Fête nationale du Québec and Canada Day

Friday June 25th, 2010

Every four years, during the World Cup, I’m asked the same question by my non-Jewish friends: “If there’s a match between Argentina and Israel, for whom would you root?”

Now, the question is largely academic because Israel didn’t qualify for the World Cup. It is completely theoretical for a Montreal hockey fan, as I don’t think there’s a chance of the Habs ever playing against the Israeli national hockey team.

Yet, it raises to the surface a much deeper issue. What people are really asking me is – sometimes genuinely, sometimes with some malice – “Where does your loyalty really lie?” With the Jewish People or with the country of which you are a citizen?

I’m sure that, to varying degrees, every Jew in the Diaspora faces the same question. Yet, our Jewish tradition teaches us that there’s no contradiction between a strong attachment to the Jewish people and an unwavering loyalty to the country in which we live.

The first time this principle was expressed was when we first left our homeland, during the Babylonian exile some 2,600 years ago. The prophet Jeremiah uttered these moving words, “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food you produce. Marry, and have children. Then find spouses for them, and have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the Lord for that city where you live, for if Babylon has peace, so will you” (Jeremiah 29).

Since then – and wherever they were so permitted – Jews have fully engaged with the societies in which they lived. Following the prophet’s words, they have contributed and worked for the peace and prosperity of the countries in which they live. Our response to oppression and persecution was not to disengage. Rather, it was to over-achieve; to contribute even more. Our attachment to our countries was also cemented in Halacha (Jewish Law). Our sages established the principle of “dina demalkhuta dina” – meaning, “the law of the country is the law.” For Jews, then, it is a religious obligation to respect the law of the country. In front of the arc of the covenant, we say a prayer for the country and its government, together with the prayer for the State of Israel. The Jewish way is to work hard for the advancement of the general society and to contribute to a better life for all the citizens of the country. The disproportionate Jewish presence in civil rights movements or in social development initiatives is a testament to that.

Over the course of a single week, Montreal celebrates both la Fete Nationale and Canada Day. I see this as a great opportunity to reflect on our role within the larger society, both within Quebec and Canada. These two days are an important opportunity to embrace and engage with the society as a whole. Canada and Quebec share many important values with the Jewish tradition (some may say that those are, in essence, “Jewish values”). The Canadian Charter of Rights enshrines the rights to life, freedom, security of the person, and justice. I can think of a Bible verse to back up each and every one of these concepts. The Quebec  Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms is unique among human rights documents in that it covers also a number of important social and economic rights. Furthermore, the list of prohibited discriminations included in the Quebec charter is the most extensive in North America.

In a word, our foundational laws, both at the provincial and national levels are – knowingly or not – inspired by the prophetic values of a just and free society. Furthermore, Quebec and Canada were refuges where persecuted Jews could rebuild their lives and hope for a better future.

Given Jewish traditions, values, and historical experience, we have a lot to bring to the big table of Canadian society. Our history of successful integration, for example, can be a model for new Canadians of all origins to follow. Our fight against discrimination can inspire the fight against new and pernicious forms of exclusion. Our sacred texts established the love of life, the inviolability of the human dignity, and the preponderance of right over might.

And here is the key: we have much more to offer to ourselves and to the broader society when we engage with it as Jews.  In the Germany of the early Enlightenment, Jews sought to “shed,” or hide, their Jewishness in order to engage with society. They would define themselves as “Germans of mosaic faith” (so as not even mention the word “Jewish”). Moses Mendelssohn’s famous phrase was, “Be Jewish at home and German in the street.” The beauty of the times in which we live is that we do not need to get rid of our Jewishness in order to be active and full members of society. Moreover, we have much more to offer when our engagement brings our Jewish values to the public sphere. Abraham J. Heschel thought that is was his Jewish religious obligation to march with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is a prolific writer on Jewish topics for the general society because he believes that Judaism has much to offer to heal a fractured world. What better message for our young people than the knowledge that Judaism is not only a source of personal meaning and richness, but also a vehicle of values that improves and advances the general society.

Jews don’t have a tradition of seclusion. The one who spoke about Jews as “the people who dwell alone” was Balak, the Moabite king who was trying to curse us. Our own sages talked about “tikkun olam,” to repair and improve the world.

So, during these days of national holidays, let’s engage with Quebecers and Canadians of all origins and creeds. Let us contribute to sustaining this country’s blessings of freedom, peace, and prosperity. May we stand as proud Jews with our fellow citizens, contributing all we can to improve this northern land of refuge and promise.  Let us understand that we are an important part of the beautiful mosaic of peoples that compose this amazing country. Let us say, as Winston Churchill said, “the person who has a single loyalty is most probably a fanatic.” Let us use our values as inspiration to build a better future for all Quebecers and all Canadians. Let us stand together as one, with glowing hearts!

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Strengthening our West Island community

Tuesday June 22nd, 2010

Some time ago I wrote a somewhat controversial paper in which I argued that many Jews today suffer from “inverse Marranism”. The Marranos in Spain were Jews forced to convert to Catholicism, who behaved like Catholics in the public sphere, but preserved Jewish traditions at home, risking their lives if they were discovered.

For many contemporary Jews – I claimed – the opposite is true. Many of us express our Judaism in communal events and in Jewish Institutions, but have very few Jewish practices at home. My goal wasn’t to encourage people to keep mitzvoth at home or make them orthodox. Rather, to encourage people to discover the joy and meaning that can be found in celebrating holidays at home. Indeed, I claimed that families could (and should) add their own meaning to these celebrations and make them personal so that they reflect their own beliefs and values, as liberal as they may be.

