Shavuot is the holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

The Torah tells the story of the Jews coming out of Egypt. On Pesach, we’re told to feel as if we were one of those Jews. So what does that mean? I think it refers to empathy. In other words, be empathetic and sense, feel and intellectually consider what it was like to be ruled by others.

How does one do that? Look out your window and see the native community. Walk over to them and ask them about the residential schools and listen closely. Watch their brows furrow and their eyes drop as they tell you about the brutal beatings and the children who went missing and were never heard from again. 

You’ll feel empathy. You’ll feel rachmanut – tremendous sympathy.

I take you through this exercise because I’m aghast that so many sophisticated Canadians, individuals who consider themselves aware and compassionate, know nothing about the suffering of our Aboriginal Peoples in residential schools. I’m even more upset that many Jews have never heard of this blight on Canada’s human rights record, this black mark on our national soul.

I would ask you to share this article and the following points with your children, siblings, parents, friends, colleagues, cousins, bowling partners, teachers, principals and nannies. Tell every Canadian about the residential schools.

Let them know they were erected in the 19th century to Christianize native children so the government would no longer be required to pay for its treaty obligations. Tell them that more than 150 residential schools existed and thousands of children died there, while thousands more were subjected to physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Tell your loved ones that church leaders and security forces would often take native children from their parents’ arms and transport them hundreds miles away for an “education.” Frequently, students wouldn’t see their family for an entire year. The children – Métis, status and non-status Indian, Inuit, Inuvialuit and non-Aboriginal – were forced to change their names and were forbidden from speaking their languages.

On Shavuot, when we remember the giving of the Torah, we should recall as well the thousands of native children who were mentally abused, and murdered (some say as many as 100,000) in our country, Canada.

Ask yourself, “How could I not know this? Never again?”

Tell those you know that on May 10, 2006, an “Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement” was signed by the government of Canada, effectively giving reparations to any former student still alive as of May 30, 2005. This was the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. A lump sum of $10,000 was paid per student for their first year in school, and $3,000 was paid for each additional year. Further claims could be made for serious physical and sexual abuse.

How could I not know this? Why do we expect others to know about the Holocaust?

When you share the information in this column, include that Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to our Native brothers and sisters. Say that a “truth and reconciliation” process set up in British Columbia called for every school in Canada to teach about residential schools. Fortunately, the Northwest Territories will start a pilot project this spring in its public schools to teach about residential schools, and it plans to expand the project to 40 schools next fall. Shouldn’t private Jewish day schools include residential schools in their curricula?

Familiarize yourself with residential schools. Teach others. We said we would.

Chag Samayach. Happy Shavuot.

Avrum@veahavta.org

This column appears in the May 31 print issue of The CJN

492 were interned, subjected to lengthy questioning and eventually, most were allowed to make a life here in Canada, a safe haven where their inalienable rights were respected. They were not criminals or terrorists at all, just like we weren’t when we arrived.

Today, our government, through Bill C31 and policy changes– The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, is working to enact a bill, however, that would detain collective arrivals for potentially a lengthy amount of time and withhold medical care from the very ill claiming refugee status, even though it is contrary to the 1951 Refugee Convention, signed by Canada, stating asylum seekers cannot be penalized for illegal entry.

What, indeed, is the underlying psyche driving such a strong legislative reaction, one seemingly unconstitutional, punitive to refugees and directed at vulnerable people intent on embracing Canada as a home, as we did?

What lies in the soul of the Conservative government and its members?
What happens to a group of people that makes them so tough, overlook our history, have little hope in individual’s ability to change, and forget that the universal and sometimes Canadian value of ‘loving they neighbor’ means respect and love for ‘the other’?

Bill C10 is another piece of legislation which reflects a harsh response from the men and women who are members of our governing party. Those who authored the Omnibus bill believe our country needs more jails, and people convicted deserve more jail time. They also believe your teenager daughter should get six months in prison – a minimum sentence – with hardened criminals, for possession of six marijuana plants, disempowering the judge from looking at extenuating circumstances such as ‘no priors’.

