be a unified statement combining the former missions of both Hillel Academy and Yitzhak Rabin High School.

“My top priority is to establish the Ottawa Jewish Community School as one entity. To do whatever I can to project and popularize that image,” he said. “It’s my hope that kids who attend this school will stay here for a long time and graduate Grade 12 from OJCS.” Friedman said he felt a special connection to OJCS because his three nephews and one niece are graduates. His brother, Rubin Friedman, the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin’s humour columnist, has lived in Ottawa as a very active member of the Jewish community for more than 30 years.

The OJCS board of directors explored many options, said Sharon Reichstein, co-chair of

sales, marketing, and communications, but called the decision to hire Friedman a “no-brainer.”

His calibre of knowledge, experience and dedication will allow the school to run as an educational institution – with quality, efficiency, professionalism and a kidscome-first attitude, she said.

Although Friedman has many ideas for OJCS, he said he must wait until he meets all the parents, teachers and students before making any decisions.

“I have to listen to these people and respect the way things are done here,” he said. “I see this institution as a huge ship and you can’t steer it quickly in any one direction or it might capsize. You have to do it very carefully, very slowly.”

Friedman has an open-door policy and said he also intends to go

out and solicit suggestions and feedback by talking to and socializing with the “stakeholders.” The key, he said, is open communication.

“They have a great school here.

There’s really nothing seriously wrong,” said Friedman, commending the supportiveness of the board and the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, but he added there are little things he thinks could be fixed.

In particular, he mentioned the areas of marketing, and excellence in education, saying he will inspect teachers on a more regular basis and use his experience in different institutions, witnessing different teaching styles, to help them become “better practitioners of their craft.”

Another issue Friedman addressed is declining enrolment,

which, he said, is a factor at Jewish schools all over North America.

“We would look at trying to make it a more welcoming place, an inclusive place,” he said, so that any Jewish family feels comfortable regardless of their affiliation.

Friedman said he is confident OJCS will be successful in meeting its mission statement, but how long he’ll be staying is less certain.

“I’ve always worked on oneyear contracts. I believe in that and it has worked out well for me,” he said, pointing to his 15 years at CHAT and three years at ISG. “My philosophy has always been: I don’t want to burden anyone with my work if I’m not doing the job.”

Nevertheless, he said, “I think … I’ll be able to fulfil the goal of trying to make this a better place while holding on to the excellence that already exists.”

CIJA takes up mantle of community advocacy (Continued from page 1)

projected upon Israel – and with good reason.

If we are ever unable to openly show support or affection for the Jewish national homeland and its residents, we will have found ourselves unable to give expression to our very sense of Judaism and Jewish life.

In Western Europe in the 19th century, our ancestors were told they could be Jews privately but not publicly. Today, our community’s detractors are attempting to create a situation where we are free to be Jews both publicly and privately – but Zionists never. We cannot allow this to happen, and this is just one compelling reason for a united organization that operates through a single lens and under a central, strategic direction.

That said, worries are not all that lie ahead.

The greatest challenges often come in the form of opportunities that compel us to the high standards of those who came before us.

Today, our community stands at the crossroads of a number of key public policy debates. How can Canada best offer both reasonable accommodation and values-based integration for immigrants? How can we ensure, in increasingly unstable economic times, that every Canadian gets his or her opportunity to prosper and that the most vulnerable are not left behind?

Although we continue to see Jewish immigration to Canada, we are no longer a com-

munity of immigrants. Our story has a special place in the development and greater history of our country. Our parents and grandparents made an immense contribution not only to civic society as a whole, but to the laws, policies and principles that governed Canada – to the betterment of all Canadians.

It is with reverence for our past and with a focus on the new opportunities and challenges ahead that the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs takes up the mantle of community advocacy following a restructuring process that engaged stakeholders from across the country.

Through this process, we have discerned the best practices of our predecessor organizations, including the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canada-Israel Committee, and forged a path that will enable us to uphold the legacy, achievements and traditions of these distinguished organizations.

One of those best practices is the need to enshrine grassroots empowerment as a definitive operating principle, shaping our entire advocacy model and strategic objectives.

This is why the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has been structured to ensure local engagement and accountability to every community – big and small – on a level never before experienced.

Jewish federations – like the Jewish Federation of Ottawa – will remain the focal point

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for Canadian Jewry to get involved and make a difference. Local leaders in both federated and non-federated locations will be on the forefront of developing and delivering the agenda, with the support, expertise and collaboration of our national team. It is with pride that we note that, with an estimated 100,000 donors nationwide through our federation partners, we have established the most representative community body in the country.

There has been criticism levelled at the new organization from some in our community. Those that have been shared directly with our lay leaders and staff and offered for constructive purposes have been extremely useful. These points will enable us to move

forward with even greater effectiveness and accountability.

However, some criticisms are not constructive and, indeed, are perhaps not intended to be so. Simply put, we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted by those who wish to air internal community disputes in the media and greater public forums.

We have too much urgent work to do not just in the future, but right now – and on a full range of issues, both domestic and international.

The president of Iran denies the Shoah, threatens to wipe Israel off the map and sends heavy weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas (Continued on page 38)

Keshet at Capital Pridel Members of Keshet, Ottawa’s Jewish GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual) group, march in the Capital Pride Parade, August 28, in downtown Ottawa.

(Photo: Lydia Nacawa)

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 3

shana tova

Page 4 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Federation announces new staff appointments

By Michael Regenstreif The Jewish Federation of Ottawa has announced several staffing appointments.

Samantha Banks will assume the newly created position of director of Initiatives for the Emerging Generation on September 21. In this position, created following the openOttawa Symposium for the emerging generation, she will be responsible for further openOttawa efforts and for outreach and co-ordination of initiatives and programs in the community directed toward young adults aged 18 to 40.

An interview with Banks appears on page 20 of this issue of the Bulletin.

Erin Bolling, already executive assistant to the Annual Campaign director, has assumed expanded responsibilities as Women’s Campaign co-ordinator.

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Women’s Campaign Co-ordinator Erin Bolling (left) and Interim Annual Campaign Director Rony Podolsky in the Federation offices.

Rena Garshowitz will become Federation event planner and sponsorship co-ordinator on September 26.

“I’m very excited to be working more closely with the women in our community,” said Bolling, who worked in the high-tech industry before joining the Federation.

Rena Garshowitz will assume the position of event planner and sponsorship coordinator on September 26.

Garshowitz joins the Feder-

assumed the position of interim director of the Annual Campaign on September 6. Podolsky’s is a three-month appointment, which will carry the Campaign through its busy fall season while a search is conducted for a permanent director of the Annual Campaign.

Federation President and

ation following her tenure as director of communications at the Embassy of Israel.

Ilan Liebner has become advocacy co-ordinator at Hillel Ottawa where he will be working with Carleton University, University of Ottawa and Algonquin College students. “I’ll be responsible for supporting

our students in presenting a fair understanding of Israel, and in taking pride in their identities and of what Israel has accomplished and will continue to accomplish,” Liebner writes in a guest column on page 32 of this issue of the Bulletin.

Rony Podolsky, a veteran of management positions in the high-tech industry,

CEO Mitchell Bellman said, with these appointments, the Federation will move forward in fulfilling its mission and on its work on such current priorities as young adult engagement, campaign fundraising revitalization, and the renewal of day and supplementary school Jewish education in Ottawa.

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 5

History of the Jewish people presented in Max Sternthal’s songs and stories

By Ilana Belfer It was an ordinary Sunday five years ago for Max Sternthal. He was performing songs and stories about “life in the shtetl” for a seniors’ residence when something happened that he said changed the course of his life.

A Warsaw Ghetto survivor shook her finger at him and said, “You’re in the wrong place. You should be telling these stories and singing these songs to young people who know little or nothing of this history.

We know it because we lived it.”

At that moment, Sternthal said he vowed to direct his energy toward educating young people. He is now months away from completing a three-CD collection, Cantor Max Presents Songs and Stories of My People, which he describes as an audio junior encyclopedia of Jewish history in the 20th century.

“Young people today aren’t reading as much as listening,” said Sternthal. “A young person who’d sit and listen [to the album] for three hours … will get as much information as you can get in 50 hours of selected readings.”

The project started in 2002 when Sternthal, a retired businessman with a passion for history and music, was recuperating from heart surgery.

“I started reminiscing about my childhood. Even though I was born in Canada, my early life was like I was still living in the shtetl,” he said, explaining that his parents immigrated to Montreal from Bessarabia (now Moldova) one year before he was born.

A volunteer cantor for much of his life, including 30 years at Temple Israel, Sternthal picked up his guitar after a 30-year hiatus and learned to strum enough to accompany himself. He had never done any writing or narrating, despite his distinct voice, deep and clear in tone, but his jotted-down notes of memories grew into an hour-long program.

After five years of performing the program in Ottawa and Florida, Sternthal began recording. The result is three CDs featuring songs in Hebrew and Yiddish, some of which Sternthal has translated, and his spoken-word storytelling.

The first CD, Songs and Stories from the Shtetl is a tribute to East European Jewry from peak to destruction. The second, Songs and Stories of the Children tells the

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JEWISH RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES 2011 - 2012

In an attempt to communicate and promote better education in the public domain, we have sent a listing of important Jewish Holy Days for the school calendar year, 2010-2011 to all schools in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. We hope this will serve as a guide and help prevent timetabling conflicts.

Below find a copy of the relevant dates.

Should you encounter a problem, please bring the situation to the attention of your school council or principal. If the problem is not resolved, please call us at 613-7984696, ext. 255 or e-mail us at fgreenspoon@jewishottawa.com.

✡ All holy days begin the preceding sundown ✡

Max Sternthal has recorded a three-CD collection of songs and stories about the Jewish people.

(Photo: Ilana Belfer)

well-known story of Anne Frank as well as the stories of several child Holocaust survivors – including three from Ottawa: David Shentow, Louis Lemkow and Truda Rosenberg – and the third, Songs and Stories of Israel, tells the history of the Jewish state from its origins to the present day.

Several organizations, including March of the Living Canada, the Campus Associates of the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Anti-Defamation League already use material from Sternthal’s CDs in their educational programs.

However, he said he is not fully satisfied, noting that today’s youth aren’t listening to CDs, but, rather, to MP3s, downloading their music from iTunes and various other online sources.

“Friends were saying, ‘You’ve got to be on Facebook. You should have a website.’

That’s all Greek to me,” he said. “But if that’s where I have to go, I intend to find out.”

But, entering the virtual world, Sternthal said, is a challenge at his age. He is looking for someone to help guide his online endeavours.

“I just want to be able to put it into the hands of young people of this generation and even future generations,” he said. “I’d like to leave this as my legacy.”

For more information, contact Max Sternthal at 613-596-5960.

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shana tova

Page 6 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Together we make a difference that far exceeds individual efforts This is a period of reflection and renewal for the Jewish world. Every year at this time, I think a little bit harder about selfimprovement. There is a tradition in my family that we take a walk on Yom Kippur afternoon and share two or three things we would like to improve about ourselves during the new year just begun. And, in case we have forgotten the previous year’s resolutions, the kids don’t hesitate to remind us.

Considering how I spend much of my time, my volunteer life is usually part of my new year’s goals, tending to be a focus of my reflection. This always brings me to the crux of the matter, and the question I repeatedly ask myself, and which lately I am often asked by others.

“Why do I do what I do?”

It is a simple question for which I struggle to find an adequate answer.

The impersonal response is, “Yes,” it is part of my Jewish tradition, one that has been taught and handed down to me, and one that makes me very proud to be part of.

“Yes,” because volunteering has allowed me to build something I can truly believe in.

“Yes,” because my volunteer work has provided me with countless opportunities for leadership development, creative thought

Federation Report Debbie Halton-Weiss Chair processes, and to develop lifelong friendships with people who share similar values.

When I was growing up in Montreal, there was always a full table at our Friday night dinners that included at least one lonely student, a recent widow and various family friends. It was taken for granted, no matter where we were, or what our plans, Friday night was the time to gather as a family, have heated political discussions and eat a great home cooked meal where friends and strangers were equally welcomed. This tradition continued at our home in Ottawa once I was an adult.

When I changed career paths in 1997 – after 17 years as a social worker – to manage my husband’s medical practice, I knew there would be gaps in my level of personal satisfaction and in the challenges I faced.

I had already been an active volunteer with various community organizations, and

was a graduate of the Young Women’s Leadership Council. I had participated in a Young Adult Mission to Israel, and recognized my passion for Jewish communal life.

I had the privilege of leading Birthright and March of the Living trips to Israel and Poland, and understood how important it was for me to connect with Jewish youth, to listen and understand what Jewish connection meant to them. Jewish continuity and survival was something I realized I cared about deeply and was what I wanted to devote further time, energy and commitment to. I knew also that this volunteer commitment would fill in the gaps which I referred to.

I also do believe there is no human act more powerful than volunteering.

On the Internet, there is a widely circulated, possibly apocryphal, story about anthropologist Margaret Mead being asked about the first sign she looked for to tell her of an ancient civilization. Her questioner, it’s assumed, was thinking about a particular tool or, perhaps, an article of clothing.

Mead supposedly gave a surprising answer: “A healed femur. When someone breaks a femur, they can’t survive to hunt, fish, or escape enemies unless they have help. Thus, a healed femur indicates that

someone helped that person, rather than abandoning them and saving themselves.”

Healing metaphorical femurs! Isn’t that what community giving and volunteering are all about?

I continue to search for the right answer to the question of “why” I do what I do.

But, in the meantime, I know the fulfilment and joy I gain far exceeds whatever contribution I can make. And, although I recognize it is self-serving, it’s what I think I can do best.

At a time of your own reflection, I hope you might consider how involving yourself in Ottawa’s Jewish community can add meaning and substance to your own life, as together we can make a difference that will far exceed our individual efforts.

There are so many ways to become involved and so many Jewish organizations in Ottawa that can use your help. If you’re looking for just the right volunteer opportunity, Benita Siemiatycki at the Jewish Ottawa InfoCentre can help you find it. You can reach her at bsiemiatycki@jewishottawa.com or 613-798-4644.

From our home to yours, Ron joins me in extending wishes for a happy, healthy, peaceful New Year. L’shanah tovah tikatev v’taihatem to you and those you love.

The shofar is not just an instrument, it is a message One of the most seemingly improbable Rosh Hashanah scenarios described in the Mishna is that of a person who decides to blow the shofar into a cistern on the New Year. Do the people in the pit fulfil the mitzvah of hearing the sound of the shofar?

Do the people on the outside of the cistern fulfil their requirement to hear the shofar sound? The halachah based on this section of Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 26) declares that those on the inside do fulfil their obligation, while those on the outside only do so if they hear the actual sound of the shofar, and not an echo.

While one may be puzzled as to the unusual set of circumstances the halachah describes in this instance, one must check the Mishna Berurah (Orach Chaim, chapter 587, paragraph one), which indicates that, indeed, there were times in Jewish history when Jews could not practise their faith freely, and had to hide to observe Jewish law, even in cisterns. One thinks of Jews who secretly practised their faith during the period of the Inquisition and during the Holocaust in the concentration camps.

Numerous stories have abounded concern-

From the pulpit Rabbi Howard Finkelstein Beit Tikvah ing the bravery and courage of these individuals.

In a modern day context, we see the reliving of this scenario, not necessarily in the context of fear of anti-Semitic attacks, but in an environment that purports to be supportive of a type of existence that eschews Jewish identification and involvement. There are indeed innumerable Jews living in a figurative cistern without spiritual light, and without awareness of the beauty of their heritage. They espouse points of view contrary to the tenets of our faith, and live lives bereft of Jewish existence.

To use an ancient parallel, these Jews live like the inhabitants of Plato’s cave who do not know there is a life outside their

Letters welcome Letters to the Editor are welcome if they are brief, signed, timely and of interest to our readership. The Bulletin reserves the right to refuse, edit or condense letters.

The Mailbag column will be published as space permits.

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habitat. Jews who, parenthetically, seek spiritual answers in Eastern religions, have never explored their own faith’s answers to their quests, and live in virtual darkness.

Their approaches to life’s problems stem from sources alien to our own, their future as Jews insecure.

Many are satisfied with these approaches to life and, frankly, do not care what Judaism has to say about the intricacies and travails of life. However, for those who do seek answers but are living in this figurative cistern described by the Mishna above, we have a responsibility as community

leaders, rabbis, teachers, parents and friends to blow that shofar into their habitat to reach out to them.

The shofar here is not an instrument, but it is a message. We have a responsibility to listen to the sound of that shofar, which speaks of the relationship and the closeness between God and the Jewish people. The shofar calls on us to communicate with the Almighty because His presence is near to those who seek Him (Psalms 145).

May we have the opportunity to enlighten others as to the beauty of our faith, and may we in turn walk in the light of God.

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 7

We are a community of great diversity Ottawa’s Jewish community, like most Jewish communities of significant size in North America, is highly diverse.

We’re religiously diverse. Individuals and families in the community range from the fervently observant to the completely secular, and our congregations are part of each of the major movements of contemporary Judaism.

We’re politically diverse. Each of Canada’s, and Ontario’s, major political parties has supporters and activists from among our community.

And while Israel enjoys overwhelming support from the community, our opinions reflect the diversity of Israel’s democratic politics and its multi-party system. And, as in Israel, there is a great diversity of opinion in our community vis-à-vis particular policy issues.

All this is to say the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin strives to reflect the diversity of our community. The Bulletin is open to all segments of our community in our news reporting, in the submissions we receive and publish, and in our opinion columns.

None of our opinion columnists – from the congregational rabbis who share From the Pulpit, to Alan Echenberg, Mira Sucharov, Oliver Javanpour, our many guest columnists, to me – has a monopoly on the truth. You might agree with some things our columnists write

Editor Michael Regenstreif and disagree with others. I’m the editor and I don’t agree with everything.

If you want to dispute or applaud something you read in the Bulletin, please do so. If what you have to say is relatively short, write a letter-to-the-editor. If you need more than brief, letterlength space, a guest column is possible.

A case in point is Bob Dale’s guest column on page 10, a response to Mira Sucharov’s Values, Ethics, Community column in our September 5 issue.

Community-wide Bulletin As this is the Rosh Hashanah community-wide edition of the Bulletin, one of the two editions we publish each year that is distributed widely to non-subscribers, some of you may be reading Ottawa’s Jewish community newspaper for the first time – or for the first time in a long time.

If you’re not a subscriber, I hope you’ll become one. The Ottawa Jewish Bulletin is published 19 times per year

and is the best way to keep up with Ottawa’s vibrant Jewish community. We feature news stories, articles from organizations and agencies, features on interesting people in the community, and lively, occasionally controversial, columns covering a gamut of beats from Canadian politics to world affairs, from values and ethical issues to genealogy, book and music reviews, food and humour and more.

From now through October 28, please take advantage of our special offer on new, local subscriptions. Please see page 40 for details.

By the way, 2012 will mark the 75th anniversary of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin. The Bulletin has been keeping Ottawa’s Jewish community informed since 1937. The community and the Bulletin have changed and evolved greatly over the years and throughout 2012 we’ll be offering glimpses back at our history culminating in a special celebratory edition of the Bulletin on November 26, 2012. You won’t want to miss any of it.

Thanks Ilana I’ll take this opportunity to thank Ilana Belfer for a job well done as our summer intern this year. Hired under the auspices of the Barry Fishman Ottawa Jewish Bulletin Scholarship Fund, Ilana, a journalism student at Carleton University, did

some excellent work as a reporter and proofreader during her three months with us.

Although her internship ended while we were working on this issue, I’m looking forward to her continuing contributions to the Bulletin as our Campus Life columnist covering Jewish student affairs at Carleton and uOttawa over the coming year, and as one of our freelance reporters.

And thanks Jackie I’ll also take this opportunity to thank Jacqueline Shabsove for her excellent work over the past year as our 20/30 Scene columnist and as our reporter on initiatives, such as openOttawa, aimed at the emerging generation of young adults.

Because of a demanding work and master’s degree schedule, Jackie is giving up her column after this issue.

This means we’re looking for a new columnist to write about issues and events affecting young adults in Ottawa’s Jewish community, a segment of our community the Jewish Federation of Ottawa has prioritized. Please contact me at mregenstreif@ottawajewishbulletin.com or 613-798-4696, ext. 310, if you’re interested in taking on the column – or if you know someone who might be.

On behalf of all of us at the Bulletin, Shana Tova!

The final judgment is always history’s to make The most memorable moment of Martin Scorcese’s 2002 film, Gangs of New York – not generally recognized as one of the acclaimed director’s most memorable films – comes in the final minute before the credits roll.

The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis, mostly takes place in the now-gone Five Points slum of Lower Manhattan at the time of the American Civil War. It depicts the vicious and gory turf wars between Protestant and Irish Catholic immigrant gangs in the unrecognizable pre-metropolis New York City of that long-ago era.

The story culminates in a violent battle among gang members set against the backdrop of the bloody New York draft riots of 1863, during which hundreds of people were killed, many buildings were burned to the ground, racial violence flared, and U.S. President Abraham Lincoln sent in troops to bring the city under control.

At the very end of the movie, as one character’s narration describes how the city was born of “blood and tribulation,” and laments how everything he once knew had been swept away and he and his confreres forgotten, the camera lingers on a shot of the graves of two other char-

Alan Echenberg acters in a cemetery across the East River from a burning Manhattan.

In a series of time-lapse shots lasting less than 60 seconds on film, but representing the passage of almost 150 years, we watch the gravestones deteriorate and disappear, the cemetery transformed into a barren field, and the city in the distance grow into the familiar modern metropolis we recognize today.

The scene is a poignant depiction of the power of time to blunt memories and to turn powerful events that seem of great importance to those living through them into hazy half-forgotten historical footnotes.

At the end of the movie, the twin towers of the World Trade Center are briefly glimpsed on a spot where, a minute earlier, smoke swelled from the 1863 riots.

The film was made not long after the September 11, 2001 attacks that brought the

towers down, so seeing them in this context is striking.

This month, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has provoked countless reports, memorials, and public and private thoughts about the meaning of the event, and how it changed our world and defined our era.

There is no question 9/11 did those things. All of us old enough to remember that day will forever remember what we were doing when the airplanes hit the towers; and so many of the major international developments of the past decade have their origins in the terrible events of that day.

It feels odd 10 years have already passed because the attacks still have such a visceral resonance to so many of us who remember that day, how it unfolded, and what came after.

In the broad sweep of history, though, there is no way for us to know now what its resonance will be. It all depends what happens next and what happens after that, and so on and so on. That’s how history works.

Will 9/11 be seen as a major turning point in world history or will it fade from memory in centuries to come as did the New York draft riots of 1863? None of us

will be around long enough to know, but it is worth contemplating.

Another example, closer in memory and certainly a Canadian – rather than a worldwide – historical event: the death from cancer of Opposition Leader Jack Layton last month.

If Layton had passed away half a year before he did, it would have been no less tragic – a dynamic and prominent political leader taken down too young. But, it was surely how he lived out the final months of his life, whether or not he had any definite sense of his looming mortality, which provoked the mass outpouring of genuine grief and lament for what-could-havebeen in the days following his death.

However you viewed his politics, there is no doubt Layton went out with a bang, almost singlehandedly altering the dynamics of Canadian politics by taking the New Democratic Party he led for eight years from fourth place in the House of Commons to official Opposition and ending the generation-long dominance of the Bloc Québécois in Quebec federal politics.

But it’s too early to judge whether or not those final months of Layton’s life changed Canadian history in a lasting way. Only history itself will be able to judge that.

shana tova

Page 8 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

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Ottawa Modern Jewish School The photo of Ottawa Modern Jewish School (OMJS) graduates in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin (August 15) brought me back about 45 years to my brief time at the school. What dawned on me was that I – to this day – remember more of what I learned during my two or three years at that tiny Hebrew school – which was held two days a week at Glebe Collegiate, if memory serves me – than I did during all the years combined at my subsequent Jewish afternoon school, which my siblings and I attended for about six years in total.

I clearly remember the Yiddish and the Jewish history taught to me at OMJS. I can still recite some of the Yiddish phrases and I still see, in my mind’s eye, the text book images of Avraham Avinu walking in his land and talking to Hashem. It was also at OMJS where I first learned about the covenants between Hashem and the Jews.

Once I left that Hebrew school to start at the newest one in Ottawa in 1968, my Jewish education went straight downhill. Now, I am not suggesting that it was all the new school’s fault – my classmates and I were pretty rambunctious much of the time – but there was something very special about OMJS and I’m glad to see it’s still going strong.

Lynne Cohen Rosh Hashanah greetings On behalf of the Government of Ontario, I am delighted to extend warm greetings to readers of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin as you mark Rosh Hashanah.

In Ontario, we derive our strength and vitality from the cultural and spiritual diversity that makes up our great province. It is our wealth of culture which gives us our

bulletin@ottawajewishbulletin.com

character and our heart – and strengthens our communities.

Jewish Canadians are a dynamic and valued part of Ontario society and contribute greatly to the social, cultural and economic life of our province.

This joyous occasion – marking the start of the Jewish New Year – offers celebrants the opportunity to join family and friends in reflecting on the past year and in an exchange of good wishes for health and prosperity in the year ahead.

Please accept my best wishes for a meaningful and memorable Rosh Hashanah.

Dalton McGuinty Premier On behalf of Ontario’s New Democrats, I extend warm New Year’s greetings to Ottawa’s vibrant Jewish community.

Rosh Hashanah is a time for families and friends to gather and celebrate the coming year. For over 100 years, Rosh Hashanah has been a time for Ottawa’s Jewish community to come together, share apples and honey, and usher in a sweet new year. This time of year also marks the beginning of the High Holiday season – traditionally a time of prayer and repentance. To all of those celebrating: Shanah Tovah U’Metukah – have a sweet and good New Year. May it be filled with peace, prosperity and good health.

Andrea Horwath Ontario New Democratic Party Leader

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 9 Advertorial

JEWISH NATIONAL FUND Oliver Javanpour president

Lodge Auxiliary prepares for annual tea

By Marion Silver-Brass Auxiliary of Hillel Lodge Co-conveners Dee Gaffen and Marion Silver-Brass report plans are well underway for the Auxiliary of Hillel Lodge’s Annual Tea and Fundraiser on October 30.

The tea is a much anticipated social event for the residents, their families and friends.

This year, the Auxiliary, under the leadership of Roz Fremeth, has chosen to honour the wonderful Hillel Lodge residents. As well, a “21 bed salute” will welcome the addition of the 21 new beds so desperately needed at the Lodge.

The Auxiliary will use the funds raised by this year’s tea campaign to pur-

chase two Arjo whirlpool baths, which will be housed in the new wing. One bath will allow residents who are more mobile to step into the tub without a lift, while the second will be equipped with a lift for those requiring assistance.

If you have not already responded to this fund drive, do not hesitate when you are called. It is only with your continued financial support that we can ensure our seniors live with dignity in a state-of-the-art facility.

The Auxiliary of Hillel Lodge is dedicated to enhancing quality-of-life for the Hillel Lodge residents through a variety of

outreach programs. Besides celebrating holidays like Sukkot, Chanukah and Purim at Hillel Lodge, Auxiliary volunteers can be spotted serving breakfasts on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and providing gifts to all the residents on these occasions. Thanks to the Auxiliary, no Shabbat ever passes without fresh flowers gracing each table in the dining rooms at the Lodge.

At any time of year, take advantage of the unique finds at the Hillel Lodge Gift Shoppe. From jewelry to that perfect little present, it is all there and very competitively priced. Specialty Judaica items can be

ordered as well. The shop is an initiative of the Auxiliary and all profits are used for the well-being of our elderly.

Hillel Lodge’s Annual Tea and Fundraiser is Sunday, October 30, 2:00 pm, at the Lodge. Mark your calendars for this most enjoyable afternoon. The tea provides the opportunity for the community to express affection and support for the people who make Hillel Lodge their home.

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On a daily basis you can plant trees for all occasions. An attractive card is sent to the recipient.

To order, call the JNF office (613.798.2411).

Members of the Auxiliary of Hillel Lodge serve breakfast on Mother’s Day 2011: (from left to right) Helen Wiseman, Rhoda Zaitlin, Millie Weinstein, Sharon Finn, Dora Litwack, Mara Muzikansky, Sylvia Caplan, Marion Silver-Brass.

-

JNF and Ottawa Friends of Israel As we move toward our 2011 Negev Dinner, I would like to take you back to our 2009/2010 Dinner. Sara Vered was our honouree. The funds raised went to upgrade the educational compound at David Ben-Gurion’s desert home in Kibbutz Sde Boker, and to produce a film on the Negev and his dream of making the desert bloom. Over 80,000 visitors per year will see the film and visit the centre Sara sponsored and inaugurated on August 14, 2011. We are deeply grateful to Sara for seeing this project to fruition and also for recognizing in her inauguration speech that Negev Dinners are a Canadian tradition.