I think that bringing Judaism back to the home is one of the major educational tasks that we face. There is nothing like the home to transmit values and create identity. From a family point of view, peppering time with meaningful moments of togetherness is simply invaluable. Whoever spends five minutes a week lighting Shabbat candles with their family knows how far these few minutes go in terms of creating a lifelong memory. We can’t underestimate the importance of these family moments that instill us with the value of continuity, inter-generational dialogue, and family warmth. Whoever enjoyed the moment of giving a blessing to their children knows that this is probably one of the presents they’ll carry with them for all their lives, way after the Wii and the Playstation that we bought for them become obsolete.

In that vein, I’m delighted to share with you an innovative program that is run jointly by the Bronfman Jewish Education Centre (BJEC) and FEDERATION CJA West Island, and is funded through GEN J.

Over the past many months, Jewish parents of young children have been invited to activities to learn about Shabbat and develop the comfort level and tools to create Shabbat in their own homes. From candle lighting to Havdallah, the Shabbat experience is simulated and parents go home with everything needed to engage in the spirit of Shabbat. These take-home items all make up the “tool-kit” that families can use in their own homes. They include: a Kiddush cup, a challah cover; a kit with the necessary candle and spices to make Havdallah at home; a piece of canvass artwork incorporating the blessings over the children; and many other items that are essential to a complete Shabbat experience.

These months of programs culminated in a communal Shabbat dinner on Friday, June 11th, when over 150 people - entire families – came together (sometimes with extended family in tow) to enjoy a Shabbat dinner among their friends and their community, with song, stories and laughter. Families with children (on average, 5 years old) met at the Hampton Inn in Dorval to enjoy all the important elements of Shabbat in a relaxed, open, inclusive, and family-oriented environment that was perfectly tailored to their young children and the joyous chaos of their family lives. It is through events like this that we have found a way to create meaningful Jewish learning experiences for parents of young West Island children who wish to bring “Jewish” into their homes, but often do not know where to begin. The atmosphere was welcoming and no prior knowledge of Jewish traditions was required to actively participate, which makes the program very appealing. So as to reflect the diversity of our community, special attention was paid to include customs from both Sephardic and Ashkenazi backgrounds, as well to ensure that families of interfaith couples, the number of which is higher in the West Island than in greater Montreal, felt welcome.

I’m enormously pleased with the success of this pioneering, innovative program. I hope that what started as a pilot can be extended to many more that wish to connect and discover the joy of belonging to our millenary tradition. This program is also interesting because it reflects some of the renewed operational principles of Federation: engaging, inclusive, diverse and committed to a vibrant Jewish future.  “Community in Motion” means scores of programs like this one – some small, some big, some high-profile, some under the radar screen – that are transforming and energizing Jewish Life throughout our city.

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The challenge and opportunity of allocating

Wednesday June 16th, 2010

Food or shelter? Education or social services? Jewish continuity or poverty relief? Helping Jews locally or in Israel? Helping a lot of people with little or a few with a lot? These are just some of the many dilemmas that we face in our allocation process.

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, FEDERATION CJA has millions of dollars to distribute to agencies performing vital community services. But deciding how best to allocate those dollars is as tough a challenge as raising it. This task is especially hard in years like this, in which the economic downturn created an increase in need and a decrease in the capacity to give.

So how do we make these decisions? Throughout history, Jewish communities have faced similar dilemmas. For example: in the conflict between educational needs and welfare needs, our rabbis made a delightfully paradoxical statement: “if there’s no bread there’s no Torah/Jewish Learning, but if there’s no Torah there’s no bread.” The moral is evident. One can’t provide spiritual and educational support if basic needs, like food and shelter, aren’t covered. At the same time, the very existence of the community depends on the continuity of Judaism. And, if there’s no community, who will take care of the needy? Thus, both of these issues need to be addressed. Indeed, the Federation has made a policy decision that poverty relief and tuition assistance were to be protected from budget cuts.

Another example: our tradition grapples with the dilemma of helping locals versus helping Jews in other places. The Mishna makes the case that “the poor of your city” take precedence. Other sources say that “the poor in the land of Israel” need to be supported in any case We have determined that we’ll give priority to Montreal’s Jewish poor, while also making substantial contributions to help Israelis and poor Jews around the world. We believe in the Jewish value that all Jews are responsible for one another and that we are all inter-connected by a common fate and shared destiny. Therefore, even in times of great local need, we can’t disengage from our overseas programs.

The laws regarding the collection – and especially the distribution – of Tzedakah put strong emphasis on keeping the dignity of the receiver. So, in our allocation process sometimes we pay a premium to deliver services with a higher degree of dignity. Le Café is, probably, the best example of that.


Photo : Stephen Shames (UJC)

Finally, the way the process works, in itself, reflects Jewish values in action. The myth is that a few community leaders decide among themselves, in some smoke filled room, how the funds will be distributed. Nothing can be further from the truth. The allocation process includes hundreds of hours of meetings in which every agency is represented and has the opportunity to present its needs and plans. A group of planners works year-long analyzing the needs of the Jewish community and evaluating the best way to respond to them. Programs go through a rigorous evaluation process before being approved, and then through an equally rigorous audit. Most important, the process involves dozens of volunteers from Federation and its agencies who define, together, community priorities. During the process, everyone was mature enough to wear a “community hat” and to think beyond organizational boundaries and consider the collective good. The process is transparent, ensures accountability, and fosters the value of community dialogue and participation.

