Kibur Asres died last month at 61 in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and was buried in Addis Ababa. Thousands cried for him, Jewish and non-Jewish. We, in Toronto, were honoured to have known him.

Kibur was born on May 12, 1950, in Dabat, Ethiopia, to Qes Asres Yayehe and Amarach Denku. He was known to his close family as Wondemalem, translated as “my dearest brother.” According to his daughter, Beth, he was a wise, kind, generous, courageous and complex man.

Like many great leaders in training, Kibur spent his early years tending sheep. In the 1960s, he graduated, with honours, from Addis Ababa University with a degree in chemistry and mathematics and received his diploma from former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie.

Kibur spent the next eight years working as a professor. While teaching at Bahir Dar University, he met the lovely and gentle Walelign Fanta. They had three children, Joseph, Eyassu and Bethlehem (Beth).

In 1983, following the Ethiopian revolution and with a bounty on his head, Kibur and family fled to Montreal with the help of JIAS. They were among the first Beta Israel families to leave Ethiopia and arrive in Canada. He completed a master’s degree in social work at McGill University, while he continued working as a chemist and researcher for the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, specializing in AIDS research.

Later, the family moved to Toronto and Kibur worked as a social worker with Jewish Family & Child. He was the president of the Toronto Ethiopian Association, and created a very successful parking-lot management enterprise called Globe Park Ltd. Kibur was also the dean of the Ottawa School of Business.

His true passion in life was community service. “Any person who had the opportunity to know him can attest to his genuine passion to improve the lives of all those he encountered,” Beth said.

Kibur was the founder of Horn Refugee Foundation, which assisted more than 3,000 African refugee claimants. He established the Re-Med Foundation, which provided medical supplies to underprivileged people internationally. He also created the Addis Hope Foundation, which assisted in community development in Ethiopia.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” This was not the case with Kibur Asres. He helped dozens of Ethiopian Jews immigrate to Canada. He was an executive member of the Canadian Jewish Congress and served on its race relations committee. He travelled to Israel in 2000 on an exclusive trip for the national executive of the CJC. While there, he spoke with then-prime minister Ehud Barak about the plight of the Falash Mora.

Kibur was quoted saying, “Apart from the fact that not enough is being done to bring them to Israel, not enough is being done simply to keep them alive. They have so many relatives here [in Israel] and are going to come at some point, so why extend their pain and suffering.”

He is survived by his grandchildren, Rebecca, Abigail and Matthew; his siblings, Etzuvdink, Sara, Kokobie, Mulualem, Mintiwab, Addisalem and Paulos, and many nieces, nephews, cousins and lots of people he saved.

Kibur was a kind of Ethiopian royalty, in his own unique way. More than 1,000 people came to his shivah in Israel, and hundreds more in Toronto. He died young and was very fit to live. Zachreinu L’ivracha (Rest in Peace Righteous Man).

Sometimes, we Jews have the opportunity to party. That’s a good thing, since there have been many times when we’ve not felt like it or have been prevented from doing so. And, of course, there are the parties, festive and all, where we celebrate our survival, such as Purim, with schnapps and dance, but never forgetting the brokenness that brought us to the party room.

In some ways, Jewish celebrations are like a parody on partying. 

Every year Ve’ahavta, the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief Committee, holds an annual gala called Starry Nights. It’s a beautiful event/fundraiser with song, of course food and consciousness raising. On Dec. 4, 700 people will come together at Koerner Hall in Toronto to celebrate life and talk about our great ability as Jews and non-Jews alike, to share our resources and our tremendous creativity with others toward the betterment of our world. We learn about the impact humanitarian gestures have on our souls and our lives. We embrace our commitment to chesed and tikkun olam.  

And we celebrate the many lives we have affected and, in some ways, the brokenness of the world, and the need to have an organization like Ve’ahavta. Jewish merrymaking – a parody on partying.

Indeed the world is broken, some would say shattered. It needs repair. So at Starry Nights we feature the repair people, those individuals who have created a humanitarian toolbox and set about hammering together the shards of a vessel we refer to as our existence. These are brave handymen.

In the past we’ve had some pretty impressive repair people (keynote speakers), such as Eli Wiesel, Mia Farrow and Bob Geldof. This year, Starry Nights features international singer, songwriter and humanitarian Chantal Kreviazuk. The event will be hosted by Jian Ghomeshi of CBC.

And then there are the Tikkun Olam Awards – a moment when we recognize the simple, quiet and community repair people, the anawim (humble) individuals who have a clear understanding of “parodying on Jewish partying,” as they have often lived the strife that came before the festivities and feast. 

These are repair people who have spearheaded extraordinary tikkun olam projects without fanfare and ordeal. Some of our award winners over time include Dr. Michael Silverman, world renowned for his work on HIV/AIDS and infectious disease in developing nations, and Gerda Frieberg, a tireless Holocaust educator and activist. 

This year the recipients include Alice Bartol (Humanitarian Award); Nate Leipciger and Pinchus Gutter (Remembrance); Dr. Isadore Lieberman (Medical); Karen Goldenberg (Community) and Bilaal Rajan (Youth Leadership).    

Recently, I interviewed Karen and Nate on Ve’ahavta TV. Karen expressed to me the wonderment of her childhood, a time when she learned about tikkun olam from both her accountant parents. She said her father treated every client in a special way, and her mother made sure their grandmother had 24-hour care and companionship, from other members of the family. Nate talked about his passion for life despite the fact his mother and sister were murdered, and the fact he and his father were forced on long marches with thousands of other Jews and victims of the Nazis. He is a giant of a man, courageous and brave.