Ottawa’s recent Negev Dinner projects show how we, as Friends of Israel, care for both the people and the environment of Israel. Our 2008 honourees focused on Israel’s critical water issues with the Barbara Crook and Dan Greenberg Water Reservoir at Mishmar HaYarden, north of Lake Kinneret. The 120,000 cubic metre reservoir holds treated effluent from the kibbutz and irrigates apple, pear and nectarine orchards and pomegranate shrubs.

In 2007, Jim Orban supported development of a residential village for autistic young adults in Be’er Sheba. The project provided the landscaping and infrastructure work on the complex, which houses about 48 young adults learning to function independently in a supervised and supportive environment.

On November 25, 2008, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reopened its restored Botanical Garden on Mount Scopus. This event was the culmination of Gail and Stephen Victor’s work through our 2006 Negev Dinner. The garden, which took two years to restore, includes 950 species of plants from Israel and its environs.

In 2005, Dr. Hartley Stern drew on his own biotechnology interests and Israel’s scientific excellence with his project on nanotechnology to support desalination and decontamination of water. This project recognized the importance of science in creating the technologies needed for practical water management projects to support people and agriculture.

In 2004, the last Negev Dinner to honour our own community as Friends of Israel, we contributed to the Ottawa Recreation Centre in the Lahav Forest, just north of Be’er Sheba. As Dinner Chair, Stephen Victor noted the centre would provide “a cool green respite from the unrelenting desert sun and from the horrors of terrorism.” The centre was designed to meet the needs of mobility-challenged children and adults.

I’m out of space, but would like to conclude with the 2003 Dinner at which this year’s Dinner Chair, Vera Klein, was the honouree. Her project, the development of a rest and picnic area for soldiers and their families to meet at the Bat Galim Navy Base, allowed soldiers to share more time with their loved ones while serving their country.

When you support our Negev Dinners, as a volunteer, a ticket buyer or a sponsor, you contribute to projects that enrich many lives and create a more sustainable environment.

For information on tickets or corporate sponsorship, please call Susan Schwartzman at 613-798-2411 or Gail Grief, Executive Director, Eastern Canada at 1-514-934-0313.

/

More than trees 613.798.2411

shana tova

Page 10 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Guest column

Let’s put the map issue in perspective

By Bob Dale In her Values, Ethics, Community column (What are we teaching our kids about the Palestinians, September 5), Mira Sucharov expressed concerns that maps displayed at the Ottawa Jewish Community School neglect to show the line between Israel proper and the territories administered

by Israel since the 1967 war.

Bob Dale Sucharov also pointed out the maps don’t reflect official Israeli government policy, given that its own website clearly showed the demarcation between Israel and the pre-1967 situation.

The maps our children use should, as Sucharov correctly says, reflect political and geographic accuracy. I sincerely hope they will in the future: in the classrooms of our schools, at our Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebrations, and in other forums.

However, as important as they are, I’m not as concerned about the maps in our community’s schools or celebrations as I am with the maps and related language used by the people with whom Israel is seeking peace. Let’s talk about some (Continued on page 11)

TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO MAKE THINGS SIMPLER

This cartoon, published August 21 in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official Palestinian Authority daily, shows a map insisting all of Israel is “Palestine.”

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Shana Tova Happy New Year to the Ottawa Jewish Community

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 11

We need to keep up a positive message about Israel (Continued from page 10)

recent examples. An August 21 cartoon in the official Palestinian Authority (PA) daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, displayed a map of all of Israel and all the PA areas (excluding the Golan Heights) as “Palestine.”

According to Itamar Marcus and Ottawan Barbara Crook of Palestinian Media Watch, the message about not accepting Israel as a Jewish state is regularly reinforced in other educational and cultural settings. For example, in a television program praising the terrorists who blew up the Sbarro pizza shop in Jerusalem in 2001, killing 15 people including seven children; and in a music video – shown at least four times in June and July on PA television – containing these lyrics: Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, and Nazareth are ours.

[I] Muhammad sing about the Galilee and the Golan (Heights).

Jaffa, Acre, Haifa and Nazareth are ours.

[I] Kabha sing about the Galilee and the Golan (Heights).

From Bethlehem to Jenin is Palestinian, Ramle, Lod and Sakhnin are Palestinian.

Nowhere is more beautiful than Jerusalem; No matter how much we travel From Safed to Al-Badhan (near Nablus) is Palestinian; Tiberias and Ashkelon are Palestinian.

Less than a week after the cartoon map appeared in the PA newspaper, PA President Mahmoud Abbas told Muslim leaders in Ramallah that the PA will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state; and criticized demands made in that regard by the international community.

“Don’t order us to recognize a Jewish state. We won’t accept it,” Abbas said.

Never mind the media. What do ordinary people think about this issue?

Polling data consistently shows the majority of Israeli and

American Jews favour the two-state solution: one Israeli, one Palestinian. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, often portrayed in the media as being hard-line, has stated he is “willing to show flexibility” in his approach to the border issue for the sake of peace with the Palestinians.

However, according to a recent survey by American pollster Stanley Greenberg and the Beit Shour Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, only 34 per cent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza accept the idea of two states for two peoples as the solution to the conflict.

According to this survey, 66 per cent of West Bank and Gaza residents said the real goal should be to begin with a twostate solution, but then have it become one Palestinian state.

Other findings were just as alarming: 72 per cent supported denying Jewish history in Jerusalem; 62 per cent favoured kidnapping Israeli soldiers and holding them hostage; and 53 per cent favoured teaching of songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.

All this sort of puts our own map issue in perspective, doesn’t it?

So does this.

Over the past months and years, we have been deluged with a virtual barrage of anti-Israel propaganda, from those who would have us believe Israel is the most pathological nation ever to form part of the community of nations. Now, I’m not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel, something most Israelis have developed to a high degree of perfection.

As University of Edinburgh Professor Denis MacEoin notes, we’re talking about a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a Nazi state, is accused of perpetrating a holocaust in Gaza, and is accused of practising South African-style Apartheid vis-à-vis its Arab citizens. As MacEoin further notes, none of these things, or anything remotely resembling

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them, exists in Israel.

Given the volume and intensity of the propaganda emanating from Israel’s enemies, including the very Palestinians with whom Israel needs to negotiate peace, I wonder what our students – in the community schools as well as in our post-secondary institutions – think about Israel. Many, I know, are involved in Jewish and Israeli organizations on campus; and a significant number have gone on Birthright and similar programs. Despite this, I suspect we’ve only reached a minority of our Jewish kids through our considerable efforts. We need to keep up a positive, consistent message about Israel and other Jewish themes in our house media and other forums.

Yes, we need to get our maps straight, no question about it.

But shouldn’t that be something we raise with our school administrators, instead of presenting it as a moral and ethical issue to the community-at-large?

Remember, no matter how accurate our own maps become, it won’t change what’s shown on the maps of our enemies and what they hope will come about in the near future: a single state, with no Jewish homeland at all.

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shana tova

Page 12 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

New jnet initiative connects newcomers and other young adults to the Jewish community

By Howard Fremeth and Sarah LaFreniere jnet Like other Jewish communities in North America, Ottawa has seen a spark of renewed activity by young adults via organizations like jnet, Young Women’s Leadership Council, Chabad, the Glebe Shul, as well as a several informal associations like book clubs and Shabbat groups, and by the community’s interest in openOttawa.

For example, jnet was formed in 2009 with the

lofty goal of making Ottawa cool for young Jews. So far, we have presented five large-scale parties, with an average turnout of 200 young adults, and several smaller, informal events.

However, two challenges threaten to snuff out this flame: communication and mobilization. With the young adult population dispersed throughout the city, individuals wishing to connect to Jewish people and the Jewish community are often unaware of the many opportunities.

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In addition, we realized it often takes a year for new or returning young adults in Ottawa to learn about and gain the needed confidence to connect with our community. For example, upon initially moving to Ottawa, many of our friends had nowhere to go for High Holidays, despite there being dozens of Jewish families in Ottawa who would gladly open their homes. The problem was not about willingness to connect, but the connection process.

It is with this in mind that the Jewish Federation of Ottawa approached jnet to develop a program to foster communication and mobilization. We posed two questions: How can young adults become more aware of what’s going on? And, how can we reduce social, economic and logistical barriers to engagement?

Our conversations led to the creation of jnet connect:

jnet’s success is based on a networking approach, which identifies hub leaders who are tasked to get the word out and sell tickets to their peers. networking young adults, a program to identify young, Jewish adult newcomers to Ottawa and connect them to the network of young adults and organized institutions.

This program could have a long-term benefit for jnet and similar organizations by identifying new leaders and participants. jnet’s success is based on a networking approach, which identifies hub leaders who are tasked to get the word out and sell tickets to their peers. Over our short history, we’ve learned the problem is not one of planning or funding, but of connecting. Networks and leaders that make one event a success may not exist when it’s time for the next one.

With this in mind, a program to engage newcomers to Ottawa made a lot of

sense, since it would help to recycle jnet’s networkbuilding process.

We are hoping to work with the Federation and many other community organizations to make this initiative a success. In conversations with such community leaders as Federation Chair Debbie HaltonWeiss and Hillel Ottawa Director Ross Diamond, we realized that focusing on newcomers was too narrow an approach. Therefore jnet connect aims to attract young adults aged 22 to 36 who are new to Ottawa or who have recently returned, as well as Jewish young adults just looking to connect.

The program’s simplicity is its asset. Participants are matched with a community ambassador – a peer with

some similar interests who is involved in Jewish life – who takes them out for a beer or a coffee. These meetings are opportunities to both mobilize, by forging a personal connection, and to communicate about what our community offers through a resource magazine the participants receive. Participants will also be invited to informal jnet connect events. After participating in jnet connect, we hope they will be as connected to Jewish life as we are!

Our success depends on community members helping us identify newcomers and other potential participants. We are already working with groups like Hillel Ottawa to identify graduate students, and will be contacting other organizations throughout the fall.

We hope, over time, jnet connect will become the first and primary point of contact for newcomers and other young adults wishing to connect.

Our goal is to have 40 participants by the end of the High Holidays. You can help by letting us know about someone who might be interested – or by signing up yourself!

We can be reached at connect@jnetottawa.com.

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 13

Rabbi Menachem Friedman is new chazzan at Young Israel

By Rabbi Ari Galandauer Young Israel of Ottawa Young Israel of Ottawa has welcomed Rabbi Menachem Friedman as our shul’s new chazzan.

Rabbi Friedman has been serving as our chazzan for the High Holidays since 2009.

We are delighted that he will now be leading our services on a weekly basis.

Rabbi Friedman, his wife Chavie and

their four children have been in Ottawa since 2005. Rabbi Friedman has been teaching at Torah Academy and spent a year-anda-half as outreach co-ordinator for the Kollel of Ottawa.

Rabbi Friedman grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, attending elementary, high school and post-secondary school at Yeshiva Torah Temimah.

He began to develop his vocal and musi-

AJA 50+ to hold Bridge and Mah-Jongg Fundraiser, Oct. 27

By Dena Speevak for AJA 50+ Building on the success of last year’s popular fundraiser, AJA (Active Jewish Adults) 50+ has invited the community to attend the 2011 Bridge and Mah-Jongg Fundraiser, Thursday, October 27, 11:30 am to 4:00 pm, at Agudath Israel Synagogue.

Everyone is welcome to register. Join us for food, camaraderie and games.

The cost is $40 per person, which includes a catered lunch by David Smith, exciting prizes and the opportunity to enjoy duplicate bridge directed by Liz Schwartz, contract bridge, mah-jongg, Wizard, Scrabble and other games.

Funds raised enable AJA 50+ to continue providing an array of social, cultural and

active pursuits to more than 450 Ottawa Jewish seniors, including Creative Connections, which caters to our older seniors.

AJA50+ continues to operate at an annual deficit, and this fundraiser is a primary source of funding. You can also support this fundraiser by becoming a sponsor (tax receipts provided).

For information on the fundraiser, or to become a sponsor, contact Steve Rauch at 613422-6766 or steve.rauch.2006@gmail.com.

To register, call Flo Morgan at 613-2248286.

For more information on AJA 50+ programming or to receive an AJA 50+ Fall Program Guide, contact Dan Sigler at ajamembership@gmail.com or 613-2246110.

cal skills as a child soloist for choirs and studied in Israel for three years at Mir Yeshiva Jerusalem. During this time, he received cantorial training from Cantor Shelley Abrams.

He returned to New York to continue pursuing his Talmudic studies at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, where he met Chavie, an accomplished graphic artist.

After they were married, the couple lived in Lakewood, New Jersey, where Rabbi Friedman completed his rabbinic ordination.

While neither Rabbi Friedman nor his wife had spent significant amounts of time outside the New York City area during childhood, they wanted to expand their horizons.

“When I went to study outside of the New York area, I got to see more varied communities. I realized that living in a more close-knit community was the type of environment I was looking for,” explained Rabbi Friedman.

So, they took the opportunity to move to Ottawa when it arose.

“Living in Ottawa, I feel like I have an opportunity to get to know people in a way that I didn’t when I was growing up in a larger Jewish community,” added Chavie.

“We enjoy going back to New York to visit family and friends, but, in the few years that we have been living here, we already feel very much at home.”

Rabbi Menachem Friedman is now serving as chazzan at Young Israel of Ottawa.

shana tova

Page 14 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

High Holidays feature

Wave of new holiday prayer books changing the ways to worship

By David A.M. Wilensky (JTA) – New Jewish prayer books typically come in waves, the rarest of which bring new High Holidays prayer books, or machzors.

The current wave has seen five new machzors in a one-year span.

Following on the heels of last year’s release of the official Conservative machzor and a popular chavurah machzor are the first Hebrew-English machzor from the Israeli publisher Koren, a revision to Hillel’s On Wings of Awe and pilot tests of services from the forthcoming Reform machzor.

The Conservative movement’s Mahzor Lev Shalem was a surprise hit – insofar as a prayer book can be such a thing – selling more than 120,000 copies. More congregations are expected to adopt it for the High Holidays this year.

The chavurah Machzor Eit Ratzon from Joseph Rosenstein, a math professor at Rutgers University and a founding member of the Highland Park Minyan in Highland Park, N.J., is a companion to his Siddur Eit Ratzon. Though Machzor Eit Ratzon is not in use on the same scale as Lev Shalem, it merits

inclusion here as a popular new independently published machzor.

Both are heavy on commentary.

Lev Shalem includes diverse commentaries and readings from sources ranging from Chassidic masters to Abraham Joshua Heschel to contemporary poets.

Though not entirely transliterated, Lev Shalem includes more transliteration than previous Conservative efforts.

In Eit Ratzon, each two-page spread is laid out in a strict fourcolumn format, with one column each devoted to the Hebrew, Rosenstein’s translation, a robust commentary and a full transliteration.

This year, the wave continues with Koren Publishers releasing a Rosh Hashanah-only volume. Its Yom Kippur companion will follow next year.

The venerable Israeli publisher built its reputation on the elegant fonts and layouts of legendary designer Eliyahu Koren. The machzor emphasizes type size and arrangement most strikingly in the machzor with the giant type used at one point for the word melech (king) to impart the seasonal litur-

gy’s stress on the theme of God’s kingship.

Commentary by British Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks is featured, as it was in Koren’s first Hebrew-English siddur that propelled the publisher onto the English-language siddur market in 2009.

In co-operation with Hillel, Ktav has published a major revision of the 1985 release On Wings of Awe. The original was released with a number of transliterations, which was rare at the time. The new version includes a complete transliteration in keeping with the trend outside the Orthodox world toward increasingly extensive transliteration.

Perhaps the most anticipated material of the wave, the drafts of new Reform Rosh Hashanah services, will not be a true release at all.

According to Rabbi Hara Person, the publisher and director of CCAR Press – the largest publisher of Reform movement liturgy – some 70 to 100 Reform congregations will test the draft services. It’s a considerable sample size considering the Union for Reform

Judaism’s membership of 800 congregations.

Rabbi Person noted that it will be the first new American Reform machzor since The Union Prayer Book II was published in 1925. The Reform movement’s current machzor, Gates of Repentance, was adapted from the High Holidays prayer book of its counterparts in Britain’s Liberal movement.

Work on the new Reform machzor began in 2008 following the success of the movement’s new siddur, Mishkan T’filah, in 2007.

Like Mishkan T’filah, the new machzor will feature a layout that includes Hebrew, translation and transliteration on the right side of each spread, while the left side is devoted to commentary and a range of interpretative readings connected with the prayer to the right.

“One of the challenges is how do you do a machzor that’s a companion to Mishkan T’filah for people who aren’t really familiar with Mishkan T’filah because they only come on High Holidays,” Rabbi Person said.

The Rosh Hashanah morning service was piloted earlier this year

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in some congregations. Rabbi Person called the response “very positive.”

“People were really excited that we’re doing this and that they can be part of the feedback process,” she said.

One challenge faced by Reform liturgists is that the most evocative Rosh Hashanah prayers are in the musaf service, which the Reform movement did away with long ago.

In the draft, these sections of the musaf service – shofarot, malchuyot and zichronot – have been distributed throughout the service.

“When people heard about that, a lot of them were aghast at it,” Rabbi Person said, adding however that the approach proved popular among the groups that tested the service.

“By breaking it up, there’s this sort of ongoing crescendo, different peaks throughout the service, and that makes it more meaningful,” she said.

Rabbi Person emphasized that the project is still in an early stage.

“The Torah service isn’t even in the morning service yet because we haven’t really touched it at all,” she said.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 15

Guest column

A simple question changed my life forever

By Ross Diamond Hillel Ottawa In 2004, while volunteering at Penn State’s dance marathon, I was approached

by Lily Matusiak.

“Are you Jewish?” she asked. She had noticed my grandfather’s Chai necklace I was wearing.

“Yes. Why do you ask?” I responded.

“Do you want to go on Birthright Israel?” she asked.

“Isn’t that the free trip to Israel?”

“Yes,” Lily said. “Come meet some of the Hillel students who will be going this summer.”

That simple question changed my life forever. After a year of being a Hillel leader at Penn State, I ventured back to Israel. En route, I met Sarah, a Canadian, at JFK airport in New York.

An amazing conversation at the Kotel left us feeling a spiritual connection to each other that carried us through four years of international dating. We were married under the chuppah on July 5, 2009 in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park Pavilion.

The morning of my wedding, I jumped in the Rideau Canal for a ritual mikveh marking the beginning of my relationship with Canada’s capital city.

After officially immigrating to Canada in March 2010, I began working for KPMG in Ottawa. I realized quickly, though, that my interest in working with people and in

community-building would not be satisfied by my participation in a jnet planning committee, or in leading Ottawa’s first social action mission to Israel. When the position of Hillel director opened up last year, I saw an opportunity to make the career move I was looking for.

Now, as Hillel Ottawa director, I am continually able to pay forward the gift Lily gave me by working to inspire Jewish students in Ottawa to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life.

New beginnings and new opportunities are what makes Hillel Ottawa an amazing environment for university students. Collectively, we work as a community of students and staff to build a social network, a living Facebook. We encourage students to take ownership over their lives and personal narratives. Our mission is to inform students about the different opportunities available to them and allow them to make the choices to meet their individual needs.

To accomplish this vision, we need your help. Refer new students in Ottawa to us so we can let them know about the different opportunities that are available.

Send an e-mail with their name and contact information to info@hillelottawa.ca.

Also, let them know we are hosting some amazing fun events this fall. For a complete listing of events and opportunities, or to learn more about Hillel Ottawa, visit hillelottawa.ca.

Children Healthcare Women

Shana Tova!

Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW) wishes all our members, volunteers and friends a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year!

Thank you for your continued support of CHW’s programs and projects for Children, Healthcare and Women in Israel and Canada.

Marla Dan, CHW National President CHW National Officers Alina Ianson, CHW Executive Director Esther Kulik, President, CHW Ottawa Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW) is Canada’s leading Jewish women’s philanthropic organization. Founded in 1917, CHW is non-political, volunteer driven and funds programs and projects for Children, Healthcare and Women in Israel and Canada.

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Ross Diamond begins his second year as director of Hillel Ottawa.

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Page 16 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Looking back at 5771 in Ottawa

Keynote speaker Shawn Landres leads a discussion during the openOttawa symposium, April 3.

Keynote speaker Victor Rabinovitch looks at the new Honour Roll of Jewish Ottawans who served in the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War, November 7.

(Photo: Peter Waiser)

Rabbi Yehuda Simes returns to the Ottawa Jewish Community School, April 12, to visit with his students for the first time since being in a highway accident last year.

(Photo: Nicola Hamer)

Kids, parents, teachers and community members at Walkathon in support of Jewish education in Ottawa. Some dogs walked too.

(Photo: Peter Waiser)

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat cast members sing at the world premiere of Dreamcoat: A Documentary, January 27, at the Mayfair Theatre.

(Photo: Alan Dean)

The Raanana Symphonette Orchestra of Israel stands following the finale of the Alma Rosé tribute, November 9, at the Shenkman Centre. The concert was the launch event for the 2010 Holocaust Education Week.

(Photo: Peter Waiser)

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 17

Shalom Ottawa:

Monthly TV show reflects Ottawa’s Jewish community

By Ilana Belfer A cameraman holds up his fingers: three, two, one and “Welcome to Shalom Ottawa,� says Benita Siemiatycki, who hosts the Jewish Federation of Ottawa’s monthly “news, views and interviews� program on Rogers Cable 22.

Moments before, Siemiatycki was chatting with her guests in the green room as they sipped coffee, laughing and joking until producer Shahid Khan called everyone into Studio A to get “miked up� and do their sound checks. Then, taping of the June episode of Shalom Ottawa began.

Mitchell Bellman, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, and Jeff Bradshaw, the Federation’s senior director of planning, were in-studio to discuss challenges facing the Jewish community.

Aside from the rolling cameras, the scene is not much different from the casual conversation that took place earlier in the green room. “That’s part of my style in interviewing,â€? said Siemiatycki. “It’s not a confrontational interview, it’s not an exposĂŠ; it’s really to help them get the message out about what they are doing.â€?

The episode’s second segment featured public school teacher Patrick Mascoe and

Host Benita Siemiatycki talks with guests Kitty Slate (centre) and Toby Yan about Terry’s Cookbook: Tastes and Tales of Terry Schwarzfeld on the February 2011 episode of Shalom Ottawa.

Nathalie Sirois, director of L’institut canadien pour l’Êducation sur les gĂŠnocides, talking with Siemiatycki about Holocaust and genocide education. “No one trained me to be a TV host,â€? Siemiatycki explained. “You sit down and they just put a microphone on you. There’s no makeup, there’s no nothing ‌ I was kind of thrust into it.â€?

Siemiatycki studied journalism at Concordia University in the late-1970s and early-80s and went on to write for a consulting firm, do health promotion for the Ontario Breast Screening

Program, and found Health Wise Ottawa magazine.

Now, she is co-ordinator of the Jewish Ottawa InfoCentre, located on the second floor of the Soloway Jewish Community Centre. There, Siemiatycki provides information about the agencies, organizations, synagogues, schools and private businesses that serve Ottawa’s Jewish community. “Having me associated with Shalom Ottawa helps create more visibility for the InfoCentre as well,� said Siemiatycki, who became the Shalom Ottawa host about three years ago.

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We have made loans for any worthwhile purpose, including: • Medical and dental expenses • Bar/Bat Mitzvahs • Weddings • Tools of the trade • Home repairs • Purchase of furniture and appliances • Automobile repairs • Purchase of an automobile • Debt consolidation • Travel to visit a sick relative If you need a loan please attend at our office at Suite 301, 2255 Carling Avenue any Wednesday evening between 6:30 and 8:00 or call us at 613 722-2225, extension 319

“We have so many organizations in our community I had no idea existed before I came here. So Shalom Ottawa is really there to spread the word about the wealth and the breadth and the diversity of our Jewish

community,� she said.

Although the programming is mostly event based right now – “the who, what, when, where and why of whatever is going on,� as Siemiatycki put it – she says she’d like to start focusing more on issues. “Issues are more complex,� she said, mentioning past issue-based shows, such as Rabbi Ely Braun’s discussion on caring for elderly parents, and her interview with a representative from Ten Yad, an organization that offers crisis assistance to individuals and families in the Jewish community.

Other future plans include more on-location reports from community events like the ones she did at the 2010 Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration, and, in May, at the Multifaith Housing Initiative Charity Walk.

She is also exploring suggestions from the community, including the possibility of a cooking segment.

One of Siemiatycki’s

goals, she says, is to reach people and encourage them to further their community involvement.

Even though Shalom Ottawa has been around since 1973 – it was started by the National Council of Jewish Women on Skyline Cablevision – Siemiatycki expressed frustration that it has not been publicized enough.

Still, she has had some success in her objective of connecting with community members. “I got stopped by a woman in Loblaws saying, ‘I know you, I know you.’ You think nobody watches and you’re surprised every once in a while,� she said. “It’s a great vehicle to meet really interesting individuals who contribute to making us who we are.�

Shalom Ottawa airs on the fourth Sunday each month and is repeated twice during the following week on Rogers Cable 22 (check your TV listings).

Begin the New Year with a friendly and inspiring experience Conservative egalitarian High Holy Day services conducted by our lay leaders Spiritual leadership by Gadi Capela , Jewish Theological Seminary Rosh HaShanah - Sept. 28-30, 2011 Yom Kippur - Oct. 7-8, 7 8, 2011 Soloway Jewish Community Centre 21 Nadolny Sachs Private Annual Membership: $499/family, $300/single (Includes High Holy Days seats) 50% off to families with children enrolled in Jewish schools Assisted Listening Devices (ALD) on request One month High Holy Day Services Membership: $190/person University students: no charge Adath Shalom, a member of the Ottawa Vaad Ha'Ir and Ottawa Jewish Federation since 1979, invites you to attend our services held throughout the year at the Jewish Community Campus chapel.

Our members enjoy a flourishing spirit of chavurah, leading services, participating in lively weekly discussions of the Torah portion, and joining in social action projects.

We're a vibrant egalitarian Conservative (USCJ) congregation.

Together we strive to extend our caring to the Jewish community and world needs.

Contact 613-240-4564 www.adath-shalom.ca

shana tova

Page 18 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

High Holidays feature

Prayer and justice work: the perfect complements

By Rabbi Jill Jacobs (JTA) – In contemporary Jewish discourse, the worlds of the synagogue and the worlds of service and advocacy sit far apart. The former is a place of introspection, of prayer and of relationship with God. The latter is a place of action and engagement in the world.

Many of us distinguish between religious Jews and secular Jews. Religious Jews attend synagogue, observe Shabbat and keep kosher. For secular Jews, their primary involvement comes through culture and justice.

But these boundaries

between prayer and justice, and between the internal and the external, are foreign to Judaism. Halachah, most often translated as “Jewish law,” literally means “the way to walk.” To be a Jew is to walk through the world in a Jewish way. This Jewish way includes contemplation and action, prayer and service, relationships with the Divine and relationships with other human beings.

On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, many Jews spend more hours in the synagogue than at any other time during the year. For this reason, these holidays can feel

Shana Tova!

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purely contemplative. Yet Rosh Hashanah is also yom teruah, “the day of sounding the shofar,” when we hear the sound the Torah associates with liberation. And Yom Kippur morning is punctuated with Isaiah’s call to “loose the chains of injustice … to set the oppressed free.”

These intrusions of real-life politics into the contemplative business of prayer remind us that prayer and justice work were never meant to be separate realms of behaviour.

Rather, the two constitute complementary aspects of an integrated Jewish life. In this integrated life, prayer and ritual push us toward justice work and sustain us in these efforts.

We often think of prayer as a one-way conversation with God. We praise God for everything that is good in the world and beg for supernatural forces to change what is not. Instead, we might understand prayer as a two-way exchange that includes a challenge to us as well as an appeal to God.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs (Photo: Thomas Evans)

For example, Jews each morning traditionally recite a series of blessings about everyday miracles. We give thanks for our vision, our freedom, our clothing and our other basic needs. For those who have what they need to survive, these blessings remind us to be grateful for what we have, even when every one of our desires might not be fulfilled. For those who are struggling to get by, these blessings offer hope that our situations will improve.

For all of us, these blessings challenge us to create a world in which every person is free, and in which every person can meet the basic needs of his or her family. We cannot simply thank God for

opening the eyes of the blind without considering how we can make the world more accessible to people with physical limitations.

And we cannot thank God for giving us freedom without working to secure the freedom of the estimated 12 million people in the world who remain enslaved. Rather than allow us to retreat internally, prayer forces us out into the world.

At the same time, prayer provides a necessary check on the tendency of social justice activists to try to fix the world right now, no matter the cost to them or to others. Prayer, Shabbat and other rituals provide spiritual nourishment, the feeling that our work is connected to a broader whole,

www.raymondjames.ca/brianaarenau

and even a sense of humility.

Social justice work famously burns out many of the idealistic young people who sign up after college to be organizers or campaign workers. As for the longtime social justice activists, some begin to feel like the work is the only thing that matters. In many cases, this leads to long work hours and a never-ending sense of urgency. In the worst cases, some come to believe the relentless pursuit of the cause justifies bad behaviour toward others or the tolerance of abusive work environments.

Stopping to pray, to mark time or even to take off 25 hours for Shabbat is a means of acknowledging that even if we work every minute of every day, we’re not going to fix everything. This realization forces us to see ourselves as participants in a long-term struggle rather than as heroes able to repair the world on our own.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur may be days to sit in prayer and contemplation.

But this ritual does not constitute a break from justice work. Rather, these days should both nourish our justice work and challenge us to recommit to these efforts in the year ahead.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 19

YIZKOR -

2011 - 5772

Dear Friends, As we approach the Jewish New Year, our thoughts often turn to loved ones no longer with us. We also pray for the safety and well being of our sisters and brothers in Israel, who continue to experience danger and anxiety in their daily lives.

This year, funds raised from JNF Ottawa's High Holiday appeal will be directed to the Miles of Trees project.

People living in the area or working close to Gaza are exposed to regular missile rockets and sniper fire. Your contribution will help block the view from Gaza, creating a safe passage zone for citizens driving between communities, children on their way to school and soldiers on patrol.

In addition to trees providing protection from dangerous artillery, they provide other important benefits by helping to improve the

Oliver Javanpour, President JNF Ottawa

c“ga,

environment for future generations. Due to the extreme heat, asphalt on roads tends to buckle or even melt making driving increasingly difficult and incurring costly repairs. Trees will also prevent soil erosion which further protects the roads. Finally, the environmental impact of every tree planted is significant as each one will absorb one ton of CO2 over its lifetime, making planting crucial in order to offset the CO2 emissions.

Please consider supporting this project on the occasion of Yizkor, a tradition of charitable giving in memory of a beloved family member or friend.

Let the memory of our loved ones guarantee the future of the Jewish people and all of Israel.

On behalf of the board of directors and JNF staff, we wish you and your family a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year and peace to the people of Israel.

Susan M. Schwartzman, Coordinator JNF Ottawa

Gail Grief, Executive Director JNF Eastern Canada

MILES OF TREES HIGH HOLIDAY APPEAL I wish to make a donation to JNF in loving memory of: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Donor Name:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Address:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Postal Code:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tel:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Email: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $18 $36 $54 $72 $90 $108 $180 $360 $500 $720 METHOD OF PAYMENT I wish to pay by cheque enclosed

VISA

$1000

other $. . . . . . . . .

MASTERCARD (Please make cheque payable to Jewish National Fund)

Credit card number : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expiry date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cardholder name : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Please mail your donation to: Jewish National Fund of Ottawa, 11 Nadolny Sachs Private, Suite 205, Ottawa, Ontario K2A 1R9 You can also make an online donation at jnf.ca / Fax: (613) 798-0462 / Telephone (613) 798-2411 A tax receipt for your donation will be provided

shana tova

Page 20 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Federation’s new director of Initiatives for the Emerging Generation ready to conquer Ottawa

By Ilana Belfer Samantha Banks isn’t worried about making friends when she moves from Toronto to Ottawa, September 21, to become the Jewish Federation of Ottawa’s first ever director of Initiatives for the Emerging Generation.

“It’s my job to meet young professionals, so how lonely can I get?” Banks said.

The Federation first recognized that engaging young adults was a significant challenge at the 2007 community-wide symposium, Jeff Bradshaw, the Federation’s senior director of planning, explained.

Following four years of surveying, polling and strategizing, and a young adult symposium called openOttawa, Bradshaw said, “We’ve learned along the way we were building an artificial distinction in the Federation between groups of people,” he said. “No one was building bridges.”

In her new role, Banks will act as a hub, convening and uniting all the different organizations that exist for young professionals, regardless of whether they fall under the Federation’s umbrella, integrating them into Ottawa’s Jewish community-at-large.

Samantha Banks, the Federation’s new director of Initiatives for the Emerging Generation.

The job also entails reaching out to the individuals themselves, young adults aged 18 to 40, helping them facilitate programs, initiatives and campaigns they think will benefit other young professionals.

“I think it’s almost like a next step for me,” said Banks, who is set to officially graduate from Humber College’s fundraising and volunteer management program in November. Her internship, as a development

co-ordinator for the Stephen Leacock Foundation for Children, concluded September 12.

“I bring a lot of creativity and my own swagger to the position,” she said. “I’ve worked very hard to get here through my volunteer work and my education, but it was a battle. I’m honoured to have received the job.”

Her personal engagement in Jewish community leadership and activism began when she left Toronto in 2006 to attend Concordia University in Montreal, where she earned her bachelor of fine arts in contemporary dance.

When the Hillel campus co-ordinator pinpointed Banks “out of nowhere” and encouraged her to vote in the Hillel elections, she said she responded with “What’s Hillel?’”

But Banks said she fell in love with Hillel and, just one semester later, became Hillel’s social chair.

The next year, 2007, she served as co-president of Hillel Concordia, going on to become president of Hillel Montreal in 2008 and president of the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students in 2009, while sitting on the boards of directors for UIA Federations Canada, CIJA’s

University Outreach Committee, and Hillel Canada.

“I came from a bit of a sheltered environment. I spent 40 or 50 hours a week in a dance studio. When I finally stepped out of my shell … I found my voice,” said Banks, who was also vice-president special events for the Fine Arts Student Alliance and fine arts councillor for the Concordia Student Union.

After she graduated from Concordia, Banks returned to Toronto where she was involved in the Joel Schwartz Memorial Hockey Tournament, put on by Community Connect, and the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee. And she co-chaired Birthright’s first Toronto mega-event, which drew 800 people.

“I have my hands in a little bit of a lot of young professional networks in Toronto,” she said. “It’s in my blood that I love helping out my community, regardless of whether it’s been in Toronto or Montreal. I believe I am a Jew [who’s] part of the Diaspora,” said Banks. “I’m ready to conquer Ottawa.”

Banks’ goal, she said, will be using her experiences to bring new ideas to the table in order to meet the

expectations set out by her target demographic, particularly those put forth at the openOttawa symposium and follow-up meetings.

Finally, she said she’d like to build up the reputation of the director of Initiatives for the Emerging Generation position to make it known that an outlet exists to help young professionals engage in the community.

Banks said she hopes to keep these young adults engaged – donating, attending events, participating in holidays and celebrations – until they have a family and move on to the next age bracket.

Ottawa is a transient city for some in the emerging generation demographic.

“I want people to know that, when they’re on Parliament Hill working for six months, there’s going to be some sexy philanthropic endeavour for them to be part of,” she said.

Banks sees herself in Ottawa for as long as the position allows her to excel at it.

“I’m so excited to be in a new scene with new people and do what I do best and feel the vibe,” she said. “I invite all the young professionals to call me up and sit down with me for a coffee.”

Or Haneshamah welcomes visiting clergy

By Michael Salter Or Haneshamah Or Haneshamah (OrH), Ottawa’s Reconstructionist community, is looking forward to visits from both a rabbi and a rabbinical student this year, and welcomes everyone to join the congregation for services and other events.

We begin the season by welcoming Rabbi Marna Sapsowitz, who will lead OrH in this year’s High Holy Day services.

“I am thrilled to be coming to Or Haneshamah for the Yamim Nora’im, and I look forward to the sacred time we will build together,” said Rabbi Sapsowitz.

Rabbi Sapsowitz has a passion for the revival of liberal/progressive Jewish communities

in Eastern and Central Europe, and has spent time working with congregations in both Prague and Warsaw, and improving her Yiddish.

Rabbi Sapsowitz was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) in 1989 and served Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia, Washington for 13 years. She later served congregations in Boston and near Seattle in an interim capacity, has been a visiting rabbi for many other congregations, and has twice been an Alaska cruise ship rabbi.

Beginning in October, rabbinical student Amy Loewenthal will be providing spiritual and educational leadership to OrH. Amy is in her final year of studies at the RRC and will be ordained in June 2012.

“I’m looking forward to a busy final year at RRC,” Amy said, “and especially to serving Or Haneshamah during my monthly visits.”

Amy loves to lead davening and has been called “that rabbi who rocks out” and a leader who “prays with her whole body.”

Rabbinical students who work with OrH visit on the first weekend of each month, and have a busy schedule. They meet on Friday night with the OrH b’nai mitzvah group, lead Shabbat services, teach adult education sessions on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, and usually squeeze in time for pastoral visits.

Amy grew up in New York City, attended university and (Continued on page 21)

Reconstructionist rabbinical student Amy Loewenthal will visit Or Haneshamah monthly beginning in October.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 21

OrH rabbinical student had first career as teacher (Continued from page 20)

enjoyed a first career teaching math and science in high school and college. She then became a Jewish educator and service leader. She served at the Reconstructionist affiliate Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia and Chavurah B’Yachad in Salt Lake City.

Amy also studied music at Centralia College and is a member of the Women Cantors Network.

Amy then began her rabbinical studies at the RRC in Philadelphia, all the while experiencing different facets of Jewish life, including receiving training in clinical pastoral education at Jefferson Hospital and working as a

chaplain. Amy’s required academic year in Israel turned into two full years of study in university and yeshiva.

For Amy, designing a prayer service is like planning a lesson, because it involves imagining the experience that she wants the community to have, choosing and arranging elements within a framework, and mindfully considering modes of transmission, including active communal participation, that bring the experience of tefilah to life.

Through contacts with Christian, Jewish and Muslim interfaith groups, Amy has developed an interest in interfaith work and

inter-religious text study. She is interested in commonalities and differences, and has recently been learning about Musawah, a movement with a feminist, almost Reconstructionist approach to Islam.

Or Haneshamah, an egalitarian and democratic congregation, conducts its High Holy Day services at two locations in Ottawa.

We also offer child care and childcentred family services. High Holy Day passes are available for the month of Tishrei, beginning on Erev Rosh Hashanah, September 28, until the end of Simchat Torah on October 21. For more information, visit orh.ca.

Special Limited New Year Offer START your LOCAL subscription: ONE YEAR for just $25 See page 40 for more information.

Rabbi Marna Sapsowitz will lead High Holiday services for Or Haneshamah.

The Royale Kanata wishes you and your loved ones a happy, prosperous, sweet new year.

3501 Campeau Drive, Kanata, Ontario K2K 0C1

shana tova

Page 22 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

‘Hand of Label’ felt everywhere at Congregation Machzikei Hadas

By Irv Osterer for Congregation Machzikei Hadas After a lifetime of dedication to Congregation Machzikei Hadas and Ottawa’s Jewish community, Label and Leona Silver are moving to Toronto to be closer to their children and grandchildren.

Label traces his Ottawa roots back to his Russian grandparents who were among the first 10 Jewish families to settle here. His grandparents settled in Lowertown, then the heart of the Jewish community, and were members of Machzikei Hadas from its inception.

Label finished his education at the Ner Yisrael Yeshiva in Baltimore and returned to Ottawa and a long career in the civil service. A meeting with the late Saul Saslove, then president of Machzikei Hadas, set him on the path of community service and dedication to the congregation.

Label went on to serve the congregation with distinction in a wide variety of offices under 21 presidents and three rabbis over the next

60 years. There’s hardly a shul office or activity that he has not been involved with in some way.

He was on the committee to hire Congregation Machzikei Hadas’ first rabbi and was involved in the decision to bring Rabbi Reuven Bulka to Ottawa.

For five years, he and Bert Koenig ran a very successful junior congregation. He filled the very demanding and sensitive role of parnass with distinction on Murray Street and was part of the group that made the difficult, but necessary, decision to move the shul from downtown to Alta Vista.

Label resumed his duties as parnass for the first few years on Virginia Drive, even though this meant disruption to his family life and phone calls at all hours of the day and night.

Label served on the Ottawa Talmud Torah board for 18 years, and helped fund a seed program that led to the establishment of the Ottawa Torah Institute where he was a board member for 29 years. He was Machzikei’s representative on the

Jewish Community Council of Ottawa/Vaad Ha’Ir and the Ottawa Vaad HaKashrut. He and Leona have also been volunteers at Hillel Lodge.

Many people know Label from the shul’s daily minyans where he acted as gabbai since 1989.

With considerable pride, he says Machzikei Hadas is the only congregation in Ottawa that has been able to sustain a minyan for morning and evening services, giving every Jew in the nation’s capital the opportunity to say Kaddish or observe a Yahrzeit on any given morning or afternoon without the threat of disruption or cancellation.

Label says none of his exemplary work would have been possible without the support and encouragement of his wife Leona, who cared for their three children when he was called to duty by the shul’s committees and boards. Leona also served as president of Mizrachi.

When asked about the most meaningful role he has filled in his many years of dedicated service, Label said he’s particularly proud

Label and Leona Silver were lauded for their contributions to Congregation Machzikei Hadas.

(Photo: Irv Osterer)

of calling the shofar notes for the rabbi on Rosh Hashanah and at the conclusion of Yom Kippur services.

Just a few of Label and Leona’s contributions to Congregation Machzikei Hadas and Ottawa’s Jewish community have been noted in this article. It would take many more pages to list them all. At a

well-attended barbecue held in Label and Leona’s honour, Rabbi Bulka expressed the feelings of the entire congregation when he said he could see the “hand of Label” everywhere and that he could not think of any two people who had made a more lasting contribution to the shul.

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 23

SJCC offers eclectic fall programs for adults

By Roslyn Brozovsky Wollock Soloway JCC From author talks and Jewish education classes to a splendid October Sunday morning walking tour of Old Chelsea, Quebec, the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is your destination for adult recreation, entertainment and learning opportunities this fall.

Biblical scholar Shawna Dolansky will present two Sunday morning talks: Life in Biblical Israel (November 13), in which participants will be walked through two days in the life of Abigail, one at the country estate she administers, and the other in King David’s palace in Jerusalem; and The Truth About Chanukah (December 11).

Lovers of Broadway tunes and the Yiddish theatre will want to reserve Sunday afternoon, October 30. Following the Ethel Cooper Yiddish Award presentation by University of Ottawa Professor Rebecca Margolis of the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program, singers from the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre in Montreal will perform a variety of show tunes in Yiddish and English.

Rabbi Steven Garten returns with a fiveweek course, The Maccabees: The Real Story, which examines how the struggle between Hellenism and the Israelite religion led to revolt by the Maccabees.

Rabbi Ely Braun’s course, The Hows, Whys and Misconceptions About Judaism, will describe and debunk some commonly

held misconceptions about Judaic practices.

Those interested in Hebrew, Modern Conversational Hebrew is offered at five different levels; Hebrew songs will form a large part of the repertoire of the Soloway JCC Shiru Lach Choir; and, a new course, Torah Cantillation, will be taught by Barbara Okun, the cantorial soloist at Temple Israel.

The magnificent imagery and colours of Marc Chagall provide the inspiration for a new art class, Judaic-Themed Painting, while the words of William Shakespeare provide the impetus for Shakespeare: A Fresh Perspective. This course will offer fascinating trivia about the Bard of Avon and the roots of many Shakespearean expressions still employed today such as “brevity is the soul of wit” and “parting is such sweet sorrow.”

To close the fall season, Montreal author, literary journalist and book reviewer Joel Yanofsky will discuss his latest book, Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education in Autism, an honest memoir about raising his autistic son, on Sunday afternoon, December 11.

These are just some of the eclectic offerings scheduled for adults this fall at the Soloway JCC. See the Soloway JCC Fall Program Guide or visit jccottawa.com for a complete list of events and courses including additional language, art, music, photography and dance classes. For information, contact me at rwollock@jccottawa.com or 613-7989818, ext. 254.

JET launches programming to start the New Year

By Ilana Novick JET Since our inception more than 19 years ago, JET (Jewish Education through Torah) has been reaching out to Jews of all denominations in the Ottawa area.

Through the years, the focus of JET programming and events has changed, but our mission has remained the same: to provide a wide variety of classes, programs, small group study opportunities and more, to Jews of all backgrounds and all levels of knowledge and practice. This year promises a continuation of past successes, as well as new endeavours and adventures.

JET will start the New Year with explanatory High Holiday services to be held in the social hall of Young Israel of Ottawa (627 Kirkwood Avenue). And, be sure to watch out for Sukkah party announcements.

While Lauren Shaps’ Thursday morning classes for women aren’t new, each year she brings something fresh to new and returning participants. This year’s classes, Wisdom for Life from Pirkei Avot and Everyday Spirituality: The Secret of Making Mindful Choices are both sure to please.

The popular Women’s Spa Day will take place January 22, and don’t forget to book off for Yarchei Kallah (Jewish Education Week) scheduled for July 8 to 14. In between, look out for information about the Jewish Unity Live Kickoff, the communitywide study project and the Jewish Unity Live event in May. Among JET’s new ventures this year is the Glebe Shul, a project of JET’s Young Professionals division, with Friday night dinners every second week. Another is the Men’s Israel Mission, led by Rabbi Zischa Shaps, from December 4 to 11.

JET’s first two missions for women, run in conjunction with the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project, met with great success. After the November trip, JET will have brought more than 50 Ottawa women on these women’s missions to Israel.

Through these women’s and men’s trips, family programming and various classes and dinners, JET is helping the Ottawa community strengthen its connection to Judaism, making it more vibrant, meaningful and inspiring for all.

For more information on programs, visit jetottawa.com or 613-798-9818, ext. 247.

JEWISH NATIONAL FUND OF OTTAWA

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RESERVE THE DATE!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011, 6:00 p.m.

Special Performance by Members of

The Ottawa Symphony Orchestra Dinner Chair

Vera Klein Honorary Co-Chairs

The Honourable Linda Frum Dr. Roseann O'Reilly Runte The Honourable Judith Seidman Master of Ceremonies

Rabbi Dr. Reuven P. Bulka

Friends of Israel, working towards our campaign goal . . .

ALL PROCEEDS WILL GO TOWARDS THE SDEROT RECYCLED WATER RESERVOIR For further information on tickets or sponsorship opportunities, call Susan at:

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Page 24 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

shana tova

Jewish Federation of Ottawa Annual Campaign kicks off

The Jewish Federation of Ottawa’s 2012 Campaign Kickoff, a sold-out event featuring comedian Joan Rivers, took place at the National Arts Centre on September 12, after this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin went to press.

Brothers (pictured from left) Jeff, Stephen and Michael Polowin were the event co-chairs.

Bulletin Editor Michael Regenstreif was on hand for the Kickoff and will report in the October 3 issue.

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 25

shana tova

Page 26 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about 9/11 persist 10 years on

By Dan Klein NEW YORK (JTA) – Osama bin Laden is dead. A new skyscraper is rising at the site of the old World Trade Center. Troops are withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ten years later, the physical legacies of the 9/11 attacks are fading into history. Yet, the conspiracy theories about who really was behind the attacks seem to be growing.

Like a drug-resistant virus, these fantasies have

persisted despite efforts to combat them by mutating over time, taking new forms and finding new modes of transmission. Jews and Israel often are their targets, and they evoke centuries-old myths about Jewish power, allegiances and manipulation of social institutions.

The conspiracy theories began almost as soon as the towers fell. Four days after the attack, the Syrian newspaper Al-Thawra reported that 4,000 Jews failed to show up for work at the

Shana Tova!

World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 after being warned by Israeli intelligence, according to a 2007 U.S. State Department document debunking the myth.

Another held that five Israeli students were secret Mossad agents who knew about the attacks and allowed them to happen. That myth eventually morphed into the conspiracy theory that the Israelis remotely directed the attacks.

Other myths have followed, spreading around the world and taking root even in the United States and Canada. Of 36,000 conspiracy videos recently found on the Internet, 16,000 implicated Jews or Israelis, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) titled Decade of Deceit: Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories 10 Years Later.

“What we’ve seen in the

last 10 years is the proliferation of a real propaganda industry surrounding September 11th,” said the director of the ADL’s civil rights division, Deborah Lauter.

“Prominent among those theories are those making anti-Semitism front and centre.”

The theories have amounted to more than just pernicious talk.

On June 10, 2009, one alleged 9/11 conspiracy theorist opened fire at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, killing a security guard. The perpetrator, James von Brunn, then 88, died before the case could come to trial.

Experts say 9/11 myths that blame the Jews are spreading freely from neoNazis and other white supremacists into new areas whose acolytes are not necessarily anti-Semitic but are unknowingly adopting the

The twin towers of the World Trade Center dominated the Lower Manhattan skyline prior to September 11, 2001.

tropes of classical antiSemitic conspiracy theories: anti-government radicals, young anti-war activists, New Age ideologues, and propagandists and journalists in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

“What’s changed is the proliferation of coded rhetoric to refer to Jews internationally and in the U.S,” said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a liberal think tank based in

Somerville, Mass. “They’re unprepared to recognize it even when they see it.”

Michael Barkun, a professor of political science at Syracuse University who has studied extremists and their ideologies, said, “They aren’t people who are terribly different from the population at large,” except that “they are more likely to be attracted to conspiracy theories.”

Alan Sabrosky, a colum(Continued on page 31)

The Ottawa Jewish Historical Society invites you and your friends to hear

Morris Schachnow speak about his

Early Sports Career including time in the New York Yankees’ Minor League System on

Wednesday, September 11, 2011 7:30 pm Agudath Israel Syngagogue 1400 Coldrey Avenue Refreshments served

Community welcome

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 27

High Holidays feature

Sweet season: Apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah

By Sybil Kaplan Jerusalem (JTA) – Among the familiar customs of Rosh Hashanah is the dipping of apple pieces in honey. But, what is its origin?

King David had a “cake made in a pan and a sweet cake” (II Samuel 6: 15, 19) given to everyone. Hosea 3:1 identifies the “sweet cake” as a raisin cake.

Honey also may have been used in the cake, but the honey of ancient Eretz Yisrael was made from dates or grapes or figs or raisins because the land at the time had no domestic bees, only Syrian bees. To extract honey from their combs, it had to be smoked.

Still, honey was of importance in the biblical times because there was no sugar.

During the Roman period, Italian bees were introduced to the Middle East, and bee honey was more common.

The Torah also describes

Israel as eretz zvat chalav u’dvash (the land flowing with milk and honey), although the honey was more than likely date honey, a custom retained by many Sephardic Jews to this day.

Today, Israel has some 500 beekeepers with some 90,000 beehives that produce more than 3,500 tons of honey annually. Kibbutz Yad Mordechai is the largest producer of honey – 10,000 bottles per day.

According to a Jerusalem Post article published in 2009, the average Israeli eats 125 apples and 750 grams of honey per year.

Israeli consumption of both apples and honey increases during the High Holy Days.

Among Ashkenazim, challah is dipped in honey instead of having salt sprinkled on it for the blessing, then the blessing is given over the apple, “May it be Your will to renew for us a good and sweet year,” which is dipped in honey.

Dipping the apple in honey on Rosh Hashanah is said to symbolize the desire for a sweet New Year. Why an apple? In the book of Genesis, Isaac compares the fragrance of his son, Jacob, to sadeh shel tappuchim (a field of apple trees).

Scholars tell us that mystical powers were ascribed to the apple, and people believed it provided good health and personal wellbeing.

Some attribute the using of an apple to the translation of the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit that caused the expulsion from paradise.

In Hebrew, the word dvash (honey) has the same numerical value as the words Av Harachamim (Father of Mercy). Jews hope that God will be merciful on Rosh Hashanah as He judges us for our year’s deeds.

Moroccans dip apples in honey and serve cooked

Jim Watson Mayor City of Ottawa

Happy New Year to the Ottawa Jewish Community

Shana Tova

Jim.watson@ottawa.ca • 613-580-2496 • Ottawa.ca/mayor 110 Laurier Ave West, Ottawa, On, K1P 1J1

Dates used by some for making date honey for Rosh Hashanah.

(Photo: Barry A. Kaplan/Jerusalem)

quince, which is an applelike fruit, symbolizing a sweet future.

Other Moroccans dip dates in sesame and anise seeds and powdered sugar in addition to dipping apples in honey.

Among some Jews from Egypt, a sweet jelly made of gourds or coconut is used to ensure a sweet year and apples are dipped in sugar water instead of in honey.

Honey is also used by Jews around the world not only for dipping apples, but in desserts. Some maintain in the phrase “go you way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,” sweet refers to apples and honey.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist and food writer in Jerusalem.

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shana tova

Page 28 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

High Holiday feature

Shana Tova

vcuy vba

Penny Torontow and Glenn Wolff

The Orthodox Community Ohev Yisroel 516 Rideau Street (between Cobourg and Augusta) Welcomes everyone to High Holiday services in Downtown Ottawa

Led by Rabbi David Rotenberg Principal of Ottawa Talmud Torah and Rabbi of Hillel Ottawa

Why come to Ohev Yisroel? ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

Traditional and inspirational services Warm and friendly atmosphere Affordable high holiday seats and membership Students attend for free

For information or prayer schedule go to: www.ohevyisroel.ca or call: 613-565-6194

Persian Jewish ‘Von Trapp’ offers new spin on penitence

By Dvora Meyers (JTA) – Growing up, Galeet Dardashti toured and performed with her father, Farid, a renowned cantor, performing Middle Eastern and Persian music throughout the United States and Canada as part of the Dardashti Family.

“We’ve been called the ‘Jewish Von Trapps,’” Dardashti says jokingly.

Dardashti, a mother of two in her mid-30s, is carrying on the musical mantle of her family, which stretches back several generations in Iran, on her own. The lead singer of Divahn, an all-female Middle Eastern ensemble, has a new solo show, Monajat, which premiered September 2 in Miami.

In Monajat, Dardashti has taken the 13th-century Sufi poem of the same name, which means ‘fervent prayer,’ and blended it into the traditional Persian songs and liturgy for Selichot, the penitential prayers recited by Jews in the days leading up to the High Holidays.

The show is the first commission of the New Jewish Culture Network. It features Dardashti performing some of the Persian piyyutim, or liturgical poems, traditionally chanted by men as part of the Selichot service, as well as other liturgical and secular Hebrew and Persian poetry set to new music.

Dardashti first learned of “Monajat” while listening to recordings of her grandfather, Yona, a famous singer of Persian classical music as well as a cantor. At the end of his recitation of Selichot, he would freestyle to the poem in a manner consistent with other Persian classical singers.

“You choose poets you like and then you basically improvise to their poems,” Dardashti says, explaining her grandfather’s method. “It’s a cool thing he found this poem so thematically related to Selichot.”

Given Dardashti’s lineage, it may seem like her musical path was preordained. Yet, it came as a surprise, if not to everyone else, then at least to her.

“I didn’t think my music would take a major part of my career,” says the singer, who earned a doctorate in 2009 in anthropology with a focus on Middle Eastern and Arab musical performance in Israel.

She thought that her academic pursuits would occupy a more central position in her life. But, she recalls, in “Austin, Texas, as a graduate student, I started to do some music on the side. The music just took off in a way that I would not have expected.”

Galeet Dardashti

Dardashti began to receive recognition for her first album, The Naming, produced with the support of the Six Points Fellowship, which brought together stories about female characters from the Torah, Midrash and other sources to create a collage of Jewish texts, giving voice to such marginalized biblical women as Michal, the daughter of Saul and wife to David, who never bore any children, and Vashti, the wife of Achashverosh, who often is vilified in rabbinic literature.

While Monajat has no explicitly feminist message like The Naming, Dardashti does recognize that being a woman reciting Persian liturgical poetry is statement enough, especially in a community that does not have female cantors.

“I’m doing this sacred music from the Persian tradition basically as a chazzan, so I don’t think I need to do anything more,” she says.

Yet Dardashti has never encountered any resistance in her immediate family. Her father, recently retired, was a Conservative cantor at an Ashkenazic synagogue who encouraged his daughters to pursue their passions.

“I was never told this was a male realm,” she says.

For Dardashti, her new show is about helping people rediscover a powerful tradition.

“I’m hoping,” she says, “that people will come away from the performance with a new appreciation for the ritual of Selichot.”

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 29

Filmmaker Naomi Jaye was the 2009 recipient of Women in Film and Television Toronto’s Kodak New Vision Mentorship award.

Jaye to make first Yiddish feature film in 70 years

By Andy Levy-Ajzenkopf Canadian Jewish News Toronto film director Naomi Jaye is set to make Canada’s, and possibly North America’s, first Yiddish feature film in more than 70 years.

Jaye, 38, has spent the past four years scripting and developing her film, The Pin. It’s the story of an elderly, isolated shomer who comes face-to-face with his first love, Leah, when her body is brought to him in the morgue.

The event triggers a series of flashbacks to Lithuania during the Second World War, when the young couple spent their courtship on the run and hiding from the Einsatzgruppen, the paramilitary death squads that killed thousands of Jews and others throughout German-occupied Europe.

Without giving too much of the story away – the film has not even been entirely cast yet – Leah’s re-entry into the shomer’s life all these years later allows him to fulfil a promise she made him swear to keep: to prick her hand with a pin to ensure she is truly dead before burial.

Jaye said the film, which is still in development, was inspired by her grandmother, who had an intense fear of being buried alive and made Jaye’s father promise to stick a pin in her hand after she died to ensure she was dead before being placed in a coffin.

“This story always fascinated me, because it required an act of true love that was also an act of violence,” Jaye wrote in the press kit for the film.

Jaye said the film would be a very “quiet” one, with minimal dialogue. But what dialogue there is will be mostly in Yiddish, the language the shomer and Leah would have spoken as young Jews in Lithuania.

There will be English subtitles.

“It wasn’t my intention to make a Yiddish film,” she said. “It was my intention to make a beautiful, poetic film. It’s a film that speaks to the larger issues of hatred and intolerance, about coming to terms with the past and making peace with it.”

The theme is a familiar one to Jaye, who said she’s always been drawn to stories about men who “have isolated themselves and are then forced to connect again.”

Asked why this is, Jaye laughed and responded she didn’t know. “It must say something about me, but I have no idea what.”

She said she’s always been a huge fan of intimate movies that depict “something of humanity” and wants to emulate that in her own filmmaking.

Jaye said she grew up in a traditional Jewish home, but decided that organized religion wasn’t for her. She said when she turned 18 she rejected her Judaism, but that when she started making films in 1999, she discovered all her projects were linked by a common thread: Jewish content.

“I have come to realize that my Jewishness is innate to who I am. It is a part of my genetic code, my emotional history, and as such, it forms a huge part of the images that swirl around my imagination and eventually become my films,” she wrote in the literature promoting The Pin. Jaye won the Women in Film and Television Toronto’s 2009 Kodak New Vision Mentorship award.

That award – which provides the recipient with a $5,000 donation of film stock – and subsequent grants of $20,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and an Ontario Arts Council production grant for $39,000 have helped move production along.

For more information, visit www.thepinmovie.com.

shana tova

Page 30 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

High Holidays feature

The Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program at the University of Ottawa would like to invite you to

Jewish Canadian Studies in the Community Featuring the presentation of the The Petigorsky Family Scholarship and Guest Speaker: Anna Sheftel, Conflict Studies, Saint Paul University “The General Idea Was That We’d Never Make It”: Holocaust Survivors at the Periphery and Centre of Montreal Jewish Life

Sunday, September 25th, 2011 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm University of Ottawa Room 129, Simard Hall 60 University Private Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5 For more information, please visit www.Vered.uOttawa.ca

Make this the year of the apology

By Dasee Berkowitz (JTA) – In Bernie Taupin’s words to the Elton John song, why is it that “sorry seems to be the hardest word?”

With a sense of schadenfreude, we take sport in watching political leaders and celebrities fall from their pedestals and lie in their attempt to cover up the scandal du jour. We relish TV shows like The Good Wife based on character transformations of unfaithful partners and the public (and private) humiliation that comes from admitting wrongdoing.

We have the luxury of being removed from the eye of the storm and think if only they had apologized in the first place, they could have saved face or their career, relationship, reputation, or life.

Of course, we know it’s not so easy to say we’re sorry. For all that I think I am emotionally evolved, I have had many an argument with my spouse, family members and colleagues in which the defensive wall shoots up and nothing short of a sledgehammer can bring it down.

The reticence to admit our own mistakes starts young. I saw it as my three-year-old struggled through his first real apology.

After he hit me – something slightly more forceful than a love tap and weaker than a full-on whack – and I doled out the requisite scolding, my husband and I insisted that he articulate an apology.

With several tries and averting his big green eyes, a sheepish grin crept over his face and he stammered, “S-ahw-reee.”

His experience held up a mirror to my own. It’s hard to admit when we are wrong and sometimes even harder to take responsibility for it. My son covered his embarrassment by not looking at me squarely in the eye.

Some of us don’t look at our wrongdoings, period. We justify our actions, blame others or deny there was a problem in the first place.

Facing our inadequacies and doing teshuvah, or returning to our best selves, is exactly what we are challenged to do beginning in the month of Elul and continuing through Yom Kippur. Many of us sit in synagogue and pound our hearts reciting a litany of al chaits (confessions) about how we missed the mark, vowing to do better next time.

The High Holidays present us with the imperative to live every day with the same sense of moral intensity as if it were our last, as Rabbi Eliezer teaches. This is the period that makes us aware of how fragile our lives are, a time in the Jewish calendar cycle and liturgy in which we are confronted with the possibility of our own mortality.

We are jolted into an awareness of how to live our lives more fully. By taking responsibility for our actions and repairing

Dasee Berkowitz

broken relationships, we can enjoy deeper connections to others – essential ingredients to a fuller life indeed.

While most of us log our greatest number of synagogue hours during the High Holidays, we must go outside the synagogue to do the important interpersonal work of the season. The medieval philosopher Maimonides sums this up nicely regarding Yom Kippur, saying in the Laws of Repentance that “repentance (or teshuvah) and Yom Kippur atone only for sins between the person and God … but sins against other people such as injuring, cursing or stealing are never atoned for until he has paid what he owes the person and appeased him.”

Doing the work of asking for forgiveness from another person is critical. Teshuvah, however, does not happen by issuing a single apology; it is a process. For Maimonides, it included three essential steps: regretting bad behaviour and confessing wrongdoing; rejecting the bad behaviour by not repeating it when a similar situation arises; and resolving not to do it again.

The phrase “I’m sorry” kicks off a process of profound self-transformation. In Maimonides’ book, a person who has done real teshuvah is as righteous as one can get.

Sound appealing? This High Holidays season, let it be your “year of the apology.”

Make a list of one or two people you have hurt in some way. During the 10 days of repentance, which fall between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, make a point to reach out to them. Admit your wrong, share your regret, refrain from repeating the behaviour and resolve to behave differently in the future. Most likely they will ask you for forgiveness as well.

As the Rambam said, be open to offering forgiveness, lest you turn into the sinner.

Let this High Holidays season be a time for sincere apologies. It’s not just something we say, it’s something we embody.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 31

Conspiracy theories: ‘strange world where right and left mix’ (Continued from page 26)

nist for Veterans Today, an antiSemitic website, is one of most widely cited sources for antiSemitic 9/11 myths, according to the ADL. Sabrosky has declared his mission to “contain” Israel’s ambition by exposing Israel’s alleged role in 9/11 and maintains that Washington and New York are the centres of “Zionist power.”

Citations of Sabrosky’s work pop up not just on extreme-right websites but on pro-Palestinian websites such as Mondoweiss, Arab media sites and the Internet newsletter Dissent Voice, which describes itself as “a radical newsletter in the search for peace and social justice.”

“This is a strange world where the right and the left mix, with antiSemitism shot through,” said Scott Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report. “On the left it is shot through with anti-Zionism, on the right the fear of the international Jew.” A 2008 poll of 17 representative nations by the Center for International Security Studies at the University of Maryland found that only nine of the countries surveyed

The World Trade Center in New York City moments after the second tower was hit by a hijacked airplane on September 11, 2001.

had majorities who believed alQaeda orchestrated the attacks.

Most of those who believed otherwise did not implicate Israel, however. Instead, they said they did not know who was behind the attacks or blamed the United States. In Russia, Israel-related conspiracy theories were at two per cent of those polled. In Kenya, three per cent believed in Israel-related

myths. In Indonesia, the number was five per cent.

In the Middle East, however, the numbers were much different. In Egypt, 43 per cent of respondents blamed Israel for 9/11. In Jordan, 31 per cent blamed Israel. In the West Bank and Gaza, the numbers were slightly lower. In Turkey, however, only three per cent believed Israel was behind the attacks.

Warmest New Year Wishes from…

Conservative columnist Daniel Pipes, who has written two books on conspiracy theories, says such theories about Jews are a fringe element in the West, but are par for the course in the Middle East, where he said “they are spread by the mainstream media, leading intellectuals and politicians.”

Pipes considers 9/11 conspiracy theories a relatively benign false

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belief akin to theories about the Kennedy assassination – widespread, but not leading to damaging consequences.

The impact of the many 9/11 conspiracy theories is still not entirely clear.

“We’re in a period where the boundaries between the mainstream and the fringe have become quite blurred,” Barkun said. “Once they were more distinct. Once most people were not exposed to them, or if they were, it was to have them debunked. Now they move quite readily into the mainstream.”

Barkun added, “This shift in which these ideas have entered the mainstream is so recent that I don’t think we are in a position to know what the social effects are.”

Berlet said he worries that 9/11 conspiracy theories are fuelling the rise of anti-Semitic rhetoric in major public forums.

“It is horrifying. It creates a hunt for an enemy and undermines the very concept of democratic society,” he said.

“You would think that decent people would stand up and say enough. It’s spreading and our leaders lack the backbone to confront it.”

shana tova

Page 32 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Guest Column

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By Ilan Liebner Advocacy Co-ordinator Hillel Ottawa I was a researcher at Harvard in the summer of 2006 and about to leave for Israel to pursue my MA at Hebrew University. So, I was keenly following the news from the Middle East.

It was then that Hezbollah terrorists tore through the Israeli border and attacked an IDF convoy, killing soldiers and shattering the already tenuous peace at the northern border.

When I arrived a few weeks later, Israel was at war. The northern region was closed to traffic, thousands were hiding in shelters and more had fled to the south to escape rocket fire. But, there too, conflict raged after the Gaza border had been violated and an Israeli soldier kidnapped.

That was a difficult year in the Middle East, yet Israel overcame and is stronger today.

This New Year will also be a challenging one, though, we hope, a peaceful one. Threats are mounting against Israel in Egypt, in particular in the Sinai, while the intentions of the Iran, Syria and Hezbollah triangle are

unclear, with the middle piece – the Assad regime, which directly provides a haven for Hezbollah and Hamas – under domestic pressure and eager to divert attention elsewhere.

Moreover, the United Nations General Assembly is expected to vote on Palestinian statehood, all while the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas government in Gaza steadfastly refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The possibilities for an intensification of the struggle against the Jewish state, both in Israel, and internationally – in society and, markedly, on our campuses – are stark.

As the new advocacy co-ordinator at Hillel Ottawa, I’ll be responsible for supporting our students in presenting a fair understanding of Israel, and in taking pride in their identities and of what Israel has accomplished and will continue to accomplish.

The university campus should always be a place for open conversation and rigorous debate. When our students begin their university journeys, we expect them to come home with new perspectives on their identities, having been challenged

about how they see the world and having been given space to filter through details and arrive at new conclusions.

Yet, what many Jewish students are increasingly finding on campus is hostile propaganda led by radical student groups and targeted at excluding Jewish identity from such conversation and debate.

This campaign of delegitimization – which excludes Jewish identity, visà-vis the Jewish state, from the family of peoples – is not new. According to MP Irwin Cotler, we witnessed it in 1948 when Israel was spoken of as an “original sin,” in 1967 when Israel was spoken of as “a congenital act of aggression,” in 1975 at the shameful “Zionism is racism” conference.

What is new about this propaganda is the extent of its manifestation on our campuses, at our very seat of rigorous debate and, most nastily, under the guise of the human rights ideals for which we historically fought. Where hate and exclusion must not be, they have arisen.

This environment is challenging for (Continued on page 33)

Na’amat Aviva Chapter: Women helping women and having fun

By Toby Herscovitch Na’amat Aviva Chapter Want to learn how to make spring rolls, try your hand at quilting or dance to the sounds of salsa? These are just a few of the social programs planned for Na’amat Aviva Chapter’s new season beginning this month.

If you would like to contribute to a great cause, and would enjoy socializing with a group of talented women in their late-40s to early-60s, join us at one of our evening meetings to find out more.

The Aviva Chapter is part of Na’amat Canada, which has been enhancing the lives of women and children in Canada and Israel since 1925. A recent survey revealed our top three reasons for being part of Na’amat: making new friends, personal fulfilment and a desire to help other women and children. We support Na’amat through annual fundraising activities and modest membership dues. Every new member brings new ideas and new energy to the group.

For more information about the

Aviva Chapter, contact me at herstoby@hotmail.com. I can arrange for you to try out one or more of our gatherings, held at different members’ homes on one evening each month. There is no obligation to join – just start by finding out more and having fun.

There are also other Na’amat chapters in Ottawa geared to women of different ages. For more information, contact Annette Paquin at Naamat.ottawa@sympatico.ca or 613-722-2932.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 33

Many Jewish students feel identities are under assault

Golda Meir wanted Allies to bomb Auschwitz in 1944 (JTA) – Golda Meir, the future Israeli prime minister, wanted the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, researchers have learned.

Researchers from the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies found documents in Israeli and American archives that shed light on Meir’s support for the unsuccessful campaign

by Jewish leaders to persuade the Allied powers to bomb the Nazi death camp.

Meir, then known as Goldie Myerson, was then a senior official of Histadrut, the Jewish labour federation in British Mandate Palestine.

Amid reports of the deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, Meir and a Histadrut colleague cabled the labour federation’s U.S. representative, Israel Mereminski, on July 29, 1944 saying that the Allied powers must be

urged to bomb Auschwitz and the railways used to transport Jews to the camp.

Mereminski replied that he had contacted the U.S. government’s War Refugee

Board, which conveyed to “competent authorities” their request for the “destruction of gas chambers, crematories, and so forth.”.

Sherri Gennis & Michael Gennis are proud to announce the graduation of their son Max from McGill University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science & History.

Max will be attending Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto this fall.

Proud grandmother is Leona Pinkus.

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many Jewish students. They feel their identities are under assault, which makes them anxious about getting embroiled in arguments.

As Jewish leaders, we must not stand silent in this debate. We must make it clear that our students do have both the right and the responsibility to invoke their will in our spaces of rigorous debate when their identity is under assault.

What must be exposed as illegitimate – indeed, as the ultimate ad hominem attempt to suppress free speech is the discourse of hate, a discourse that excludes another’s right to invoke his or her will, that excludes one’s right to express his or her national aspirations. We are proud of our Hillel Ottawa Advocacy Co-ordinator Jewish identity, which includes peoIlan Liebner. plehood; and our universities ought to be spaces in which we can openly and embrace the ideals of justice with honestly state this. which each of us deserves to be treatThe question then becomes: How ed. do we engage our students in a way This means a discourse of respect that motivates, encourages critical and inclusiveness, a discourse open to thinking and embraces ideals of justice recognizing our faults and frailties, and human rights? and a discourse that leads us to quesOur first task – and if this sounds tion whether what we are doing leads trite, it shouldn’t – is to strive to toward a more respectful community

of nations. We must never evade this, but we must also be wary of those who will use it against us.

Second, we must reverse the narrative on our campuses and make it known that it is genocidal hate – the most heinous antithesis of all that we stand for – that is chiefly responsible for undermining efforts toward a resolution in the Middle East.

Third, we must recognize the importance of engaging students on a positive level, offering meaningful experiences in the community that inspire confidence in one’s identity and empower engagement in learning and social justice. Such activities draw our link to something beyond ourselves, give us a greater cause — in both the moment and in history – and lead us to solidify our peoplehood. I hope to work with students in such a way on our campuses this year.

I look forward to getting to know people in the community, to meeting with you and, most importantly, to learning from you. We each have ideas, messages that we would like to express about Israel, Jewish peoplehood and the world and I am always ready to listen.

Mazal Tov • Mazal Tov • Mazal Tov • Mazal Tov • Mazal Tov

(Continued from page 32)

Celebrations

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shana tova

Page 34 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Visit our web site: www.hillellodge.ca

LL

ife at the odge

Reflections of an 87-year-old Bat Mitzvah celebrant On May 22, 2011, five of our residents celebrated their Bat Mitzvahs at Hillel Lodge. Here are the reflections of one of these remarkable women, Anne Bokhaut Koffman, as retold by one of her children, Barry Bokhaut.

Her eyes sparkled when she told me the news. My 87-year-old mother, who had moved to Hillel Lodge after a lifetime in Winnipeg, would be celebrating her Bat Mitzvah with a group of four other residents.

She was excited by the prospect of having a Bat Mitzvah, but was agitated. “ I have to give a speech, and I don’t know what to say.”

I suggested that she talk about what her Bat Mitzvah meant to her, given her advanced age.

She readily agreed.

At the ceremony, my mother spoke about the religious significance of the event. She had spent her life as a Jew, most of it as a Yiddeshe mama. She had raised four children, ensuring that they all received a good basis in Judaism, both through formal education and through teaching by example.

She felt she really didn’t need a Bat Mitzvah to prove that she was Jewish.

She paused for a moment, then

Anne Bokhaut Koffman gives her Bat Mitzvah speech. talked about responsibility.

“For a 12-year-old, a Bat Mitzvah is about taking on the responsibility of adulthood, becoming accountable for one’s action,” she said. “It’s about becoming independent, about preparing oneself to rely less on family and more on one’s own abilities. It’s about

learning to make one’s own decisions.”

She paused and then continued.

“My Bat Mitzvah is about giving up responsibility. It’s about accepting that I have to rely more on family and friends for my daily needs. It’s about accepting that I am less accountable for my actions and deeds, that I am making fewer of my own decisions. It’s about learning to accept the help of strangers to take care of the things that I was so proud to do on my own in my younger days.

“For a younger Bat Mitzvah, dreams and aspirations are in the future. An eagerness to attain these goals. Excitement when they are realized.

“For me, for my fellow Bat Mitzvah participants, our dreams and aspirations have already been realized. They are now in our past.

“Our goal is to embrace our accomplishments, and be proud

of what we have done for ourselves. For our families. For our community. Our goal is to affirm, and to celebrate our past.”

Then she spoke about what it was like to be at Hillel Lodge.

“I have been part of a family. I have had the joy of watching my children grow. And have their own children. I shep nachas seeing my grandchildren become parents, and having children of their own.

“I have been blessed. I now have a new source of family, my Hillel Lodge family. It helps dull the pain of the losing family members. My husband Joe. My husband Max. My son Murray. They aren’t here to celebrate with me.”

My mother celebrated her Bat Mitzvah on May 22, 2011, and gave her speech about responsibility. It was an event, a right of passage that she, her fellow B’not Mitzvah, and their families and friends will never forget.

I certainly won’t.

The Bat Mitzvah girls (from left to right): Bernice Seward, Helen Trachtenberg, Shirley Winer, Anne Koffman and Flory Benbaruk.

If you want to make a difference in people’s lives (including your own), give volunteering at Hillel Lodge a try. The time commitment can range from a few hours per month to regular weekly or bi-weekly visits. To become a volunteer, please contact Marilyn Adler, our Manager of Recreation and Volunteer Programs.

Hillel Lodge is proud of the quality care we provide to our residents. Donations to the Lodge can be made in several ways: by going to our web site at www.hillellodge.ca; contacting the Long-Term Care Foundation at (613) 728-3900 extension 111; or e-mailing us at donations@hillel-ltc.ca

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 35

Hillel Lodge Expansion Just Months Away From Completion

By Jeff Miller Chair of Hillel Lodge West Wing Addition Fund Raising Committee It has been an exhilarating 12 months of achievement that began last spring when we received official approval from the Ontario Government. Over the summer, we have had steady success in our fundraising drive. We have seen timelines respected on the work site and the project is on budget. Across the board there are many reasons to feel good.

After so many years of patiently waiting to move forward with the expansion, we are now just months away from welcoming 21 new residents to Hillel Lodge.

The 21 new beds will help us significantly reduce the present average of 18 months on the waiting list. It will also provide our community with 21 more opportunities to “honour thy mother and father,” which has always been the guiding principle at Hillel Lodge. With the additional beds, Hillel Lodge will be home to 121 seniors who can no longer live independently.

Long-term care and services at the Lodge are recognized as top notch. Ontario health care officials have on occasion asked our management staff to mentor staff at other long-term care facilities to implement new programs and initiatives that were first tried at the Lodge.

Funding from the Ontario Government has never fully covered our costs because of our determination to offer a higher standard of care and more services than government funding alone covers. A good example is how we offer a one-to-one feeding assistance program for residents who require special individual support. The only way to afford better care and services for our residents is through generous donations from Ottawa’s Jewish community.

The cost of retaining a Jewish Kosher long-term care facility comes at a considerable premium. We do it to ensure that a Jewish Hillel Lodge will continue to be there tomorrow. We do it because our seniors should live in a home where Shabbat and Chanukah candles are lit. If our elders like matzo ball soup, then they should be able to enjoy matzo ball soup at their seders. They should have easy access to a chapel just around the corner from the main lobby to observe the Sabbath, High Holy Days and any other holidays and festivals.

As the immediate past president of

Hillel Lodge, and the current chair of the fundraising capital campaign, many people have expressed to me that Hillel Lodge is a crown jewel in the Ottawa Jewish community. It earns such high praise by providing the level of long-term care that it does. We have to ensure that this standard is maintained in the expanded Hillel Lodge.

To date, we have received generous donations from a growing number of community leaders for which we are so very thankful and appreciative. I want to take this opportunity to reach out to those who have not yet been approached.

We are at the stage of the campaign where the power of many can add up to significant dollars. For all those who have yet to make a commitment, this is your opportunity to participate. We are looking for donations to be paid over a five-year period. These donations are eligible for tax receipts.

I can promise you that as we enter the next phase of our $5.2 million fundraising drive, your generosity will help Hillel Lodge be the place where you would be proud to call home for your mother and father.

Please help us make Hillel Lodge 21 times better.

For donations please contact Bev Glube in the Foundation Office at 613-728-3900, ext. 111.

Infrastructure being completed.

Main hallway of addition.

Two of the rooms under construction.

shana tova

Page 36 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Have a knish: Carol Greenberg-style

By Cynthia Nyman Engel Knishes were introduced to North America by European Jewish immigrants around the turn of the last century and were popularized

by Romanian Rabbi Yonah Schimmel, who made his own knishes and sold them from a pushcart in New York City before opening a knish bakery storefront on Houston Street in 1910.

Every year for the past 25 years, as August winds down, Carol Greenberg puts out the call to her group of regulars.

“It’s time,” she says, and, by 9:00 am on the appointed day, the crew is seated around the Greenberg kitchen table, poised for action, rolling pins at the ready.

For the next four hours as puffs of flour waft over everything and everybody, the kitchen reverberates with laughter as 10 women roll dough then fill, roll, cut and shape 1,000 – yes, one thousand – minipotato knishes for the High Holidays. They make enough to feed the extended family and assorted guests who will grace Greenberg’s Rosh Hashanah table. And, of course, the “kitchen help” all leave with a quantity of the delightful delicacies.

“I need lots and lots of knishes

because we eat them on the Erev and both days of Rosh Hashanah,” explained Greenberg who, by the time the holiday is over, figures she’ll have topped up a total of 125 tummies with myriad knishes plus full Yom Tov fare.

Over the years, Greenberg switched to packaged potato flakes, but, 40 years ago, when she and her late sisters-in-law, Bess Greenberg and Jenny Shinder, were making knishes at the family cottage, they used to peel and boil giant-sized bags of potatoes.

“The Greenberg family wasn’t as large then, so, in those days, we only had to make several hundred knishes,” she chuckled. “Making knishes for Yom Tov has grown into a wonderful family tradition, something we look forward to doing together.”

Greenberg always schedules the annual event for late-August, before school starts, so that granddaughters Abigail and Elizabeth can join in.

The knishes are partially baked on large cookie sheets that go from oven to freezer. Once frozen, they’re popped into plastic bags of 100 and returned to the freezer until needed.

Making knishes (left to right): Judi Hoffman, Simmy Gardner, Abigail Greenberg, Reesa Greenberg, Elizabeth Greenberg, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer Carol Greenberg, Dena Gosewich, Kay Kerman, Alice Ayotte. Missing from the photo: Leanne Nicholson-Greenberg, who snapped the photo.

Family friend Dena Gosewich has been part of the culinary crew for many years.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she says. “I’m already looking forward to Purim when Carol whips up maxi-batches of Hamantaschen, and to Pesach when we meet back

in her kitchen to make knaidlach, meatballs and farfel muffins.”

Here’s what it takes to make 1,000 ready-for-Yom Tov miniknishes: 20 pounds of Rideau Bakery puff pastry dough; 20 pounds of Creative Kosher Catering caramelized fried onions (or fry up your

own); 10 packages of Idahoan potato flakes; and salt and pepper to taste.

You also need 10 helpers and four hours to do the deed!

“And,” said a laughing Greenberg, “don’t ever try to do this dressed in black.”

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 37

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Page 38 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Fully Jewish and fully Canadian (Continued from page 2)

Congregation Beit Tikvah of Ottawa invites you to celebrate with us as we honour

Rabbi Howard and Rivka Finkelstein for their 20 years of spiritual leadership at a

Gala Tribute Dinner on

Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 15 Chartwell Avenue.

The evening begins at 5:30 pm.

Tickets: $100/person or $180/couple RSVP by October 11th to 613-723-1800

while developing Iran’s own illegal nuclear program. Young Jews bear witness to the slandering of Israel on campus, both in and out of the classroom. Poverty among elderly Jews in Canada continues to be a serious concern, with some 16 per cent of those over the age of 75 living under the poverty line.

These are just a few of many pressing problems our community faces. Frankly, we have no time to lose. Together with our federation partners, we need to map out solutions and work with governments, at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. We need to build coalitions with like-minded Canadians across the country. And we must develop creative policy approaches that ensure we achieve the greatest impact possible.

As a community, we have an opportunity to position Canada as a leader on all of these issues – especially the cornerstones of human rights, social justice and the defence of Israel, all pillars of our predecessor organizations.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Board of Directors is an impressive and diverse roster of lay leaders from across the country. It consists of people from larger and smaller communities alike, stemming from a variety of professional backgrounds – including former parliamentarians from across the political spectrum. And, as the official representative of Canada’s pro-Israel community, I am proud to say the organization’s lay leadership also includes a number of prominent

non-Jews who are as committed as they are knowledgeable.

Our organization includes a professional staff of more than 40 outstanding individuals, representing a substantial depth of experience across a range of fields. Based in offices in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver, and with experience in corporate and non-profit leadership roles, as well as in Jewish community work, government, media and public opinion research, they are devoted to fulfilling our mandate with vigour and innovation.

Canada’s Jews, like Jews everywhere, have always been visionaries, demanding of themselves hard work, integrity and excellence. This is what inspires the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs as we begin a new chapter in Canadian Jewish life.

We recognize the stakes are high. We have been tasked with ensuring Canada remains a place where our children and grandchildren will always be free to be fully Jewish and fully Canadian – and contribute to building an even better country for all its citizens.

None of us would be here today if not for the sacrifices of those who came before us. I intend for Canadian Jewry in the next century to be able to make the same claim of our generation with authenticity. That’s why the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs will succeed in its vision – and settle for nothing less.

Shimon Fogel is CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 39

Exciting changes at Torah High

By Gaby Scarowsky NCSY Torah High, now entering our sixth year, is making some big changes.

NCSY’s successful accredited Jewish studies program allows Jewish students in public high schools to take a Jewish class and receive a high school credit. Our enrolment has grown every year reaching 101 students in the 2010-2011 academic year. Spurred by this tremendous growth, some exciting changes are happening.

The first major change is that Torah High has moved from Craig Henry Plaza into a brand new 1,000 square foot space in Centrepointe Plaza. The spacious facility is big enough for two Torah High classes to be held simultaneously and has a lounge area for breaks and other NCSY social and educational programs. Laptops, WiFi, a foosball table and Wii will make this a place teens will want to hang out.

“We are really excited for this large facility, which will have tons of space for our students,” said Bram Bregman, executive director

of NCSY Ottawa. “We want to make our new space a place where local Jewish teenagers feel comfortable learning about being Jewish and having fun at the same time.”

Torah High classes are taught in an interactive and discussion-like format by teachers who make the material relevant to today’s teenagers and who encourage their students to speak their minds.

“The lessons taught in class are exciting, but also are applicable to our normal, everyday life,” said Zach Silber, who chose to attend Torah High for all four years of high school. “Discussion was always welcome and we would be able to consider our interpretations and learn both sides of a story.”

Rabbi Yehuda Simes, dean of Torah High, is returning this school year and volunteering to be a guest lecturer for all Torah High classes, and to be involved with professional development.

Rabbi Ari Galandauer will be director of education working with Rabbi Simes.

“It is an honour and privilege to be working alongside someone of

(From left) Leah Susser, Jorey Cohen, Sapir Fellus and Aaron Naor at the Torah High Weekend Convention in Washington, D.C. Activities in Washington included a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Rabbi Simes stature, and to be doing so for an organization like NCSY is the cherry on top,” said Rabbi Galandauer.

Technology in the classroom will also be a focus in Torah High this year. Each classroom will be outfitted with a flat-screen TV connected to the Internet and course materials will be available online

for students to access.

The Torah High website has been revamped and will allow students to log in and check their marks and ‘Torah High hours.’ Students need to acquire 30 out-ofclass Torah High hours over the course of the school year, by attending programs such as weekend conventions, Shabbat dinners and Jew-

ish holiday events, which provide a fun and experiential way of learning about Judaism.

For more information about Torah High, to register a student or to make a donation in honour or in memory of someone, contact Bram Bregman at 613-2626279 or bram@ncsy.ca, or visit torahhigh.ca/ottawa.

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September 19, 2011 – Page 41

Section Two

september 19, 2011

Volunteer spotlight

Decades of volunteering has a huge impact on the community

By Benita Siemiatycki There have been many volunteers who have worked tirelessly in the Jewish community, but rarely has one demonstrated the longevity to compete with Miriam Levitin. For almost 50 years, Miriam has devoted her time, energy and even her home to enriching the lives of other people.

Born in Winnipeg, Miriam moved to Ottawa at the age of five with her family. She married her husband, Nathan, after the Second World War, and his work in the Royal Canadian Air Force took them to live for stints in Prince Edward Island and London, England.

In 1965, after returning from London, Miriam settled in to Ottawa permanently and began volunteering for Jewish organizations. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary of Congregation Agudath Israel and helped run their Nearly New Shop, which brought in about $50,000 annually.

From 1970 to 1972, Miriam served as president of the Auxiliary. This meant chairing the Cinderella Ball, a major community event with dinner, dancing and entertainment. The highlight of the year for many people, the Ball served as the collection point for the used clothing that stocked the Nearly New Shop.

After many years with the Auxiliary, Miriam brought her substantial organizing skills to Hadassah-WIZO. She recognized that there was a gap in programming for seniors and thought of ways to expand their social lives.

She launched a program of regular lunches that attracted between 40 and 80 people to Congregation

Rabbi Eli Neuhaus in his paint store.

Kollel rabbi goes into the paint business

Volunteer extraordinaire Miriam Levitin in her garden.

(Photo: Benita Siemiatycki)

Beth Shalom. At that time, many Jewish seniors lived in the Sandy Hill area and could easily get to the synagogue. For seven years, Miriam was the heart and soul of the lunches, running a committee that created the menu, cooked the meals and arranged entertainment.

In 1985, Miriam became chair of the Ladies Reception Committee for Newcomers. The committee met regularly to plan two annual teas to which newcomers to Ottawa were invited. This was an important opportunity for women to meet other women who were new to Ottawa and facing the challenges of settling in and, more importantly, to help them connect to the Jewish community.

The teas are still ongoing and have benefited hundreds of newcomers over the years.

A decade ago, when Active Jewish Adults (AJA) 50+ was formed, Miriam again turned her attention to helping seniors.

Along with Estelle Gunner, she worked on Creative Connections, the AJA 50+ program for older seniors. Every Tuesday for the past 10 years, Miriam has made a point of being at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (JCC) to help out.

Early on, Miriam and Estelle planned the activities and facilitated the entire day. The Creative Connections participants were more mobile than they are now, (Continued on page 42)

By Zev Singer for the Kollel of Ottawa Until this year, the only fulltime job Rabbi Eli Neuhaus ever held was professional student. His work materials were Talmudic tracts; his desk was a book stand.

Now things are changing for him, and in a way that may shed a bit of light on Ottawa’s Orthodox community.

Since 2008, Rabbi Neuhaus (pronounced ‘new house’) has been one of the rabbis of the Kollel of Ottawa, who learn together during the day and study with community members in the evening. Kollels, which are common in centres with large Jewish communities, pay serious Torah students to keep learning for a few years after they get married.

Earlier this year, with his 30th birthday approaching, and with a growing family of three daughters, Rabbi Neuhaus reached the point along the yeshivish trajectory where he was ready to make the transition to the next stage: venturing out of the study hall and into the world of the working man.

Now he’s out in the world, and up to his sidelocks – in paint. A few months ago, an opportunity came along to take over the Ultralux paint shop at 160 Spruce Street that supplies both contractors and homeowners. Rabbi Neuhaus still spends part of his day at the Kollel, but, now, in the mornings, instead of Jewish legal volumes, he’s studying inventory and ways to attract new customers.

Maybe it’s apt, in a way, that, after living his first three decades in black and white (black hats and jackets, white shirts), he is now selling the full spectrum of colours, with a big rack of paint cards that work through all the minute differences of shade.

So, how do customers react when they see him in his yarmulke and tzitzis (fringes) and payos (the sidelocks he tucks behind his ears)?

It’s been going well, he says.

He’s had a comment or two from people curious to know how a rabbi comes to be running a paint business, but nothing more.

“So far my experience has shown that people are very respectful and pleasant.”

The real surprise, though, in Rabbi Neuhaus’ case, isn’t the transition to business – it’s the fact he and his family are staying in Ottawa. Born and raised in Brooklyn, educated in Montreal, Jerusalem and Lakewood, New Jersey, Rabbi Neuhaus is accustomed to living in the world’s largest Jewish centres, with enormous frum (Torah-observant) populations.

This is one of the challenges for the Kollel of Ottawa, and the community around it. Most of the rabbis who are recruited to the Kollel are from places with large observant populations. Historically, when these rabbis reach the end of their Kollel years and move on, they move away from Ottawa.

(Continued on page 42)

shana tova

Page 42 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Several Kollel rabbis hope to stay in Ottawa (Continued from page 41)

Of the 11 rabbis who have moved on from the Kollel since it opened eight years ago, only one has remained in Ottawa (that’s Rabbi Menachem Friedman, now a

teacher at Torah Academy of Ottawa and cantor at Young Israel Congregation).

“We think it’s a vibrant community,” Rabbi Neuhaus says. “We see ourselves staying here if we make a

success of the business.”

For Ottawa frumsters, the fact the Neuhaus family is trying to make a go of it in Ottawa is encouraging, especially since there are other Kollel families

who are also thinking of staying.

Rabbi Moshe Koff, another Kollel rabbi, will also go part-time this year at the Kollel and begin teaching at Yitzhak Rabin High School and the Talmud Torah.

Beit Tikvah’s quilting day to be repeated this fall

By Marion Silver-Brass For Beit Tikvah Imagine yourself in a hospital cancer unit undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

Now picture yourself in this same scenario, but wrapped in the physical and spiritual warmth of a quilt that has been gifted to you. That is the mission of Victoria’s Quilts Canada, a non-profit organization committed to providing quilts for cancer patients.

Betty Giffin brought Victoria’s Quilts to Canada in 1998. That year, 16 quilts were distributed. Since then, more than 10,000 quilts have been delivered free of charge across Canada.

These quilts are lovingly sewn by dedicated groups of volunteers in communities throughout the country.

Last spring, Congregation Beit Tikvah opened its doors to Victoria’s Quilts and hosted an allday Quilt ‘til U Wilt event. Members of Beit Tikvah partnered with volunteer quilters who supplied the fabric and sewing machines. More than 20 quilts were produced that one day to the delight of all participants. A kosher lunch was provided by Beit Tikvah and everyone enjoyed quilting in the air-conditioned social hall.

“I hope that the ladies from your synagogue enjoyed themselves as much as our volunteers did,” said Betty Giffin after the event.

Beit Tikvah will hold another quilting event this fall. Anyone interested in fulfilling this wonderful mitzvah is invited to participate. No prior

(From left) Quilters Fortunée Shugar, Fran Freedman Kesler and Sheila Estabrooks at Beit Tikvah’s Quilt ‘til U Wilt event for Victoria’s Quilts.

sewing experience is necessary.

A label with this passage from the Book of Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid or dismayed, for God is with you, wherever you go,” is sewn onto each quilt, truly making them virtual hugs.

For more information about Victoria’s Quilts visit victoriasquiltscanada.com or contact Betty Giffin at betty@victoriasquiltscanada.com or 613-843-9212 .

And watch the Bulletin for news about Beit Tikvah’s fall quilting mitzvah day.

Koff admits, having grown up in Brooklyn, with giant frum neighbourhoods and every kind of frum infrastructure, it’s not certain in his mind that he will end up staying long-term in a small community like Ottawa. Although, he says, that could change if he has great success with his teaching.

“People never know where life will take them,” Rabbi Koff says.

Rabbi Yosef Zuckerbrod joined the Kollel last year. With a wife who grew up in Ottawa (Rochel, daughter of Jeff and Adele Sidney), the Zuckerbrods are the first Kollel family to have real Ottawa roots.

Rabbi Zuckerbrod, who grew up in Baltimore, says Ottawa’s frum resources – in terms of Torah scholars, schools, kosher food – are impressive. And Ottawa has some virtues of its own.

“There’s a togetherness,” Rabbi Zuckerbrod says of the Jewish community. In some larger centres, he said, there can be pressure to fit a mould.

“Here you can be whatever you want and still work together with everybody else and be part of the community.”

He says he hopes to be able to stay.

For Rabbi Binyomin Holland, one of the two leaders of the Kollel of Ottawa, these bridges between the Kollel and the community are good news.

“One of the Kollel’s long-term goals,” he said, “is to see the rabbis settle in Ottawa.”

Volunteer extraordinaire famous for her hospitality (Continued from page 41)

she says, so they went on regular outings to museums, the National Arts Centre and other places of interest. Now, with more participants having mobility issues, more emphasis is placed on activities at the Soloway JCC. Current events sessions and exercise classes are favourites, as are the variety of educational programs and lectures that take place throughout the year.

Miriam is famous for her hospitality. The Creative Connections Planning Committee meets at her home where she offers up delicious baked goods. And, for years, Miriam hosted an annual June barbecue for all Creative Connections members. They would dress up in their finest

attire and enjoy a festive afternoon in Miriam’s garden. Miriam’s biggest fan is her sister, Ruth Aaron, who insists even the Château Laurier can’t hold a candle to the food and décor that is offered by Miriam in her home.

Now that Creative Connections is co-ordinated by a staff person, Merle Haltrecht-Matte, Miriam still attends every Tuesday, all day, to help out. At 83, Miriam insists on continuing to help seniors, “because, one day, I may need help myself.”

Now that she no longer drives, Miriam walks to the Soloway JCC from her home near the Carlingwood Mall to perform her volunteer duties.

“Miriam has been essential to the success of Creative Connec-

tions, as chair of the planning committee, as a sturdy volunteer at the day-long sessions and as the perfect hostess for the June barbecue,” says Maxine Miska, Soloway JCC director of programming and assistant executive director. “We always rely on Miriam to carry forward the momentum of Creative Connections programs.”

Every note about every event Miriam has worked on is recorded in a binder, right down to the recipes. She keeps copious notes to facilitate the transition for the next volunteer to take over. Volunteering, says Miriam, fills her time and gives her something meaningful to do.

It seems she has given much more than she’s received.

Miriam Levitin (right) with Ruth Aaron, her sister, and her biggest fan.

(Photo: Benita Siemiatycki)

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 43

shana tova

Page 44 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Guest column

It’s up to you to make a difference in Ontario’s election campaign Happy New Year to the Ottawa Jewish Community

Shana Tova to our friends in the Ottawa Jewish Community

Marianne Wilkinson Councillor Kanata North 613-580-2474 Marianne.Wilkinson@ottawa.ca www.mariannewilkinson.com

Look at the deal we’ve got for you!

Special Limited New Year Offer on a start-up local OJB subscription See page 40 for details.

By Henry Wolfond, Mark Resnick, Jonathan Freedman and Mark Waldman Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee Over the coming few weeks, you have a choice to make. A choice that goes beyond who will be premier and which candidate will sit in Queen’s Park after the Ontario provincial election on October 6.

You can choose to sit on the sidelines of the campaign, allowing others to shape the future of our province and community, or with just a small effort you can give voice to your values and ensure the continued vibrancy and impact of the Canadian Jewish community.

In Canada, the Jewish community comprises only 1.1 per cent of the population, and that number is expected to decrease as time goes on. In order to ensure that our community’s values and concerns continue to resonate at every level of government, it is imperative that each of us embraces our democratic responsibilities, and thus ensures our voice is heard.

The Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC) is a national multi-partisan organization dedicated to achieving that goal by activating the Jewish community in the political process (and within all parties).

We are here to help you get involved with the campaign of your choice, including providing information, training, connecting volunteers and facilitating political support. With

even a small contribution of time or money you can have a significant impact on the political system.

So what can you do?

It’s up to you to get informed: Learn more about where the candidates and parties stand on the issues.

Stay informed by reading the newspaper, watching the news and being active politically in your riding.

Visit itsup2you.ca for links to party websites, information on voting, and information on what you can do to make a difference.

It’s up to you to get involved: Volunteering for an election campaign is a great way to build relationships with MPPs and other decision-makers.

These relationships are essential to ensuring our collective voice is heard.

It’s also a great opportunity for networking, professional development and community involvement.

Those who have volunteered in the past know how important and fun it can be.

Getting involved on a campaign is easier than you think: fill out our volunteer form at itsup2you.ca and CJPAC will pair you with the cam-

paign of your choice. If you are a high school student, this counts toward your volunteer hours.

It’s up to you to support candidates: Many do not know how easy it is to support candidates in a significant way. Every dollar counts and there are generous tax credits for political donations. You can target your support and make sure you are involved in an effective way.

Every dollar donated should be sent with the message, “Thank you on behalf of the Jewish community for your support of our issues.”

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Find out more about voting rules and locations at itsup2you.ca.

Together, we can protect and build our community’s voice across the political spectrum. Remember – it’s up to you!

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 45

A big climax to Israel’s summer of protest, but what comes next is uncertain

By Jessica Steinberg Jerusalem (JTA) – The Saturday night demonstrations, September 3, by more than 400,000 Israelis calling for social justice represented a powerful climax to an unprecedented summer of protests and activism.

The nationwide protests, billed as the March of the Million, have been called the largest demonstration in Israel’s history.

Whether they ventured out in person – in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and many smaller cities throughout Israel – or watched the protests on television, many Israelis felt galvanized by the mass mobilization.

The next morning, as some protesters headed home after dismantling the tents they had raised in city parks this summer, organizers said the movement was entering a new phase.

For now, the country is awaiting the recommendations of the Trajtenberg Committee, a panel of academics, economists and policymakers appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response to the protests. The committee will release its suggestions for socio-economic reforms in the next few weeks.

Yet Israelis are wondering precisely

what sort of change will result from the summer of protest. Will it come to an abrupt end with recommendations to cut some budgets and augment others, or will there be a more far-reaching transformation of Israeli politics?

Unquestionably, it is the first time that “Israelis got a sense of empowerment that they can change things, that they can get organized and protest in a peaceful way,” said David Nachmias, a lecturer in the School of Government at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya.

“They want social justice, they want to change public policy,” said Nachmias.

How this desire will translate into the realm of politics is an open question. Many signs at the protests assailed Netanyahu and his government, and the leader of the opposition Kadima Party, Tzipi Livni, urged Israelis to attend the September 3 demonstrations on Facebook. Protest organizers, however, have tried to keep the political world at a distance from their movement in the hopes of appealing to wide segments of the Israeli public.

Several leaders emerged from the tent cities and weekly protests as nationally (Continued on page 46)

shana tova

Page 46 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Protest leaders trying to keep dialogue going (Continued from page 45)

prominent figures, including Daphne Leef, who was the first to set up a tent in central Tel Aviv to protest her inability to find an affordable apartment, and Itzik Shmuli, the chairman of National Student Union. Both were featured speakers at the main September 3 rally that drew some 300,000 people to Tel Aviv’s Hamedina Square.

Many observers have pointed to the differences between the two young leaders, which reflect tensions within the movement as a whole. Leef, who tends to speak from the gut, has blasted the Trajtenberg Committee as a cynical effort established to deceive the public. Shmuli, by contrast, has been interested in engaging with the committee and, like other student leaders before him, is mentioned as a natural for entering politics.

Shmuli is “one of the people to look for” as an emerging political leader, said Hani Zubida, an assistant professor of public policy at IDC Herzliya who helped organize a coalition of Israel’s peripheral populations for the summer protests that included single mothers, Arabs and lower-income communities.

“People are calling for his campaign tour for the next primaries,” Zubida said. “The fact that we saw him week in and week out on the stage means something.”

At the same time, says Zubida, nobody is sure what will happen next. He believes that some protest leaders may be co-opted into the current political parties, which could be “extremely beneficial, as it might show that the government is trying to face the challenge and embrace ‘these people’ into the system.”

Nachmias is hoping that the wave of protests results in the formation of a new political party with a socio-economic agenda rather than focusing on security issues. Israel has been in the midst of a governance crisis, he said, and the government has been unable to formulate and implement long-term public policies, partly because of its electoral system that empowers small parties representing various interest groups.

“People are sick and tired of the governance crisis,” he said. “The speakers were talking about the new Israel, the empowered Israelis. If there is a new political

Happy New Year to the Ottawa Jewish Community

Councillor Steve Desroches City of Ottawa Gloucester - South Nepean 613-580-2751 www.stevedesroches.ca

party, that’s the greatest achievement they can have.”

Hebrew University historian Alexander Yakobson wrote in Ha’aretz that the movement itself cannot be turned into “a political party, or a camp with a clear-cut political and ideological character, without losing most of its participants and all of its public influence.” Yakobson also wrote that while the movement has given a boost to more social democratic economic policies, ultimately change will have to come through the championing of these issues in the political realm.

“The Labor Party, under new leadership, is a natural candidate to carry a banner of this kind, but of course there are also other options and combinations of options,” he wrote in Ha’aretz. “The bottom line is that this is a matter for a party or parties. It is clear that the voting public will not vote on the socio-economic issue alone, but its importance will no doubt increase.”

In the meantime, the public is waiting to see what the Trajtenberg Committee will recommend to ease the burdens facing the middle class.

Expectations are that the panel will call for significant cuts in the defence budget, as well as recommend raising corporate, inheritance and capital gains taxes. The committee also is expected to recommend increases in the education, health and social welfare budgets; lowering income taxes for the middle class; offering tax breaks for working parents; and breaking up the country’s monopolies.

Still, Zubida said the committee cannot meet the movement’s aspirations for change.

“This is about more than just recommending more competition and doing away with monopolies,” he said. “We need a different vision for Israel.”

Like many others, he would like to see a new political party emerge from the protest movement. As an active participant in the protests, Zubida remarked that the wonder of the tent cities was “everyone was talking to everyone else.” He would like to see the negotiations and discussions that took place in those ad hoc salons continue to happen in different neighbourhoods and places throughout Israel.

Protest leaders are trying to keep the dialogue going. Instead of another mass march, 1,000 round tables were set up Saturday night, September 10 outside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art for public meetings and democratic discussions of social issues.

“This is a brand new trend,” Zubida said. “It’s the first time in Israel that there are different social coalitions working together.

It’s a semi-revolution.”

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 47

shana tova

Page 48 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

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Caren Rapp in memory of Frederick Rapp by the Esrock family Iris Richter in memory of Dr. Maxwell Richter by Arnold & Faye Tennenhouse Frank & Margo Rosen in memory of your mother Rose Rosen by Penney Prud’homme, by Carol & Laurie Pascoe;

by Mory MacLeod & Jonathan Stokes, by Linda Rossman Merle Rosenberg in memory of Anna Cohen by Jean Rivier & family Irma Sachs in memory of Dr. Harold Sachs by Gail & Stephen Victor; by Jane & Martin Gordon Marla Seller in memory of your father Edward Guralnick by Sam & Lisa Feldberg Sandy Shaver in memory of Michael Shaver by Marion Silver & Alan Brass; by Gail & Stephen Victor Jack Silverstein in memory of your mother Rise by Carol & Laurie Pascoe; by Marcia & Barry Cantor Lydia Sourani in memory of your mother Marcelle Corin by Nina & Lucy Jason & family Sami Sourani in memory of your brother Sid Sourani by Nina & Lucy Jason & family Sally Taller in memory of your husband Morton Taller

by Roslyn, Myles Taller Tennenhouse family in memory of your father & grandfather Norman Stein by Evan, Carol & Miriam Diamond Tino Tolot in memory of your wife Darinka Krauthaker-Tolot by Chaim & Raina Feig Sara Vered in memory of your sister Tova Menipaz by Gail & Stephen Victor; by Inez Zelikovitz; by Magda & Peter Benedek Sharron Weinberger in memory of your mother Evelyn Nadler by Harold & Rosalie Schwartz Eric Weiner in memory of your father Louis Weiner by Gail & Stephen Victor Miriam Weiner in memory of your husband Lou Weiner by Marilyn & David Galbraith Sonia Williams in memory of your brother Peter by Fern Goldman, Arielle & Elie David & Mariana Wiznitzer in memory of Max Wiznitzer by the Moses family Wishing Speedy Recovery/Refuah Shleima to: Burton Cook by Marcia Cantor Michael Dorfman by Shirley & Philip Teitelbaum Sheela Morin by Gail & Stephen Victor Sheila Nadrich by Marcia Cantor Joey Osterer by Roz, Myles Taller; by Inez Zelikovitz Laurie Pascoe by Marcia & Barry Cantor Audrey Soss by Marcia & Barry Cantor Deena, daughter of Claudia & Mario Bassi by Betty Baylin In Honour of: Marilyn Adler with deep appreciation by Flory Benbaruk, Anne Bokhaut Koffman, Bernice Seward, Helen Trachtenberg, Shirley Winer Fran Ages on your special birthday by Gail & Stephen Victor Cantor David Aptowitzer with thanks and appreciation

by Brian Pearl Diane Arkin on your special birthday by Arnold & Faye Tennenhouse Rhoda Aronson on your special birthday by Ed & Janice Fine Daphne & Stanley Arron on your special anniversary

by Linda & Alan Gilbert Dr. Allan Bellack on your 65th birthday by Debbie & Lloyd Rossman Cantor Daniel Benlolo with deep appreciation by Flory Benbaruk, Anne Bokhaut Koffman, Bernice Seward, Helen Trachtenberg, Shirley Winer Rabbi Mendel Blum on your 40th birthday by Marcia

& Barry Cantor Sara Breiner on your special birthday by Carole & Bernie Starkman; by Toby & Tedd Nathanson Lisa Cogan on your special birthday by Gail & Stephen Victor Rabbi Simon & Belle Eckstein wishing you well in Jerusalem by Johnny & Gladys Greenberg Ed Fast on your appointment as Minister for International Trade by Marion Silver & Alan Brass Ed Fine on your 60th birthday by Candice & Stan Wilder; by Sherri & Jack Torjman; by Isaac, Savita, Kathryn & Aaron Frank Debi Finn on your special birthday by Skip & Liz Kronick Simmy Gardner in celebration of the birth of Noah Dominic Cipera-Gardner by Evelyn & Joe Lieff John & Louise Gagan on your 40th anniversary by John Clay & Evelyn Kelly Reisa Glenns on your special birthday by Margo, David, Aaron & Gail Kardish David Gluzman on your 60th birthday by Skip & Liz Kronick Kaia Esrock Greenglass on your first birthday by Lara & Savta Eva Esrock Peter & Cyndie Ingalls with thanks & appreciation by Rose & Morris Konick The memory of Betty Jarman by Penny Jarman David Kardish on your special birthday by Reisa & Allan Glenns; by Ken Kavanat Sid Katz on your special birthday by Margo, David, Aaron & Gail Kardish Norma Kuzell on your special birthday by Fern Goldman Joanne & Rob Nelson on your 40th anniversary by Lisa & Fred Cogan Joanne Nelson on your special birthday by Lisa & Fred Cogan Gdalyah & Florence Rosenfeld thinking of you by Anna & Laurens Andrews Brian & Pam Scharfstein with thanks & appreciation

by Annette Albert The memory of Addie Schmidt by Kari FerlatteSchmidt Janina & Frank Szmigielski to good health and a great friendship by Rivqa & Lazer Resnick Ruth & Gerry Tulchinsky on your 50th anniversary by Uri & Teena Goldberg Estelle & Neil Warren on your retirements by Annette Albert Robert & Sam Wasif on your 40th anniversary by Rena & Max Cohen Martha Wilkin on your birthday by Anna and Laurens Andrews Mazal Tov To: Marilyn & David Akman on your 30th anniversary by Susan & Charlie Schwartzman Talia Aroosi on your graduation by Marcia Cantor Maya Avni on your Bat Mitzvah by Dylan Gunn; by Phyllis & Peter Wolfe; by the Ruby family Cantor Shnieur Bielak with birthday wishes by Jordana Rappoport Rabbi & Mrs. Chaim Boyarsky on the birth of your daughter by Dr. Peggy Kleinplatz Sheli Braun on receiving the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Award by Marcia & Barry Cantor; by Mindy Finkelstein & Roy Hanes; by Mory MacLeod & Jonathan Stokes Dr. & Mrs. Joseph Caytak on the birth of your granddaughter by Dr. Peggy Kleinplatz Harold Charlat on your special birthday by Art & Marsha Saper Barbara & Sid Cohen on your 25th anniversary by Lee,

Sandy, Pam, Emily and Josh Allen Maura & Harvey Cooperberg on Erin’s upcoming marriage to Brandon by Joy, Seymour, Jess, David & Jared Mender Belle Eckstein on your 85th birthday by Johnny & Gladys Greenberg Helen Eisen on the birth of your great-grandson by Alan, Margo, Scott, Matt & Amy Blostein Jonathan Freedman on your special birthday by Frayda & Charlie Wiseman Anne & Norman Givner on your 50th anniversary & the engagement of your daughter by Barbara & David Slipacoff Anne Globerman on your 90th birthday by Sheela & Si Morin Larry Hartman on your 70th birthday by Sheela & Si Morin Allan & Thelma Haimovitz on the wedding of Michael & Davina by Carol & Laurie Pascoe Susan Heisel on Jonathan’s marriage to Shoshana by Marcia & Barry Cantor David Kardish on your special birthday by Art & Marsha Saper Sid Katz on your 70th birthday by Reisa & Allan Glenns Gail Krochmalnek on the birth of your grandson by Rosalie & Harold Schwartz Rhoda & Joe Levitan on the marriage of Shayna to Elliott Lavi by Sam & Lisa Feldberg Lewin family on the Bar Mitzvah of your great-grandson and grandson Natan Mayer by Dr. Peggy Kleinplatz Sara Melamed on your special birthday by Ed & Janice Fine Pat & Morris Newman on your success with the Tamir event by David & Rochelle Greenberg Ilana Albert-Novick on the completion of a 3-year term as Na’amat Ottawa President by Annette Albert Molly & Irving Parker on your 60th anniversary by Joy & Eric Weisbloom Carol & Laurie Pascoe on the marriage of Byron & Elissa by Marcia & Barry Cantor; by Susan & Charlie Schwartzman Rochelle & Brian Pearl on your 35th anniversary by Harold & Rosalie Schwartz Heidi & Steve Polowin on the birth of your granddaughter by Marcia & Barry Cantor Shelley Rothman on Stuart & Laura’s engagement & Stuart’s Call to the Bar by Marcia & Barry Cantor Marsha Scharfstein on your Bat Mitzvah by Annette Albert Rosalie & Harold Schwartz on Naomi’s graduation from McGill by Rochelle & Brian Pearl Jason Schwartz on receiving your Ph.D. by Rosalie, Harold, Leah, Josh & Naomi Schwartz Michael & Liz Schwartz on Jason receiving his Ph.D.

by Rosalie, Harold, Leah, Josh & Naomi Schwartz Susan & Herb Schwartzman on your 30th anniversary

by Susan & Charlie Schwartzman Linda & Ivan Silver on your 40th anniversary by Fern, Arielle and Elie Ben Weinstock on your 90th birthday by Susan & Charlie Schwartzman Charlie Wiseman on your special birthday by Art & Marsha Saper Annie Young on the birth of your grandson by Susan & Charlie Schwartzman Marcia & Dick Zuker on the ordination of Rabbi Debra Zuker by Ed & Janice Fine

Tree purchases are $18 and are fully tax receiptable.

JNF thanks you for your generous contribution.

Please accept our apologies if we misspelled or omitted anyone’s name or contribution.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 49

Yoga teacher teaches techniques to restore, renew and rejuvenate

By Louise Rachlis Yoga teacher Eric Peters, who is Jewish, ends his classes at Jewish venues with “Shalom, Shalom, peace in our world and peace especially in Israel.”

Peters teaches workplace yoga in companies as varied as Canadian Blood Services and the University of Ottawa, and also classes at the Soloway JCC, Hillel Lodge and Barrhaven Yoga Studio.

There are many misconceptions surrounding yoga, he says, such as that “yoga is primarily for men, yoga requires already established flexibility and strength, yoga is slow moving, yoga is only about breathing, yoga is only about relaxation, yoga requires experience to maximize benefits …” He has heard them all, and readily refutes them.

Back when he owned a manufacturing company himself, Peters, of Healing Yoga Ottawa, was among the first yoga practitioners to introduce corporate yoga in his own workplace.

Diagnosed in childhood

Eric Peters teaches yoga at Soloway JCC and Hillel Lodge.

with scoliosis (curvature of the spine), he spent four years of his adolescence in a back brace. His book, Out of the Cage, chronicles his personal journey through pain and mental anguish before finding health through the practice of yoga.

Now, as a full-time yoga

teacher since 1998, he brings yoga in the workplace to others.

“Promoting wellness improves profits as it pumps oxygen into your financial statement,” he says. “Yoga builds muscle strength and joint flexibility, improves balance and posture all the

while promoting a calm, purposeful response to life’s challenges.”