Above all, the allocation process fosters the most Jewish of values: the value of community. We focus our efforts, act collectively, and make sure that no Jew is left behind. Federation builds community, because community is the concrete manifestation of the value of collective Jewish responsibility.

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A Shavuot message

Tuesday May 18th, 2010

As I write these lines, first graders in Montreal Jewish schools are marking chagigat hasefer, the celebration of the book. The little ones stand on the stage, parents record the moment on their digital cameras, and teachers are slightly nervous wondering whether the kids will remember their lines.

These simple but moving celebrations are the renewal of a 3,500 year old love story between a people and a book. It is the moment in which a new generation – maybe without even realizing it – starts taking ownership of the rich textual tradition of Judaism.

At the center of our consciousness as a people lies a book. Some peoples build astonishing monuments of brick and mortar. Our great works are of ink and paper. We write books, we read them, we study them, we interpret them. Sometimes, we even struggle with them. Always, we structure our lives around them. Our Muslem friends recognized this way back in the 7th century and respectfully named us “Um al-Kettab” – the people of the book. The name has stuck with us ever since.

Shavuot celebrates, among other things, the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. Since then, the book has been the centre of who we are. But in the Torah lies a paradox: it cannot simply be read. It needs to be interpreted. It demands an active engagement on the part of the reader. It is as if the book isn’t complete without the participation of the person who reads it. Since the beginning of our relationship with the book, we keep piling interpretation upon interpretation. And, interestingly enough, our interpretations are also called ‘Torah.’ Thus, we created the Mishna, the Talmud, the Midrash, etc. One can even argue that every bit of Jewish literary creativity is, in a sense, Torah. Early on, the rabbis were amazed at the richness and flexibility of a text that could yield so many different views – sometimes conflicting, though they may be. They exclaimed “the Torah has 70 faces!”

Arguably, the source of Judaism’s richness and diversity comes from being given the possibility, even the mandate, to add our own interpretations to the text. Our culture remained alive, I would suggest, because every generation could extract from the text the meaning and the lessons relevant to their time. The book is, at the same time, an anchor in the past and a projectile launched at the future. The book linked Jews of different countries and different ages. In a Talmudic page, Rashi (France, 10th Century) argues with a Babylonian rabbi (5th Century), who in turn discusses with a prophet, who talks to the Vilna Ga’on (Lithuania, 17th century). A page of Talmud transcends time and geography to form a creative dialogue between change and tradition, between past, present and future. The book is what Jews from all times and all countries always had, and always will have, in common.

Regardless of their religious beliefs – or lack thereof – Jews relate to the text as a source of inspiration, moral values, guidance, and comfort. As Zecharia Frankel would say, regardless of whether the Torah has a divine origin or not, the fact that our people have sanctified it for millennia makes it holy and meaningful.

In these days of virtual communications, Facebook, emoticons and twitter feeds, the textual tradition of Judaism faces yet another challenge. How does our tradition of Talmudic discussion and textual analysis fit in the 120 characters of a tweat? Are we going to become “the people of the Kindle?”

Shavuot is a good time to reflect upon our relationship with our textual sources. It is the time to claim ownership of our books. Torah and its interpretation is nobody’s monopoly, no matter how pious or knowledgeable they may be (or think themselves to be). The capacity to interpret, and to draw inspiration, from the text belongs equally to you as to the most revered scholars. It belongs to each and every Jew in each generation. It is the magnificent gift that our tradition bestows on us.

During this holiday of the Torah, I invite you all to engage with our sources in a critical dialogue, discovering their beauty and their complexity. I invite you to take comfort and inspiration from them, as well as to struggle with those conflicts and contradictions that are the source of such richness. Like those first graders I mentioned, I invite you to receive the book and to discover why it is the ultimate bestseller. I challenge you to add your own interpretation, your own meaning to the intricate mosaic of Jewish thought.
Shavuot is a holiday of hope. After the incertitude of the Omer, we collect the harvest and we rejoice in the fruit of our work. Shavuot is also Chag Habikurim, the holiday in which our ancestors made offerings of their first fruits, as if to show that there cannot be affluence without generosity. Shavuot is the holiday of community, because we received the book that made us into a people. We spend the night of the Shavuot in a tikkun, a night of learning, embracing the text, wrestling with it, and finding in it whatever meaning is relevant for our lives.

Hope, joy, learning, continuity, and generosity. Those are the central values of Shavuot, and, indeed, the central values of our community.

Chag Sameach!

Andres.

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Reflections on Israel

Tuesday April 20th, 2010

I try to remember when Israel first entered my consciousness. As a little boy, I recall an old vinyl disc with songs of the Six Day War. On the cover was a photo of soldiers facing a stone wall and crying. I didn’t understand why they cried. My mother told me enigmatically, “They cry because they waited 2,000 years for that moment.” Back then, I couldn’t understand why they were 2,000 years old and yet looked so young. I remember the concern on the faces of my kindergarten teachers during the Yom Kippur War. I remember being in a taxi with my aunt in 1976 and hearing the taxi driver ask, “Did you see, Madam, what the Jews just did?” It was the day when Israel’s raid on Entebbe astonished the world.

I have a clearer recollection of the signing of the Camp David peace treaty. Somebody had brought a TV to school, and we were allowed to watch the ceremony. Mora Esther, the mythical principal of the school, talked to every class. I remember how her voice broke, saying that in Israel every family had a fallen soldier to mourn. I can still remember how vividly she spoke about peace and about the bright future that awaited Israel.

As a child, in the dark years of Argentina’s military government, Israel was some sort of a refuge, both physical and psychological. I believed that in Haifa there were skyscrapers like in New York and that Tel Aviv was a clean and tidy city. I thought that Jerusalem was really made of gold and that there were no thieves or bad people in Israel. I believed, well into my teenage years, that Israelis could do no wrong and that Israeli leaders were almost divinely inspired.

I remember the first time I set foot in Israel, in 1985. The first thing we saw was a man cleaning the floor of the airport and he was wearing a kippa. I still have a lump in my throat when I think of the sign in the old Ben Gurion Airport that proclaimed, ‘Welcome to Israel.’

The encounter between the mythical Israel of my childish imagination and the real one was more intriguing than disappointing. No, Tel Aviv was not, and is still not, a clean, tidy city. Haifa had only one tall building in 1985, and it was quite ugly. And yet, the real Israel fascinated me no less than the imaginary one. Since then, I’ve visited Israel dozens of times. I studied there, lived there, loved there, and shared the sorrow and the joy of that amazing experiment of a country.

As an adult, I see Israel with very different eyes. I see Israel not as a flawless magical land. I don’t see Israelis as uniquely righteous and virtuous. I see it in all its wonderful complexity and all its amazing diversity. Yet, my eyes still swell when, from the plane, I start seeing the lights of Tel Aviv.

Israel is the only utopia that was ever realized. It proves that dreams do come true, that willpower can move mountains. Israel is what transformed Jews from passive objects of history to its subjects. Before Israel, history was something that ‘happened to us.’ Since 1948, history is something that we make. No, Israel is not the perfect land I dreamed of as a child. But its achievements still baffle me: a country that has absorbed millions of people from 70 countries, a place that has given the world Nobel Prize winners, technological and medical advances, and that leads the way in so many fields. A country that, despite being the only country in the world whose existence is in constant jeopardy, has the highest number of books published per capita. I like visiting Israel and read Altneuland, the book that Herzl (the founder of political Zionism) wrote describing how a Jewish State would look. When looking at the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv, with its Manhatanesque surroundings, I smile thinking of Herzl. He would never have imagined…

Sometimes I’m critical of Israel, because Israel’s flaws pain me. But my criticism is expressed with love and with humility, with unbreakable commitment and with the desire to make Israel an even better place. Israel is the ultimate challenge of the Jewish People. For 2,000 years, Jews refined a body of ethical and humanist values without comparison in human history. In a way, it was easy for us to do so: we weren’t constrained by the realities of living in a sovereign state of our own, with real challenges.

Already in the middle ages, Rabbi Iehuda Halevi, in his ‘book of kazars,’ asks the difficult question: how are Jews going to behave once they have a sovereign country? What kind of society are they going to build? Once they have power, are they going to keep their values or cave under the weight of reality? In Israel we have the power to deploy those values we created when we were powerless. Israel is a test for the Jewish people. That is why what happens in Israel affects us all. Not just our physical security, but our consciousness as a people.

Israel is still the place where everything is possible. It’s the place where utopias become reality. Israel is still a country in state of becoming, and it is an enormous privilege to have the historical opportunity to be a partner in building and shaping the Jewish State. We have the undeserved honor to live in these times, to be the generation that witnesses – and shapes – the national renewal of the Jewish people in its ancestral land. The Montreal Jewish community is a full partner in this adventure. In my latest trip to Israel, I had the privilege to see, for the first time, the amazing programs that we support in Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev. Together with our Israeli counterparts, we are transforming that city and the entire region. Ben Gurion got it right: the future of Israel will play out in the Negev. Montreal is fully involved in its transformation from an arid wilderness to a center of life, education, technology and culture. We are putting Jewish values into action.

Israel is the most wonderful adventure upon which the Jewish people ever embarked. I feel unspeakably blessed to be, albeit remotely, a part of this adventure. I invite you all to join us, even if you don’t agree with each and every one of Israel’s policies. I invite you all to learn about Montreal’s involvement in Israel. When you go there, visit places that our community is helping to transform. I hope each of you can feel the same sense of pride and the same nachess I got while visiting the Negev.

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Yom Hashoah

Wednesday April 14th, 2010

Tromso is the northernmost city in Norway. It lies above the Arctic circle. During the summer, the sun never sets and in winter it never rises. Today, it is a quaint little town and tourists flock there to see the midnight sun or to take picture of the northernmost edge of Europe.

I had visited Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek and the killing field of Ponar in Lithuania. I had stood in the pits of Babi Yar, were thousands were shot to death. And yet, it was only in Tromso that I understood the sheer magnitude of the holocaust.

In the central square of this little arctic town, there’s a monolith memorializing the 17 Jews of the town who were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. Only when I saw that did I grasp the unspeakable amount of hatred and evil that the Holocaust entailed. The Nazis had gone, literally, to the end of the world to find and murder 17 Jews. It was just not about killing Jews. It was about finding and destroying every one of us, to the very last. There is a lot of discussion today about the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Was the Shoah different from other massacres and other genocides? In Tromso, I understood what made it uniquely horrendous: never before, and never after, was one group the object of a policy of total and systematic extermination. As the philosopher Emil Fackenheim put it, “It’s the word ‘judenrein’ that makes all the difference.” Jews had to disappear, to the very last one.