Starry Nights is a Jewish party. It reminds us to party and of the imperative to be valiant when called upon to do so, to enhance our world. Our parties feel different, but we know how to do them well. For more information on how to be a repair person or to attend, see our website at www.veahavta.org.

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The Torah teaches us to celebrate differences, and not to want everyone to mimic one another – whether it comes to personalities, beliefs or religious practices.

– Eli Rubenstein

I lost a friendship.

When we were kids, all was good. We were the tame rebels with longish hair and bad-ass mouths. We were the curious kids, the overlooked ones. Few adults seemed to be curious about us.

We went to a boy’s camp, hid our pellet guns under our bunk beds, and waited a tad too long on the train tracks before leaping off. Soon enough adulthood kicked in and responsibility replaced play. We made decisions that sent us off in different directions, and with that came the surfacing of our guilt, fears and needs.

My friend chose to be frum, and I decided otherwise. I think both of us determined our paths based on guilt, stemming from family pressure and a childhood narrative we both knew well, which stated: “There is one right way to live, and that is as frum Jews.” He subscribed to this narrative, and I rebelled against it.

Such a divergence is not all too uncommon as we grow, but it was painful and caused deep resentment. This same thing can happen within families, when a child becomes Orthodox, or leaves Orthodoxy. It can divide.

In my heart, I understand our separation has more to do with the challenges of maintaining a relationship when many of the rules change, not only the spiritual ones. I know this because he has rejected most of his old friends, frum or otherwise. With this in mind, what do I do? I’d like him back. How do I do that? I’ve been working on it for a long time.

There are those relationship sages who have advised me to “forget him.” Others say, “Let him come to you.” I’ve tried talking Torah on the phone with him, to bridge our communication, but it hasn’t worked. I have done my best to harbour few, if any, expectations of our friendship.

But the phone is still quiet. I was not invited to his son’s bar mitzvah. That was painful. (Man, the “day of” sucks.)

According to my friend Eli Rubenstein (who was once Orthodox but now adheres to the values of humanistic Judaism), “it’s sad when one person becomes religious and gives up his/her former friends. But the opposite is equally true, when somebody chooses a less stringent denomination and feels they can no longer have relationships with people who are still Orthodox.”

Eli told me he feels we need to recognize, first and foremost, our common humanity that rises above all else, and that we’re human beings first. “Adding religious denominations shouldn’t stop you from appreciating another person’s core humanity and uniqueness.”

Eli and I talked and concluded: “What happens is that people become so intolerant that they can’t see past other people’s religious beliefs. The fundamental truth is we’re supposed to live our lives, ones that are original and that nobody else has. Then we express that in different ways. But the first thing that should come is our individual human spirit. The Torah is meant to be a guide to a life already being lived; not meant to replace our lives.”

I miss my friend. Any thoughts?

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. –A. A. Milne

While I enjoy writing, a lot, particularly for the Canadian Jewish community through the CJN, I found myself writing pieces at 1 in the morning the night before I had to submit. I continued to get good reviews on my CJN articles, but it wasn’t enough for me to keep going.

So I’m taking the summer – the next 8 weeks – and will revitalize. I have some ideas I will be pursuing in place of writing for the CJN and will keep you in the loop as I go.

Take care. Avrum

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Thursday, 16 June 2011

I will be taking a writing hiatus until September. I am grateful to The CJN staff, particularly editor Mordechai Ben-Dat, for allowing me to write for the paper.Writing is an onerous task, and coupled with my responsibilities as a father and as president at a growing Ve’ahavta: the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee, it feels right to rest at this point. As we head into the summer, a dreamy season when the colours of our city are as bright as the winter hues are subdued, I encourage everyone to choose a classic book to read on a topic you have always considered fascinating. The summer is a marvellous time to open your mind and learn new ideas and concepts. Study Judaism, learn Torah. Encourage yourself to finally understand physics. Read great novels and become the mystery writer you’ve always wanted to be. Over the summer, consider your ability to do tikkun olam. Be introspective. Pinpoint your personal gift and bring it to the surface, then apply it to your chesed work. If you are a poet, then offer your words, phrases and teaching to Covenant House. An organization that helps homeless youth, it has an in-house high school. Hook up with some street rappers who write poetry and figure out ways to get their voices heard, their poetry published. Befriend your gift, your matanah – your present, and if you determine that your listening skills are above standard, phone around to see if an institution exists that would allow you to listen to seniors, or immigrants, talk about their feelings, their dreams. This summer, find groups of children who stay in the city and just hang around. Once you do, start a reading club, or sports group, and give these kids a sense of hope. Within every child, teen or adult is that gift, that spirit that they were born with and must disseminate far and wide. Now far and wide may be your neighbourhood. It might even be your home, but it should not only stay with just you. My father, of blessed memory, used to say, “The gates of heaven are not closed during the summer months.” He is right. The atrocities in the Congo will continue throughout the next 12 weeks, and many children in Israel will be hungry by noon, with little nutritional respite until supper. Walk through those gates and invite yourself into the hearts and homes of our brothers and sisters everywhere, offer your expertise to help them get through a rough situation. Thank you for your letters and e-mails this year and to all of you bloggers who picked up my articles and disseminated my messages to others. Have a hugely rich summer. Start your book and dedicate it to someone who shared their gift with you. Learn how to dance. Teach your child about empathy, as it is a learned behaviour and response. Peace should come to Israel this summer, and as I tell my son every night, ‘God should watch over you, your mommy and daddy, all good people, all the kids on our planet, the animals, and bring shalom, peace to our world. B’shalom, Avrum PS: Ve’ahavta has just had an open house and therefore I am feeling inspired. Our new digs are stunningly beautiful and esthetically represent that we are the Tikun Olam International Centre. At the open house, we were honoured to have dozens of volunteers, donors and client present, as well as MP Irwin Cotler and Israel’s consul general, Amir Gissin. You’re invited to drop by. Our doors are open. Have a beautiful summer!

(Please comment. Should we celebrate at the death of an evil person?)

After the Jews crossed the Dead Sea, the waves swooshed back and destroyed the Egyptians on chariots. The Children of Israel then began to dance and sing in celebration of the death of their former slave owners.

After 400 years of humiliation, it made sense. I have felt a similar emotion in my heart, excitement knowing that someone who has demeaned me was suffering. It’s not the nicest character trait, but it is inevitable.

Yet, God felt differently. She sent an angel to the Jewish People to say, “Stop the festivities. The Egyptians, those who whipped you and threw your children into the pyramids as bricks and mortar, they too were My creation.

“I am saddened by the choices the Egyptian people made allowing them to be so devastatingly cruel. But they were Mine.”

When Osama bin Laden was executed and celebrations sprang up in the streets of America and the world, I considered the Jewish position on this. I wondered whether we should be joining those festivities with millions of others, knowing that an evil man is no longer in this world and more babies are safe.

Shouldn’t we place the proverbial hat of Haman on our head and spin the gragger of anger and pleasure as loudly as possible because bin Laden lies at the bottom of the sea?

I then read an article about an Israeli mother who had lost her son to 9/11. She was not excited at bin Laden’s assassination. In fact, quite the opposite – the hunting down of bin Laden and destruction of this terrorist leader meant very little to her.

She simply said, “I want my son back, and the death of bin Laden doesn’t give me that.”

She added that she felt almost disconnected from the event that occurred in Pakistan on May 1.

I thought about the time my brother-in-law, David Rosenzweig, was murdered and how my sister and her family responded when the murderer went to jail for many years. Were they joyous?

In fact, like the Israeli mother, my family did indeed feel a disconnect, somewhat, between the murderer and the murdered. They were satisfied that a level of justice had been served, but then closed the door to further discussion about the disappointing human being who committed the murder. It made sense to all of us that he was separated from society. He should be in jail. But there were no kiddushes. We wanted David back.

Osama bin Laden was a destructive force in the world, like the Egyptians. He was responsible for the death of thousands of people. He is gone and few will argue that this is bad.

However, this chapter of history is anything but reason to send streamers into the air. Bin Laden was a miserable example of God’s creation, but he was shaped in God’s image. His life was an absolute tragedy, and he went out of it with cauldrons of blood on his hands. The events that made him that way were disastrous.

The story of Osama bin Laden is a horror story, but at the end of the day, it seems wiser, perhaps more Jewish, to contemplate how such a man could exist, and then fight those dynamics that shaped him.

When the day has turned to dark, we as Jews grieve over the murdered. We do not drink wine at the death of the murderer.

May all good people be safe. May all wicked people change their ways.

Suffice it to say that the G20 opened our eyes up to some of the excessive force used by police officers in our town. It was a dismal moment for Torontonians, in fact all Canadians, however did give us insight into a situation which is of crisis proportions.

I believe change began as the G20 wound down

So many of us seem to have a story about the police. I have heard dozens of them from friends, colleagues, synagogue goers and family. So often the stories are very unpleasant having to do with excessive force and intimidation by the police. 

Please share with me any experiences you have had with the Toronto Police Force. I am interested in positive stories and negative experiences.

Here are some links you can peruse to understand the police force in Toronto:

a)   http://torontopolice.on.ca/  – read the Forces own website. We have much to be proud of as well in our city when it comes to our police including the work they do in schools and with youth. http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/safetyzone/ read this piece having to do with teaching children and teens about conflict resolution. I applaud the Force for this work and encourage them to budget more funds for community outreach.

b) www.thepolicefile.ca – this is authored by John Sewell, former mayor of Toronto and critic of the force. He is well informed, and as a former mayor and lawyer, clearly understands the issues and the problems with a force that sees itself as outside of the fabric of the Toronto community, misunderstood by anyone who is not in the force. and intent upon growing this $1 billion entity to secure a city where crime has dropped consistently over many years. John has also written a book called: The Toronto Police: The Real Story.

c) www.tpac.ca - John Sewell is also a member of the Toronto Police Accountability Association. They are celebrating their 10th anniversary and doing a very good job of keeping us updated on issues affecting the force, our city and country. I find them to be very fair and well researched.

It is paramount that we develop trust with our police and that can only come through a cleansing process. Chief Blair needs to hear these experiences and share them with his 5600 members. Many Torontonians have been hurt by the police and it is time that changes.

We can make that change, together.

How many times have you sat quietly while one of our local organizations, leaders or community members accused someone of antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiment when, in fact, the motivation of the speaker, writer or non-Jewish leader was anything but?

