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Remembering Naftali, Gilad and Eyal

I was touched by the response of our community to the memorial service led by Rabbi Berger, Rabbi Moskovitz and Cantor Szenes-Strauss at the Jewish Community Centre on Thursday evening. Over 250 attended the moving ceremony to pay tribute to the three teens and express our community’s heartfelt prayers and condolences. Special thanks to the JCC for their leadership and extraordinary support in hosting the memorial and for making arrangements to hold it in the Norman Rothstein Theatre.

While last night’s memorial provides some measure of closure with respect to the deaths of Naftali, Gilad and Eyal, that tragedy has precipitated a number of unfortunate events. The recent death of an Arab teenager in Jerusalem, which is the subject of an on-going investigation, has sparked clashes between Palestinian protestors and the police. You can read CIJA’s statement on the death of the Arab teenager here.

In addition to the clashes in East Jerusalem, the south of Israel has come under a constant barrage of rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip. We stand ready with our Federation partners in North America and our partner agencies in Israel to provide whatever support is needed.

CIJA-Surrey Mission results in ground-breaking medical initiative

As a result of last winter’s CIJA-led Surrey Trade Mission to Israel with Mayor Dianne Watts, a ground-breaking, joint Israeli-Canadian study has been launched in the Lower Mainland that examines the links between Diabetes and Dementia within the local South Asian community. During a ceremony in Surrey last month, Mayor Dianne Watts was joined by Dr. Michal Beeri, Director of the Sagol Neuroscience Research Center at the Sheba Medical Centre, to sign an official Memorandum of Understanding between Surrey's Innovation Boulevard, the Fraser Health Authority, and Israel’s renowned Sheba Medical Centre. Candace Kwinter, a past Federation board member who also sits on the CIJA Pacific Region’s Local Partnership Council, participated in the December mission and attended the ceremony as a guest of Mayor Watts. You can read more details in the Surrey Now newspaper.

It is tremendously exciting to see regional partnerships with Israel flourish as a result of this important CIJA-led initiative. CIJA missions to Israel are one of the most important ways we can continue to educate our political leaders, leaders of the future and other influencers about Israel and in turn build deeper support for the Canada-Israel relationship.

Parshat Balak

As I wrote in my message last week, my wife and I were looking forward to celebrating our first Canada Day here in Vancouver. I approached the day with a great sense of excitement and continued solidarity with our three boys who were still missing. I encouraged you to join me in wrapping three yellow ribbons around the trees outside your homes. As I sit today writing to you, on what Rabbi Infeld calls the Old Country’s Independence Day, I do so with a much heavier heart as we learned earlier this week of the death of those innocent students and the subsequent news about the death of a 16 year old Palestinian teen in Jerusalem.

This week’s parsha Balak retells the story of Balaam, the great sorcerer of Balak, who was tasked with cursing the Jewish people. However each time that he opened his mouth only praise for the Jewish people came out. History has shown that throughout the Jewish world, as the enemies of Israel have tried to curse us and break us apart by the kidnapping and killing of our children, we received the blessing of strengthening and uniting our communities.

We are a community that experiences the death of any Jewish child as if it happened in our own family. I hope on this Shabbat we commit to keeping that blessing of unity and love for our fellow people alive well into the future.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver