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Tomorrow is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which has been marked throughout the community this week, including at the University of British Columbia, where our partners, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Hillel BC and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), together with the UBC Faculty of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies commemorated and honoured the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism with an event at The Nest.

Approximately 100 Holocaust survivors, students, faculty and staff came to hear David Erlich speak about his personal experience of surviving Auschwitz and coming to Canada, and to hear from Dr. Uma Kumar, who teaches a course at UBC on literary representations of the Holocaust. The event was supported by the Province of British Columbia, the Azrieli Foundation and the Akselrod family in memory of their beloved Ben Akselrod z”l. Many thanks to Karen James, our Board chair, for representing Federation at this event.

If you weren’t able to attend, there are still plenty of ways to honour the day. CIJA invites you to take action and demand justice for Survivors and their families who continue to be denied restitution. You can email the Polish Embassy in Ottawa and tell the Ambassador that Poland's proposed law on restitution – which would exclude most Survivors and their heirs – is unjust.
While you’re online you can also join the We Remember campaign, lending your voice to the global assertion that fighting anti-Semitism today relies on each of us remembering the lessons of the Holocaust. Just take a photo of yourself or a group holding a sign that says "We Remember" and post it to social media with the hashtag #WeRemember.

As so often happens in Jewish life and culture, we mourn before we celebrate. Nowhere is that contrast so stark than in Israel when the country comes to a standstill on Yom Hazikaron before bursting into celebration on Yom Ha’atzmaut. It is the same in our community, and every year I encourage community members to attend events for both. You might be surprised to see just how many local families have lost loved ones in Israel’s wars and terror attacks and how many of them have family members who have served or are presently serving in the IDF. The Yom Hazikaron committee is led by Geoffrey Druker and they have created and delivered respectful, touching ceremonies for more than 10 years in our community.

As for Yom Ha’atzmaut, it’s our community’s biggest gathering of the year, and the committee, led by Pam Wolfman, has booked two incredible Israeli performers to help us celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary: Shlomi Shaban, Israel’s “piano man,” and special guest Ninet Tayeb.

Shlomi is performing at the upcoming Red Sea Jazz Festival, where he is described as having “the ability to create buoyant virtuoso harmony between classical music, rock and pop…. His characteristic straightforward sense of humour frequently moves on a fine line between black tie concert halls and sweaty smoky rock-n-roll stages.”

Ninet shot to fame as the winner of Kochav Nolad (Israeli Idol). Music critic, Garreth Browne, saw her perform in New York and wrote, “it’s safe to say that the entire audience was fixated and almost hypnotized by her presence.”

Tickets go on sale this coming Wednesday, January 31st, and they always go quickly. If you want to be the first to get the ticket link, click here to make sure you are signed up to receive community updates from us. Whether you come to Yom Ha’atzmaut because of your love for Israel, your love of music, or your love of community celebrations, you’re going to have a fantastic time.

While we are busy planning ahead for April, we are also in the very final stages of the Annual Campaign. On Monday we hosted our annual Canvasser Appreciation evening at Red Truck Brewery to say thank you to some of our nearly 300 volunteer canvassers who take time out of their busy lives to call, email and meet with their fellow community members and give them the opportunity to fulfill the mitzvah of tzedakah. Personal canvassing is how we raise the majority of campaign funds every year.

We are one of only a few communities in the Federation system that still rely on a strong and vibrant group of canvassers, and we are grateful that so many of them are willing to take on this role year after year – some for 18 years or more. Many thanks to Mark James, owner of Red Truck Brewery, who started this event when he was campaign chair.

One of the focuses of this year’s campaign was on making Jewish programs and services more accessible to the half of community members who live outside of Vancouver. If you have young children, come on out to celebrate Tu B’Shevat, the New Year for trees, the morning of January 30th at Burquest. PJ Library will be there with fun activities, crafts and story time, including planting parsley for Tu B’Shevat that will be ready to harvest in time for Pesach. Both PJ Library and Burquest receive funding from the campaign, so it’s a great opportunity to see your gift in action.

Shabbat shalom,

Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver