February 8, 2010: Jewish community quick to respond to the people of Haiti

By Michael Regenstreif

I don’t usually deal with the same topic two issues in a row. Sometimes, though, the topicality of the subject matter demands follow-up. Such is the case of the crisis in Haiti following the massive earthquake that struck the impoverished Caribbean country on January 12.

Because of the Bulletin production schedule, my January 25 column was written on January 15, just three days after the disaster wrought so much damage and took such a heavy human toll. Much of the world had already begun responding to the emergency there – and the Jewish world, in Israel and in the Diaspora, was in the vanguard of those responding to the emergency.

In that column, I noted that the Jewish Federation of Ottawa had reacted quickly to the situation in Haiti and established a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund so that members of our community could direct their donations to the emergency relief efforts.

Ottawa’s Jewish community began responding immediately. In the first two weeks – this column is being written on January 28 – the fund received more than $37,000 in donations, funds that will be matched by the federal government and allocated to Canada’s relief efforts in Haiti.

The emergency in Haiti will be ongoing for months, indeed years, to come as that country – the poorest in the Western Hemisphere before the earthquake – rebuilds from the devastation. Donations to the Federation’s Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund are still welcome and much needed. Visit jewishottawa.com or call 613-798-4696, ext. 232 to make a donation.

The Federation’s fund, like similar funds set up by other Jewish federations in Canada, is being channelled through United Israel Appeal Canada to IsraAID, the highly regarded coordinating body of Israeli and Jewish organizations active in development and relief work around the world. IsraAID has been at the forefront of relief efforts in Haiti over the past several weeks.

Israel, as noted, was among the first countries to respond to the dire situation in Haiti after the earthquake. The Israeli response included an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) emergency field hospital that, according to many media reports, was the most impressive and effective medical facility operating in Haiti in the days after the earthquake.

Interviewed from Haiti on CNN, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, a surgeon who is the chief medical reporter for NBC, said that the emergency treatment being provided by the international aid teams was basic and primitive.

It was only at Israel’s emergency field hospital, she said, that advanced, sophisticated medicine was being practised, and where the most difficult cases were being brought.

For moving accounts of the work done in Haiti by the Israelis, see the story on page 10 that features an interview with Dr. Ofer Merin, the chief of the IDF field hospital, and the journal entries on page 16 written by Arele Klein, a ZAKA paramedic dispatched from Israel to Haiti.

I mentioned in my previous column that one of the Jewish Community Campus employees feared for the life of her sister who was in Haiti and couldn’t be reached in the days after the earthquake.

I can report now that, days later, she was finally able to reach her sister who was safe.

January 25, 2010: The emergency in Haiti cries out for our help

 By Michael Regenstreif

 Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was struck, January 12, with a devastating earthquake. Measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, the epicentre was close to the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Much of the city, from the slums where so much of the population lived, to the parliament building and the Presidential Palace, were in left in rubble.

As I write, on January 15, current estimates are that 50,000 people were killed in the quake, a number that may well be higher by the time you read these words. Hundreds of thousands more people, perhaps millions, have been left homeless. Even René Préval, the president of the Caribbean island nation, was left homeless by the destruction.

In Canada, we have a large Haitian community that has been affected directly by the natural disaster in their homeland. Governor General Michaëlle Jean, a Haitian-Canadian, usually the very model of coolness under pressure, was overcome with emotion when she talked with the media after the tragedy. A Jewish Community Campus employee, whom I see in my office almost every day, told me she was having a very hard time and feared for her sister whom she’d been unable to contact since the earthquake.

“I keep calling and calling,” she told me, “but I can’t get through.”

Catastrophes like the earthquake in Haiti have a way of hitting close to home.

Watching the television coverage from Haiti over the past few days, and reading the stories in the daily press and on the internet, it’s hard for anyone not to be affected. And, to our collective credit, many governments and relief organizations mobilized quickly to help the people of Haiti. Many charitable organizations – including Jewish organizations – have quickly mobilized emergency fundraising campaigns.

As noted on page 5 of this issue of the Bulletin, the Jewish Federation of Ottawa has established a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund so that our community can help funnel much-needed funds to help relieve the suffering of the people in the earthquake zone.