It has been documented, he says, that employees benefit from increased energy and emotional well-being, improved breathing and concentration. As well, yoga helps to relieve depression, decrease anxiety, tension headaches and addictions, and provides relief for physical challenges ranging from chronic pain, scoliosis, arthritis and osteoporosis to weight issues and carpel tunnel syndrome.

“I could go on and on,” says Peters, “but I don’t want to come across as a snake oil salesman.”

No previous yoga experience is necessary for workplace yoga and participants progress at their own pace and comfort levels.

To see for yourself, there’s a link on his website to a YouTube video showing some exercises you can do at work. They are among 52 short videos he is creating to help many health conditions.

As well, Peters will be giving yoga workshops in several cities this fall including a healing workshop, September 24, noon to 4:00 pm, at Barrhaven Yoga Studio, 250 Greenbank Road. For information or registration, visit barrhavenyoga.com.

“This workshop is designed for those interested in learning proper postures, breathing techniques, meditations, and other yogic tools to relieve, prevent, and heal what is ailing you,” he says.

“We will begin with a brief centering and some short meditations and each student express what they would like to attain from this workshop.”

He then provides an assessment of their posture, strength, flexibility, and breathing patterns.

“This will enable you to determine with your yoga teacher, yoga postures that might be detrimental, and those that might be most beneficial.”

Then participants are guided through various therapeutic and restorative yoga poses appropriate to them as an individual.

Peters hopes everyone will “leave feeling restored, renewed, and rejuvenated.”

For more information on Peters and his techniques, visit healingyogaottawa.ca.

Shana Tova to the Ottawa Jewish Community

shana tova

Page 50 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

High Holidays feature

Dozing in synagogue on the Days of Awe

By Edmon J. Rodman (JTA) – Don’t let Maimonides catch you napping on Rosh Hashanah.

His famous quote, “Awake, awake, you slumberers from your sleep, inspect your actions and return” – usually found in the High Holidays prayer book before the sounding of the shofar – is meant as the ultimate shluf alarm, his righteous tap on your shoulder.

But what if, while sitting in services one Jewish New Year’s Day, you should accidentally hit the snooze button and head off into the realm of somnambulant psalms?

Some of us seem to become so drowsy the second we set foot in a synagogue. Then the passages seem long, the air conditioning makes us feel cool and comfy, words barely familiar buzz around our ears, the rabbi goes on and on and our lids grow so heavy.

As our heads lurch forward, startling us awake, we wish there was a Starbucks in the social hall

or a private place to sacrifice a can of Red Bull. For many of us who work long hours, the prayers and sermons of the Days of Awe work best when they are preceded by nights of ahh.

The need for sleep and wakefulness is even emphasized in the liturgy. On Rosh Hashanah morning we thank God for removing “sleep from our eyes, slumber from our eyelids,” as well as “restoring vigour to the weary.”

Later in the morning, the shofar’s blast calls us to physical and spiritual attention.

On Yom Kippur afternoon, when we are tired, hungry and out of it, we read the story of Jonah, who, while heading by sea away from where God wants him to go, falls into a deep sleep in the ship’s hold. While he’s napping, the sky storms and the sea crashes; the ship begins to founder.

“How can you be sleeping so soundly!” the captain cries out to him.

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To save the crew and ship, Jonah needs to rouse himself, and during the High Holidays we want to rouse ourselves, too. After all, something important is going on, and that gentle elbow in the side from our partner can leave a mark.

In talking about the relationship of sleep to the High Holidays, Dr. Rubin Naiman, the sleep specialist and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine, cited Shabbat as an example of how sleep relates to our spirituality.

“It’s been a reminder to slow down and sleep,” he said. “Sleep is not simply unconsciousness; it refers to the deepest part of ourselves.

“My parents, who were Holocaust survivors, taught me to honour sleep,” said Naiman, who grew up in a traditional Jewish home.

Naiman feels sleep helped them to survive. In his book, Healing Night: The Science and Spirit of Sleeping, Dreaming, and Awakening, he suggests a battle between divine and man-made

forces as a reason for our sleep deficits.

“When God said, ‘Let there be light,’ he divided it equally with night,” he wrote. “But when Edison said let there be even more light, he appropriated it from night. And there are serious casualties.”

To avoid being a casualty, Naiman has a couple of suggestions.

“It’s not like you can prepare the night before. You need to run up to it,” he said.

While reminding that sleep requirements differ, Naiman said that “few people can get by with less than seven to nine hours.”

To find a natural balance between sleeping and waking, he suggested “avoiding excessive stimulation.”

But, perhaps to the chagrin of pulpit rabbis everywhere, Naiman suggested that, if growing drowsy, we should “stop fighting sleepiness” and go with it.

“Falling asleep is an act of faith,” he said. “Think of it as diving into a pool of water; close your eyes and descend.”

In other words, if you feel the need, it’s OK to shut your eyes.

At first I thought, napping through Rosh Hashanah, what’s next – recliners instead of pews?

But, later that day, taking the doctor’s advice, I closed my eyes to take a nap and re-thought our conversation. Feeling a pleasant wave come over me, I wondered if Naiman was on to something.

While on the couch, I remembered being in synagogue on Shabbat closing my eyes and saying the Shema. More than once, I kept them closed a few beats longer, even while chanting the first paragraph. When I finally opened my eyes, I had felt refreshed.

I also remembered on Rosh Hashanah seeing several members of my congregation closing their eyes while the ba’al tekiah sounded the horn. Naiman had said the shofar’s blasts on Rosh Hashanah were “calling people to a higher state of wakefulness.” Were those with their eyes shut experiencing wakefulness within?

This year, I will close my eyes and see.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 51

Finally, a Place Good Enough for Mom and Dad Dad kept his independence, space and privacy. Mom enjoys an active social calendar; upscale amenities and superior cuisine (when she chooses not to cook in her own kitchen). The children gained peace of mind from the Palisades’ impeccable helping hand.

What Does Retirement Mean To You? Boredom? Sadness? Loneliness?

Members of Creative Connections enjoy an interactive music session.

Introducing Creative Connections

By Merle Haltrecht-Matte AJA 50+ Creative Connections is not a singles group. Creative Connections is not a craft group. Creative Connections is not a sports group.

Creative Connections is a program of AJA 50+ which provides a day out for seniors who are cognitively well “senior” seniors enjoying life to the fullest. Programming for the day includes fitness, educational, cultural and social programming.

I co-ordinate the program, bringing in speakers and entertainment for more than 30 participants whose ages range from 74 to 94.

Speakers have talked about local associations, travel experiences, hobbies and other thought-provoking topics. Past speakers have included Rabbis Steven Garten and Reuben Bulka and Ottawa Jewish Bulletin Editor Michael Regenstreif. Topics vary from music to government issues to poverty in Africa to Jewish holidays and much more in between.

Creative Connections meets Tuesdays in

the Teen Lounge at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre. The day begins at 9:30 with schmoozing, coffee, tea, juice and cookies. A 45-minute session of chair exercises is a popular aspect of the day. Nicole Goldstone energetically takes the participants through appropriate exercises geared to individual needs and abilities. Lunch can either be brought from home or purchased from the United Kosher Deli. The day finishes at 2:00 pm, although people often stay on to chat some more. Everyone leaves tired but smiling!

Upcoming programming this fall includes representatives from Habitat for Humanity and the Humane Society. In addition, Margo Rosen will involve participants in the Butterfly Project.

Creative Connections is very affordable at $40 for 10 weeks. Transportation can be arranged. Many participants arrive by Para Transpo, some drive themselves, and we have two volunteer drivers.

For more information about Creative Connections, call me 613-824-6833.

onus Offer B t n e r r u C ur Ask About o

THINK AGAIN. Your decision on whether to move to a retirement residence is a difficult one. How do you know you, or your parents, will be happy?

How do you know if you will be able to manage if you continue to live where you are now? How do you know who to trust? I’ve just made it easier for you.

Request a free report I’ve put together for you called “The Ten Things to Consider: Is a Retirement Residence is Right for You?” For adult children or relatives thinking about the seniors in their lives, I have a report called “The Ten Things to Consider: Are Your Parents Ready for a Retirement Residence?”

For your free special report and consultation, without obligation, call Kim Dayman-Rutkus, owner of retirement condos for lease at the Palisades Club Retirement Residence, at 613-203-7935. www.retirementlivingottawa.ca.

“I would most certainly highly recommend such a move to any senior looking for a comfortable environment and excellent relationship with both staff and landlords.”

– Sheila Pollock, Widow, wife of career United Nations diplomat

shana tova

Visit my web site: www.mikeroodman.com

Page 52 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Esthetic services in your home or office We guarantee our service with a file and a smile For an appointment, contact Monique at 613-292-8564

In support of the Bess and Moe Greenberg Family Hillel Lodge In the Joseph and Inez Zelikovitz Long Term Care Centre hootenanny by Carolyn and Sid Katz

Card Donations Card donations go a long way to improving the quality of life for our residents. Thank you for considering their needs and contributing to their wellbeing.

On behalf of the residents and their families, we extend sincere appreciation to the following individuals and families who made card donations to the Hillel Lodge Long-Term Care Foundation between August 15 and 29, 2011 inclusive.

HONOUR FUNDS Unlike a bequest or gift of life insurance, which are realized some time in the future, a named Honour Fund (i.e., endowment fund) is established during your lifetime.

By making a contribution of $1,000 or more, you can create a permanent remembrance for a loved one, honour a family member, declare what the Lodge has meant to you and/or support a cause that you believe in.

A Hillel Lodge Honour Fund is a permanent pool of capital that earns interest or income each year. This income then supports the priorities designated by you, the donor.

Joel and Sharon Edelson Family Fund In Honour of: Jill and Allan Bellack Congratulations on the birth of your grandson by Joel and Sharon Edelson Friedberg and Dale Families Fund In Honour of: Shoshana and Ian Kagedan Mazal tov on the birth of your grandson by Elaine Friedberg and Bob Dale Leona and Harry Lakser Thank you for your wonderful hospitality by Elaine Friedberg and Bob Dale Joel Tencer Happy 65th birthday by Elaine Friedberg and Bob Dale Nell Gluck Memorial Fund In Honour of: Claire Wilner Mazel Tov on your decadal birthday. Many more decades of good health to enjoy with family and friends by Henry and Maureen Molot In Memory of: Dear Father of Phil Rourke by Maureen Molot

Bill and Leona Adler Memorial Fund In Memory of: Elizabeth Milk by Marilyn Adler In Honour of: Evelyn Greenberg Mazel Tov on your daughter’s marriage by Marilyn Adler and Neil Blacher

Nordau and Roslyn Kanigsberg Family Fund In Honour of: Nordau and Roslyn Kanigsberg Mazel Tov and best wishes on the birth of your granddaughter by Anna and Sam Wex

Auxiliary of Hillel Lodge Fund In Honour of: Maureen and Jeff Katz Thank you and yasher koach for having such a wonderful evening at the

Morris and Lillian Kimmel Family Fund In Memory of: Risë Silverstein by Morris Kimmel and the Kaiman and Levine families

Levenson-Polowin Feeding Fund In Honour of: Angie and Jeff Polowin In honour of your 30th wedding anniversary by Yanda and Mark Max Heidi Polowin Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for a perfect ceremony by Arlene, Shaul, Timna, Daniella and Yigal Heidi and Steve Polowin Thank you for being you by Yanda and Mark Max Melanie and Michael Polowin In honour of your 25th wedding anniversary by Yanda, Mark and Josh Max; by Nomi, Harold, Zach and Rafi ColtonMax Stephen and Debra Schneiderman Family Fund In Memory of: Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Debra and Stephen Schneiderman Louis and Diane Tannenbaum Family Fund In Honour of: Mrs. Jaime Gersovitz on your milestone birthday by the Honourable Mr. Justice Louis and Mrs. Diane Tannenbaum Eric Weiner and Arlene Godfrey Family Fund In Memory of: Risë Silverstein by Eric Weiner and Arlene Godfrey Anna and Samuel Wex Family Fund In Honour of: Maureen and Henry Molot Mazel Tov and best wishes on the birth of your twin granddaughters by Anna and Sam Wex ******************* Capital Campaign In Honour of: Ingrid Levitz Happy special birthday with love

by Cally and Sid Kardash; by Beverly, David, Jory and Mark Gluzman Feeding Fund In Honour of: Dina and Boris Dynkin Mazel Tov on your very

special birthdays by Mara and Isaac Muzikansky In Memory of: Rise Silverstein by Heidi and Stephen Polowin IN HONOUR OF: Harriet and Saul Brottman Mazel tov on your 60th wedding anniversary. May good health be with you for many years to come. Have a wonderful trip, love Roz and Lee Raskin. Best wishes on your 60th wedding anniversary by Noreen and Syd Bosloy Dr. David Finestone We thank you for your kindness by Leanne and Jeff Greenberg Chaim Gilboa Best wishes on your special birthday by Noreen and Syd Bosloy Evelyn Greenberg Mazel tov on your daughter’s marriage by Monica and Alvin Stein Ora Kendall Mazel Tov on your special birthday

by Jeff Greenberg Arthur Kizell Happy birthday by Herbie and Pam Beiles Ralph and Lynda Levenstein Best wishes for continued happiness and joy by Bill and Laurie Chochinov Isaac Muzikansky Congratulations on the release of your new CD by Esther and Allan Williams David and Debi Shore on the engagement of your granddaughter’s engagement by Michael and Sylvia Caplan Barbara and David Slipacoff In honour of your 25th wedding anniversary with all our love by Monica and Alvin Stein and family Rabbi Deborah Zuker Congratulations on your accomplishments by Bill and Laurie Chochinov IN MEMORY OF: Mother of Flora Lagman by the Residents, Board and Staff of Hillel Lodge Risë Silverstein by Cally and Sid Kardash

The Lodge mourns the passing of Gdalyah Rosenfeld, a respected past Board Member.

Our deepest sympathy to his family.

THE LODGE EXPRESSES ITS SINCERE APPRECIATION FOR YOUR KIND SUPPORT AND APOLOGIZES FOR ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS. DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS, THE WORDING APPEARING IN THE BULLETIN IS NOT NECESSARILY THE WORDING WHICH APPEARED ON THE CARD. GIVING IS RECEIVING – ATTRACTIVE CARDS AVAILABLE FOR ALL OCCASIONS Here’s a good opportunity to recognize an event or convey the appropriate sentiment to someone important to you and at the same time support the Lodge. Card orders may be given to Bev at 613-728-3900, extension 111, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday to Thursday, 8:30 am to 3:30 pm Friday. You may also e-mail your orders to donations@hillel-ltc.com. E-mail orders must include name, address, postal code, and any message to person receiving the card; and, amount of donation, name, address and postal code of the person making the donation. Cards may be paid for by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Cheque or Cash. Contributions are tax deductible.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 53

Hotel becomes deluxe long-term care facility

By Louise Rachlis The new bridge under construction over the Queensway at the busy intersection of Carling and Kirkwood isn’t the only new landmark in the area.

After decades as a colourful hotel, the Embassy West will complete its transformation to Embassy West Senior Living on October 15. A $10 million renovation has turned the historic hotel into a deluxe and elegant private long-term care facility.

“All staff, from maintenance to management, has had special training in Alzheimer’s and dementia to better serve our clientele,” says Sharon Goldman, coowner of Embassy West Senior Living.

Family-owned and operated, Embassy West Senior Living is the only Ottawa retirement home to offer private long-term care, a fulltime doctor and a seniors-only physiotherapy and rehabilitation centre.

Goldman grew up in Montreal and is directly involved in operating the facility.

Located at Exit 124 off the Queensway, at 1400 Carling Avenue, Embassy West Senior

A suite at Embassy West Senior Living.

Living is handy to medical centres, hospitals, shopping and places of worship. There is a kosher kitchen for Jewish holidays, and events, including Oneg Shabbat on Friday afternoon, have been added to meet the needs of Jewish seniors.

There is a full continuum of care, from independent to assistedliving to long-term care, including Alzheimer’s and dementia care.

All suites are designed for

wheelchair accessibility and security within the comfort of your own home. The suites are decorated in contemporary décor, with walk-in closets, modern, spacious bathrooms with large walk-in showers and state-of-the-art shower fixtures, including an emergency response system and smoke alarms.

Embassy West Senior Living home is an ‘all suites’ residence, making it affordable for all resi-

dents if their care needs increase.

“If you ever require additional care in future, you won’t have to move out of a one-bedroom to afford the additional care,” says Goldman.

There are one-time end-of-renovation discounts until October 15 when the Embassy West will begin to accept new residents.

“We’ll be glad when the road construction outside our door is over, and people can come in and

see all that we have to offer,” says Goldman.

“We believe each patient has the ability to make decisions and make the right choices,” she says.

“Whatever the level of care you need, we can provide for you. Our residence strives to make all our residents feel comfortable by providing a familiar home-like environment. Our staff will always be by your side treating you with the utmost dignity and respect that you deserve.

“For example, if they cannot go to the dining room by themselves, we will provide the assistance to bring them so they have opportunity to socialize. Being on a secure floor doesn’t mean isolation, just supervision.”

Therapeutic music, therapeutic art and therapeutic sensor stimulation are offered, Goldman adds.

Embassy West Senior Living hopes to be an integral part of the neighbouring community, and invites any senior-related or geriatric groups to make use of its meeting rooms.

For more information, visit embassywestseniorliving.com or call 613-729-4321, ext. 1, to arrange a tour of the facilities.

On beh behalf alf of the On Ontario tario Libera Liberal al Party best wishes to b o the readers o of O Ottawa t ta w a JJewish ewish B Bulletin ulletin o n tthe he o ccasion o on occasion off

Rosh Ro osh Ha Hashanah ashana ah

Dalton McGuinty Ottawa South 613-526-9339 613 -526-9339

Bob Chiarelli Megan Cornell Ottawa West-Nepean Carleton-Mississippi pp Mills 613-695-8683 613-591-3163 6 13 -695-8683 6 13 -591-3163

Don Dransfield Nepean-Carleton N epean-Carleton 613-232-2422 6 13 -232-2422

Phil McNeely Ottawa-Orléans 613-830-0785 6 13 830 0785

Madeleine Meilleur Ottawa-Vanier 613-842-8302 613 -842-8302

AAuthorized u t h o r i z e d by b y Ontario O n t a r i o Liberal L i b e r a l Party Party

Yasir Naqvi Ottawa Centre O ttawa C entre 613-680-4517 6 13 -680-4517

shana tova

Page 54 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

The whole family can be found at the SJCC

By Pamela Rosenberg Soloway JCC No matter what time of day you come to the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (JCC), there is a good chance that you will run into a Lyman.

Among seven family members, spanning four generations, the Soloway JCC plays a central role in all of their lives. It is where they come to play, learn, meet and exercise.

Jackie Luffman-Lyman is often first to appear for a 6:30 am Bootcamp class, followed closely by her mother-in-law, Bonnie Lyman, who will be either in the fitness centre or in the pool for Aquafit.

By around 11:00 am, Sherwin is on the treadmill or leading an AJA 50+ class on Jews in music and by lunchtime you will find David – the “gym rat” as his wife lovingly calls him – sweating it out in Powerpump or playing basketball in the gym.

When the school day is done, Rachel and Zev, the youngest of the Lyman clan are at afterschool care, swimming lessons, dance and drama classes, or at JB’s After School All-Star Sports Club.

“I like them to be active after school rather than home watching TV,” says Jackie.

On Tuesdays, Anne Koffman, Bonnie’s mother, who was trans-

Four generations of the Lyman family make the Soloway JCC their second home: (from left) Anne Koffman, David Lyman, Zev Lyman, Jackie Luffman-Lyman, Rachel Lyman, Bonnie Lyman, Sherwin Lyman.

planted here from Winnipeg just over a year ago, makes her way across the parking lot, or through the underground tunnel connecting the residents at Hillel Lodge to the Soloway JCC, for Creative Connections, a full day of programs, speakers, exercise and

entertainment for seniors.

Although it wasn’t easy to convince the 87-year-old great-grandmother of six to make the transition to Ottawa, being on the same campus as two of her great-grandchildren, students at the Ottawa Jewish Community School, hav-

New teachers are joining the Ottawa Israeli Folkdancers

By Phil Kretzmar Ottawa Israeli Folkdancers Forget Zumba! If you want a dance workout that’s as good for your soul as it is for your body, set your Tuesday nights aside for the Ottawa Israeli Folkdancers.

Just to put the record straight, Israeli folk dancing has come a long way from horas. The music can have Greek, East European, and Sephardic and Arabic influences and the highly choreographed dances offer mental, as well as physical, stimulation.

Don’t worry if you don’t know the steps.

This fall, there will be new teachers for the group. Teresa Narraway and Devorah Gilman will be bringing new energy and passion to the teaching sessions.

Gilman, who spent the past two years studying with a professional dance company in the United

States, has taught dance classes for a number of years in Ottawa.

The talented 20-year-old brings great enthusiasm and expression to Israeli folk dancing.

Narraway has taught dancing in the Ottawa area for many years including, for the past eight years, at Camp Gan Israel.

The Ottawa Israeli Folkdancers meet every Tuesday. Beginning September 20, teaching and dancing will take place starting at 7:00 pm in the Ottawa Jewish Community School gymnasium. The cost is $4.00 per evening.

It matters not how old you are, whether you have two left feet or what kind of shape you’re in.

You’ll feel welcome and will soon be up-to-speed with the rest of the group. We all have one thing in common: We love to dance! So put on your dancing shoes and come dance with us.

Devorah Gilman will be teaching beginners this fall at the Ottawa Israeli Folkdancers sessions.

ing the Soloway JCC at her front door, and a stellar view of the Ganon Preschool children running around the playground were good selling features.

While siblings Miriam and Joey, who left Ottawa to raise their families in Toronto and Montreal respectively, stop by the Soloway JCC when they visit, David, the middle of the Lyman brood, like his father Sherwin, chose to hang his hat, and his law degree, at home in Ottawa.

David has been a member of the Soloway JCC since we first opened our doors 13 years ago.

Originally, he joined so he could play in the Jewish Men’s Basketball League (JMBL) with his little (but much taller) brother. But, since then, he has been doing way more than just shooting hoops in the gym.

“Because I am physically in the building a lot and get to know the staff and people around the Soloway JCC, I know that my kids are in a 100 per cent safe and satisfying place for their afterschool and camp activities,” says David.

And, being at the Soloway JCC has become easier for him since he relocated his entire law office from downtown to around the corner from the Jewish Community Campus where he could be closer to his kids and easily squeeze in his lunchtime workouts, which

have become a regular and very important part of the young lawyer’s routine.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, he plays pick-up basketball at noon. On other days, its Bootcamp, Powerpump or kickboxing, a combination that helps him with his afternoon productivity and has played a key part in getting this 30-something lawyer into the best shape of his life.

“Being a regular class participant is like having a personal training session with instructors who encourage me to get the most of my workout,” he says. “One of my favourite times to exercise is when the kids are at a SJCC birthday party. I drop them off, have my workout and a shvitz, and pick them up without ever having to leave the building.”

Aside from how great his workouts make him feel, and how much more he gets done around the office after he exercises, he is motivated to stay in shape for the next 10 years, until Zev is old enough to play in the JMBL with him.

Just as the Soloway JCC has played a role in their lives, the Lymans themselves have been instrumental in the growth and development of the Centre.

Jackie is now in her sixth year on the board of directors. She sat on the Early Childhood Education Committee, which eventually led to a three-year stint on the board of the Soloway JCC’s Early Beginnings Multicultural Development Centre where both her children started off.

Committed to her community and to seeing it grow, Jackie was responsible for bringing Shalom Baby to Ottawa. It’s an outreach program that welcomes Jewish newborns to the community with a basket full of baby gifts and useful information.

“The SJCC is like my extended family, the staff and programming help raise my children and provide a second home for them and that mishpacha community environment is what I like best,” she says.

Bonnie also likes the connection to the community she feels at the Soloway JCC. And as a teacher at Star of David Hebrew School, Bonnie enjoys being at the campus and running into former students.

“There are always things to do at the SJCC,” says Bonnie. “Jewish community is very important to me as an individual. We’re very lucky that our community has this.”

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 55

Shana Tova Thank you Ottawa You continue to Amaze Us!

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(613) 244-9210

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shana tova

Page 56 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Sylvia Larrass to perform concert of Jewish cabaret songs, Oct. 4

By Maxine Miska Soloway JCC The German cabaret – characterized by songs of political satire and gallows humour – was, for all intents and purposes, one of the first victims of Hitler’s rise to power. While the Nazis quickly ended the fearless, satiric, intimate performances, Jewish musicians continued the cabaret tradition in exile.

On Tuesday, October 4, 7:00 pm, the Greenberg Families Library presents Jewish Cabaret in Exile, a concert of Jewish cabaret songs from 1932 to 1948 performed by Sylvia Larrass with commentary by Professor Jean-Jacques Van Vlasselaer, at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (JCC).

The evening’s program will feature songs of internal and external exile.

European Jews were internally exiled – within Europe – in concentration camps.

Terezin had its own cabaret, composers, musicians and singers. Van Vlasselaer, an expert on the music of Terezin, will provide commentary on Larrass’ performance of Victor Ullmann’s Three Yiddish Songs. Ullmann

who perished in the Holocaust, staged an opera, The Emperor of Atlantis in Terezin, until the authorities, realizing its anti-Nazi message, shut down the performance.

Other composers, such as Kurt Weill, found refuge in cities of exile including Paris, New York and Los Angeles.

Weill, who had worked with Bertolt Brecht, left Germany for Paris and, eventually, New York where he collaborated with Broadway lyricists such as Ira Gershwin and Allan Jay Lerner; and Friedrich Hollaender began a new career in Los Angeles writing music for Hollywood cinema. He had previously created a cabaret ambiance for the 1930 German film The Blue Angel, in which Marlene Dietrich memorably sang “Falling in Love Again.”

Jewish song traditions in 20th century Russia, while not destroyed by the Nazis, were repressed by the revolutionary and later Stalinist regimes.

Composer Moses Milner wrote the first opera in Yiddish in Russia in 1923, but it was denounced as reactionary and banned.

Larrass will perform Milner’s “In Kheyder,” a satirical description of a

Torah teacher’s inability to get the attention of his class.

This Jewish cabaret tradition was transmitted to non-Jews as well.

Dmitri Shostakovich, perhaps the most famous composer of the Soviet era, was attracted to Jewish music.

During a time of Stalinist oppression of Jews, Shostakovich wrote his Jewish Song Cycle. Larrass will perform selections from this work as well.

Originally from Germany, Larrass studied in France and Germany before graduating from the University of British Columbia.

She also holds a diploma in vocal performance, as well as the Medal of Excellence from the Royal Conservatory of Music for highest achievements in the province of Ontario.

Van Vlasselaer, a linguistic professor and musicologist, is a noted music critic and a frequent lecturer for the National Arts Centre.

Tickets to Jewish Cabaret in Exile are $18 and are available at the Soloway JCC front desk or at the door.

For more information, contact me at 613-798-9818, ext. 263, or mmiska@jccottawa.com.

Sylvia Larass will perform a concert of cabaret songs

by Jewish composers, October 4, at the SJCC.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 57

Did you know Taylor Schachnow is Ellen’s biggest fan?

• Taylor Schachnow was the grand prize winner in Majic 100’s search for the biggest Ellen DeGeneres fan.

Taylor’s 30-second dance video won her and a friend a trip to Toronto to meet Ellen in person.

“It was the most incredible experience in my life,” said the 17-year-old. “I have never cried of happiness before, and I did after I met her. It was unreal.”

Taylor shared the prize, which included round-trip flights, hotel accommodation and tickets to see Ellen at the Power of Women event, with her friend Rebecca Levy.

“I was speechless when I saw her come into the room and I was so nervous, so all I could say to her was ‘I love you’ and ‘thank you,’” said Taylor.

Ellen loved Taylor’s sweater, which said, “Ellen thinks I can dance.”

“Do you think I can dance?” Taylor asked the celebrity.

Of course, Ellen said, ‘Yes!’ Check out the video of Taylor’s reaction to winning the prize when the radio station DJs showed up at her house with the news at tinyurl.com/majic-Taylor.

• Prominent Ottawa defence lawyer Doug Baum is the fifth Jew to be elected president of the Defence Counsel of Ottawa, an association of private criminal defence lawyers practising in the city. Previous Jewish presidents of the organization were founder Leonard Shore, Rosalind Conway, Michael Edelson and Lawrence Greenspon.

• Preparations are well underway for the fall grand opening of the Michael Gennis Gallery in Westboro. The fit up of the gallery space, located on the street level of the brand new Westboro Station condo building, is almost complete.

A website is in the design stage and Michael has begun amassing a collection of paintings, glass and sculptures from North American, European and Israeli artists.

• Open Air Publishing, founded and run by Jon Feldman who’s now living in New York, has just released a groundbreaking iPad how-to book that allows readers to touch, watch, listen and read as they master new skills and learn from experts. Speakeasy Cocktails: Learn from the Modern Mixologists stars two top New York bartenders teaching the tricks of the trade on video and in interactive graphics, along with the full text of an original book.