So who are these men and women that want our country to hold back medication from suffering old women wearing old and tattered cloaks’? Are they from families who believed in severe punishment? Did Dad use the switch on them? Could it be they were brought up in liberal homes, where parents explained the virtues of rehabilitation and growth, ‘helping thy neighbour’ and our responsibility to the poor? Did they rebel against these values?

Who is our prime minister, Stephen Harper, that individual who is leading our country down a road of ultra-conservative values, reflective of the old days of the Reform Party, a party he co-founded with Preston Manning?
What is the psychology of the most powerful man in government, knowing he was awarded the Canadian Association of Journalism’s “Code of Silence Award” in 2007, for his powerful grip on public information?

It seems pretty clear that our prime minister and government are punitive in nature and believe that punishment without rehabilitation is the appropriate response to behaviors that are deemed unacceptable. If we were to dig deeply into the conscious of the Conservative party, and hence their decision making process, might we find a shared personality that is easily offended, almost hurt by refuges who decided to float, uninvited into our waters, and ask us to share our plentiful resources? Is our Conservative government selfish?

The great American novelist, John Steinbeck said, “Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” Could it be the motivation of our government is trepidation of loosing their political footing?

If it is not selfishness or fear, how do we then explain why our country is about to create a law which will prevent our medical personnel from tending to very ill refugees arriving at our ports? That is dramatic and called by Michael McBane, the executive director of the Canadian Health Coalition, symptomatic of the Harper government’s approach to health care,
“‘Cut and run’ is their motto and changing the hearts of Canadians from compassion to contempt is their goal.”

One can only argue, our government must believe, like the kid in the schoolyard who clutches and clenches her lunch with white knuckles so others cannot grab her apple, that outsiders don’t deserve our medical care even though this bill runs contrary to the Hippocratic Oath (a document requiring medical personnel to tend to all and any patients regardless of their nationality or political believes), and is contrary to the Canadian value of reaching out to the stranger in need.

This type of punishment seems to reflect the goal of enacting a harsh penalty on an individual, or group, as a means by which to retaliate against his/her offending actions.

Who would want to punish somebody so badly for a minor offense that they end up in a today’s dungeon called prison, surrounded by hell’s barb wire and steel doors, where rehabilitation is primarily disregarded, in fact frowned upon? Could it be someone who feels better about themselves because another person is being punished, being pushed down? Could it be someone who believes that humans were born ‘bad’ and it is the responsibility of government to control the uncontrolled? Could it be the Conservative party is powered by a paternal drive to take care of us?

But the greatest challenge to all of this is the following. If you were to have coffee with Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenny, or our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, you would likely be mesmerized by their almost unconditional loyalty to their ideology and might walk away with the question: Hmm, could they have a point?

Like every, or most governments on planet earth, Harper, Kenny and their cronies believe with all their hearts and souls, they are doing the best thing for the country and are right. They are ideologues, with a fundamental view of good and evil. Even when data and experts tell them they are wrong, as in the case of Bill C10 (the government of Texas chastised our government for having to harsh laws particularly ‘minimum sentencing’ which showed dismal results in the States) our government, holds fast and responds that the evidence of history does not apply.

I believe it’s safe to say Canadians still view our nation as a safe, compassionate, hopeful country with a belief in humankind’s propensity to change themselves and environment. Somewhere in our national psyche we feel as if we are Lester Pearson’s peace keepers, and have Joe Clarke’s universal spirit of hospitality and sharing as he expressed through his heartfelt invitation to Boat People in the 70s to make a home in Canada.

Yet this introspective view is jiving less and less with the Canada our majority government is administrating. Through the course they are taking us on, one likely disappointing the world, I fear our national sense of self will suffer and our morale and confidence will diminish as we become a harsher and punitive group in which the label of ‘Canada the good’ will hang alone in the back rooms of our homes and hearts.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” Don’t. Protest! Have a voice! Remember we are the people with our own individual psyche, one that made us proud to be Canadian.

“Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.” ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Bill C-10, an omnibus crime bill recently passed, was overwhelmingly criticized by professionals of all backgrounds, religious leaders and vast numbers of “average Joes.”

Here is an example of one of the laws found in Bill C-10. If your daughter has six marijuana plants, she can go to jail for six months. A drug dealer with 200 plants can also be sentenced to six months. A judge can no longer look at extenuating circumstances such as prior convictions.

Studies have shown mandatory minimum sentences don’t work (see the New York Times editorial at http://nyti.ms/J6sPo0). Texas, a state not known for its compassion, told our federal government that our laws, including minimum sentencing, are too harsh. Texas would know. Our ideologically driven government refuses to listen. Why?

Bill C-31, an omnibus bill on Canada’s refugee system, exists to crack down on bogus refugee claimants. The bill says “regular arrivals” or “smuggled migrants in large numbers” can be detained for 14 days and then a review takes place. If the individuals are kept incarcerated, then there is a six-month review. This wording was only amended after a public backlash. Initially Bill C-31 stated refugees could be detained for one year without review. What?

New Democratic Party immigration critic Jinny Sims said this about Bill C-31: “What we have heard overwhelmingly from witnesses is that the bill will do nothing to prevent human smuggling, while punishing refugees.”

In a recent Toronto Star article by Harold Troper, Dr. Joseph Wong and Joy Kogawa, they stated, “Not only does this bill run contrary to the tradition of humanitarianism so many Canadians are proud of, it returns Canada to the days when racism and xenophobia were part of our official immigration policy.”

There’s more federal disappointment.

As of June 30, refugees with chronic diseases such as hypertension, angina and diabetes will be denied medical care. Dr. Mark Tyndall, head of Infectious Diseases at the Ottawa Hospital said: “This new refugee health-care policy violates my ethical obligations as a physician. It is unethical and a disgrace to Canadian society.”

Tyndall continued: “I have never met a refugee who came to Canada because they wanted better health care.”

Michael McBane, the executive director of the Canadian Health Coalition, said about this law: “The dismantling of one of the oldest parts of Canada’s public health-care system – health care for displaced persons who arrived in Canada following World War II – is symptomatic of the Harper government’s approach to health care. ‘Cut and run’ is their motto, and changing the hearts of Canadians from compassion to contempt is their goal.”

There’s more.

Immigration Canada is going to designate certain countries as “safe.” If you come from a “safe” country, you cannot claim refugee status. Hungary, home to many Roma, will no doubt be a safe place, yet according to Amnesty International, the Roma are mistreated by Hungarian nationals. Nevertheless, the Roma will be refused entry into Canada.

There is a Jewish value that stands taller than most others. It says, we must take care of the stranger. The Jews on the SS St. Louis knew that this wasn’t a Canadian value during the World War II. Their boat was turned back to Europe, sending most to their deaths. In the 1970s, the “boat people” from Vietnam were taken in by prime minister Joe Clark’s Canada and “the stranger” was once again embraced by our country.

Our government is reversing so much of the love we have learned. Where have they stashed our soul?

Avrum@veahavta.org

www.cjnews.com/columnists/feds%E2%80%99-fear-stranger

Yet, with the advent of such mind-blowing discoveries as cloning and stem cell research, it’s as if we’ve rubbed elbows with God and figured things out. Sometimes we become so cocksure about our achievements, such as the splitting of the atom and the discovery of fish without eyes at the bottom of the sea, that we think we’re in charge.

Who needs God at all? Like the people who built the Tower of Babel, our universal confidence, combined with a sense of self-importance, grows so much at these times that we see ourselves as central to existence.

Then what has come to be seen as the inevitable happens. A wave called tsunami washes away eons of children and we are once again pitched back into a reality where we recognize how little control we really have.

I think Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian mass-murderer responsible for the killing of 77 fellow nationals on July 22, 2011, is like that wave.

Like the wave that arrived irrationally but quite naturally and washed over land in 13 countries in 2004, Breivik’s behaviour hints at his being both sane and insane. He gave us no notice of his well-thought-out plans, and even today, makes it impossible for us to define his core motivation for such evil and to see what lies within his soul that allows him to enact a mission contrary to a universal belief in the sacredness of human life.

Breivik makes us quiver and vibrate about our existence because his humanness is so inhumane.

Breivik is a steely character with an Aryan stare, look and demeanour, who spent three years diligently preparing for his crime, right down to a reminder to include bottled water in his backpack on the day of his rampage.

He studied Al Qaeda magazines for their successes and mistakes, and wrote a 1,500-page manifesto on the ills of multiculturalism and the Islamization of Norway. With the assiduousness of Nazi leadership, Breivik masterminded a flawless attack on Oslo and Utoya Island where teenagers affiliated with the country’s Labour Party were enjoying the summer.

Was this a regular Norwegian citizen’s commitment to his ideology and task at hand, a reflection of his insanity, his psychosis? Or are we to believe when he says, “The worst thing one can do is take a life,” that he is sane and indeed recognizes the difference between right and wrong and the illegality of murder?

Are we to trust in the cogency of his mind – compos mentis (literally, a composed mind) – when he tells the court he said to himself just before he started shooting, “I just don’t want to do this,” and “I knew it was wrong. Taking life is the most extreme action you can do.”

Did you know the prophets were considered insane by many because they foretold the future? So who is sane and who is insane? What are we to make of Anders Breivik? How human is he?

What are we to consider when Anders Breivik, like the average German citizen who participated freely and often excitedly in the chilling massacre of children during the Holocaust, appears on the world’s radar?

Breivik believed in his ideology. He thought he was right. Are we all from the same human family? How in control are we? When does the wave arrive?

This is a reasonable question because it focuses on the mental state of our world, who is running it, nation-states and what their national psyche is all about, and moreso, ourselves. Asking if Breivik was insane when he committed mass murder is asking what lies inside of humankind, and by extension what are we made up of, at least in part. While I’m not suggesting ‘average Joe/Jane’ are ‘Breiviks I am stating that if it something of that nature is possible in him (just as we look at people who are good and try to emulate them, considering ‘we must have that in our souls), than is it not possible that we have some of it too?

Answer the question, ‘what is insantiy’?

Ron Maclean, of Hockey Night in Canada, stood in a classroom at George Brown College (GBC) and told the story of Frank O’Dea, the co-founder of Second Cup, who was at one time a homeless panhandler living on the streets of Toronto. Ten students listened carefully to the account and watched as Ron simultaneously jotted a phone number on the blackboard.

“Frank got off the street,” the hockey commentator said, “because he had mentors who helped him. “This is my home phone number.” Ron pointed to the blackboard. “If any of you ever need help please feel free to call me or my wife,” he concluded.

The men and women Ron was speaking to were all students of Ve’ahavta’s Street Academy (VSA), a school for the homeless or near-homeless started in 2011. Ron is the co-chairperson together with local Jewish community members, Paul Lindzon and Karen Ehrlich.

VSA is one of the most successful programs of a local non-profit called Ve’ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee which was started in 1996. Its mission statement is to encourage all peoples to play a role in tikun olam, repairing the world.

Ron joined the school’s leadership team after hosting a Ve’ahavta gala and has lectured at each one of the three 8-week sessions. His explanation for doing so is a philosophical one and rooted in the concept that we are all somehow connected and responsible for one another. I asked him to illustrate his belief. He responded:
“Avrum, A track and field Sprint Relay coach Mike Murray of Vancouver liked to say, ‘The power in each of us comes from all of us’. That’s VSA. When I’m in the classroom, there are always two teachers in the room.”
Ron added that he finds it easy to reveal his true character at VSA knowing that “each student by virtue of his or her attendance had the courage to do likewise.”
And he’s right. I have also taught VSA classes and when I did I learned that my students were men and women who have had brutal lives right here in Canada, and the fact that they still had hope and enough gumption to apply and attend VSA, was huge.
Their stories reminded me of those I’ve heard from Holocaust survivors and victims of torture.

One student in the sex trade said her goal was simply to be normal after having suffered an entire life of sexual and mental abuse. Another learner told me about the day his alcoholic father walked him, as a 10-year old, to Children’s AID and left him there. A third student shared with the class how at 14-years old she would have to step over her cracked out mother lying on the floor, to exit their apartment and go to school.
Indeed it takes a lot of bravery to commit to attending a formal school setting knowing that failure is a real possibility. I consider my own fears of looking silly in front of an audience I’m speaking to or falling down in front of my peers. I appreciate what Ron meant – “the courage to do likewise.”

VSA was the brainstorm of Theresa Schrader a former prostitute and crack addict. Two years ago she called me with a request for a summer job after winning Ve’ahavta’s Creative Writing Contest for the Homeless and cleaning up her life. I told her about an article I had read in the New York Times of a man who gave philosophy courses in the streets of the Big Apple and how it might be a good idea for us to do something similar – to launch a school on the streets of Toronto. The Jewish people are called ‘the People of the Book’ and I figured appealing to the intellect of those living on or near the street could strengthen their core and soul and perhaps be a solution to their homelessness and suffering.
Theresa agreed but with her characteristic moxxy challenged me saying it would be wiser to take the school inside to a controlled environment and call it an Academy, a place of higher learning for older students.
After some finagling with my board VSA was born. GBC became our full partners and offered our students all the advantages of the college’s regular students including a gym and library pass. We decided we would pay the students to study so they wouldn’t have to worry about income for that period of time. (In the Orthodox Jewish world men will often get paid to learn Torah. This system of pay-and-learn is called Kolell.); bring in catered food every day so they wouldn’t be hungry when they learned and buy the students a metropass so travel would not be an issue.
Theresa assembled a very reputable cadre of teachers including, Michael Cooke, the former vice-president of Academics of GBC, Harvard educated, Elan Divon and local businessman and philanthropist, Michael Diamond. Class themes include: communications, life-skills, awareness, diversity, academics, hope and inspiration.

Ve’ahavta hopes to enhance VSA so that it becomes a fulltime school for the homeless and possibly franchise the concept around the world as a way of rescuing people from the horrors of living on the street and buildin their confidence through a worthy intellectual pursuit.

“For those hours together (at VSA), we’re in an honest, loving moment which we can hold going forward to settle us in storms….That someone will love us, and that we may love them. “ – Ron Maclean

Have you ever been drowning and looked around only to see other people frolicking in the waves? Have you ever barely escaped a car accident, or felt intense pain running through your body, while loved ones and strangers were simply playing? Have you ever been dying and nobody noticed?

On July 18, 2008 I walked out of a Toronto restaurant and felt a powerful pain in my chest that was completely unfamiliar but one I had always feared. I was 48 and having a heart attack in broad daylight; in front of men, women and children just living their lives.

This all happened on Mt. Pleasant Avenue, a street name that seemed suitable for my last breath.

There I sat, my heart betraying me, watching people’s mouths move completely inaudibly, while that pain pierced through the middle of me, not up and down my arms the way we always think it will happen. I thought, ’Everyone around me is just chatting. Why aren’t they feeling the pain of my heart?’ But they weren’t.

If you have had this occurrence, one where death drew near, you’ll know that where the mundane, normal, regular and even boring were only moments ago, the unordinary steps in and the world seems to shift while your footing on the ground is compromised.

If you’ve ever been that guy/girl, you’ll have observed that you were completely, utterly, on your own. It’s strange to almost die.

The pain built. I remember bits of what was going on.

I stood outside the Toronto eatery and stared at my little boy and glanced at his mother. I was thinking, “I will never see my son again. I am about to leave this world.” Despite the ferocious trauma going on inside of me, however, I drew upon an inner strength and realized as clear as a drop of dew that I had to hide my pain from my boy. I did so to protect my son and to guard me from his pain. No matter what, I couldn’t scare him because he deserves to just play.

Despite the haze, daze, pain and fear I knew this. I believe it is called survival.