When I studied in rabbinical school, I wrote a paper about the theology of the Holocaust. I was trying to explain and understand the Holocaust from a religious and philosophical perspective (www.madrichim.org/contents.aspx?id=2698). I thought I could find some meaning to the horror. I thought that there could be some sense in the ultimate senselessness of human history. With the years, I became more cynical. I no longer think that the Shoah can have any meaning, whatsoever. It’s pure, senseless, radical evil. And any attempt to find some transcendental meaning is futile and even insulting.

Faced with the Holocaust, the only thing I can offer as an explanation is silence. But not a quite silence. Rather, a silence that shouts, a silence that cries, a silence that accuses. And a silence that promises. I felt that deafening silence in Tromso. There, the only thing I could do was take a piece a paper and write a quote from Genesis that says, “The blood of your brother cries to me from the Land.” I force myself to hear those silent cries every day.

Did the Holocaust vaccinate us against genocide? Did it make another massacre inconceivable? Actually, and unfortunately, it didn’t. The opposite is true. The Shoah proved that is possible. That if one wants to exterminate a people, one can do it. It transformed extermination from an abomination to a distinct and workable possibility. Genocide is, today, is possible scenario. The macabre lesson of the Holocaust is that, in fact, it can be done. Nowadays, it can actually be done much easier, by just pushing a button.

So, in this bleak picture of senselessness and despair, is there anything that can give us an optimist view of human nature? Is there anything that can make us find hope in the most unspeakable man-made tragedy in history? Indeed, there is.

The Holocaust should make us lose faith in human nature, and I would have lost mine, except for two things: the survivors and the righteous. Every survivor is a hero, for the sole reason of having the will to live. Each and every one of them. In most cases, the survivors became heroes in spite of themselves. They became beacons of life, humanity and courage for us and for every generation to follow. They force us to be courageous and to keep hope.

How can we dare to lose hope if they didn’t? How can we despair if they didn’t? How can we not carry on, if they did? The survivors made every smile an act of defiance. They found the will to love, to build, and to be positive. Despite everything, because of everything. Their stories of heroism are so many that it would be impossible to list them.

As for the righteous, they proved that even amid the darkest horror, some people kept the light of humanity alive. When I visited Latvia, I heard the story of Janis Lipke. He was a porter in the docks of Riga, a completely ordinary individual. He didn’t particularly like Jews, he didn’t particularly dislike them. He just saw what was going on around him and couldn’t stand still. He volunteered to work for the Germans as a driver. Every day he’d drive Jews from the Ghetto to the countryside to work. Every day, he’d drop one Jew from the truck in a safe house. When the Nazis counted the number of people in the truck, he’d have his own son don a coat with a yellow star for the numbers to match. In this manner, he saved almost 60 people from certain death.

If life has any meaning after the Holocaust, if the human race has not forfeited its right to exist after the Shoah, it’s because of those who glorified life when death seemed to reign. It’s because of those who deprived evil of total control of the world.

We shouldn’t call the survivors, survivors. We should call them militants. For they are militants of memory and militants of life.

In Kaunas, Lithuania, there exists a dreadful place called “the Ninth fort.” It’s an old Tsarist fortress where 50,000 people were brought to be shot. When the murderers ran out of local Jews to kill, they brought Jews from other places of Europe. Thus did “convoy 73” leave Drancy in France on May 15, 1944, carrying people to be shot. In the walls of the Ninth Fort, we can still read the inscriptions left by the condemned. Names, ages, and a message that reads, “nous sommes 900 francais.” They knew they were going to die, and they were asking us to remember them, never to forget them. Today, we tell these 900 French people, and each and every one of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis, “We won’t forget you. We will never forget you.”

Following the example of life and hope of the survivors, we stand today as proud Jews. We stand defiantly with the survivors and we proclaim, out loud, the words of the psalmist, “Lo amut ki echie,” “I will not die, but for I will live.”

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Chag Sameach

Wednesday March 24th, 2010

Chag Sameach

Click here to download supplement to the Haggadah

Pessach is probably our most optimistic holiday. It is a holiday of renewal and joy. The spring brings a new dawn for the world, as the cold winter comes to an end and we renew ourselves under the balmy sun. We discover how light and warmth can heal, We give ourselves permission to dream again, to plan and to do, to imagine and to create. It is a time for optimism and joy. It is the time to say daienu, to rejoice in what we have and not to lament in what we lost. It is the season when freedom came out of the dark night of slavery and flowers blossom out of the barren winter.

In the central narrative of Pessach, the story of the Exodus, it is fascinating to see the different attitudes of the former slaves: how they coped with their newly won freedom, how they faced adversity, and how they related to their former lives of bondage.

Their first real test came right after the Exodus. The Hebrews were camping placidly at the shores of the sea when the hosts of Pharaoh closed on them. The songs of joy and liberation transformed into wails of terror as the elite soldiers of the Egyptian army draw their swords to massacre the mutinous slaves, caught with their backs to the sea.

“There were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?!” people accused Moses (Ex14). Panic gave way to defeatism: “For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness!” (Ex14).

But the Midrash tells us that among the former slaves was one called Nachshon, who took a completely different attitude. Among the wails, the recriminations, the defeatism and the despair, Nachshon did the unthinkable: he jumped into the sea and started to move forward. And according to the legend, the sea only parted when Nachshon had water up to his nose. That’s when others followed. The miracle of the sea was not just a gift from God, but something earned through the determination and daring of Nachshon, a single gutsy Israelite. His determination not to return to slavery was so strong that the waters had no choice but to part. As if our will is so powerful it can even break the laws of nature.

People sometimes see freedom and security as two opposing ends of a pendulum. The more the pendulum moves towards freedom, the less security we have. The life of the slave may be hard, but is safe: no decisions to make, no existential anguish. As we move away from the certainties of slavery, we need to face the uncharted waters of our own future, which is only ours to create. Sometimes we look in dismay to what we have done with our freedom and we get frightened. We then yearn for the security of a life without anguish, though neither does it have any joy.

This year, as we celebrate Pessach for the 3325th consecutive time, we seem to be at a similar crossroads as our brethren after the Exodus. The world around us, product of our liberties and fruit of our freedom seems chaotic and painful. We see what we have done with our freedom and we ask ourselves if we really deserve it. We are indeed, like our forefathers, between the sea and the armies of Pharaoh. Many among us feel the need to retreat into a less free, but safer, world. Many prefer the certainties of Egypt to the hazards of the desert. Hence, the growth of fundamentalisms of all sorts, that would exchange our freedoms for the promise of security.

But the message of our tradition is clear. Easy answers are illusions because the world is too complex and multifaceted. Slavery, fanaticism, and extremism bring only a false sense of security. We are not to escape from freedom. We are to face our dilemmas and write our own history. Liberation is not a “one off” event. It is a permanent struggle, a process of learning and growing.

Our tradition tells us to have no illusions: marching into freedom is as hazardous as Nachshon’s jump into the sea. Furthermore, it tells us that if we chose freedom, we can make miracles. We can make the waters part, we can defeat Pharaoh’s army and, above all, we can fully develop and become the people we yearn to be. We are not free from somebody, we are free FOR something. It is our task to give meaning to our freedom and discover the great things we can do with it. Nachshon realized that there was no retreat from the freedom we had won. Nachshon understood that tasting freedom is like drinking a noble, full-bodied wine: you can never go back to drink the brackish waters of slavery.

In these unsettling times, besieged by crisis, despair and violence, let us resist the temptation of slavery’s false security. Let us be true to our freedom, and let us have the courage to do great things with it. Let us follow Nachshon and embrace the unknown with optimism. Let us rejoice in the gift of freedom and let us believe that, as we can make the waters part, we can fix the world around us.

In the spirit of the holiday, FEDERATION CJA has prepared a special supplement to the Haggadah which we hope will enrich your family’s Passover celebration. We want to bring to your Seder table a collection of thoughts and ideas that reflect some of our central values as well as the rich history and diversity of our community. You will find it online, in an easy-to-print format at www.federationcja.org.

Chag Sameach!

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Purim, the beauty of difference

Thursday February 25th, 2010

Purim is arguably one of the merriest holidays of the Jewish calendar. Because of that, perhaps, we don’t often reflect on its deep meaning and its contemporary relevance.

Purim pays homage to the resilience of the Jewish people, our capacity to withstand aggression, to survive all who seek to destroy us, and to persevere, making a unique contribution to the world. Today, from the ancient land of Persia, we face the spectre of a nuclear armed Haman, who, like the original one, seeks to exterminate us. But we’ve been there before, and we know, eventually, how the story ends.

But, Purim is about something else, as well. It is about the right to be different. Purim is about seeing diversity and pluralism as sources of richness, and not as problems. When Haman the wicked demands the extermination of the Jews, he uses an argument that would subsequently be employed countless times: “There is one nation scattered and dispersed among the nations throughout the provinces of your kingdom, whose laws are unlike those of any other nation…. It is not in the King’s interest to tolerate them.” In other words, “they are different,” and the difference is something bad that needs to be eradicated. At the core of hatred and bigotry lies not just evil, but also an irredemptive fear of the difference.

Judaism, on the other hand, is a culture that praises and celebrates difference. Judaism doesn’t try to convert others or to impose its culture by force. We believe that the world is more beautiful as a rainbow than as a monochromatic picture. We believe that interaction with those who are different from us enriches us because it forces us to analyze and review our own beliefs. Confident cultures are strong enough to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the broader society. Throughout our history, the Jewish people have interacted with, and been enriched by, Babylonians, Greeks, Christians, Moslems, among others. Our tradition embraces the history of these encounters. We know how to learn from others while preserving our core values. The Greek elements in the Pessach seder (like the afikoman – from the greek ‘epi-kommon’) are a beautiful example of how we borrowed things from others and used them to enhance the transmission of our values.

Across history, Jews have embodied the concept of “the other,” the “different.” Because of that, and because of the ways in which we celebrate diversity, we always became the preferred targets of bigots and tyrants, since the totalitarian mind can’t stomach differences. It is so weak and so afraid that the difference threatens it and has to be exterminated. And because of who we are and what we believe, we always stood up for the right of others to be different. From civil rights in the United States to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, to the refuseniks in the Soviet Union, whenever somebody fights for the right to be different they will find an ally in the Jewish people.

Judaism’s romance with diversity is not only with respect to the outside world. It is also internal. Judaism is, within itself, a diverse and pluralist culture. It has been so from its very inception, and this accounts for its greater richness. The Talmud is a discussion and debate, wherein all opinions are valid. Judaism does not claim ownership of the truth. In the famous debates between the Hillel and Shamai – which represented radically different views of Jewish law – the Mishna proclaims, “the words of both of them are the words of God.” Many discussions in the Talmud are unresolved. They finish with the world, “Teiko”, literally, a tie that only the Messiah will break.

Today, as the world is more pluralist than ever, it is critical for Jews to understand and respect this tradition. Within the Jewish community, we each have the right to be different and to think differently. There is no single “authentic” Judaism, a concept that would have made the rabbis of the Talmud laugh (or cry). As we stand for the rights of others to be different, we need to defend to right to diversity and difference within our own community. We need to understand that one of the secrets to our survival is the flexibility that comes from pluralism.

Purim is a joyful holiday because we celebrate our survival and rejoice in the fact that history’s bigots and tyrants never managed to destroy the beauty of our polychromatic world. We also celebrate the diversity of the Jewish people, because that’s the source of our spiritual richness.

In a word, we recognize that both the human race and the Jewish people are like a diamond: the more facets they have, the more beautiful. In this Purim, let’s be true to that message.

Chag Purim Sameach!!!

Andres



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Tu Bishvat, the “New year of the trees.”

Thursday January 28th, 2010

Empedocles, the Greek philosopher, believed that the world was build from four primordial elements: air, water, earth, and fire. Humankind has been consistently sacrificing three of these elements in order to achieve the fourth. If fire can be interpreted as a synonym for energy, we are poisoning our water, contaminating our air, and polluting our soil so as to generate more and more energy.

This wanton destruction of our habitat has reached dramatic proportions. Unlike in the times of Empedocles, we now have full knowledge of the damage we are inflicting on our environment and we have the technology to accurately measure how we are damaging the only planet we have.

But even centuries before Empedocles, our own Jewish sources were already teaching us how to relate to our environment. Judaism is not an ascetic culture. We are taught to enjoy the blessings of the beautiful world in which we live. At the same time, we are always reminded that we are mere tenants in this world.  We are called to walk a thin line and create a delicate balance between enjoying and benefiting from what G-d has created and preserving His creation for future generations. Consider, “generations come and go, but the land will be there forever”.

The mandate given to the very first man regarding his habitat is “le’ovda uleshomra” (to work it and to guard it) (Genesis 2:15).  Two midrashim (Talmudic legends) ask the following question: ‘Why was Man created last?’ As usual, opinions diverge.

One answers: “so that he feels like a King, feeling that everything was created for him;” and the other, “so that he’d be humble, knowing that even the smallest of insects was created before him”.

We are taught to live a difficult balancing act between these two contradictory images. We are asked to keep the balance between using and preserving, between consuming and producing, between comfort and responsibility.

In a few days we’ll celebrate the holiday of Tu Bishvat, also called the “New year of the trees.” This holiday celebrates the importance of life-giving trees and forests.

Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Collapse: How Civilizations Chose to Fail or Succeed, cites deforestation as the main element that puts in motion a vicious circle of destruction, which eventually ends up causing the collapse of an entire society. In another best-selling book, we are told something similar. The Bible asserts that, even during war, we are not supposed to chop down tress unnecessarily. Recognizing how intertwined we are with our environment, it proclaims, “For the tree of the field is like a Man” (Deuteronomy 20:19). We are told “Bal Tashchit!” (do not destroy!), and that principle extends from trees to all other natural resources. They should be treated responsibly and we are obliged to recognize how precious they are.

For Judaism, defending the environment is a permanent struggle. Every day we celebrate the Creation. We are told to relate to the world with awe and respect. We bless every fruit of the land that we eat, every little miracle that we see around us. We are encouraged, as A. J. Heschel said, to feel “radical amazement” at everything around us, small and big, simple and complex, for all are a magnificent miracle. What is Shabbat, after all, if not a day on which we make a truce with the world and rejoice in nature instead of exploiting it, respecting it instead of dominating it, and contemplate instead of consuming?

At FEDERATION CJA, we try hard to practice these millenary values, which are of indisputable urgency. We have established the “work green/passé au vert” program that – it prides me to announce – has been audited and certified by BOMA, Canada’s national environmental certification program. Thus, Cumming House has joined the pioneering first 100 commercial buildings in Montreal that adhere to BOMA’s strictest environmental standards. The measures we took proved that ‘the small things are the big things.’ From phasing out disposable cutlery to making double-sided printing mandatory. From putting recycling bins in every office to drastically reducing our electricity consumption. Not only are we doing the right thing and following Jewish values, but we are also creating important savings. Indeed, we estimate that our ‘work green’ program has generated around $150,000 in savings that can be allocated to vital services and programs.

During this holiday of the trees, I encourage each and every one of you to look at the world around us in awe and gratitude, to behave responsibly towards our environment. Let us do something for ourselves and for our children. Let us behave like responsible tenants of this world. And let us make sure that future generation can enjoy the uncountable blessings of this wonderful planet. Above all, let us show generosity and kindness to tress and people alike, because after all ‘the tree of the field is like a man’.

Andrés

PS: From little gestures to grand ideas, please share with us any suggestion on how FEDERATION CJA and the Jewish Community, as a whole, can become more environmentally friendly and how we can make these values more present and relevant in the daily life of our community.

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Conversions and mixed marriages

Monday January 11th, 2010

I would like to share a few thoughts with you on conversions and mixed marriages. I realize that it is impossible to discuss this topic comprehensively in one blog post, so I will simply raise a few questions to trigger the debate.

I’m not an in expert in Jewish law (Halacha), so I won’t try to answer the question “who is a Jew?” or determine how we should approach the conversion process. FDERATION CJA is open to all opinions and respects the entire ideological spectrum of the community; therefore, I cannot declare one halachic approach to be more valid than another. My area of expertise is community and my focus is on the policies, actions and programs that Jewish communities must implement to address conversion and mixed marriages.

We’re all Jews by choice

We must first position this issue within a Jewish and a universal context. We currently live in a world where traditional identities—whether national, religious, ethnic or ideological—are challenged. People no longer automatically accept the identity given to them by their parents or by society. In the post-modern world, each person constructs his/her own identity, meaning that identity, even that of Jewish-born individuals, is, now more than ever, a choice and a personal construction. Furthermore, the identities we construct are partial identities made up of bits and pieces of various identities. Twenty years ago, I considered myself to be a Masorti Jew (conservative). Today, I consider myself to be a little bit of everything. For example, depending on the issue, I may have Masorti views, reformist views or orthodox views. I’m part Argentinean, part Israeli, part French and part Montrealer. I eat sushi, gefilte fish and baklava. On my iPod, I have Latin, Israeli, classic, rock and French music. I build my identity; most importantly, it is a combination of my personal choices. In this context, the previously well-defined boundaries between various identities are becoming blurred. The topic of conversion and mixed marriages must be examined within the context of changing identities because, one way or another, we are all Jews by choice.

Conversion and assimilation in the Jewish world of today

We must also acknowledge that we are facing a global phenomenon—one that seriously affects the future of Jews and the survival of the Jewish population. Even in Israel, where one can say that we are “protected” from assimilation and mixed marriages, immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) face the sometimes brutal effects of these phenomena. In particular, the case of IDF soldiers from mixed marriages born in the FSU comes to mind. When these soldiers are killed during battle, they cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery because, according to Jewish law, they’re not Jews. In the U.S., England, Russia and Eastern Europe, the mixed marriage rate is over 50%. In the FSU, approximately 50% of the children in Jewish schools are not considered halachic Jews. So, what happens when these children want to celebrate their bar/bat mitzvah? Recent studies show that approximately half of the Jewish students attending U.S. universities come from interfaith families. The difficulty inherent in the conversion process further complicates the matter. Moreover, many young people from interfaith families don’t see the need to convert to Judaism. For them, the fact that they feel Jewish is sufficient; they don’t need others to acknowledge their Jewishness. However, this reality poses a problem at certain milestones in these people’s lives, such as bar/bat mitzvahs and weddings.

To further complicate the debate, many modern thinkers speak about cultural conversion. They wonder why conversion is strictly a religious process and not a cultural one. According to some modern thinkers, Judaism is not solely a religion, and many Jews are not even religious. They wonder why potential converts are expected to practice a certain level of religious observance when the majority of Jews do not.

Differing opinions on conversion threaten to divide the Jewish population. If we do not reach a consensus, various groups will each establish radically different conversion processes, and certain Jews won’t be considered as such by certain Jewish communities.

In Montreal, at first glance, the statistics on mixed marriages are reassuring. We have the lowest mixed marriage rate in North America, which is due to a number of factors, such as the importance of Jewish education (nearly 50% of Jewish children are educated in Jewish schools). Linguistic, social and geographic (Jewish populations are concentrated in certain parts of the city) factors also come into play.

However, the statistics are somewhat misleading because they reflect Montreal’s Jewish population as a whole, rather than by age groups. If we divide the population into age groups, the mixed marriage rate is significantly higher (approximately 30%). Thus, Montreal is not safe from the above-mentioned global phenomena.

For a long time, two different philosophies existed: one proposed measures to prevent mixed marriages; the other stated that the fight against mixed marriages had been lost, and advocated focusing on ensuring that children from mixed marriages be educated in Jewish schools—regardless of whether their non-Jewish parent had converted.

This contradiction seems to have disappeared. Jewish communities must continue to fight against assimilation. In addition to social and informal activities, Jewish education is key. We must provide Jewish youth with a multitude of gateways to Jewish life as well as opportunities to socialize and collaborate with other Jewish youth on common projects. Jewish communities have to be pluralistic and creative to attract as many people as possible. New technologies can be another way to achieve this goal, as the case of Jdate – the online Jewish dating network –  is proving.

However, at the same time, we must accept that, despite all of our efforts, mixed marriages will always occur. And, if we do not want to lose Jews who marry non-Jews, we must develop policies and programs to attract children from mixed marriages to Jewish life. Schools need to be more accepting of these children. Community activity organizers should market their activities to this population. And, finally, Jewish communities should be inclusive, accepting of and non-threatening to the non Jewish spouse and to children from mixed marriages.

Communities that adopted a dual approach had considerable success. In the U.S., less than 30% of children from mixed marriages remained Jewish. However, in certain cities, where federations and community organizations worked on both aspects—particularly with increased openness to interfaith families—the number of children from mixed marriages who remained Jewish rose to 60%.

As I said before, this problem is vast and complex. I have highlighted a few points to consider; however, the subject requires a long, serious debate. Our community and the Jewish population must continue to work on this critical issue. Our unity as a people and maybe even our survival depend on it.

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