Ever heard of a *Reverse Birthright* trip?
Shabbat Message from CEO Ezra S. Shanken
June 24, 2022 | 25 Sivan 5782
This message has about 629 words and will take less than 2.5 minute to read.
Before we get to Reverse Birthright, I want to remind you about our event on Monday night. We are bringing in Michal Cotler-Wunsch and Yaron Deckel for a conversation about some of the compelling issues we face as individuals, as a community, and as a people.
We will also be honouring community leaders. Diane Switzer, Rick Kohn, and Kyra Morris will all receive special awards, and we will honour The Community Recovery Task Force, chaired by Risa Levine.
There is also an AGM component of the evening, where you can hear more about our work, and have your say by electing directors and voting on proposed bylaw amendments.
Click here to register, or just drop in at Beth Israel Monday at 7:00.
Now, back to Reverse Birthright.
We are so proud that Dafna Silberstein, associate director of our Israel and global engagement department, was selected to lead the first ever Reverse Birthright trip to Canada! She accompanied the delegation to Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, and Vancouver.
The Reverse Birthright program is exclusively for young Israeli military officers who demonstrate very high potential.
They take part in a 10-day trip to North America, where they are introduced to the uniqueness of Jewish life in North America and the challenges and beauty of living Jewishly here.
We are used to our children learning about Israel in day school and Hebrew school and growing up knowing about life in Israel. But it is entirely possible, even probable, that young Israelis will grow up without much knowledge of Jewish community life here.
This imbalance ultimately affects the Israel-diaspora relationship. Seeing that penny drop for these young professionals was pretty amazing.
Here is more about the experience from Dafna:
As part of exploring the Jewish communities in Canada, we met with rabbis from different denominations to learn about the different streams within Judaism and their collaborative work. In Vancouver, we visited The Kitchen, where we learned about this meaningful food security initiative, and met with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to learn about Israel advocacy.
One of the most important take-aways was the understanding of the tapestry of Jewish communities, each with its own uniqueness.
It is no secret that antisemitism is on the rise and social media has not made it easy for any of us. From the conversations held during the tour, it was clear that building trust and understanding through personal relations and connections is a key component in educating our next generations and future leaders.
I want to thank the community leaders who hosted our group: Elaine and Zev Shafran; and Gary Segal and his close friends, Ben Goldberg and Garry Zlotnik, and Gary’s son and daughter-in-law, Justin and Yael Segal.
On a related note, more than 40 young adults from our community have just departed for regular Birthright Israel trips.
This was the first time they could choose to depart directly from Vancouver. Over 100 young adults from BC will go on these trips this summer. If you know a young person who is interested, invite them to register for the winter trips here.
This is a big week for children and teens in our community.
Many of them, including my two older boys, are celebrating their graduations. Whether they are graduating from preschool, kindergarten, grade seven, or grade 12, we wish them all a hearty mazel tov!
Ezra S. Shanken
CEO, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver
Dafna Silberstein
Young adults from our community departed for Birthright Israel trip
The Shanken family celebrating kindergarten graduation at VTT