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Expanding Resources for At-Risk Youth
For the past year, a professional committee on at-risk youth, co-chaired by Rabbi Philip Bregman and Shelley Rivkin, has been exploring ways to identify and support youth in emotional distress in a coordinated and effective manner. The group is focusing on the need for standard crisis intervention protocols, community education and the establishment of a community critical incident response team. Last week, the group met with the Vancouver school district’s critical incidence response team coordinator to learn more about their work and how we might set something up in our community. These strategies, in tandem with the JCC’s recent hiring of a youth outreach worker, Stephanie Rabin, are important steps towards a more effective community response to youth.

Israel at 64
As I wrote last week, the transition from mourning to joy as we shift from remembrance of Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror to celebrating Israel’s establishment takes but a few moments. I don’t think there is another country in the world that so intimately links these two national commemorations. What a quintessentially Jewish thing to do.

This year’s Yom Hazikaron commemoration was again a powerfully moving experience. The organizing committee, led by Geoffrey Druker and Gaby Peled, does an extraordinary job each year gathering together stories linked to members of our community who have lost family and friends. The result is at the same time collective and yet intensely personal.

There were many moments of pride for me in this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration, which drew about 1,500 community members to The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. Premier Christy Clark made a strong and profoundly supportive statement about the connection between Israel and Canada and the importance of Israel to the world. Six youths from our community performed a brief and clever snapshot of Israeli life and culture at 64 years old. Fifty-nine members of the JCC’s various youth Israeli dance troupes performed on stage. We shared a brief video about the extraordinary growth of Beit Vancouver into a vibrant hub for youth in Kiryat Shmona. And yesterday, King David High School hosted the upper grades from Vancouver Talmud Torah and Richmond Jewish Day School for a spirited, moving and flat-out fun celebration.

As always, Rabbi Daniel Gordis provides a thoughtful reflection of important moments and events, and yesterday he did again in his Jerusalem Post column, titled Tell Me About the Future of Jews, which looks at what our collective future looked like from the vantage point of 1946, two years before the founding of Israel. Amidst all the gloomy predictions and fears that surround us today, it is worth thinking about where we stand today as a people, and why.

I want to express our deep appreciation to the many volunteer leadership and staff who worked to coordinate our community-wide Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut events, as well as the various smaller ceremonies around the community.

Shabbat shalom!