• The Maoz siblings are international. As noted in the September 5 issue of the Bulletin, Eitan played for the

Shayna Shuster 613-596-4133 www.shaynashuster.com

New Year’s greetings to all my friends and clients in the community

Did you know?

Benita Baker

Ron Weiss performs at the Ottawa Folk Festival at Hog’s Back Park.

(Photo: Sylvie Barzilay)

Israeli Senior National Baseball Team at a division tournament of the European Championship Qualifiers that was played in Israel. Eitan had the top batting average for Israel and was one the top five hitters in the tournament. Eitan, now in his senior year, is catcher for the University of North Carolina Pembroke Braves. Paz is in Montreal attending Concordia University while Hadar, who is in high school in Israel, has enlisted in the IDF and can be drafted as early as July 2012.

• A couple of community members were featured at the Ottawa Folk Festival, held August 25 to 28 at Hog’s Back Park. Ron “Doc” Weiss performed a well-received after-

Mike Regenstreif (right) conducts an on-stage interview with Colin Hay of Men At Work at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

(Photo: Sylvie Barzilay)

noon concert on the festival’s Falls Stage while Bulletin editor Michael “Mike” Regenstreif conducted an on-stage interview with solo artist Colin Hay, once the lead singer of the Australian band Men At Work, and hosted the folk festival’s Southern Folk workshop.

• In Search of the Existential Moment, the current solo exhibition by artist Katherine Jean, runs until October 3 at Wall Space Gallery in Westboro.

If you know something that we all should know, tell me, so I can tell the community. Send e-mail to me at didyouknowottawa@gmail.com

shana tova

Page 58 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Eighteen things you may not know about David Smith You know his delicious food and incredible desserts.

You know the pointy shoes, the long hair and nails, and the pink shirts. You know the beautifully decorated rooms and simchas with flare. You know he has a lot of siblings and loves to call everyone “doll.� You know him as The Caterer, but do you really know the man?

I thought I did, until I got to spend some quiet time with him and learn more about this generous man whose family always comes first. Here are 18 things you may not know about David Smith ...

1. There are 10 children in the Smith family, five boys and five girls. I am number four. I have 12 nieces and nephews, one great-niece and one great-nephew.

2. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a movie star.

3. Yes, I really do have a huge walk-in closet filled with pink shirts! At last count, I have 185 pink shirts sorted by shade.

4. On one of my nightstands I always have a copy of the book, Words of Wisdom. On my other nightstand is The Joy of Cooking. I like to read cooking magazines and eat chocolates in bed, and I fell asleep to Lloyd Robertson on the CTV National News for 35 years.

5. I had a wonderful German shepherd dog named ‘Bojangles’ for 16 years. I currently have a miniature pinscher named ‘Versace,’ but he is on loan to a friend who derives much comfort from this sweet dog.

6. I collect elephants, Versace crystal and diamonds.

Everything is on display in my home. While I do have many fragile items, I pride myself on having a warm, welcoming, and child-friendly home.

Would you like to advertise in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin?

Contact Cindy Manor-Kennedy 613-798-4696, ext. 256 cmanor@ottawajewishbulletin.com

18 things ...

7. My favourite item of clothing is my black leopard print tuxedo jacket.

8. My first catering job ever was when I was 15 and working for my dad. I made a platter of party sandwiches for a customer. I made them, she loved them, and I’ve been making them ever since! I like to say, “I graduated from Jack Smith University in culinary arts.

9. My favourite holiday is Rosh Hashanah because my entire family gets together at my house for meals – 70 to 80 people! I designed my house with a banquet room in order to accommodate my family.

10. My siblings – or at least Leiba, who was in the office during this interview – would describe me as smooth, creative, fun, generous, astute, loving, caring, compassionate, extravagant, and possessing a high level of tolerance for people and situations. She was not able to limit herself to three words!

11. I do not own a BlackBerry or an iPhone. I have had the same cellphone for 10 years.

12. I once stalked Oprah when I was living in Vancouver and she was visiting. I served her lunch and got my picture taken with her. It was worth it!

13. I used to run the Junior Congregation program at the old Machzikei Hadas location on St. Patrick Street. I learned to speak Hebrew from the late Max Nadolny while sitting next to him in shul.

14. My favourite catering gig to do is a large bar or bat mitzvah luncheon in a synagogue because they feel so haymishe. The most extravagant event I ever did was a beautiful wedding that, among other special touches, had 15,000 ivory roses and 100,000 yards of chiffon. It felt like you had walked into a fairytale.

15. I love to water-ski.

16. I am afraid of the dark.

17. I am often up at 4:00 am to prepare for events and begin preparing for Sunday night weddings at midnight Saturday. When do I sleep? During Shavuot!

18. I cook for myself all the time at home in my amazing kitchen. I have three ovens, eight burners and a doublefridge. I often make intricate salads and grilled tuna, and try out new recipes from my extensive cookbook collection.

My favourite things to eat at work are the mini-hotdogs-ina-blanket.

Sarah Silverstein

Creative Kosher Catering’s David Smith at a simcha in one of his 185 pink shirts.

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 59

Mothers Circle reaches out to non-Jewish mothers with Jewish spouses This fall, the Mothers Circle, one of the many successful programs the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (JCC) runs, will enjoy a second season. Supported by the Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI), the program is one I have followed with great interest as I instinctively enjoy seeing communal institutions reach out to new groups.

I am endlessly fascinated by programs anchored around the exploration of identity, and the Mothers Circle is particularly interesting since it is a program for a very specific group: nonJewish mothers whose spouse is Jewish.

Unlike most identity groups who live their entire lives aware of their Otherness (sexual or racial minorities, for example), these women took on a new type of Other identity the moment they got involved with their spouse. Probably never having previously thought of themselves as non-Jews, an odd label at the best of times, women who aren’t Jewish who marry Jews generally need to negotiate their own identity on unfamiliar terrain. With intermarriage considered, by many, to be a threat to Jewish continuity, these women probably find themselves – consciously or unconsciously – on the defensive in many Jewish circles.

This tricky status no doubt intensifies if and when children come into the picture and the couple begins to contemplate the philosophical and practical questions of whether and how to integrate religion into their home. With Jews being a minority, the question can seem extra fraught.

Enter the Mothers Circle. For though they are not Jewish themselves, these non-Jewish spouses are the “unsung heroes” of our community, as JOI director Rabbi Kerry Olitzky has called them, parents who bring their kids to Hebrew school, to shul, to the JCC, who make Chanukah dinners and Passover seders, who help raise the next generation of Jews.

Values, Ethics, Community Mira Sucharov JOI realized that this cohort might benefit from its own program, a program that both suggests some practical how-to steps regarding infusing a home with Jewish ritual and tradition, and which helps participants grapple with their own identities. It helps that the Soloway JCC has Sabina Wasserlauf as facilitator for the Mothers Circle. She is preternaturally insightful, kind, intelligent and intuitive. (Full disclosure: Sabina and I sit on the Soloway JCC executive together, and I am proud to call her a good friend.)

Participants have the benefit of guest speakers, such as rabbis, who are available to answer questions and demystify some of the aspects of organized Jewish life; but, most of all, they have the benefit of each other, each of them able to share their journey.

Importantly, the Mothers Circle is not a conversion course.

JOI and the Soloway JCC realize that Jewish families come in all different forms. Not every person who marries a Jew wishes to convert. There may be a desire on the part of that person to help raise their children with their spouse’s Jewish heritage in mind, but a personal religious conversion may simply feel inauthentic to them. One woman I know, a graduate of the Mothers Circle, feels strongly that Jewish knowledge and practice is an important platform from which her children can

Author explores his mother’s life in The Bristle Merchant’s Daughter The Bristle Merchant’s Daughter

By John Salinsky Authorhouse 192 pages John Salinsky, author of The Bristle Merchant’s Daughter, is a luminary in the field of Balint work, the study of doctor-patient relationships. As Balint is an area of medicine of special interest to me, I was very keen to read his new book.

Salinsky is a general practitioner in London, England. When he was 68, he decided he wanted to know more about his mother, who had died 10 years earlier at the age of 96. He wanted to know more about what she had been like before he was born; and also to explore the relationship he had with her throughout his life.

Salinsky had little to rely on for the first part of his mother’s story, just some written and verbal memoires from her, and the sketchy memories of other family members. So he used his own imagination to bring those ancient episodes from his family’s history to life. He compares this process to being in a cinema, watching a film of his mother’s life being projected on to the screen. Readers are able to watch the film with him.

The story begins, circa 1900, in Eastern Europe where Salinsky’s maternal grandparents, Jacob and Rachel, are young Jews living in a shtetl. They fall in love, get married

and decide to immigrate to England to seek a better life and escape antiSemitic persecution.

They settle in Leeds, a city in northern England, where there is already a hard-working Jewish community living in the poorest slum district. Jacob goes into partnership with his brother as a bristle merchant. As a boy, he had learned the trade of obtaining and preparing hog bristles for making brushes. There were no man-made fibres in those days, so all brushes had to be made from animal bristles. The business prospered and the young couple were soon able to find a better place to live.

Their first child, Florrie, who would grow up to be Salinsky’s mother, was born in Leeds in 1902. She was a bright little girl who did well at school and helped her mother look after her three younger brothers.

Salinsky continues to tell his mother’s story. At the age of just 16, Florrie enrolled at Leeds University to study medicine. Women doctors were quite unusual at the time and she seemed to have a shining career ahead of her. Unfortunately, she failed an exam and became so disheartened that she dropped out and never went back. She plunged into a severe depression, and received psychoanalytic treatment from Dr. David Eder, one of Sigmund Freud’s early followers, who was practising in London.

grow and identify collectively. She has told me that given her particular family and ethnic heritage, giving up Christmas would feel like a huge and painful loss. Conversion, therefore, is out of the question for her. But she enthusiastically embraces Jewish holidays and other practices and sends her children to Jewish supplementary school. This summer, her oldest child attended Jewish sleepover camp – one that is particularly infused with daily Judaic practice – and had a fantastic experience.

Why Mothers Circle and not a fathers circle? Maybe, although I doubt this is entirely true in the 21st century, because there remains the view that religious ritual and tradition in the home is primarily the domain of the mother. Or maybe because Orthodox and Conservative Judaism maintains Jewish status is transmitted matrilineally, making these women acutely aware that their children will face challenges in some corners of our community where they won’t be considered halachically Jewish.

Not all Judaic movements see intermarriage in that light.

The Reform and Reconstructionist Movements have long been welcoming of blended families, presuming the children are being raised Jewishly. In Hope Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance, Edgar Bronfman and Beth Zasloff make the case that intermarriage expands the Jewish community by virtue of more spouses and hence more children being born to Jewish parents.

But, the Mothers Circle isn’t there to debate definitions of Jewish continuity. Rather, it envelops people who are exploring how they want to raise their kids. In sharing tools and tips, and offering a forum for them to share their own personal struggles and challenges, everyone wins: these mothers, our community, and children who benefit from supported, informed and empowered parents.

Book Review Miriam Salamon Salinsky gives a vivid account of Florrie’s daily talking treatment, which eventually helped her towards recovery, although she remained prone to depression and anxiety throughout her life.

Florrie fell in love with and married Manny, a tailor.

Together, they struggled through the post-war economic depression and had three sons – Michael, Kenneth, and John, the author – all of whom grew up to become doctors.

As the story continues to unfold, the family live through the anxiety and deprivation of the Second World War and Salinsky, via imaginary conversations with her, puzzles over why his highly intelligent mother never had a career outside the home.

While Salinsky’s relationship with his mother was often stormy during his childhood, they begin to better understand each other during her old age and they enjoy spending time together during her declining years.

I think The Bristle Merchant’s Daughter will resonate with all who have wondered about their parents as human beings, as whole entities, separate from their role as parents. It will also to speak to those whose parents or grandparents were immigrants.

It is an easy-to-read, yet literate, page-turner. I was especially amused by the author’s escapades as a child at a safe house in the country when Britain was being bombed during the Second World War. The Bristle Merchant’s Daughter is humorous in its unique gentle fashion and I highly recommend it for all age groups.

Miriam Salamon is a family physician practising in Ottawa.

Page 60 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

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Two fine CDs from the British klezmer scene and singer Cigdem Aslan – who was born in Istanbul – are highlighted; and “Train to Orestiada,” which features clarinetist Susi Evans on an arrangement that’s imagined as a Ukranian klezmer band playing in a Greek nightclub in Athens.

While I’ve called attention to a few of the She’koyokh musicians as pertaining to the cited selections, they and the rest of the band – Oliver Baldwin on tambura, Robin Harris on trombone and Ben Samuels on mandolin – are all delightful throughout the 14 selections clocking in at more than an hour.

She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble Buskers’ Ballroom Arc Music www.shekoyokh.co.uk The She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble has become somewhat of a sensation in British music circles for its tight, soulful variation on traditional Ashkenazic klezmer music musically informed by strains and influences from Sephardic, Roma, Balkan and Parisian jazz traditions.

The joyous dance tune “Russian Shers,” which opens the album and gives various instrumentalists the chance to interact with each other in a way that lots of fun, is among my favourite tracks on the CD. Others include “Bendi Glendi,” in which guitarist Matt Bacon demonstrates his great facility on a Django Reinhardt-like jazz tune; “Hora with Onions,” a Naftule Brandwein tune that becomes a showcase for violinist Meg Hamilton; “Rampi Rampi,” a Turkish Roma piece in which percussionist Vasilis Sarikis

Hilda Bronstein Hilda Bronstein Sings Yiddish Songs with Chutzpah!

Arc Music chiribim.com When I first opened this CD, I assumed that the word chutzpah was being used to describe British singer Hilda

He’s just a regular guy I was sitting in the coffee shop speaking nonchalantly with an acquaintance I have not seen for several years when he told me that he’s just a regular guy.

Sometimes, you can be talking to someone without really noticing them, when, all of a sudden, they say something that strikes you and gets you to look at them in a new way.

When he said he was a regular guy, I looked at him more closely, both figuratively and literally.

The first thing I noticed was that he was, indeed, a regular figure. His head was all angles with equal sides – it looked like a cube. Although his head made him look regular, I quickly realized it was not that usual. His arms and legs were also radially symmetrical, which gave him a very odd, but quite regular appearance.

“You were telling me what you did after university a little while ago. What was it?” I inquired.

“I was in the regular forces,” he replied.

“Makes sense,” I thought.

As I looked down, I noticed his coffee.

“What size is that coffee?” I asked.

“Regular,” he said.

“And how do you take your coffee?”

“Oh, just regular,” he smiled. “I’m just a …”

“Regular guy,” I said, finishing his sentence for him.

I realized that when we were playing basketball together he was one of the regulars and was very regular in attending our practices. As a matter of fact, he also came to class

early, regularly.

As we left the Tim Hortons, the staff all smiled and waved to him.

“It’s nice to see you have become a regular here,” one of them called out.

By then, I was completely obsessed and suspicious. I snooped into his life and found out from his wife he has a regular job. His rabbi told me he is a regular participant in the synagogue.

I started following him around in my car and discovered he keeps a regular schedule and is very regular in his habits.

On a stake-out, waiting for him to come out of his office at the regular time, a policeman approached and knocked on my window.

“I hope there is nothing irregular going on here,” he said when I rolled down the window. “You’re parked in a noparking zone.”

I assured him it was just a slight mistake, that I intended to move on. As far as I could tell, there were no irregularities and no possibility of finding any.

But I was committed to my mission. Surely, there must be something. I inquired after his bathroom habits and found that, because he eats lots of fibre, he is quite regular.

I fell into a kind of depression, almost despair. When he saw me standing on the corner across the street from Tim Hortons, he came over and greeted me with a big smile.

“Hey, life can’t be that bad,” he said.

Music Michael Regenstreif Bronstein’s approach to the singing of Yiddish songs. While I wouldn’t say there’s a lack of chutzpah in her singing, Chutzpah is actually the name of the klezmer band she fronts.

The album is a collection of 17 Yiddish-language songs – many of them familiar – drawn from various sources including classic Yiddish films and theatrical musicals, settings of Yiddish poems and several Holocaust-era songs. Bronstein sings the quieter, sombre songs with all due respect and the more celebratory, upbeat songs with much verve.

Chutzpah, which includes Israeli accordionist Yair Schleider, and violinist Meg Hamilton, also noted for her work in the She’koyokh Klezmer Ensemble, provides Bronstein with arrangements that move from swinging to contemplative.

Among the highlights are such toe-tappers as “Abi Gezunt,” made famous by Molly Picon in the 1938 film Mamele; “Di Grine Kuzine,” an ultimately bitter song about Jewish immigration to America in the early part of the 20th century; and “Farbay di Teg,” a Yiddish version of a Russian folksong whose English version, “Those Were the Days” was a Mary Hopkin hit in the 1960s .

Some of the CD’s most poignant moments come in songs like “Makh Tsu Di Eygelekh,” a lullaby composed in the Lodz Ghetto; and “Slutsk,” a Yiddish theatre song recalling a shtetl in Belarus.

Note: My music blog – Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif – is at frfb.blogspot.com. Among recent postings are my reviews of last month’s Ottawa Folk Festival.

Humour me, please Rubin Friedman “Life is so predictable,” I replied, “How can you stand it?”

He looked shocked.

“But that is what makes it so pleasant,” he said.

I stared back at him through haggard eyes, ringed in shadow.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I mumbled.

He shrugged slightly, grins and said brightly, “Oh I’m just a …”

“Regular guy,” I said finishing his sentence yet again.

“Yeah, I know.”

Then, as if he was telling me a terrible secret, he leaned closer and said, “The only irregular things I allow in my life are the occasional irregular verbs. But you have to use them to communicate in English.”

He said that with a slight frown, which, somehow, to me was reassuring. I started to smile and he returned the gesture by punching me in the arm.

He started to walk away.

“Maybe we should see each other more regularly,” he called over his shoulder.

“Not a chance,” I muttered under my breath.

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 65

Social unrest in a time of global economic uncertainty Did the anarchy and unrest in the United Kingdom (U.K.) follow from the Arab Spring running through much of the Middle East? Was it the U.K.’s spring awakening?

No one knows for certain how much the economic downturn influenced the Arab Spring and how much political machinations contributed to the uprisings. What we saw in Greece and eventually in the U.K. were clear signs the global uprisings were related mainly to economic woes. In the Middle East, while most rejoiced at seeing dictators deposed, a very few were asking if the change is actually for the better, politically or economically.

In the U.K., an unrelated trigger launched a wave of public frustration with economic depression revealing a desperation that turned into full-blown anarchy. One hopes the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver was not the tip of an iceberg of youth disillusionment and desperation in our own back yard.

The common theme threading through the unrest seems to be mass hopelessness brought on by economic depression.

There are far more people affected globally than our institutions and governments care to admit. Making matters worse, in the United States (U.S.), the White House, the Republicans and the Democrats took it upon themselves to play a game of chicken with other people’s livelihoods instead of focusing on solutions.

The result was the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, not to mention a loss of credibility. Twenty years ago, no one would have imagined a communist country like China would be the leading creditor of the world’s most capitalistic nation and be in a position to chide the U.S. for its economic policies.

What went wrong? You guessed it – greed.

We have given up on innovation and nurturing ideas that grow. We’ve grown equally indifferent to self-sustainability, especially in the area of agriculture and locally grown produce.

The lack of institutional support for small and medium sized business over the past 10 years – in favour of ever-larger global or multi-national corporations – is a manifestation of our global trade paradigm. It brings with it free trade zones, open borders, the European Union (EU), Eurodollars, and the continual pursuit of disappearing cheap labour and cheap natural resources.

It doesn’t bring economic health or stability since we’ve created a nomad corporate culture of big businesses that do not belong anywhere, but scour the globe for cheap resources.

They are producers of affordable products and services using the cheapest human capital and natural resources available.

Things such as pride of product ownership and loyalty to consumers, employees or countries, are not values in such an equation.

The size of these corporations leads us to overlook their inconstancy – we grant such multi-nationals special tax credits and incentives in the hope of generating some loyalty or cultivating their favour. We hope to keep or find our small share of their global presence, critical size and volume of business. Tax credits, loan guarantees or government financial rescue packages have created additional tax burdens on local populations and businesses in every region without necessarily generating the hoped-for benefits.

The prosperity promised by the global free traders was very short lived. Ask those countries in Europe who desper-

Look at the deal we’ve got for you!

Special Limited New Year Offer on START-UP* local Bulletin subscriptions.

World Affairs Oliver Javanpour ately want to start printing their own money and pull out of the EU. Sustaining a global economy with oil at $100-plus per barrel is simply undoable.

While we consume the ubiquitous global goods and services offered by the large multi-nationals and derived from every corner of the planet, we pay taxes and we demand, and try to maintain, social welfare and health systems that are unique to every region. Yet our banking and financial environments are all so closely coupled, though regulated ever so slightly differently in every country. In some regions, such as the EU, many national systems have merged into one. This leaves the left hand to bail out the right with neither seeming to have bootstraps of their own to pull themselves up.

Visiting China last month, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden found some common ground with his Chinese counterparts.

They discussed why China should not sell off U.S. Treasury bills and how China and the U.S. have come to recognize how communication tools and social media could have a devastat-

ing impact on the political and economic health of a country.

Clearly, China is feeling the economic stresses generated by the global depression and it, too, has had to face – all be it isolated – public protests and domestic and civil disobedience.

Lately, my support for globalism has suffered a great deal, which surprises me to no end. I see we’ve gone too far. We were not able to recognize when we should have stopped, perhaps in the early 1990s. Our perpetual support for blind consumerism and consumption is unsustainable. As humans, we react far differently in a tribal environment than we do in a global environment. We are at our best when we recognize when to be global and when to be tribal.

By no means am I arguing against global trade, I simply think we should recognize its flows to favour tribal interests and exposure. We need better long-range models that can predict global socio-economic performance and impacts.

Despite calling for change in every election campaign, politicians are slow to recognize the need for a paradigm shift, and much slower to implement it. By the time the G-20 recognizes we need a better global trading model to engage and pay for our unemployed and under-employed human capital, it will be too late.

Perhaps we could engage the power of social media in campaigning to hasten such change and bring about healthier economies and individual happiness and hope.

Oliver Javanpour is a senior partner at Cyrus Echo, a public policy and international relations consulting firm in Ottawa.

Judaic Outreach Programs September to December 2011 Alison Caplan, Judaic Administrative Assistant • 613-725-3519 Adele Horwitz, Judaic Program Leader • 613-592-8365 Date

Program

Place

Time

Mondays Beginning Sept. 12

Tamir Neshama Choir Cantor Benlolo

Day Program 11 Nadolny Sachs

7:30-8:30

Thursdays Beginning Sept. 22

OSSD Drama Program Contact Melanie Fulop

Contact Melanie Fulop for details

6:30 – 8:30

Sunday September 25

Rosh Hashanah Dinner RSVP to Alison Caplan

Riddell Residence

5:30 – 8:00

Mondays Beginning Oct.

Judaic Art Therapy Details to follow

Day Program 11 Nadolny Sachs

6:00 – 7:30

Monday October 3

Tashlich Bring bread

DesChenes Lookout Ottawa River Parkway

5:00 – 6:00

Sunday October 16

Succah Party Luncheon RSVP to Alison Caplan

Killeen Residence

12:00 – 2:00

Thursday October 20

Simchat Torah Celebrations

Congregation Beth Shalon

6:45 – 8:30

Friday November 4

Community Shabbat RSVP to Alison Caplan

Day Program 11 Nadolny Sachs

5:30 – 7:30

Friday December 4

Community Shabbat RSVP to Alison Caplan

Day Program 11 Nadolny Sachs

5:30 – 7:30

Tuesday December 20

Tamir Chanukah Party RSVP To Alison Caplan

Agudath Israel 1400 Coldrey

6:30 – 8:30

See page 40 for details. * New subscribers only

Shana Tova with health and happiness to the Ottawa Jewish community

shana tova

Page 66 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Writing for the Bulletin has been a rewarding experience Regretfully, this is my final 20/30 Scene column for the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin. Work and school commitments over the coming year just won’t leave enough time to devote to it.

Writing my final 20/30 Scene column, I can’t help but reflect on the past year and the experiences that it has afforded me.

Writing for the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin has been a rewarding experience for me. I have learned a great deal that I will be taking with me as I move on to new challenges. There are many people I want to thank for sharing with me some of the skills needed in being a writer, as well as for the opportunity to be part of a vibrant Jewish community.

I am very grateful to have been able to start my Bulletin work last year by serving as the first summer intern hired under the auspices of the Barry Fishman Ottawa Jewish Bulletin Scholarship Fund.

I want to thank Michael Regenstreif for all the mentoring he gave me. Being editor of a local paper can be a thankless job filled with many challenges. Watching Michael handle them with his wisdom and insight taught me as much as the writing and editing tips we went over during my first week at the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.

And, I want to thank the entire community for letting me peek into their plans and write about the many hopes, dreams and opportunities that abound here in our little part of the world. I have met so many wonderful, inspiring people, many of whom work tirelessly for the better good of all.

Speaking of wonderful people, one of the most memorable interviews I had was with Ruth Aaron, who, even in her 80s,

brings disabled Israeli soldiers to Ottawa during their visits to Canada for free tours organized by Beit Halochem Canada, Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel.

Ruth’s concern for the soldiers inspired me tremendously.

Her dedication in doing this for more than 25 years showed me the value of connecting with the Jewish community in Israel as well. Speaking of Israeli soldiers, two friends of mine have recently moved to Israel to join the army there and my thoughts are with them at this time, wondering how their new community feels to them.

On a different note, I have been fortunate to spend time, lately, with a couple of Israelis who are new to Ottawa and to see, through their eyes, their experiences with our community. It was funny when one of them mentioned they were going back to Israel for a visit and I asked what community events they might go to there. I was reminded that many of Jewish community events we have here don’t happen in Israel because “everyone there is Jewish.”

Of course, it was to be expected that, along with the inspirations, there were some definite challenges during my year at the Bulletin. Having the chance to write about openOttawa and the struggle to engage the emerging generation was a real eye-opening experience. The very future of our community depends on this issue being addressed.

It was interesting to watch the ways openOttawa participants worked to develop new initiatives. While there are big obstacles ahead, there are many bright, young and dynamic leaders ready to take them on. Although, sometimes, our biggest struggle is to just step back, pass the baton and have

someone new lead this leg of the relay.

Something I touched on in my first 20/30 Scene column is the dating scene here in the small fish pond that is Ottawa’s Jewish community. There is a lot that could be written about this subject, too. Certainly, the challenges facing the wider secular community are only intensified in this smaller one. Add to that every young Jew’s challenge of how to be uniquely Jewish and how that plays out in our everyday decision-making.

So, while I am not leaving the community, or my writing, behind, I am signing off for a time while I complete my master’s degree and take on another exciting job. And, I do hope that I’ll still have some time to contribute articles to the Bulletin occasionally.

Again, thank you, and best wishes to all for a happy and healthy New Year.

Love, Jackie

Meet the family of campus Jewish groups

.

For a university student, there are a lot of great things about summer: barbecues, cottage parties and the sunshine offer pleasant respite from long hours in the library.

But my favourite thing about summer is that many of my childhood friends return from their respective universities to reconnect with the city they call home.

I met a large chunk of these friends at Hillel Academy, starting at age five, or at some point during my 10-summer run at Camp B’nai Brith of Ottawa, where you live in a cabin with people who have also shared a similar upbringing – from bar-mitzvah mayhem in Grades 6 and 7, to a slew of first trips to Israel at Birthright age. You’re more than friends – you’re family.

And, as much as I love the diversity of the new friends I’ve made at university, part of me mourns losing my family every September.

The goods news is that this special bond is not totally unique to my own peer group. The core of it: the Jewish upbringing, values and cultural traditions are things common to the whole community. Through the Jewish community on campus, my Jewish summer doesn’t have to end, and neither does yours. It’s time to meet the family.

Hillel Ottawa Often followed by its slogan: “The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life,” Hillel is, well, just that – a hub connecting and engaging Jewish students on campus, as well as introducing them to the opportunities available for career advancement, volunteering, Israel or simply meeting new people.

Fresh from a leadership retreat, the Hillel team is looking to rebrand this year by holding fun, fresh events and collaborating with other campus organizations.

Look out for: Brooklyn’s DJ Diwon at Babylon, October 6; Koogle Shabbat, October 28. Key players: Executive Director Ross Diamond, City-wide President Alex Izso. More info: hillelottawa.ca

Campus Life Ilana Belfer Israel Awareness Committee (IAC) IAC is a non-denominational group dedicated to leveling the playing field, so to speak, for a major debate on-campus: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Via tabling and events, IAC strives to cultivate fair and balanced discourse on the topic at hand while acting as a resource for Israeli advocacy. One of this year’s goals is to take away the stigma that supporting Israel is an outrageous idea.

Look out for: The bi-annual Israeli Wine and Canadian Cheese event featuring prominent members of Parliament, September 22. Key player: City-wide President Hashem Hamdy. More info: tinyurl.com/IAC-Ottawa Chabad Student Network (CSN) CSN seeks to act as a home-away-from-home on campus, using warmth and welcome to foster university students’ connection to their Jewish roots. Offering weekly – and often themed – Shabbat dinners, girls’ events and community service initiatives, the CSN executive is working to increase social and graduate-student programming this year so that there’s something for everyone.

Look out for: Upcoming Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur dinners and prayer services; Sinai Scholars. Key players: Rabbi Chaim and Yocheved Boyarsky and their red-headed daughters; City-wide President Rebecca Rosenstock. More info: chabadstudentnetwork.com

Kollel Ottawa Committed to the advancement of Torah study, the Kollel’s campus outreach division provides opportunities for students to lead more fulfilling Jewish lives.

Look out for: Learn ‘n’ Earn, two weekly hours of food, friends and thought-provoking topics; a trip to New York City; Shabbatons; daily study and study partners, and more. Key player: Director of Campus Development and Co-ordinator of Jewish Outreach Rabbi Shaya Greiniman (a.k.a. Rabbi G).

More info: 613-265-1613 There are also a couple of off-campus groups whose focus includes graduate students in addition to young professionals.

Glebe Shul Born of JET’s campus and young professional divisions, the Glebe Shul is a “shul without walls” for young adults.

Shabbat dinners, spirited davening, followed by a home cooked meal, are held every other Friday night and are considered a highlight of the Glebe Shul experience.

Look out for: Scotch and God talk every Tuesday; Jewish art and culture events. Key players: Rabbi Michael and Stacy Goldstein; Communications Liaison Marlee Wasser. More info: glebeshul.com jnet Ottawa jnet makes it a mission to show graduate students that the ever-so-transient city of Ottawa really is a happening place – one where they should stay post-studies. Their events are generally meant to appeal to the 20s and 30s age range and are not religiously based. They aim to be as inclusive as possible.

Look out for: Charity gala in November. Key player: Chair Tamara Fathi. More info: jnetottawa.com Opening barbecues, social events, and shining ruach have allowed the summer spirit to permeate my school year. Shana Tovah U’metuka to my on-campus mishpacha!

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 67

FOUNDATION DONATIONS Our future is in your hands

Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation

APPOTIVE FAMILY ENDOWMENT FUND Mazal Tov to: Gad and Joanna Elmaleh on the birth of their new son, Yisroel Zev by Carolyn and Stephen Appotive.

To make a donation and/or send a tribute card, call Erin Bolling (613-798-4696 ext. 232) e-mail: donation@ojcf.ca • website: www.OJCF.ca

Join us in building our community by supporting these local agencies SHIRLEY AND SHIER BERMAN FUND FOR OTTAWA JEWISH ARCHIVES In memory of: Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Shirley and Shier Berman and family.

In appreciation of: Dr. Erwin Koranyi by Shirley and Shier Berman.

Mazal Tov to: Joel and Toby Yan on their daughter’s Aliyah by Shirley and Shier Berman.

JEWISH YOUTH LIBRARY OF OTTAWA ENDOWMENT FUND

AJA 50+ ENDOWMENT FUND

OTTAWA LODGE B’NAI BRITH #885 PAST PRESIDENTS FUND

DAVID “THE BEAR” KARDASH CAMP B’NAI BRITH MEMORIAL FUND OTTAWA JEWISH CEMETERIES ZICHARON FUND OTTAWA JEWISH COMMUNITY ENDOWMENT FUND OTTAWA JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY FUND

AJA 50+ DAVID SMITH OTTAWA JEWISH COMMUNITY SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIP FUND

OTTAWA LODGE B’NAI BRITH #885 PRESIDENTS SCHOLARSHIP FUND

AKIVA EVENING HIGH SCHOOL ENDOWMENT FUND

OTTAWA MODERN JEWISH SCHOOL FUND

ADINA BEN PORAT MACHON SARAH TORAH EDUCATION FUND DORIS BRONSTEIN TALMUD TORAH AFTERNOON SCHOOL FUND BARRY FISHMAN OTTAWA JEWISH BULLETIN SCHOLARSHIP FUND MARTIN GLATT PARLIAMENT LODGE B’NAI BRITH PAST PRESIDENTS’ FUND MENDEL AND VALERIE GOOD HOLOCAUST CONTINUING EDUCATION FUND

OTTAWA POST JEWISH WAR VETERANS FUND OTTAWA TORAH INSTITUTE TORAH EDUCATION FUND PINCHAS ZUKERMAN MUSIC EDUCATION FUND RAMBAM MAIMONIDES JEWISH CONTINUITY FUND SOLOWAY JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTRE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION FUND SOLOWAY JEWISH COMMUNITY SUMMER CAMP SCHOLARSHIP FUND

GREENBERG FAMILIES LIBRARY FUND

SOLOWAY JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTRE ENDOWMENT FUND

HILLEL ACADEMY ENDOWMENT FUND

SOLOWAY JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTRE YOUTH SERVICES FUND

HILLEL ACADEMY CHILDREN OF THE BOOK AWARD FUND

TORAH ACADEMY OF OTTAWA TORAH EDUCATION FUND

HILLEL LODGE LEGACY FUND JEWISH COMMUNITY CEMETERY HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL FUND JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES AGENCY FUND JEWISH MEN’S SOFTBALL LEAGUE FUND JEWISH STUDENTS ASSOCIATION HILLEL FUND

The Board of Directors of the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation acknowledges with thanks contributions to the following funds as of August 26, 2011.

SARA AND ZEEV VERED ISRAEL CULTURAL PROGRAM FUND YITZHAK RABIN HIGH SCHOOL FUND IN MEMORY OF EVA WINTHROP

NORMAN AND MYRNA BARWIN FOUNDATION OF THE PINCHAS ZUKERMAN MUSICAL SCHOLARSHIP FUND In memory of: Risë Silverstein by Myrna and Norman Barwin.

Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Myrna and Norman Barwin.

IRVING AND ESTHER BELLMAN MEMORIAL FUND In memory of: Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Mitchell Bellman and Nicola Hamer.

SANDI AND EDDY COOK ENDOWMENT FUND Speedy Recovery to: Mel Hoppenheim by Samantha Cook.

COOPERMAN-SHUSTER FAMILY FUND In memory of: Sally Golomb by Earl and Bruria Cooperman.

NATHAN AND REBA DIENER ENDOWMENT FUND In Observance of the Yahrzeit of: Nathan Diener, a beloved husband, father and grandfather by Reba Diener and family.

Birthday Wishes to: Richard Muller by John and Dayra Diener and family.

CHERYL AND ANDRE IBGHY ENDOWMENT FUND Mazal Tov to: Cory Omer and family on their new edition by Cheryl and Andre Ibghy and family.

KRANTZBERG KRANE FAMILY FUND Mazal Tov to: Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Segal on the birth of their grandson, Foster James by Myra and Sam Krane.

ANNICE AND SYDNEY KRONICK FAMILY FUND Birthday wishes to: Steven Leikin by Debi and Neil Zaret.

SAMUEL AND LEEMA MAGIDSON ENDOWMENT FUND Birthday wishes to: Allan Schwartz by Roslyn and Arnie Kimmel.

JACOB MALOMET MEMORIAL FUND Special anniversary wishes to: Ruth and Myron Poplove by Diana and Alvin Malomet.

TANYA AND SAMUEL MOSES MORIN MEMORIAL FUND In memory of: Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Harvey Morin.

PREHOGAN FAMILY FUND IN MEMORY OF AARON HARRY COHEN Mazal Tov to: Ron Prehogan on becoming chair of the Queensway Carleton Hospital Foundation by Zelaine and Sol Shinder.

Continued on page 68

MOSHE AND LILY FEIG ENDOWMENT FUND In memory of: Saul Silverman by Lily Feig.

Michael Shaver by Lily Feig.

FLORENCE FAMILY MEMORIAL FUND In Observance of the Yahrzeit of: Esther Smith, a beloved mother by A.L, Ann and Leanne Smith.

ALFRED AND KAYSA FRIEDMAN ENDOWMENT FUND In memory of: Harold Sachs by Alfred and Kaysa Friedman.

Jack Layton by Alfred and Kaysa Friedman.

Mazal Tov to: Norman and Sandra Slover on marriage of their son David to Adrienne Weinstock by Alfred and Kaysa Friedman.

ANN GLUZMAN MEMORIAL FUND Birthday wishes to: Ingrid Levitz by Anna and Sam Wex. BILL AND BELLA GOLDBERG MEMORIAL FUND Birthday wishes to: Eddy Cook by Sandra Goldberg and John Jussup.

LARRY AND SHEILA HARTMAN ENDOWMENT FUND R’fuah Sh’lemah to: Jonathan Fisher by Sheila and Larry Hartman.

May the traditions of Rosh Hashanah remind us of the deep values of faith and family that strengthen our community and help guide us each day.

Shana Tova V’MetukahGood health, happiness and peace

Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation

www.OJCF.ca

shana tova

Page 68 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

FOUNDATION DONATIONS PHYLLIS AND ALAN RACKOW ENDOWMENT FUND In memory of: Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Phyllis and Alan Rackow.

FLORENCE AND GDALYAH ROSENFELD ENDOWMENT FUND In memory of: Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Len and Mary Potechin;

by Lily Feig; by Beulah and Hans Adler; by Jeff Wood; by Harvey Morin; by Francis Bondaroff and family; by Teena and Walter Hendelman; by

Anna Cullinan; by Shirley and Marty Glick and family; by Debbie and Allan Bregman; by Libby and Stan Katz and family; by John and Gladys Greenberg, by Judy and Seymour Berger; by Rachel and Warren Orlans and family; by Chris Li;

by Mitzie and Harry Burke; by Marjorie Vaile; and

by Cindy and Jim Horvath.

FRANCES AND MORTON ROSS FAMLY FUND Special anniversary wishes to: Linda and Jack Kivenko by Fran and Morty Ross.

Celebrate the New Year by sending your friends and loved ones a Rosh Hashanah Tribute card.

Make your donation online at www.OJCF.ca or call 613.798.4696 extension 232.

Important Notice to all Fund Advisors of the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation If you would like to make changes in the allocations from your endowment fund for the 2010 disbursements, the request needs to be received in writing

by October 31st.

Please send your allocation instructions by one of the following methods:

THE SAUL AND EDNA GOLDFARB B’NAI MITZVAH PROGRAM

VERA AND SAM SCHWARTZ FAMILY FUND In observance of the Yahrzeit of: Sam Schwartz by Larry Weisz.

JACK AND SARAH SILVERSTEIN FAMILY ENDOWMENT FUND In memory of: RisĂŤ Silverstein by Ellen, Ray and Tamara Fathi; by Joyce and Seymour Bellman; by Hildy and Steven Lesh; by Harold Feder; by Bernie and Donna Dolansky; by Lynne Oreck-Wener and Bob Wener; by Benita Siemiatycki; by Leila and Stuart Ages and family; and by Chuck and Bonnie Merovitz.

Condolences to: Dan Bleichman and Erin Bolling on the loss of Dan’s beloved Safta by Jack, Sarah, David and Lev Silverstein.

Mazal Tov to: Don and Linda Swalsky on the birth of their grandson by Jack, Sarah, David and Lev Silverstein.

LINDA SILVERMAN MEMORIAL FUND Mazal Tov to: Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Silverman on the birth of their twin granddaughters by Marjorie and Ben Achbar; by Clair Krantzberg; and by Joan Bloom.

DORIS AND RICHARD STERN FAMILY FUND Speedy recovery to: Ralph Goldman by Doris and Richard Stern.

STEPHEN AND GAIL VICTOR ENDOWMENT FUND In memory of: Gdalyah Rosenfeld by Sandy Marchello.

In Observance of the Yahrzeit of: Sarah Appel Schwartz, a dear mother by Sandy Marchello.

Rita Appel, a dear aunt by Sandy Marchello.

Razel Sheinman, a dear great aunt by Sandy Marchello.

MILDRED AND PERCY WEINSTEIN ENDOWMENT FUND Special anniversary wishes to: Barb and Sid Cohen by Millie Weinstein.

HALTON/WEISS FAMILY FUND In memory of: RisĂŤ Silverstein by Debbie and Ron Weiss.

Mazal Tov to: Phil and Cathy Stein on the upcoming marriage of their son.

NOAH ZELIKOVITZ B’NAI MITZVAH FUND In appretiation of: Lorne Wiesenfeld by Lenora and Evan Zelikovitz.

Mazal Tov to: The Kofsky family on Josh’s Bar Mitzvah by Lenora, Evan, Noah and Arielle Zelikovitz.

Special Anniversary wishes to: Leon and Zelda Zelikovitz by Lenora, Evan, Noah and Arielle Zelikovitz.

Contributions may be made online at www.OJCF.ca or by contacting 613798-4696 extension 232, Monday to Friday or by email at donation@ojcf.ca.

Attractive cards are sent to convey the appropriate sentiments. All donations are acknowledged with a charitable receipt. We accept Visa, MasterCard and Amex.

vcr vsu,

BLANCHE & JOEY OSTERER

want to thank everyone for their get well wishes, cards, prayers, donations and phone calls.

Reb Yossel is making a speedy recovery and has already resumed taking part in evening services!

The unveiling of a monument in loving memory of

Martin (Mufty) Tatz will take place

Sunday, September 25, 2011 at 1:00 pm.

Bank Street Cemetery Family and friends are invited to attend.

Online request form: www.OJCF.ca Fax: 613-798-4695, Attn: Francine Paulin Email: fpaulin@ojcf.ca Mail or in person: 21 Nadolny Sachs Private Ottawa, ON K2A 1R9 Your cooperation is appreciated.

³6HUYLQJ WKH -HZLVK &RPPXQLW\ VLQFH ´ Brian McGarry Patrick McGarry Ivan Silverman Sharon McGarry &KDUOHV +XOVH %ULDQ 0F*DUU\ SURXG UHFLSLHQWV RI 2WWDZDœV %œQDL %ULWK $ZDUG

613-233-1143

www.mcgarryfamily.ca

September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 69

Obama administration makes it clear: Will veto statehood bid WASHINGTON (JTA) – The U.S. administration said unequivocally that it would veto any UN Security Council resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood. “If any such resolution were put in front of the Security Council, then we would veto it,�

Wendy Sherman told the U.S. Senate, September 7, in confirmation hearings for her nomination to become undersecretary of state for policy, the department’s third-ranking position.

Until now, the Obama administration has

said it strongly opposes Palestinian efforts to secure statehood recognition this month at the United Nations, but Sherman’s was the first definitive indication it would use its veto to quash the bid.

Sherman said the threat of the Palestinians taking the matter to the General Assembly for a symbolic but politically potent vote still loomed and the United States was still working to push the parties back to the table for talks. “The General Assembly is still of concern,

and so there is very urgent work going on to try to see if there’s not another way forward,� she said.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority is using a year-old qualified statement by President Barack Obama in a campaign for support for its statehood bid. “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that can lead to a new member of the United Nations, an indepen-

dent, sovereign state of Palestine living in peace with Israel,� Obama said in a 2010 speech to the United Nations quoted in an ad playing on Palestinian radio stations, according to Reuters.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas follows by saying, “If he said it, he must have meant it.�

Talks seeking the “agreement� Obama referred to collapsed soon after he delivered his speech.

U.S. universities reminded of legal duty to prevent harassment (JTA) – An Israeli civil rights group has sent letters to 150 university and college presidents in the United States reminding them of their legal obligations to prevent the harassment of Jewish students on their campuses.

In its letter dated September 8, the Shurat Din-Israel Law Center in Tel Aviv also reminded the administrators that their schools have a duty “to reasonably prevent university funds from being diverted to unlawful activities that are directed against the State of Israel.�

The centre, which, according to one report, was credited with mostly shutting down the second flotilla to the Gaza Strip this summer, cites specific cases of what it calls anti-Israel hostility and Jewish harassment at Rutgers University and the University of California,

Berkeley. The letter noted a recent lawsuit by a Berkeley alumnus contending that the university failed to protect her from physical attacks by a pro-Palestinian student.

While academic and political debate is a right, the letter said, “There are limits to these that students and campus officials must be made aware, especially with regard to antiIsrael activities.�

The letter was signed by Kenneth Leitner, a lawyer for the eight-year-old centre, which also has offices in New York.

According to Commentary Magazine, the centre was able to prevent most of the 10-boat flotilla from sailing to Gaza from Greece by informing insurance companies, satellite providers and Greek authorities of potential liabilities issues.

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Start Your New Year On a High Note

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shana tova

Page 70 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

Made with Love

A dairy lunch for Rosh Hashanah The dilemma I have with holiday cooking is that family always expects to see their same old favourites at the table while I crave to try something new and exciting. A great hue and cry goes up if I dare leave honey garlic wings off the menu. When I do make the wings, there is much jostling and sibling rivalry among the uncles and nephews about who gets the bowl first and about who is taking too many and not leaving enough for the others. Frankly, the whole thing gets a bit sophomoric and tiring.

So, this year, I’m leaving wings off the menu and will let the bones fall where they may. Please do me a favour and don’t mention this to my husband or to any of my brothersin–law or nephews if you see them before Rosh Hashanah.

I love them all dearly and still want them to show up. However, no need to worry. I will not let anyone starve.

We usually have the family over for lunch on Rosh Hashanah and, this year, I am going to make it a dairy lunch.

Here’s what my family will be having for Rosh

Hashanah lunch this year: Cheddar Apple Soup; assorted panini sandwiches; Buffalo Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil on Baguette; Tuna and White Cheddar on Multi-grain Bread; Grilled Mushrooms and Asiago on Olive Bread; Caramelized Onions, Gruyère, Grilled Corn and Spinach on Focaccia; Green Bean, Mushroom and Hazelnut Salad; and Arugula, Pear and Goat Cheese Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette.

Since I have two panini presses, I’m thinking of setting up a do-it-yourself panini bar with the breads already sliced and the sandwich fillings set out on big platters. Then everyone can make what pleases them. I love it when everyone comes into the kitchen and gets involved. It’s where all the best parties happen.

The green bean salad is a creation of Amy Rosen of Canadian House & Home magazine. I have been making it at least twice a week for the past two months and haven’t tired of it yet. The combination of flavours in this salad is really very special. The green beans act as a blank canvas

Apple Cheddar Soup

Green Bean, Mushroom and Hazelnut Salad

This recipe from Foodland Ontario serves four. It is easily doubled.

2 tablespoons butter 4 apples, peeled and chopped (McIntosh are good for this) 2 carrots, peeled and chopped 1 onion, peeled and diced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 teaspoon finely minced ginger 1 teaspoon each of curry and dry mustard powder 2 cups each of vegetable broth and apple cider salt and cayenne pepper to taste 1 cup grated old cheddar In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.

Add apples, carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, curry and mustard powder. Sauté 5 to 7 minutes until onion begins to soften.

Add broth and apple cider, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat and simmer partially covered for 15 to 20 minutes until vegetables are very tender. Using a food processor or blender, purée until smooth. Add salt and cayenne pepper to taste. Ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle each serving with 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese.

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Contact Benita Siemiatycki at the Jewish Ottawa InfoCentre, 613-798-4644 or bsiemiatycki@jewishottawa.com.

I discovered this recipe in the July 2011 issue of Canadian House & Home.

Serves 6 Dressing 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon herbs de Provence 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper Salad 1/4 cup hazelnuts 1 pound green beans (or half-pound each green and yellow beans), washed and trimmed 6 medium white button mushrooms (the firmest and freshest you can find) small wedge of Parmesan cheese 1 to 2 pinches of fleur de sel To make dressing, add all ingredients into a small jar. Place lid on jar and shake.

Preheat oven to 350 F. On a baking pan, toast hazelnuts in middle of oven 10 to 15 minutes, or until lightly coloured and skins are blistered. Wrap nuts in a kitchen towel and let steam 1 minute. Rub hazelnuts in towel to remove loose skins (don’t worry about skins that don’t come off) and cool completely. Coarsely chop hazelnuts. Set aside.

In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil. Add beans and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until just tender. Drain and immediately place beans in an ice water bath. Once cooled, drain beans and pat dry. In a large bowl, toss beans with half the dressing and arrange on a serving platter.

Using a mandoline or very sharp knife, slice mushrooms as thinly as possible. Layer mushrooms over beans. Using a vegetable peeler, shave about 15 strips of Parmesan on top. Finish with toasted hazelnuts and drizzle with remaining dressing and fleur de sel.

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Cindy Feingold and allow the other ingredients – mushrooms, hazelnuts, Parmesan cheese, olive oil and lemon juice – to really come together and shine through.

For all the kids, both young and old, I’m making chocolate dipped caramel apples (I don’t have the space to print the recipe here, so, if you’d like to make them, go to tinyurl.com/caramel-dipped-apples).

I am going to wrap each caramel apple individually and attach a nametag, in the shape of a leaf, wishing all a Sweet and Healthy New Year.

And, yes, there will be a big batch of sticky and sweet honey garlic chicken wings in the fridge, waiting to be heated if any of the deadbeats – oops, I mean dear family – are still around at dinnertime.

Pomegranate, Apple and Goat Cheese Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette This recipe comes from food52.com. They suggested making it with pears, but I have substituted apples.

Try to find Honeycrisp apples if you can.

Serves 6 Vinaigrette 1 large shallot, halved and thinly sliced 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses 2 tablespoons sherry or apple cider vinegar 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 1/3-cup extra virgin olive oil Salad 4 cups arugula, lightly packed 4 cups romaine, torn into bite-sized pieces 2 apples, cored and cut into 1/2 inch cubes 1/3 cup pomegranate seeds 3 ounces fresh goat cheese or feta, crumbled 1/4 cup pistachios, toasted and coarsely chopped In a small bowl, combine shallot, pomegranate molasses, vinegar, salt and pepper. And whisk until the salt is dissolved. Whisk in olive oil and let stand at room temperature while you assemble the rest of the salad.

Combine the arugula, romaine, apples and half the pomegranate seeds in a large bowl.

Crumble half the goat cheese over the ingredients in the bowl (this works best if the cheese is very cold).

Whisk the vinaigrette and add about half of it to the salad. Using your hands or tongs, gently combine salad with the dressing. Taste and add more dressing if you think it needs it.

Crumble remaining goat cheese over the salad.

Sprinkle with remaining pomegranate seeds and pistachios. Serve.

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September 19, 2011 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – Page 71

Best wishes for a sweet, happy and healthy New Year.

Shana Tova

May you be inscribed for a year of good health and happiness.

May you be inscribed for a year of good health and happiness.

Mitchell Bellman, Nicola Hamer Emma, Noah and Abby

Larry and Sheila Hartman and family

Helen and Chaim Gilboa and families

From our family to yours, best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year.

The Halton-Weiss family, Debbie, Ron, Jessica, Aaron, Josh, and Lauren

May you and yours be richly blessed throughout the coming year with health, peace and prosperity.

Chick and Rose Taylor

From our family to yours, we wish you a year of peace and prosperity, health and happiness.

Linda, Steven, Jessica and Lorne Kerzner

May the new year bring all the blessings of peace, health and prosperity.

Shana Tova.

Joseph and Evelyn Lieff

Robert and Waltraud Walker

May you and yours be richly blessed throughout the coming year with health, peace and prosperity.

From our family to yours, best wishes for a healthy and happy new year.

Shana Tova.

Ian, Randi, Jonathan, Matthew and Adam Sherman

Archie and Linda Cogan Lisa, Jayme, Tara, Liam and Jasper

Best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year.

Shana Tova.

Best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year. Shana Tova.

Rhoda, Jeffrey, Howard and Sara Miller

Best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year. Shana Tova.

Margo, David, Aaron and Gail Kardish

May you be inscribed for a year of joy and blessings.

Jessie and Joe Murray

Best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year. Shana Tova.

Walter, Karen, Steven and Mitchell Fogel

A happy and healthy New Year to all my family and friends.

Betty Baylin

Best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year. Shana Tova.

Florence and Gdalyah Rosenfeld July 18, 2011

May the new year bring all the blessings of peace, health and prosperity.

Shana Tova.

The Staff of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin

shana tova

Page 72 – Ottawa Jewish Bulletin – September 19, 2011

WHAT’S GOING ON

September 19 to October 2, 2011 CANDLELIGHTING BEFORE Sep 23 ✡

6:42 pm

EREV ROSH HASHANAH Sep 28 ✡ 6:32 pm First Day ROSH HASHANAH Sep 29 ✡ after 7:32 pm

WEEKLY EVENTS MONDAYS Motorin’ Munchkins for children 5 and under, sponsored by SJCC Family Life Centre. Children run, jump, bounce, roll, climb and have a great time. Must be accompanied and supervised by an adult, 9 am.

Info: 613-798-9818, ext.

294.

WEDNESDAYS Drop-in Playgroup, sponsored by SJCC Family Life Centre. Babies and toddlers welcome. Once a month a guest speaker will address important parenting issues, 9:00 am. Info: 613798-9818, ext. 294.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 21 Ottawa Jewish Historical Society Lecture, with guest presenter Morris Schachnow, Agudath Israel Congregation, 1400 Col-

First Day SUKKOT after Oct 13 ✡ 7:06 pm Second Day SUKKOT Oct 14 ✡ 6:03 pm

TUESDAYS Israeli Folk Dancing, no experience or partner necessary. Ottawa Jewish Community School, 31 Nadolny Sachs Private, 7:00 pm. Info: judy@ottawaisraelidance.ca.

drey Avenue, 7:30 pm. Info: 613-244-8291.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 25 Citizenship and Immigration: A Jewish Perspec-

tive, sponsored by the SJCC. Former Canadian diplomat Howard Spunt will discuss how Jews influenced global migration policies and practices, 10:30 am. Info: 613798-9818, ext. 254.

COMING SOON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 Walking Tour of Old Chelsea, Quebec, sponsored by the SJCC. Participants will explore the charm of Old Chelsea, its fascinating history and beautiful autumn foliage. Register by September 26.

Info and registration: 613-798-9818, ext. 254.

Second Day ROSH HASHANAH Sep 30 ✡ 6:28 pm EREV YOM KIPPUR Oct 7 ✡ 6:15 pm EREV SUKKOT Oct 12 ✡ 6:06 pm

For more community listings, visit ottawa.jewishottawa.com Select Calendar/Upcoming Events and Click to See More

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24 14th Annual Ottawa Celebrity Sports Dinner, with football legend Joe Montana, in support of the Soloway JCC and Citizenship Advocacy.

Info: 613-798-9818, ext. 242.

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 20 March of the Living Information Night. Students in grades 10 to 12 and their parents are invited to learn about the April 2012 trip to Poland and Israel, 7:00 pm. Info: 613798-4644.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25 CHOICES 2012, Jewish Federation of Ottawa women’s fundraiser, features keynote speaker Israeli Colonel Miri Eisin, who served 20 years in the Israeli intelligence community, and as spokesperson for the Israeli government during periods of conflict, Agudath Israel Congregation, 1400 Coldrey Avenue, 6:00 pm.

Info: 613-798-4696, ext. 274.

Unless otherwise noted, activities take place at The Joseph and Rose Ages Family Building, 21 Nadolny Sachs Private.

This information is taken from the community calendar maintained by the Jewish Ottawa InfoCentre. Organizations which would like their events to be listed, no matter where they are to be held, should send the information to InfoCentre co-ordinator Benita Siemiatycki via e-mail at bsiemiatycki@jewishottawa.com or fax at 613-798-4695. She can also be reached by telephone at 613-798-4644. Accurate details must be provided and all events must be open to the Jewish public.

Condolences Condolences are extended to the families of: Adelene Hyman Sonny (Irving) Nemiroff, Montreal (father of Nemiroff) Philip Teitelbaum May their memory be a blessing always.

The CONDOLENCE COLUMN is offered as a public service to the community.

There is no charge.

For a listing in this column, please call 613-798-4696, ext. 232.

Voice mail is available.

BULLETIN DEADLINES OCTOBER 5 FOR OCTOBER 31 OCTOBER 26 FOR NOVEMBER 14 NOVEMBER 9 FOR NOVEMBER 28

JEWISH MEMORIAL GARDENS Your one-stop resource centre for funeral planning 613-688-3530

To our valued clients “L’Shanah Tova”.

Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of a new year. We go to shul and hear the sounds of the shofar. We review our mistakes, cast off our sins, and resolve to do better in the coming year. We spend time with family and cherished friends.

To the 2000 investors of the Romspen Mortgage Investment Fund, the large majority being Jewish, we wish you continued success and good health. From Arthur, Mark, Wes, Blake, Shelly and our entire staff, “L’Shanah tova tikatev v’taihatem – May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.”

Arthur Resnick

Mark Hilson

Wesley Roitman

Blake Cassidy

Sheldon Esbin

416.966.1100 1.800.494.0389 www.romspen.com 162 Cumberland Street, Suite 300 Toronto, Ontario M5R 3N5