Shabbat Message - June 4, 2021
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With summer camps now having the green light to operate, we are proud to announce that another $106,000 has been approved from the Community Recovery Fund to support important Jewish camping experiences for children and teens.
Funds will support JCC Day Camp Shalom, Camp Hatikvah, Camp Miriam, Camp Gan Israel, and Burquest Jewish Community Association (a JCC Day Camp Shalom satellite location). Over 600 campers will directly benefit from these funds.
This funding is in addition to the $24,000 in emergency funds that camps received last March, and the $34,000 Camp Hatikvah and Camp Miriam received from the Community Recovery Task Force’s first grant round.
We have always recognized the value of Jewish summer camps. This year, more than ever, we acknowledge the importance of the camps for not only strengthening Jewish identity and forging life long friendships, but as a key contributor to the mental health of children and youth. That is why the Task Force made summer camps a key priority.
This announcement brings the total Community Recovery funds distributed to organizations across our community to an incredible $700,000!
In the first round of funding, every organization that applied received support, and they will all have the opportunity to do so again when applications open for the next round of funding. In the meantime, many of them are receiving funds through allocations from the annual campaign, grants and distributions from endowment funds at the Jewish Community Foundation, and through special project funding.
We would like to thank everyone who has supported the Community Recovery Fund, and the members of the Community Recovery Task Force for their ongoing work. Together, we are helping our community get through a time of great challenge and uncertainty. If you haven’t had a chance to give yet, just click here.
Donors make our work possible, and on Wednesday evening we celebrated our Lions of Judah—members of a recognition society for women who give $5,000 or more to the Federation Annual Campaign each year in their own name. We welcomed three new Lions, making our Vancouver den 198 strong! The evening was a huge success, and I would like to extend a big thank you and kol hakavod to our Women’s Philanthropy co-chairs Sue Hector and Shawna Merkur, and our new Lion of Judah co-chairs Josephine Nadel and Karly Leipsic.
This week, we came together in a much more somber way, too. Today, we participated in the community memorial service for the 215 children who died at the Kamloops Residential School. Organized by our community rabbis, the service featured remarks from the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, MP for Vancouver Granville, who is also known by her Kwak’wala name, Puglaas. The memorial was held at Vancouver Talmud Torah, and she recognized the grade five class as “students of history” and said they gave her hope.
“It is important to remember these souls and never forget,” she said. “Residential schools are a very dark part of our history.” She noted that every Indigenous person has a connection to residential schools, including her. Most of her relatives were sent to residential schools, including her grandmother, who escaped and made it home. Her grandmother is the knowledge keeper in her nation and passed to her their knowledge, laws and customs.
The service was live streamed by Temple Sholom and I encourage you to watch the recording here.
As we mourn and remember these children, it is natural that we do so through the prism of our Jewishness. Together with our advocacy agent, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), we reached out to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc people expressing our horror at the findings of the unmarked graves and offering our assistance. You can read the letter here.
Since our tradition is to leave you on a happier note before welcoming Shabbat, we want to extend a special mazel tov to Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, the new president of Israel, and thank Reuven Rivlin for his past seven years of service.
Bougie is truly a bridge builder both inside the Jewish community and across the globe. As chairman of our partner, the Jewish Agency for Israel, he nurtured deep connections throughout the diaspora, including here, where he addressed our community at FEDtalks and spent days getting to know our community. Not only was it a great presentation, it is a wonderful reminder of when we could all be together.
Shabbat shalom and happy Pride Month!
Ezra S. Shanken
Chief Executive Officer