Category Archives: Ve’ahavta

14

Jan. ’12

Veahavta Radio/TV – www.veahavta.org

Ha. Take a look at my organization’s website – www.veahavta.org – and click on the big box in the upper right hand corner stating: Ve’ahavta Radio and Television. We have developed an online radio and tv show which has to do exclusively with tikun olam – repairing the world.

The idea behind these shows are to raise the consciousness of our viewers/listeners about all of our abilities to change the world through our own strength. There you will find interviews with a former prostitute and crack addict, Theresa Schrader, who is now in the employ of Ve’ahavta. She tells us that she can never clean enough, because she simply can get that dirty feeling out of her. Regardless, she runs our Ve’ahavta Street Academy and Creative Writing Contest for the Homeless (a contest she own in 2005).

Watch Ve’ahavta TV, and see an intriguing interview with Nate Laipciger, a Survivor of the Holocaust and Holocaust educator. He says so prolifically that Ve’ahavta is doing the exact thing that Hitler tried to destroy. He made me cry.

Check out our V-TV interview with Bernie Farber, Canadian renowned Jewish activists and community leader, as well as progressive Rabbi, Yossi Saperman, who started out life pretty charadi (very Orthodox) and today is a creative Rabbi with no denominational membership, but a hell of a shul that is growing all the time.

Watch it and let me knwo what you think. Listen and tell me your thoughts. We’re going to go viral. And get what. My co-host on the radio – Vac – is a man who is near homeless. He rocks. He is funny. He is bright. He’s a great radio guy and he doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from. Crazy shit.

Tikun olam on the internet. Well worth listening/watching to.

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06

Dec. ’11

Starry Nights 2011 – a Huge Tikun Olam Success

We just successfully held Starry Nights 2011. It was quite an evening, one which I am very proud of.

Take a look at www.veahavta.org for pictures and some editorial on the evening which featured Chantal Kreviazuk and such honorary (tikun olam award winners) as Alice Bartole, the director of the House of Hope Orphanage in Haiti.

It was a funky-ass night too. We did a flashmob, and guess what? I danced with 50 others. I’m the son of a Rabbi, not Bob Fosse, so I’m a bit like a stick up there but I did it, and I was proud. Interestingly, I felt more comfortable in front of 650 people dancing, then I might on a dance floor. It was rockin.

I was excited about the night because it was tikun olam entertainment, with a whole lot of soul. What I mean by that was we got into the street a bit, starting off with a Ve’ahavta writing contest winner who did a guerilla presentation, and did it very well.

The honorees ran the gammit from Holocaust survivors known for their education of others, to a young man who started his activism at 4 years old. It was quite an evening, and I’ll update you more over time, but suffice it to say, we stepped up a notch this year. Ve’ahavta, I believe, is in its 20′s, no longer teenagers. Ya!!!

O’seh Shalom B’eemramov h’oo ya’aseh shalom aleinu ve’al kol yisrael, v’imroo Amen!!!!

 

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24

Nov. ’10

Ve’ahavta’s New Office Space…Mazel Tov!

I have taken a hiatus from writing. I began putting much more of my energy and attention into art, and I am enjoying it a lot. I don’t think I am a natural writer. I do feel that way about art however. I have struggled and learned so that I would become a better artist.

Ve ’ahavta’s offices are moving at the end of this week. I am nostalgic. When I first started Ve’ahavta it was based in my apartment on Queen and Broadview – a seedy part of town. But then the first move came, maybe 1 year into Ve’ahavta’s life.

My friend David Green gave us office space at Yonge and Eglinton. We were on the 9th floor and it was something. At that time I was with Roz. She and I went out and purchased a coat-tree and an Aztec-styled clock. I kidded in truth, at the time: “these are historic things. The very first ever clock in the very first ever Jewish humanitarian organization in Canada.” That move was enormous.

It meant to me, that we were no longer a collegiate sort of organization operating out of ‘Wayne’s World’ but more so, we were a team, all one of us, overlooking a busy cosmopolitan crossroads. There was a food court downstairs and cleaners would come by every night to tidy up. I was brimming for about four years.

But this move is something special too. I’m not sure which one is more important to me. We are now moving into an office with 5300 square feet. That’s a reasonable amount of office space, respectable. And we will be paying $100,000 a year in rent (if you’d like to sponsor our rent, let me know). That is respectable.

In our new offices you will find enough storage space for our international stuff, and more space for our local homeless initiatives. There are six offices and a large middle area. We have a glassed off board room, or what Arieh (our manager of Finance and Administration, and responsble for this move) calls, The Multi-Purpose-Room. Fine. That’s what it is then.

I look forward to this space casting a brand new light on Ve’ahavta. As the space is big, I believe we will be seen as big. When that happens, when people fully appreciate the magnitude of Ve’ahavta’s work, then we will wake up one morning and a $1 million gift will be left over to us, in an estate. This is something we have worked toward….depth, structure and meaningful results. Philanthropists can sense that.

So here we go. Wish us well. Kirill is coming back from Israel with a mezuzah made in a particular humanitarian environment, by individuals raising money for something special.

Mazel tov!

“And Jacob was a tent dweller”. – Torah

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18

Nov. ’10

Geldof Lost His Mom at 7 – my Canadian Jewish News article

Geldof lost his mom at 7
Thursday, 18 November 2010
When Sir Bob Geldof was seven years old, his mother died. I know this because he was the keynote speaker at Ve’ahavta’s Starry Nights 2010 event on Nov. 7, and he said so.
His father was a salesman and travelled all week, and his two sisters filled their time with studying and were rarely home. Bob was mostly home by himself until he didn’t come home much at all. He said it was just too hard entering a place where the lights were off.He read a lot, classics such as Dickens, and sharpened his mind. Sometimes he would go out and help street people and prostitutes, and others who didn’t have a place to go to.

One woman he remembers well was Mary, who slept on the doorstep of a man who lived nearby. The man would come home at the end of the day, step over Mary and say goodnight. Geldof was pissed off, thinking how rude he was being, so cavalier about Mary and treating her as if she was a waste of space.

Later on in life, he thought to himself that most of us – “including me,” he said – would never let Mary sleep on their doorsteps. “We would be too worried about the value of our houses.”

And Geldof realized that the man really was a good person.

Geldof said it’s irrational to hate someone, to think of them as being “less than” us, because of the colour of their skin, the texture of their hair, or how they talk or look.

“It is intellectually wrong,” he stated.

 He said it made him very angry that blacks in South Africa were treated the way they were under apartheid, so he started a movement with a fellow bloke to fight racism – “and hopefully get shagged,” he joked.

That’s where it all started for Geldof.

I meet a lot of people who work at the local level doing tikun olam, many who are very impressive. But once in a while I meet a Sir Bob Geldof, who operates on the world stage and fights to eradicate such things as national debts and achieves his goals.

I feel humanitarian envy. I am in awe as a trader might be at hearing Warren Buffet.  

Listen to this: shortly after Geldof was able to convince western nations to forgive the foreign debt of a handful of African countries, 42 million children who previously had received no education whatsoever were able to go to school. Today, he says, some of the world’s highest marks in science and math come from places such as Ghana.

Africa may be the Dark Continent, but it doesn’t have to be, as Geldof convinced all of us at Starry Nights. He said numbers equal dollars and dollars equal political sway.

He also told us about the Live Aid benefits he put on in dozens of different countries that ultimately raised $150 million. The money has been used to hire doctors and nurses and make life better for a lot of people.  

I wish there were more leaders of his calibre. Truthfully, a guy like Geldof sets the bar for humanitarianism, and while we understand that few people can ever equal his achievements, by using him as a role model, we can achieve our own particular brand of greatness.

Work hard to achieve your goal and help the world while you can. Geldof lost his mom when he was seven.
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10

Sep. ’10

A Child from Haiti

 

Recently a Veahavta staff member and board member visited Haiti and the orphanage – House of Hope – we are involved with. Stop by Ve’ahavta’s website – www.veahavta.org to see more pictures and get a sense of our operations there, and how you might help.

God bless the people of Haiti, and those working to help them.

Oh how lucky we are to live in a safe place.

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14

Mar. ’10

On Launching a Charity: Succeed Right Away with a Good Team

 I launched Ve’ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee in 1996. I did not do it alone, but it was lonely regardless.

 I say this, because prior to Ve’ahavta’s establishment, and my working with it full time, I had been working at the United Jewish Appeal in Toronto. I had been promoted to Associate Campaign Director and was receiving $60,000 at that time – pretty good money.

Many people with whom I spoke thought I was nuts for leaving UJA and such a safe environment for something with no guarantees, and $0 behind me. I had been surrounded by a lot of people at UJA and at Ve’ahavta, it was just me.

But I had a dream, and it was one of my first ever. I hadn’t dreamed that  much in my younger years. This seemed  natural. I wanted to start Ve’ahavta. I wanted the Canadian Jewish community to have a humanitarian organization. It was important for our people and nation.

While lonely, I wasn’t as scarred as other people were.

In late 1997, Ve’ahavta decided together with its founding directors, that we would partner up with an existing group of doctors doing medical work in Guyana, South America. Many proposals had hit our table soon after the word got out about our existence, but ‘Guyana’ seemed right.

It did because:

a)      We had partners on the ground -The Lions Club,  so we wouldn’t be on the ground with no understanding of the locals.

b)      The people wanted us there and that is good because if you are not popular where you are going, you’ll  likely not  accomplish too much.

c)      The locals spoke English so we could ask our patients what was wrong with them, and they could answer so we understood.

d)      It was not dangerous and that is always good because losing a volunteer or staff would be devastating, God forbid.

e)      There were no negative issues vis-a-vis Israel and Guyana or the Jewish people.

We sent a handful of doctors and nurses to this, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (after Haiti), with a pharmacist and lots and lots of pharmaceuticals. Dr. Michael Silverman, an infectious disease doctor and Dr. Roy Rowsell, formally of Lakeridge Health Centre, and a genuinely righteous man, who introduced us to ‘Guyana’, led the team.

The operation went splendidly well. We used classrooms as clinics. Bed sheets divided up the cubicles we created, and desks were often put together to create a bed to lie on. We were in the rainforest and surrounding area and made due with what we had. While the tools we had in Guyana seemed pre-modern, things worked.

Ask any NGO employee working in the field how they can accomplish anything where there is next to nothing and they will tell you, ‘you make due’. And you do. And that is the brilliance of NGO work. (More on that in other  articles).

While in Guyana for about 14 days we set up medical clinics.  Men, women and children came from far and wide to determine their health. We accomplished a lot and created strong friends while there.

I tell you this because at the very essence of launching an NGO is my believe you need to succeed immediately out of the gate. Do not create fancy, complicated programs with vast amount of risk when starting up.

Have a good solid team both on your board and in the field. Make sure that you are ready for what faces you, such as liability issues and, God forbid, injuries far away from home.  The best way of doing so is through some very solid human resources.

If you are thinking of, or are in the midst of, starting up an NGO follow these rules. Be strong and do not waiver when it comes to determining your first project and establishing the group of people who will be next to you.  This is imperative.

Look around and find people you trust. When Ve’ahavta first started the board was made up of four people I knew well and, I felt, would watch my back. You cannot create an NGO on your own, not one that will fly.

 Rule 1, 2 for Creating your NGO:   

Make your first project or program a success. One way of doing that is by pickybacking with another organization or entity as we did with ”Guyana’.

Have a solid team of men and woman around you who bring different strengths to the table. Speak with them regularly and ensure that their strength is different than yours. Call on them when you need them and make them part of what is going on. You are likely to succeed when you follow this rule.

Smile, Breathe, Go Slowly…
Thic Nhat Hanh
 

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13

Feb. ’10

Ve’ahavta & Kinder Kits…..Help Kids!

Ve’ahavta donates more than 1,000 school supply kits
By RITA POLIAKOV, Staff Reporter   
Wednesday, 09 December 2009
TORONTO — To some children, taking notes in class is an annoyance. To others, it’s a luxury.

Ve’ahavta volunteers Mikki Noble-Gresty and Bunny Vyner (right), pack achool supplies to be shipped to Zimbabwe under the organization’s Kinder Kits program.
“We know there are over 850,000 orphans in Zimbabwe who go to school today without proper school supplies,” said Kirill Zaretsky, the director of development for Ve’ahavta, a Jewish humanitarian and relief organization based in Canada. “To buy school supplies, to record information, to write down a new idea or a thought is key.”

To enable some children to do these things, Ve’ahavta developed Kinder Kits, a new initiative that sends a kit filled with school supplies to needy students in Canada and worldwide.

Ve’ahavta volunteers pack supplies for children in Zimbabwe.

“What we realized as the economy slipped was that more children were being affected by the downturn, and [fewer] parents were able to do basic things [like buying] school supplies,” Zaretsky said, adding that the program started six months ago.

Ve’ahavta’s goal is to send out a total of 25,000 to 50,000 kits by March 2010 to countries including Canada, Israel, Zimbabwe and Kenya, where there is a need and a means of distributing supplies.

So far, some 1,600 kits have been shipped to students in Zimbabwe, about 100 were sent to Montreal and around 150 were distributed in Toronto.

The kits, which cost about $18 each, include supplies like binders, rulers, pencils, paper and backpacks.

“Organizations out there talk about [African schools] having a single pencil for 30 kids. That’s a reality. We want to change this reality,” Zaretsky said.

Ecojot, an environmentally friendly paper products company, is working to help Zaretsky reach his goal.

The company has donated 4,000 to 5,000 school supplies to the initiative so far, and plans to donate 20,000 to 25,000 by spring of 2010.

“Everyone I’ve spoken to thinks it’s an amazing thing… I’m very encouraged by that,” said Mark Gavin, Ecojot’s co-owner. “It brings a deeper purpose to our business… we’ll actually make a small difference in the world. Maybe even a large one.”

In January 2010, Gavin’s company will launch a new program called Buy One, We’ll Donate One, where they’ll donate certain supplies based on how many of those supplies are purchased. This means that for every notebook they sell, they’ll donate one to initiatives like Kinder Kits.

 “There’s a need… In poor countries, even if [students] go to school, they don’t actually get stuff. Our kids are given paper and crayons and supplies,” he said.

But that’s not always the case, said Bunny Vyner, a retired middle school teacher and Ve’ahavta volunteer. While teaching in Toronto, Vyner has seen children come to school hungry and without the proper supplies.

“Here in North America… we aren’t aware of this,” she said. “You have kids who have and kids who don’t next to each other. I think having a pen or a notebook or an eraser is kind of an inspiration in itself.”

Vyner, who helps organize Kinder Kit shipments and is spearheading used backpack drives, sees the program as a necessity.

“It’s about providing impoverished kids with the means to learn. Education helps lead people out of the cycle of poverty,” she said.

To volunteer with Ve’ahavta or donate school supplies, visit veahavta.org or call 416-964-7698.
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13

Jan. ’10

Haiti: Disaster of Historic Proportions (100,000 Dead?)

It seems that the world is responding to the earthquake in Haiti, as though it’s Pompeii.

By this I mean the devastation in this poor Western country seems to be so great it feels as if it has been sucked into a vortex of nothingness. While the Tsunami destroyed many lives and an awful lot of territory there was never a sense that Srii Lanka was going away – like Pompeii did.

But when you read or watch the news today about Haiti there is a definite message that: while Haiti had no infrastructure before to speak of it has less now – in fact it has nothing now.

CNN reporters were saying looting is not likely as there is nothing to loot. Volunteers on the ground bemoaned the fact that there are no hospitals for people to go to. Essentially ‘Haiti’ seems as if this is it.

I don’t have the expertise to say whether that is the case or not – whether the millions of people in this country will be bused somewhere else but I am feeling this Pompeii energy. It is so sad and heavy.

We can only wish the people of Haiti well and bless those who perished and those who survived. Ve’ahavta has launched a crisis response. Consider donating. We are very blessed.

http://www.veahavta.org/index.php/news/urgent-donate-to-veahavtas-haiti-earthquake-relief-fund/

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Courtesy of CNN.COM

1 p.m. — 40,000-45,000 Americans in Haiti, the U.S. State Department says. The Embassy has been in touch with about 40. No confirmed deaths. About a dozen injured. “Clearly that will go up,” says Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley.

12:41 p.m. – Photo gallery shows the destruction.

12:30 p.m. – At least 15 U.N. peacekeepers reported dead.

12:27 p.m. — Joseph Serge Miot, the archbishop of Port-au-Prince, died in the quake, according to the official Vatican newspaper.

12:18 p.m. – Haiti prime minister tells CNN he believes well over 100,000 have died in earthquake.

12:12 p.m. — Anderson Cooper says situation at airport “pretty quiet.” He says small military presence from Dominican Republic is at the airport.

11:45 a.m. — National Penitentiary collapsed and inmates escaped, prompting worries about looting by escapees.

11:35 a.m. – Want to help? Check out Impact Your World

11:13 a.m. — Fabiola Surena shared photos of her parents’ home and her aunt and uncle’s property in Debussy, Haiti — both areas are severely damaged. Aunt and uncle’s property; Parents’ home

11:07 a.m. — Catholic Relief Services staff member Karel Zelenka provided this account via e-mail. “Damage incredible all around … Some major buildings are gone — the hotel Montana, the National Palace etc… People have been screaming and chanting all over the place … It is a disaster of the century, we should be prepared for thousands and thousands of dead and injured.”

11:03 a.m. — 50-member Chinese rescue team ready to depart for Haiti, China’s Xinhua news agency reports.

11:01 a.m. — More than 100 employees of U.N. mission unaccounted for.

10:45 a.m – Read an easy-to-read guide on Haiti and its history.

10:39 a.m. – A Haitian-American tells CNN her parents died in the quake, days after visiting her in South Florida. Full story

10:35 a.m – Twitter is playing a critical role in collecting donations to help disaster victims, CNNMoney.com reports.

10:26 a.m. – The people of Haiti have a friend and partner in the United States, President Obama says in concluding news conference. Watch news conference Video

10:24 a.m. — USAID Administrator Raj Shah will coordinate American relief efforts, Obama says.

10:23 a.m. — President Obama extends “deep condolences” to people of Haiti. Says he has ordered a “swift” and “coordinated” response .

10:21 a.m. – None of three aid centers run by Doctors without Borders in Haiti is operable, the group says.

10:20 a.m. – People of Haiti will have full support of the United States, President Obama says.

10:16 a.m. – The main airport in Haiti appears to be operable, U.S. State Department spokesman says.

10:15 a.m. – The U.N. Haitian mission chief and the agency’s deputy special representative are unaccounted for, says U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

10:11 a.m. – Air traffic control “is very dicey,” says CNN’s Anderson Cooper. While flying over Haiti, his helicopter had to make last-minute maneuver to avoid hitting another aircraft. Watch Anderson Cooper video Video

10:10 a.m. – People are standing around wondering where to go, says Anderson Cooper, who flew over Haiti in a helicopter. Major buildings have collapsed — pancaked together.

10:07 a.m. — “It’s incredibly shocking,” says Anderson Cooper.

10:04 a.m. – President of Lumiere Medical Ministries, which has been in Haiti for 25 years, tells CNN all 25 employees are fine.

9:57 a.m. – Follow Tweets from CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

9:39 a.m. — “I heard a lot of people praying, saying that Jesus is coming, saying that we need to pray, we need to save our lives by believing in God,” witness Carel Pedre tells CNN.

8:53: a.m. – President Obama to make statement on Haiti at 10 a.m. ET.

8:41 a.m. — The U.N. Haitian mission chief and the agency’s deputy special representative are unaccounted for, says U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

8:41 a.m. – U.S. was the first to offer help, says Haitian ambassador to the U.S.

8: 32 a.m. — Quake “destroyed” much of Port-au-Prince, the country’s first lady reported. Full story

7: 30 a.m. — Reconnaissance flights to go over Haiti soon, says U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

7:07 a.m. –The quake affected roughly one in three Haitians — about 3 million people, the Red Cross estimated. Full story

4:30 a.m. — A “large number” of people with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti were unaccounted for. Three Jordanian peacekeepers killed.

3:40 a.m. on January 13, 2009 — Residents hunkered down for the night, awaiting daylight to ascertain full scope of devastation.

Are you there? Send us images, video

11:45 p.m. — “Can hear people gathered in the distance singing prayers,” wrote Richard Morse, hotel manager at the Oloffson Hotel, wrote on Twitter.

10:32 p.m. — Haiti’s infrastructure world’s worst even in the best of times, says country’s ambassador to the U.S.

9:13 p.m. – U.N. headquarters in Haiti collapsed, U.N. officials say.

8:45 p.m. – Eyewitnesses report heavy damage and bodies in the streets of the capital.

7: 56 p.m. — U.S. State Department told to expect “serious loss of life” in Haiti.

6:50 p.m. – Tsunami watch cancelled.

5:23 p.m. — A tsunami watch is in effect for Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.

5:14 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2009 — A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck southern Haiti, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

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13

Jan. ’10

Ve’ahavta Launches Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund

On Tuesday, January 12th, a massive earthquake occurred in Haiti. According to UN estimates, thousands are likely dead. Untold numbers of people remain trapped under the rubble of crumbled and collapsed infrastructure. Aid agencies are still struggling to make contact with their key personnel on the group to assess the impact of this disaster.

With a per capita income of $3.60 per day, Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere. Thus, its population is especially vulnerable to natural disasters, such as Tuesday’s earthquake.

Ve’ahavta: the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief Committee has created the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund to support relief efforts to address the urgent needs of the affected population.

Please use Ve’ahavta’s secure website to make your tax-deductible donation to Tikun Olam – repairing the world – in Haiti. Thank you for your generous support at this time of crisis.

Donate Now Online – Secure Site

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=43021&LangPref=en-CA

For more information, call 416 964 7698

Ve’ahavta Website

http://www.veahavta.org/

“Please donate generously to assist the men, women and children. God bless those who perished and survive.”

B’shalom
Avrum Rosensweig
President, Ve’ahavta

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