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Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver

May 25, 2018 | 11 Sivan 5778 | Candlelighting at 8:43 p.m.

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As we head into the final week of Canadian Jewish Heritage Month, we would like to start this week’s message with a focus on our partner, the Jewish Museum and Archives of BC (JMABC), which is dedicated to collecting and sharing community memories of Jewish life in British Columbia. While there are a number of organizations throughout our community that have deep histories and where you can find wonderful, archival information, the JMABC plays a unique role in keeping the history of the entire community alive.

Michael Schwartz, director of community engagement at JMABC, was a guest panelist at the annual conference of Heritage BC recently. He presented on the success of the JMABC’s 2017 food series, The Kitchen Stories podcast and The Chosen Food supper club, which were widely hailed as innovative and pioneering. Through these programs the JMABC shared the diversity of Jewish culture with both Jews and non-Jews alike, reaching over 4,200 people. This is no small feat considering the JMABC is staffed by just three people!

The JMABC is currently working on a project with our advocacy partner, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), called We Were There, which will chronicle Jewish community contributions to the Canadian Armed Forces. If you or your family have a history of military service, please get in touch with the JMABC to share your information, materials, and memories. We Were There is scheduled to debut on Remembrance Day 2019 as part of a suite of exhibits showcasing the military contributions of various ethnic communities.

JMABC also brought the history of our community alive by hosting a walking tour of Gastown and Strathcona at an event our Axis young adults program hosted recently, called Newish and Jewish. The event brought together 18 people in their 20s and 30s who are newish to Vancouver (plus a couple of life-long Vancouverites) and everyone went out after for a nosh, a drink and a chance to get to know each other better.

We met with another group of people who are “newish and Jewish” – families who recently arrived from Israel to work at Amazon. We were joined by Israeli Ambassador Barkan, Vancouver City Councillor Andrea Reimer, and members of the mayor’s immigration working group. It was the first time we’ve gotten this group together so the employees could talk about their experiences and how we can help them. Many of them have found our Gesher Welcoming Services very helpful, along with the Mamatefet program we support for local Israeli moms and moms-to-be in crisis, our Connect Me In Hebrew school programs for children in Langley and Squamish, and the programs offered by the JCC for Hebrew speakers and more. It isn’t always easy to be newish and Jewish in Vancouver, so it’s great to see community being built from the ground up.

No one knows more about building community than our 35 partner agencies, and we were so pleased to host our annual Partner Agency Appreciation event yesterday evening. It was a very welcome opportunity for us to thank their staff and volunteer leadership for their support of the Federation Annual Campaign. Our partners don’t just benefit from the campaign, they play an important role in its success, from engaging their constituents and staff to displaying signs and posters to involving their boards.

Their board members all understand how much it takes for a Jewish community organization to operate these days, especially as the work becomes more diversified, more sophisticated and more complex. Many board members make gifts to the Federation Annual Campaign knowing not only that they will be supporting the work of their own organization, but also the full breadth of programs and services offered throughout our community. We are very grateful for their support. This year, there were seven partners where every board member made a gift to the Annual Campaign, and we were so pleased to highlight them. Karen James, our board chair, called them all up to the podium to receive tokens of our appreciation – prints of the campaign’s main image signed by the artist. It’s a big accomplishment and they deserve another big todah rabbah:

  • Camp HaTikvah
  • Congregation Beth Israel
  • Jewish Family Services
  • Richmond Jewish Day School
  • Vancouver Hebrew Academy
  • Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
  • White Rock/South Surrey Jewish Community Centre

From celebrating our history to welcoming newcomers to supporting the broad range of needs across our community, we are very proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our partners to celebrate where we’ve been and help build for the future as Canadian Jewish Heritage Month draws to a close.

Shabbat shalom,

Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver

P.S. Mark your calendar for June 19th at 7:00 p.m. and join us for our AGM, where we will honour our volunteer leaders for their contributions to our community, and recognize the Vancouver Police Department for their ongoing support.

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