My father died of a heart attack when he was 61. So like all sons/daughters who have seen parents die early I feared my own premature demise. And once that terrifying instant seemed to be approaching I entered a new place of understanding. I saw my health as unpredictable and disloyal. My body had deceived me.

For those few very precious seconds it became painfully obvious that each one of us, the affluent Rosedale folk and the modest Parkdale crowd, will one day come to the end of our lives and the great hardship the Leafs give us and the joy we get from a hearty risotto will be insignificant.

Death is the equalizer. It is the neutralizer. We will all be eulogized.

But there was more. Once I got over the shock of my own potential death I found my way back to the mundane. I saw the passing cars and my little guy’s shaggy hair. I remembered that many men fear dying so they allow themselves to die, and that would not be me. I got to the hospital. The medical personnel at Sunnybrook saved me.

I had a heart attack a few short months ago and while I did children pranced, and adults danced. I was too young to die. I was a Dad and there was no time to expire. Almost dying was inconvenient and quite unusual.

Dying is a wild night and a new road. – Emily Dickinson

Hair is neither inconspicuous nor insignificant. What other body part encourages such wonderment, gossip and instruction?

Actor Jennifer Aniston’s various Hollywood hairstyles have been copied by many women, and long-haired singer Willie Nelson inspired seniors to grow their hair out. I once met a Breslever Chassid who had the traditional haredi buzz cut, but his payot (side curls) were coiffed and deliberately stylized – jet black and cylindrically curly like a tornado. Their hair speaks to us.

Hair is a big deal in the Orthodox world. There are many halachot (Jewish laws) surrounding it, such as how much hair is considered a barrier between you and your tfillin. There’s also a tradition that requires a male child to wait until he’s three years old before having his locks cut, while Jewish women are commanded to cover their hair, and some even shave it off.

According to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s (1808-1888) commentary on the Torah, our mouth and eyes represent the physical parts of our body, while our foreheads embody the intellectual.

Rabbi Hirsch states that the physical requires special supervision, so that we don’t “slide into a pattern of self-destruction,” and therein lies the significance of hair. It’s a point we need to focus on in order to ensure that hair is used for good. This great sage teaches us that hair is about sensuality control, therefore a woman must wear a head covering. Men have payot (which separate the sensual part of the brain from the intellectual), and young boys have their first haircut at three as a way of instructing them to use their intelligence to control their deeds.

After reading Rabbi Hirsch’s explanation, it begins to make sense why people seem to take great interest, and sometimes offence, in the length of other folks’ hair.

Throughout my life, I’ve been approached by people young and old asking me why my hair is so long. “Why don’t you get a haircut?” Nowadays, they ask the same about my son, Noah River.

(Since I was a child, having long hair meant a lot to me. I’m not sure why, but after getting haircuts, I would be petrified to return to school, fearing such epitaphs as, “Rosensweig, did you bump into a lawnmower?” Unfortunately, later on, having short hair was just as important to my father and the rabbis in my yeshiva as my long hair was to me.)

I tell hair-curious people that Noah and I love long hair, but they’re rarely satisfied. A Jewish community leader once told me that I’d do better in life with shorter hair. I responded that I had just received a promotion. He rebutted, “You would do even better.” I smiled at him. I had little to say. In his mind, my sensuality control was dialed too high, and it made him feel out of control.

I don’t know what it’s like to be bald. I understand that it can be very traumatic. I do know, however, the tribulations of having a thick mane of hair that symbolizes for many a lack of conformity, and perhaps even a lascivious nature.

While I understand the mystical view put forward by Rabbi Hirsch, it might serve us better to pay less attention to the crown of hair atop a person’s head and more to the body that’s carrying it and the soul that lies within it.

After all, do we really know what lurks in the nature of the finely cut?

Avrum@veahavta.org

Do we all believe we will accomplish something special in life?

