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The other day, one of my Federation colleagues bumped into a friend’s teenaged son who’d just returned from camp. “I had the best summer ever!” he told her. Those were the days, weren’t they? Life’s a little different as an adult. Even when it’s summer, we get stuck in our routines of work and errands. It was a good reminder that as individuals, as an organization, and as a community we need to stretch out of our comfort zones.

I’ll have you know that I did just that last weekend, when I picked up a canoe with a bunch of other guys and raced around Camp Hatikvah as part of their Maccabiah. Definitely not my usual thing, but Rachel and I were there for Family Camp – a long-weekend program that engages the whole family in the best of the Jewish camping experience. While we don’t have kids of our own yet, we saw the incredible value of using this camp to bring people together outside of the normal camping calendar. Families came from across Canada, and while many of them were alumni, others were introducing their kids to the Jewish camping experience for the first time. The number and variety of residential and day camp options we have is incredible for a community our size, and we are so proud to support them. That they are all committed to innovative programming (Camp Miriam and Camp Solomon-Schechter also have family camp programs) just goes to show how fortunate kids and families here are.

When you are building community, you have to go beyond your normal boundaries to build deep authentic relationships with those you serve. We are very privileged to have partners who understand that. Jewish Family Service Agency is but one of them, and I had the pleasure of attending the mezuzah hanging at their new office on Broadway between Main and Fraser. Here is a great example of a progressive organization that changed locations in order to better serve their clients. They did this in no small part in recognition of the shifting geographic boundaries of our community. You can see an overview of their programs and services here.

Last night we had the privilege of welcoming Dr. Ofer Merin to our community, and he talked about essentially the same thing – but in the context of reaching beyond Israel’s geographic borders. As medical director of the IDF field hospital, that’s exactly what he and his team do. We’ve all seen it on the news. Every time there is a natural disaster somewhere in the world, Dr. Merin and his field hospital are the first ones on the ground. From Haiti to Japan to the Philippines and Nepal, this medical team has saved lives, delivered babies, and provided the highest standard of medical care. Seeing that hospital in action has been such a source of pride - not just because of the care they provide, but that it is provided by Israel. The field hospital hasn’t only been a medical tool; it’s been a diplomatic one as well. Because by reaching out, by being the first in and by being the best in the business, many individuals and countries have come to appreciate a side of Israel they might not otherwise have known about. We are grateful to Dr. Rick Schreiber for making this event possible and to our synagogue partners for supporting it.

These experiences combined to rekindle in me the notion that in order to really make an impact, you have to go somewhere you don’t you normally go, and do things you don’t normally do. In our own way, we stretch our Federation every day. Our community is more geographically dispersed than ever and the makeup changing, with more than 40% of our community now residing outside of the City of Vancouver as seen through the National Household Survey data. We are seeing new needs, different needs, changing needs, and they must all be addressed. We know this means stretching and working differently to generate new approaches and effective, innovative solutions. I look forward to sharing with you soon our progress on our strategic visioning on 2020 and beyond. Collectively, we can push ourselves as an organization and as community beyond the places we thought we could go – and together we will.

Shabbat Shalom,

Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver