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Festival HaRikud
The annual Israeli folk dance festival, Festival HaRikud, has become one of the great cross-community collaborative events taking place annually on the Lower Mainland. This year’s festival, which took place last weekend, coincided with Yom Yerushalayim, and that provided a wonderful theme for the various events. The festival hosted visiting groups from Mexico, Miami and Los Angeles, and a broad cross-section of local day schools, synagogues and other community groups participated as well. Hundreds of youth were involved throughout the weekend in performances, social events and as volunteers, and more than 800 community members were present at three performances over the course of the festival. In addition, dance workshops were held in conjunction with the Vancouver Israeli Folkdance Society, and the JCC’s Or Atid, Or Chadash and Shalom Dancers groups. There was also the Bhangra/Israeli dance fusion, a collaboration with the Surrey India Arts Club. While rainy weather put a damper on some outdoor components of the festival, it still managed to meaningfully engage a large segment of our community in a great cultural event.

Join Petition for Minute of Silence at Summer Olympics
A grassroots campaign has launched recently to collect signatures in support of a petition asking for a minute of silence at the 2012 London Olympics, in memory of the nine Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The International Olympics Committee (IOC) has turned down the formal request put forward by Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. But, over the past several weeks more than 50,000 signatures have been collected from around the world. Since the IOC’s negative response Minister Ayalon’s office has started a Facebook page called Just One Minute and a created a new video that you may want to check out.

Please consider adding your own signature and forwarding the link to your network.

Parashat Bemidar
This week's parasha, Bemidbar, begins a new book, in English called the Book of Numbers. The book relates to the story of the Israelites’ forty years of wandering in the desert. The name, Numbers, derives from the first four chapters, which describe a census of the population. Jeff Swartz, former CEO of Timberland who spoke at this week's Jewish Family Service Agency Innovators Lunch, talked about the census process being used as a tool to create a "community of intention" - one committed to a common purpose. At that biblical moment the common purpose was finding our collective way to the Land of Israel. Today we create "communities of intention" whenever we gather together to pray, to raise funds, or to take action on important issues of the day.

Through Jewish Federation's work and that of the many agencies we support, we are in the business of building "communities of intention" each and every day, as we strive to save and strengthen Jewish lives, care for the vulnerable among us, and transmit Jewish identity and commitment across generations. Our thanks to our many donors and volunteers who join together to make that possible.

Shabbat shalom!