This is a mind boggling question. In today’s diverse world, it is hard to accurately answer it. If we are to achieve something special, how do we know what it is? What path do we follow to get to that destiny? Many people are of the opinion that the creator had a reason for giving them the breath of life. A lot of genuine people spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what that special thing is. Some are fortunate enough to figure it out. The most accomplished beings are those who allow passion to lead them to their destiny.

The special thing could mean different things to different people depending on aspirations. It may be getting the two sons you have always prayed for or a prestigious job in the very best of blue chip companies. It could involve achieving self actualization as Abraham Maslow would put it. For others it may be being on good terms with the creator. Whether it involves wealth, career, family or a satisfying spiritual life, one fact that is crystal clear is that accomplishing those dream(s) gives a lot of gratification.

Someone who is compassionate about those who are indisposed will do all they can to alleviate the suffering. The initial steps will involve a lot of hard work. Somehow such persons may get to the doors of a medical school. When they treat those who have a malady they try to give an array of hope. From personal experience there is no better feeling than seeing the dying get their life back.

Although not everyone believes in accomplishing something great in life, hope cannot be lost in this course. Determination to fight for the greater good is an indispensable tool. One must have faith in the substance of unseen things which he or she hopes to achieve. A man must have hope, even if it is false hope. The road to getting there is sometimes long and strenuous. Hope is what keeps one going when the path narrows and thickets become vast. I once came across a lady whose intention was to bring life to this world. She made several futile attempts. She had four consecutive spontaneous miscarriages, but that did not bar her from trying again. She was so determined that when she got pregnant the fifth time she stayed in hospital for a couple of months to ensure that the unborn one was safe. Upon delivery of the little one her joy was untold. It was radiating all over her.

The worst thing anyone can ever do is to despair. Do not be distracted by those who have failed to reach the Promised Land. Be aware that not all those who start the race will get to the crossing line. It is my strong belief that we can all achieve something special. We however have to play our role in discovering the specific reason for our very existence under the sun. We have to work hard and diligently to get there.

Author bio

Jenna Robbins is an accomplished writer and accountant. She has written more than fifteen short stories, which she hopes to publish soon. Her articles are meant to give hope to those who do not have any. She is also a contributing writer for DegreeJungle.com- a resource for students looking to go back to college.

Question: Do you believe you will? What will it be? Or what has it been?

He then ran off, found his mom in the New Release section, grabbe her hand, and never looked back.

Has this ever happened to you?

We knew thousands of Americans came here to avoid the draft. We remember the fatal shooting at Kent State University, the riots at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago and the 1968 massacre at My Lai and platoon leader Lt. William Calley. What we don’t remember is that one to three million Vietnamese were killed in the war, and how others were affected by this heinous massacre.

One of them walked into my home the other day to install California shutters. For this column, I’ll call him Thic.

Thic was born in 1960, the same year as me. He remembers all too well the corpses piled up outside his home after America changed its policy and pulled its troops out of Vietnam.

Thic told me he was “scared” throughout his childhood in Saigon. Today, he often zones out imagining that hill of loss beside his family’s raised house.

“I wake up just seeing the dead people,” he said as he measured my windows.

Thic is anxious. A little shirty. Thic is tired. The elegance in his demeanour, though, reminded me of Phan Thi Kim Phúc, the little girl in the famous picture, running down a road naked near Trang Bàng, Vietnam, on June 8, 1972, after a napalm bomb was dropped on her village. I interviewed her once. She was the face of the war, but today she is mostly another forgotten survivor of another atrocious war.

I consider the people on our native reserves, in Rwanda, Cambodia, the Congo, Liberia, Sudan and in South America, where massacres were like omelettes (popular) and genocides chuckled like tricksters who pull your chair out from under you. I wondered how those people are doing, what they are fixing in people’s homes and how they’re sleeping.

I considered how many survivors are walking around our planet, their pain and suffering overshadowed by statistics and historical accounts of battles, the costs of the wars and their effect on our oil bills.

Our world is populated by Thics. More of them are being created every day in places like Southern Sudan, where children are being butchered once again while others are crawling into thickets with machete slashes to their heads. Their childhoods, like Thic’s, have been stolen.

