Shabbat Message - January 8, 2021

 

This message has 1046 words and will take about 4.5 minutes to read.

 

We are incredibly fortunate to live in a Jewish community that is diverse and growing. Much of that growth and diversity comes from Jews who have recently arrived from countries such as Israel, Argentina, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, and more. They often bring with them languages and cultural traditions that they want to maintain as they carve out their place in our community. Finding their way into the community is not always seamless, and so a new partnership between local organizations aims to smooth the path.

Here are a few words from Ayelet Cohen Weil, our associate director of Community Engagement, who we thank for her tireless work in bringing this great program to fruition:

It is with great pride and immense excitement that we announce the official launch of BeyachadBC. BeyachadBC is Jewish Federation’s newcomers initiative, previously called Gesher Services. At the beginning of my current position as associate director of Community Engagement in February 2019, I was tasked to revisit and revitalize our existing newcomer program as part of my work portfolio. After some important consultations internally, with members of diverse organizations, founders and service providers such as Jewish Family Services and the JCC for the newcomer population, I was able to wrap myself around the new concept and direction I aspired for Gesher which is now a community partnership.
 
Here is some background information on what I was able to identify, the strategy and direction we are taking, and the development of this new initiative named BeyachadBC. I want to thank immensely our marketing department, and to my colleagues Dafna Silberstein and Ayelet Cohen from the JCC, our committee members and all our partners: ALEPH in the Tri-Cities, Israelim beVancouver ve haSviva, Mamatefet, and WE – Women Empowerment for their important contributions and vital partnership.
 
The partnership’s goals are to engage and empower the different Jewish newcomer groups in Metro Vancouver by delivering social and cultural programs infused with participants’ own unique cultural practices and traditions to ease their way into becoming full, active participants in the greater community.
 
BeyachadBC will create opportunities for people to connect within and across language groups; build new professional networks; provide guidance and assistance as newcomers start their new lives in BC; offer services and support that are tailored to newcomers’ specific needs; and facilitate access to resources required to settle into Canadian life.
 
If you arrived in Canada within the last three years, BeyachadBC is for you. Newcomers can attend BeyachadBC’s welcome event and launch on January 20th at 6:30 p.m. Click here to register. Not a newcomer? You can help by spreading the word to those who are.
 
Building relationships is an important part of what we do, whether it is within our community or between communities. One of the most significant set of relationships we build are those between our community and our partnership region in Israel.

On Wednesday and Thursday, more than 50 stakeholders gathered virtually for the annual Coast-to-Coast partnership Joint Steering Committee meetings to engage in strategic collaboration and open communication between all the partners.

In Canada, the partners are the Jewish communities of Atlantic Canada, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. The Israeli partners are Kiryat Shmona, Metulla, Yesod HaMa’ala, the Upper Galilee Regional Council, and the Mevo’ot Hermon Regional Council.

The mission of the Coast-to-Coast Israel Partnership is to build and strengthen relationships between the people and communities of the Coast-to-Coast Canada group and those in our partnership region of the Upper Galilee Panhandle or Etzbah HaGalil. These relationships foster a love of Israel and a commitment to Jewish peoplehood, and promote the mutual wellbeing of our communities.

These meetings are the culmination of months of work done by Canadian and Israeli representatives through these sub-committees, which represent areas of the partnership’s work:

Gesher Chai: Programs that promote global Jewish identity and unity with people-to-people connections between Canadian and Galilee Panhandle residents.

Youth and Education: Informal and formal education initiatives that reach a broad population of youth and open opportunities for future professional development.

Capacity Building: Projects focusing on leadership development, volunteerism, youth, infrastructure and regional development.

Thank you so much to Candace Kwinter, chair of our Israel and Global Engagement Committee, and the volunteer leaders working with her, for making this a continued success. I would also like to thank If’at Eilon-Heiber, our director of Israel and Global Engagement, and Dafna Silberstein, our manager of Israel Engagement for the high level of professional support they provide. You can find out more about the programs we support in Israel on our website.

The partnership meetings were not the only Canada-Israel connections of note this week. Yesterday, MK Michal Cotler Wunsch of the Blue and White party was interviewed by Gil Troy in a Zoom call with Jewish community members from across Canada. What was abundantly clear during the call was the MK’s strong connection with and understanding of Canada and her passion for democracy within Israeli society, and engagement with olim from the diaspora. It was a pleasure having her join us and Gil Troy did an excellent job of moderating–and asking her some tough questions, too.

We were also very pleased to see this article in The Jerusalem Post about Ruth Wasserman Lande. A former FEDtalks speaker, she is now looking to make a difference through serving Israel as a Member of the Knesset. You can watch her FEDtalk here

Last week in this message, we talked about hope for the future, and we can hardly close this week’s message without mention of the shocking events that took place in Washington, DC over the past few days. Click here to read the statement that The Jewish Federations of North America released from Mark Wilf, chair of the Board of Trustees, and Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO.

That is not how anyone wanted to start a year that we all hope will be better than the last. So, we want to leave you on a positive note before Shabbat, which you will find in this article written by a family of rabbis, including Rabbi B. Elka Abrahamson, president of The Wexner Foundation. In it, they reflect on “what we have gained during these last 11 months because this has… been a year in which we have learned about new possibilities (and) have witnesses the very best in humanity.”

Shabbat shalom.

 

Ezra S. Shanken
Chief Executive Officer