December 25, 2015 | 13 Tevet 5776 | Shabbat Candlelighting at 4:00 p.m.
 

This message has 658 words and will take about 3 minutes to read.

While we are about to welcome Shabbat, we also recognize that many of our friends and neighbours are celebrating Christmas. It’s a holiday that has become so prominent in secular culture that it often presents those of us who don’t celebrate it with some challenges. As Jews, many of us have answered this challenge with our own alternative traditions, from going to the movies to ordering in Chinese food. I was just talking to my grandfather and it turns out that every year he and his buddies play poker. As for me, my “Christmas tradition” is a culmination of the experiences that shaped who I am as a Jewish communal professional.

For the last five years I’ve made an annual pilgrimage to Denver where I began my career in the Jewish community, and this year is no different. I started my career in Jewish communal life a decade ago, trying to inspire those my own age to engage in the formal Jewish community and to take the mantle of responsibility from the generation before to move our community forward.

During the economic downturn of 2008, funding for young adult programs in Denver dried up. It was a difficult time, and it seemed as though our very promising work was over before it even really began. But two volunteer leaders answered this challenge and applied for a grant from the Denver based Rose Community Foundation to create a program that could engage with young people through arts and culture. The idea was to create a community outside our traditional community that would ultimately be a pipeline back into that traditional community.

We started E3 Events, named after the founders, Ean, Eric and yours truly, which encompassed everything from gallery openings to book launches to trivia parties, and eventually we took over Denver’s young Jewish adult Christmas Eve party. The individuals who were introduced to the Jewish community through these events ultimately ended up at countless Jewish organizations, which started to reinvigorate the community. Back when our funding was cut, we could never have predicted how successful these events would become.

My point is this: Out of challenging times are born great ideas. We see the same thing in our own community, here in Vancouver.

A few years ago, we recognized here in the Vancouver community that young people were not being engaged, and the decision was made to create the innovative program, Axis. In the same way that Ean, Eric and I showed passion in Denver, others showed passion here to remove the barriers to community involvement that young people faced by creating opportunities outside the traditional mainstream Jewish community.

When determining how best to support this program, we purposely made support for Axis an allocation rather a budget line, because we wanted Axis not just to look, feel and act in its own way, but to genuinely be innovative and creative. We did not want them to be tethered to what our Federation is focused on, but to be responsive to the unique needs of the generation they serve. And responsive they are. From their recent TOV (Tikkun Olam Vancouver) event bringing light and music – not to mention latkes and sufganiyot – to our community’s seniors, to their Light Up The Night Hanukkah party that attracted more than 200 young adults, to the continuation of their Leadership Lab program in the New Year.

While last night marked my final E3 Christmas Eve event, I see it more profoundly as an opportunity to pass the torch to young, passionate people who who want to make a difference in the lives of those around us the way my two partners – now two of my best friends – and I wanted to. I see those same qualities in our Axis group, as they continue to explore ways to find those who are ready to pick up the torch here in Vancouver. I look forward to telling you more about their work next week.

Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver

P.S. To ensure you receive a tax receipt for 2015, please make your campaign gift or pay your pledge by December 31st.

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