One day, one of those grown-up children will deliver deep-dish pizza to our home or lay some laminate down in our Florida room. He’ll show up months after jumping a vessel in a Canadian harbour, after getting over his befuddlement about our sometimes careless, always blessed existence. When you see that scar on his cheek, ask him about it. (I wonder if our survivors were asked about their numbers by strangers.)

Once you’ve heard his story, figure he is suffering alone and that there aren’t too many Sudanese or Vietnamese Spielbergs out there recording his life. Then introduce him to someone in our community, maybe a survivor or maybe an Israeli who has suffered through wars. Go past the petition you signed for Darfurians and be a humanitarian matchmaker.

Make that one of the lessons of Holocaust education, Birthright and March of the Living – to help the Thics.

A) Crawl into bed and stay there?

B) Face the situation head on to deal with the most efficient way possible?

C) Crawl into bed, then peek out, deal with it a bit, then pull the covers up over your head again?

Your thoughts?

By Avrum Rosensweig

How would you describe your appreciation and respect for what orphanages do? What do you think when a friend fosters a child? My guess is you feel a deep respect for their initiative and are in awe of them. Somewhere, someplace you might feel compelled to do the same.

What do you consider when Judaism says: “A person is obligated to be careful in dealing with orphans and widows since their spirits are low — even if they are wealthy. And the Torah states: Every widow and orphan you shall not afflict’ (Exodus 22:21)?

Now think deeply about you as a kid, or what your child is like when he/she is scared. It moves you almost like no other image eh!? It’s not surprising. A scared and unsettled child touches the most sensitive place in our heart. Sometimes it reminds us of our own childhood loneliness.

Take all of these feelings and thoughts and act on them. You have an incredible opportunity to help a child – and it’s not complicated to get things going. The Jewish Family & Child Service (JF&CS) – a government-mandated children’s aid society – and an outstanding one at that, has in their jurisdiction, 93 Jewish children waiting to be fostered.

Here’s what they asked in a reason communiqué:

There are currently 93 Jewish children in the care of Jewish Family & Child Service. Unfortunately, that number only continues to increase. JF&CS is urging us, therefore, to find room in your home and your heart for a child who desperately needs support and shelter. We welcome Jewish foster parents of all levels of religious observance across the GTA. Remuneration: Minimum $1000 per month; Training will be provided. Contact the JF&CS Intake Department at 416.638.7800.

While these children’s are not orphans they cannot stay with their families. Being parentless must be brutal. May I suggest you call JF&CS. I know families who have, one who actually fostered over sixty Jewish children, and they advice it.

Sometimes their experience was magical. Sometime it didn’t work out. But they did it. They opened their hearts and homes. Give it a try. (JF&CS can hook you up with a foster family to get more information and see what it’s like).

A Jewish child is alone here in Toronto. Show them love. Hug them. Make them feel safe. Foster a Jewish child. Your children will grow. You will feel like an important part of our world. Think about what you’ll do for that child.

Once again, remember what you think about when you read about or hear of individuals doing incredible things for children? Do not discount ‘you’ within this formula. The only difference between those who foster and those who don’t is initiative, not will. I have heard from individuals that they truly want to assist children, but are not sure how to, or afraid that they might screw up.

Do something different. Open your heart and home, or at least call JF&CS and ask them for information. Share it with your family, your loved ones and give it a go-around. If it works it will make a world of difference to everyone. If it doesn’t – well you can try again later!

Yisha koach. Let’s foster all 93. Let’s make the Toronto Jewish community an example to other communities through the statement, ‘we leave no children behind.’ Please.

Let me know you have or are thinking about it. Ill encourage you. Email me at avrum@veahavta.org or drop by my blog at http://avrum.net. You have the resources, both materially and soulfully. Share your love. Do it. 416 638 7800.

They are Jewish children.

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).

http://www.veahavta.org/index.php/voices-from-the-field/from-toronto-blizzards-player-to-deputy-chief-peter-sloly-speaks-about-the-police/

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.

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!!!!

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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