The situation this month involving the Bay stores and Ahava cosmetics from Israel was a good example of this. As you might recall, Ahava products were pulled from the Bay’s shelves at the same time a virulent anti-Israel group, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, was calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. Ultimately, we learned from Bonnie Brooks, CEO of the Hudson’s Bay Company (in a joint statement with the Canada-Israel Committee) that the products weren’t selling well and were being re-branded, and, therefore, the chain was curtailing sales, for a while.

The Bay’s timing was poor, but clearly there was no anti-Israel motivation in its decision. And while the shelves were cleared, a well-oiled machine – consisting mainly of hard-right bloggers and others caught in the maelstrom – began to churn. Unresearched communiqués flew through cyberspace, calling for a boycott of the Bay and the destruction of its high-interest-rate credit cards.

Individuals and groups such as B’nai Brith accused the chain of caving in to anti-Israel boycotters. Even after statements were made clarifying the situation, B’nai Brith continued to criticize the Bay and said it should consider advertising in B’nai Brith’s newspaper to make amends for its bad judgment. It was embarrassing to the entire Jewish community.

It was also wrong.

So we jumped the gun. It happens. In a world of instant communication, in which many don’t hesitate for a moment to vilify the Jewish state, one can understand the motivation. But at the end of the day, we sullied the reputation of a chain that has been carrying Israeli products for years. The Bay stated clearly that it had no interest in joining an anti-Israel boycott, a stance that could have a great impact on other retailers. It did exactly what we expect of it.

We screwed up.

So what do we do now as a people that pursues what is just? We apologize. We publicly call for our community members and others to shop at the Bay. As people who know what it’s like to be falsely accused, we declare that it’s time for our family to buy a new towel set at our local Bay store. But if we decide that we will stand firm and believe that the Bay is anti-Israel, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the company, and even more so to ourselves. Effectively, we are alienating our allies, blaming our friends and humiliating ourselves by taking a position that stores such as the Bay are guilty even when proven not guilty.

B’nai Brith would have acted in our interest, and done what was right, by being contrite and stating loudly that it misread the situation and responded incorrectly. When antisemites clash the cymbals of hatred in our ears, we should be grateful that goups such as B’nai Brith exist. They, like Canadian Jewish Congress, do a fine job, mostly. We are fortunate to have them watch out for us.

 But when they’re wrong about a group, company or person – when someone has no intention of weakening Israel – let’s accept that reality and act like menschen. Shop at the Bay. The company deserves our apology.

“It’s because I’m a Jew isn’t it?”

 Today, however, I am overwhelmed by what seems to be the complete greyishness of the day, and the utter beauty, this often thought of bland color, reflects. The solid ice, a winter shoreline, is greenish-grey. The naked branches of the pine and spruce trees are brownish-grey, and the distant skyline is bluish-grey. Interestingly, my friend, Burt, looks out the window he sees a bland, nasty day. He describes the grayish scenario as “somber”.

Through his sight, the grays of the Peterborough winter are dull, somewhat like the skies and moods of a Russian film. This color that thrills me, places a damper on his day. In it, within the grey, he senses a season hibernating, a time perhaps closer to death than life – “something that will be”, a “sleepy hollow. I see a pallet. I detect something very much awake and raring to go!! Because of these grays I am compelled to sketch, and paint. They encourage me to remember the Impressionists looking out over the darkening fields, and nearly unlit villages of Europe. How exciting.

The real consideration, however, is that two sets of eyes, see so differently. Where Burt’s grey is one thing, mine is another. While his represents a very particular world, mine presents something else. Amazingly, both are valid. So how are we to deal with this reality? How do we except that which we focus on appears differently to me, than it does to you? 2011 will be a year for the Jewish people, when this question will be asked over and over.

Whose grey is truer? The Israeli government is negotiating with Palestinian leadership, and there are those who will see, this situation putting the Jewish state in peril. Others will look at it and be convinced that they are seeing a colorful grey, an environment where peace will be possible. Two sets of eyes; two different conclusions. Which grey is truer? 2011 will be a most interesting year because the schism between denominations is growing bigger and bigger. Orthodox Judaism is moving more and more to the right, and while Conservative and Reform Judaism have taken the same turn, the differences between the two – particularly having to do with conversion – are enormous. Here the grays have become muted. How are we to see them?

I have studied art over the years, looking closely at Vincent Van Gough. He never bores me and I want to learn more about his life, brushstrokes, choice of colors, especially the tans, ochre’s, reds and oranges and grays. I will stare at The Potato Eaters for hours on end. But not everybody will. I know there are those who dislike Van Gough. Is he a good artist or otherwise? Whose gray shall we rely upon? Whose vision shall we trust? Peterborough and its grayish winter made me reflect on this question, on this human condition. What are we seeing, when we see it? How does it look to us, and how does it look to them? What is reality in all of this? 2011 will be a most interesting year. Look closely.

Generally people describe evildoers as those who are vicious and participate without conscience, inflicting pain and suffering on others.

But how do we know evil when we see it?

It can be easy. One only has to look at the Kampucheans (Cambodians) who turned their children into vicious murderers. Most countries were appalled by this civil war.

Judaism states that the biblical Amalekites tribe was evil and it would be wiped out – men, women and children. You will hear from fellow Jews that “the Nazis were like the Amalekites and should be obliterated.” Few people will argue the point.

 Here is the challenge, however. Evil, when not wiped out, eventually assimilates into the mainstream and participates in the good and bad aspects of society. For example, a huge number of Rwandans who maimed and murdered innocents are now living freely in Rwanda interacting with their victims.

What to do? Should we go and assassinate these people where they stand, because they were deemed by the world to be evil? Or were they evil and no longer are? How about their offspring?

There is a school of thought that says the great Rabbi Akiva descended from the Amalekites. This is a very powerful challenge to all good citizens responsible for managing the world. If the evil Amalekites had all been wiped out, Rabbi Akiva, the founder of rabbinic Judaism, would never have been born.

To make my point in a dramatic way: most of us firmly believe that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is evil, and if caught, he should be tried for crimes against humanity and executed. But is that the right course of action?

What if he were to change? What if Ahmadinejad was rehabilitated and gave up his evil ways in a convincing manner and worked instead toward coexistence with Israel? Would we not have missed an opportunity?

Further, if evil is not destroyed, is there no evidence that evildoers may become remorseful, or at least give up their dastardly ways?

Read at the website below about a bizarre transformation going on in Poland today, as former skinheads convert to Judaism, some discovering their roots in Judaism. Rabbi Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, says that “before 1989, there was a feeling that it was not safe to say, ‘I am a Jew,’ but today, there is a growing feeling that Jews are a missing limb in Poland.” http://rabbimichaelsamuel.com/2010/02/from-skinhead-to-haredi-jew-a-tale-of-personal-transformation/

This is a difficult issue. In our world in 2010, we are privy to acts of abomination on a daily basis and we are tuned in to the world and its events more than ever. We are therefore a regular jury deciding how world leaders should conduct themselves.

What is evil? How do we define it? What do we do then? What is the evil within us and how do we counter it? Do we?

I address these questions near the High Holidays because we are judges. We all determine injustice and decide on the fight. And in times when the Jewish People need to defend themselves, there is little room or luxury to determine who and what is evil and how to deal with it. We go on intuition.

But now, in more a peaceful time, this question and its challenges need to be dealt with.

 There is something particular about being Jewish.

 We celebrate what know other people can, such as the fact hockey is played in Metulla, Israel and nowhere else in the Middle East. Being Jewish means we are exclusively proud of Daf Yomi – a process whereby an individual studies one page of Talmud a day, for seven and a half years, until all tractates are completed.

We rejoice about the fact more than 22% of people who have received the Nobel Peace Prize were Jewish or of Jewish decent. We are excited Jews were dominant in the clothing industry and about 25% of the peoples on average, on Forbes Fortune 500 list are Jews.

Being  Jewish means we have contributed and cheered while valiant and plucky Israeli and Diaspora Jews – our home team – flew on the wings of eagles, saving Jews from Yemen, Ethiopia, Uganda, Odessa, the Baltic, and and and…… 

To be Jewish is to be a member of a clan with a voracious appetite for curiosity, compassion, and intent on self-development and the enhancement of our existence and world.

Of course we Jews have our foibles, and we have our migraines.

Being Jewish means when we see someone with a gold tooth we think of the Holocaust, when our family’s teeth were painfully and hatefully extracted for profit, theft, greed. Our memories, because we are Jews, are littered with sinister and serrated images from every century.

Being Jewish means when your little boy – say one who is four years old – is pretending to be a monster and tries to scare an older woman sitting on a bench in front of your condo, she responds, ‘you can’t scare me zees’ala (sweetheart), I was in the Holocaust.’

Being Jewish means (as funny as it may seem being parodied) – ten Jews around the table really does make for eleven opinions (if we’re lucky) and cause great ethical and practical bottlenecks. (An example: should the unearmarked donation be used to buy more prayer books or redesign the cloakroom? Another example is, should we build settlements in the territories?)

Being Jewish, or more so, being chasidish, means it is difficult to be seen on Friday night, while walking home from shul on a side street. A bekesheh, a man’s silken black cloak, does not reflect light and therefore puts the wearer in danger. (Perhaps our many entrepreneurs in the clothing industry should design a luminous bekeshe strip).  

One morning my boy said mo’de ani ( the prayer thanking God for returning his spirit) by heart. He had heard me all those months. That instance was important because I worry if I am imparting enough to him about Judaism. I glimpsed a success. Being Jewish at that moment meant my son was expressing appreciation, was identifying with creation and the Creator, and stating his place in the world.

Being Jewish at that second was also troublesome as it meant my son is a Jew, was committing to being so, and what parent of our faith doesn’t worry about our safety as a people, particularly our children?

Henny Youngman joked: a Jewish woman had two chickens. One got sick, so the woman made chicken soup out of the other one, to help the sick one get well.

That is the challenge and conundrum of being Jewish. We celebrate our chickens, and then they always get sick. We care, sometime to our detriment. Some Jews are wise, and like Mark Twain said about people in general, “some are otherwise”.

I have such a headache now, but so proud. I’m going to bed. Good night.

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The old man’s back was hunched. He stared at the ground, seeing just enough in front of him so as not to crash into somebody, trip over the homeless man.

How strange it must be to watch the ground while others see the horizon. How familiar with the pavement cracks he must be. How many times did he save his mother’s back from being broken? He is hunched. He is bent.

That is what we’re like sometimes – our community and our people. We’re crooked and we’re bent. Why must that be so?

Over the centuries, the weight of the pyramid stones, the 13th of Adar (the Fast of Esther), Haman, and the rocks and rubble we were forced to carry on our shoulders pushed us down and down, over and over  again.

We couldn’t stand erect?

But don’t you know that the pyramids are already built and the Nazis lie dormant for now? And if you know that, and if you are aware of these facts, you can stand upright for now. Then why don’t you?

Theodor Herzl died in 1904 at age 44, but only after he heard the people of France yelling, “Death to the Jews,” and only after this secular journalist scoffed at the peasants and the pogroms and the Inquisitors. He listened and heard the pulsing vibrations of anti-Semitism and lifted his eyes and straightened his spine until he was as tall as he could be.

Somewhere in his Jewish soul and mind, he knew, like the biblical Jacob, how to defend his nation, his family. Jacob divided up the camp and sent his flocks ahead, his strategy while Esau headed toward him. He acted.

Herzl did, too. He did not sit quietly in make believe, or pretend that all was well. He planted the seeds that grew the State of Israel. He was not bent.

You are walking with eyes down,  but nobody will save our people if we do not first save ourselves.

There is only one answer to all of this. Israel is mighty, but it was also so before the rise of the Assyrians, Romans, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans. A spine can only bend so much. Doesn’t it seem as if the pressure on Israel is growing?

Diaspora Jewry is strong but small and defenceless, really, without Israel and friends. We act though as if it has always been this way, as if our people have always been in Congress, the Senate, Parliament and the Supreme Court; and heads of banks and schools.

But we forget there was a time a few short decades ago when we hid away on our knees – a Jew, a secret.

There is only one answer. We must fight to make friends. We must battle with our enemies. Each of us must create allies on our street, in our cities, in our countries – everywhere. This is a plan, like Jacob’s, like Herzl’s.

This is a plan. It must come from all of us. We are all leaders.

We must send flocks ahead and set tables for our friends to eat with us. We must be stocky, able to defend ourselves. This is a plan. Without one, we are stooping. How blind will we allow ourselves to get. How bent will our backs become?

How familiar will we be with the cracks?

Post copies of this around the house. Just reading it does nothing.

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Question: What are you doing to fight anti-Semitism?

I will be half a century old on April 27. 50! Am I my grandfather? Being 47 didn’t take much getting used to, and 48 walked in as if on a breeze. There was nothing terribly memorable about the onset of these ages. They were nondescript really, just like 34 or 28, and I thought little of them. “Hello,” I wished them, and they answered the same.

Ffty, however, is belting out a noise loud enough to make me cringe, cover my ears and settle myself over the sink ready to vomit. My grandfather was 50, and then 60 and then 70. He always seemed older. Forever a senior. Me too?

 Fifty is the jubilee year – seven times seven, plus 365 days – when, according to the Torah, the land must remain fallow and all debts are forgiven. Why do these things happen at 50? Because 50 is old and nobody holds debts for that long. So it’s really not a problem, and it makes the borrower feel good – sort of.

 At 49, I began accepting the fact that the face looking back at me in the mirror was that of a man about to enter into the youth of age. I looked closely for wrinkles and white hairs. I found them. Crow’s feet. Creases. Folds. Rumples. They were all beginning to emerge. Where had my baby’s bum gone?

 Fifty. They call me sir at the car rental place, and some, knowing my almost half-century status, ask where I was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I tell them probably having my diapers changed.

I’m almost 50, and therefore have friendships that go back 40 years. I’ve known David since we were eight, so that’s 42 years. Remember when someone said, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve been playing mah-jong for 42 years,” and you’d think Baycrest? Me too.

 I’m about to turn 50 years old, and that means my childhood is over, my early adulthood is complete, and any thoughts I had about being terribly attractive to younger woman are gone. I’m almost 50, and I remember dial phones, the milkman, Turkish delight, one sink, slow motion replay and Sweet Daddy Siki.

 I’ve watched as men I know turned 50 and it was seldom pretty. Some of them pretended to be hunched over. Their hands were slightly creased. Others complained a lot. A few frequently reminded me they were almost as old as their father when he passed away – even if they were not. Chronic this and irritable that just kept on plaguing these poor fiends. And they were proud of their Air Miles.

It says in Perkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers 5:25) that 50 is the age when a man or woman can give advice. We are the “man” – the CEOs, prime ministers, school principals, senior rabbis, vice-presidents of sales and have lots of insurance. People are coming to us asking for advice about careers, investments, retirement places, books to read and memories of the war. What war? Any war.

They do this because we’re 50 and that number sounds like history. We’re junior sages, assistant wise folks but really have no idea what’s going on.

I am just about to turn 50, and I am a bit shaky, feelings unbalanced and want so badly for God to say, “I’m kidding.” But He’s not. I am about to become that age when younger and older people will say, “Do you have a will? Where is your plot?”

My plot? Where is my plot? I don’t know. What plot? Oh God, please help me. I’m not Mr. Rosensweig. Really.

 http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18994&Itemid=86

Question: How old are you? How old do you feel? Are you prepared for the next decade, for age?

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For 25 years, I hadn’t known there were creaks in our home. The deafening noise of children playing and kids growing masked them.

I am an empty nester and I am lost. Recently my daughter, the last of five children, started university in London, Ont. My husband and I helped her set up the place she rented. We laughed the whole way there.

Coming back was different though.

Somehow in our small hatchback, we found our own corners as soon as we hit the Highway 401 and mostly stayed there for what seemed like hours. Our little girl was not in the back seat. She would be away for four years and likely would never move back into our home. I couldn’t stop crying.

We drove up the driveway, and my husband turned the ignition off. The car rolled slightly and then stopped abruptly when he pulled the emergency brake. I looked at him, wondering if he was OK.

He was crying. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. I hadn’t seen him cry for many years, actually since his father’s shivah. As it was so uncommon to see that side of him, I shivered a bit and coldness set in at not feeling so safe any longer.

I opened the car door and stepped out. I was still in my corner, and in some way, some strange way, I resented my husband.

“Let’s have another child,” I had said to him when our youngest had turned three.  “Five is not a lot you know. The Goldmans have eight children and were grandparents when they had their last one.”

“It’s smart,” I said, “so we’ll never be alone.”

My husband looked at me with unhappiness in his eyes and said, “Alone? We’ll have each other.”

I was 50 and I wanted to make another child. I didn’t want the two of us to be alone, even though we had tickets for the theatre and Leafs and Raptors games, and a membership to Beth Torah Congregation. It wasn’t enough though. I am a mother and I want so badly to nurture, and it’s not enough from an occasional distance.

My husband got out of the car and I  asked, “Why are you crying? Isn’t this what you always wanted?”

He responded that it was, but he never realized that he actually dreaded this moment.

“I was so tired of driving the boys to their hockey games, bar mitzvah lessons and to concerts,” he continued.

“I couldn’t wait to go to bed when I wanted, not having to wait up for the girls, and to wake up later, instead of having to prepare breakfast for everyone on the weekends.”

He continued that he was too young to be an empty nester and the next stop was being a grandparent, something that made him feel decrepit.

The next day, our rabbi commiserated with us, but he was too young to appreciate what we were going through. His oldest was six. We called our friends who had become empty nesters two years earlier and they were busy playing golf. A week, month, year went by. Pesach came, and the family was together, and eight days later they were gone.

A few years passed. Our daughter got married, then she got divorced. Then she moved back home. We’ve asked her to shovel the snow, hoping she would get the point. She’s hasn’t. The house seems so terribly full.

 http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18841&Itemid=86

Question: Are you an empty nester? What’s its like? Did you hate it at first, then love it? Or does it just suck always?

_________________________________________________________________________

Blog on Empty Nesting

http://www.55places.com/blog/empty-nest-syndrome-tips

It’s that time again. Israeli Apartheid Week has come and gone. The Swedes are acting out, and anti-Semitism quietly operates under slimy rocks, keeping a low profile, until bam, “Gaza” happens again. The danger is there. Do we see it? Are we acting?

Diaspora and Israeli Jewry make world-class software, hardware and medical equipment. We create wealth, write books, win Oscars, are bank presidents and chancellors of Universities, and even grow football, hockey and baseball stars.

Our ability to create communities and organizations is unmatched. We have friends in the right places (not enough) because we are loyal. This is not ego. This is pride.

We are better positioned and developed than ever before to fight anti-Semitism, know who are friends are and make many more.   

But we are not doing these things,

I write this to you in the voice of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. This visionary Zionist and Jewish activist exclaimed to European Jewry in the 1930s that they were “living on the edge of the volcano.” They did not listen, and a chapter was written for us in which the protagonist, we the Jewish People, fell off a cliff. Recall your falling dreams and the feeling in your gut when you were unable to grab onto a single branch.

Jabotinksy was right. Few listened.  We fell, and toppled hard. The ground has not since reached us.

Jewish organizations are doing a splendid job of fighting anti-Semitism, but they cannot do it alone, although they often want to. Jewish community workers work courageously, but like a pianist, they can only play one march at a time. They are not enough.

The State of Israel protects us, as God did the Jewish People in the dessert. Our manna is their existence. The world knows Israel embraces us and will rescue us should we be taken hostage by this era’s highwaymen, but that is not enough. Israel is overextended and small. It is not enough.

When anti-Semitism crawls out from underneath that mossy, bug-infested rock – and it will – all the organizations and professional staff will be surrounded by wagon trains of hatred creating deafening noises. They will know then that they are not enough.

I therefore, once again, call upon our leadership and every Jewish community member in the world to assemble and create, through our vast treasures, a world body whose mandate is to develop and implement a strategy to fight anti-Semites and find and make friends with non-Jews.

I am asking you not to put this article down, but rather to post it around your house as a wake-up for you and your family from an unreal sleep. Anti-Semitism is here.

Wake up and recognize that we are the most blessed people in the history of personkind. We can learn Torah freely, debate politics, compose symphonies, read poetry, visit Thailand, drive a Hummer, sleep peacefully and wear silk and cashmere. We have it all.

And with this comes responsibility to act. I ask you to ponder your comfort and then think about the Jews of France, Sweden and Venezuela. They are us. They are in trouble.

Tell our leaders it’s time we designed such an entity. We must stop crying over our losses and bemoaning anti-Semitism. The shivah is over. We must instead fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.

Do so, oh sleepy brothers and sisters. Toronto is a good place to start.

It’s that time again. Israeli Apartheid Week has come and gone. The Swedes are acting out, and anti-Semitism quietly operates under slimy rocks, keeping a low profile, until bam, “Gaza” happens again. The danger is there. Do we see it? Are we acting?

Diaspora and Israeli Jewry make world-class software, hardware and medical equipment. We create wealth, write books, win Oscars, are bank presidents and chancellors of Universities, and even grow football, hockey and baseball stars.

Our ability to create communities and organizations is unmatched. We have friends in the right places (not enough) because we are loyal. This is not ego. This is pride.

We are better positioned and developed than ever before to fight anti-Semitism, know who are friends are and make many more.   

But we are not doing these things,

I write this to you in the voice of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. This visionary Zionist and Jewish activist exclaimed to European Jewry in the 1930s that they were “living on the edge of the volcano.” They did not listen, and a chapter was written for us in which the protagonist, we the Jewish People, fell off a cliff. Recall your falling dreams and the feeling in your gut when you were unable to grab onto a single branch.

Jabotinksy was right. Few listened.  We fell, and toppled hard. The ground has not since reached us.

Jewish organizations are doing a splendid job of fighting anti-Semitism, but they cannot do it alone, although they often want to. Jewish community workers work courageously, but like a pianist, they can only play one march at a time. They are not enough.

The State of Israel protects us, as God did the Jewish People in the dessert. Our manna is their existence. The world knows Israel embraces us and will rescue us should we be taken hostage by this era’s highwaymen, but that is not enough. Israel is overextended and small. It is not enough.

When anti-Semitism crawls out from underneath that mossy, bug-infested rock – and it will – all the organizations and professional staff will be surrounded by wagon trains of hatred creating deafening noises. They will know then that they are not enough.

I therefore, once again, call upon our leadership and every Jewish community member in the world to assemble and create, through our vast treasures, a world body whose mandate is to develop and implement a strategy to fight anti-Semites and find and make friends with non-Jews.

I am asking you not to put this article down, but rather to post it around your house as a wake-up for you and your family from an unreal sleep. Anti-Semitism is here.

Wake up and recognize that we are the most blessed people in the history of personkind. We can learn Torah freely, debate politics, compose symphonies, read poetry, visit Thailand, drive a Hummer, sleep peacefully and wear silk and cashmere. We have it all.

And with this comes responsibility to act. I ask you to ponder your comfort and then think about the Jews of France, Sweden and Venezuela. They are us. They are in trouble.

Tell our leaders it’s time we designed such an entity. We must stop crying over our losses and bemoaning anti-Semitism. The shivah is over. We must instead fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.

Do so, oh sleepy brothers and sisters. Toronto is a good place to start.

The seder was about to begin. The chandelier on the ceiling in the dining room illuminated the table and its finery. A bulbous white pillow had been placed on my father’s armchair, waiting to be creased by his recline, and sweet and tearing Pesach smells intertwined with the aromas of the rest of year. Eliyahu would accept our invitation, wholeheartedly.

The Pesach plate was prepared. So was the delicious meal. Egg. Bone. Maror. Karpas. Charoset. Chazeret. The fish heads my mother loved, stared up at us as if disappointed. Everyone had chosen their favourite wine-stained Haggadah.

The guests had arrived.

Nobody was ever turned away from our seder. Indeed, if an artist were to paint it, it would look like a busier Last Supper. As a little person, I saw layers upon layers of company, some of whom were familiar, others who were newcomers, and still others who were mendicants, living on alms.

From time to time, my elbows resented the fact they had nowhere to rest on the table, but mostly I was in wonderment at the exaggerated “space versus people” formula these holidays allowed. Old ladies living alone; zestful, ideological university students debating Hegel; Jews and non-Jews. They were all present. Lots of them.

It was the opening night of the Exodus, and like Jerusalem, which expanded during the three pilgrimage festivals, so too did our home. It was awe-inspiring.

 My father welcomed us all to the seder: “Family, friends, once we were in Egypt. Today we are free.

“History is now,” he would say. “We are Nachshon ben Aminadav. We are the Jews who escaped Egypt. Dive into the sea,” he would shout.

My father continued: “We are the Jewish People, and tonight Moses sits at our table and so does the sweet Jewish sexton from Kiev. We are they, and they are us.”

And he never forgot the Holocaust, even in good times. Nor did he forget the Inquisition, the pogroms or the Jewish community leaders hanged in Iran in our times.

“Let us remember our kedoshim tonight, those Jews who courageously broke the middle matzah in Auschwitz to remember Yitziyat Mizrayim [the Exodus from Egypt].”

 My mother was the hero, though. She was the chief chef, the general, the industrial engineer navigating, and adjusting the Passover table and its place-settings, in order to squeeze one more person around the table. Our seder was chaos contained. And my mother made sure those who were hungry came and ate.

 We poured the wine. We blessed it and drank. (I was tipsy. It’s great to be a Jew. I’d been drinking since my bris.) I stood and sang Ma Nishtanah (the Four Questions) in Hebrew and Yiddish. Father was perturbed when I said Mr. Been in place of “misubin.” But I had too. I was a kid.

 Rabbi Tarphon and Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah sat and learned in B’nei Brak. We said Dayeinu, ate, sang about a goat and talked Torah until 2 a.m.

 By then, most of the guests had gone home. Much of the family slept, their heads resting on folded arms at the table. But I was awake and ever so proud. Tomorrow I’ll be asked how long our seder went. I will say till 2:30 in the morning. Nobody would beat that.

Today, years later, some of us are gone. But that Passover grandeur and camaraderie will forever be ours. It will be mine – because I was a kid and everything was 10 feet taller. I was free.

Chag Samayach. Happy Pesach. Next year in Jerusalem?