As Federation President Mitchell Bellman notes, the fund “is very much in keeping with the traditional Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam (repair of the world).” The situation in Haiti is a most urgent humanitarian emergency.

You can make a donation to the Federation’s Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund online at jewishottawa.org or by calling 613- 798-4696, ext. 232. The federal government has pledged to match funds donated by Canadians for Haitian earthquake relief. These are funds that are urgently needed by the emergency relief operations underway in Haiti.

As mentioned, many governments and relief organizations mobilized quickly in the wake of the earthquake. Of course, that includes governments and organizations from major Western countries like Canada and the United States – countries with large populations not so far removed from Haiti. Perhaps not so well known is the fact that Israel was among the first countries to respond to the emergency in Haiti.

IsraAID, the Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid, immediately sent a search-and-rescue team to Haiti. El Al, the Israeli government airline, sent two planes to Haiti to assist in rescue efforts and the Israel Defense Forces sent an emergency field hospital, manned by 220 Israeli soldiers and officers, including 120 doctors and nurses. Magen David Adom also assembled a team of medical personnel to work on the ground in conjunction with the American Red Cross. And the Israel Police sent a team of experts to help Haitian authorities identify victims. All this mobilization took place in the first hours and days after the earthquake.

Remarkable.

Miep Gies

I’d like to note the passing of Miep Gies, January 11, at age 100. Gies was a Dutch woman who helped hide Otto Frank’s family for more than two years, providing them with food from her own rations. After the Gestapo finally found the Franks, Gies rescued the family’s photographs and the diary kept by Anne, Otto’s young daughter.

Otto was the only family member to survive the Holocaust and Gies was able to return the photos and diary to him. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, published in 1952, remains one of the most important books of Holocaust literature.

Yad Vashem recognized Miep Gies as Righteous Among the Nations on March 8, 1972.

December 7, 2009: Gabriel controversy overshadows the tremendous success of Choices

By Michael Regenstreif

One of the stories on the front page of this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin is Cynthia Nyman Engel’s report on the keynote speech Brigitte Gabriel delivered, November 5, at the third annual Choices event presented by the Women’s Campaign of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

Drawing on her personal story, as well as contemporary events, particularly 9/11, Gabriel forcefully attacked the radical Islamist movement. The problem, though, was that she couched her attacks in ways that led some in the audience to conclude that she was attacking all Muslims and Arabs. Others didn’t think so. Two different women in attendance have told me that, when Gabriel attacked Muslims and Arabs, “everyone knew she didn’t mean all Muslims and Arabs, she meant radical Muslims and Arabs.”

Bulletin columnist Mira Sucharov was one of the women in attendance who took exception to the way Gabriel depicted Muslims and Arabs and Mira devotes her Values, Ethics, Community column to a discussion of Gabriel and to her suggestions about criteria that should be used in selecting speakers.

There was also a group of women at the Choices event who were inspired by Gabriel. In a letter to the Bulletin, Susan Weisman points to an online petition that was launched in support of Gabriel.

What’s being overshadowed in the controversy that erupted over Gabriel is the Choices event itself. In the three years since it was conceived by committee chair Jennifer Kardash, Choices has quickly become the Federation Annual Campaign’s most successful program for recruiting new, previously unaffiliated donors to the Jewish community of Ottawa. This year alone, 106 new donors became involved in the community via Choices.

The success of Choices as an event, and particularly as an event that involves so many people previously unaffiliated with the community, needs to be celebrated. Jennifer, the committee members, and the table captains who do so much to recruit women to the event – and, thus, to the community – are to be congratulated for the excellent work that they do.

In a column earlier this year, I pointed out that the new chair and vice-chair of the Federation were both women, that all three of the community’s major award recipients were women, and even that a significant majority of the volunteers honoured on the occasion of the Federation’s 75th anniversary were women. Women have become a driving force in the Jewish community of Ottawa. The success of the annual Choices event is another indication of that.

As illustrated by the Gabriel controversy – there is a wide diversity of opinion in the community on any number of issues. If you feel strongly about an issue of concern, if you disagree with an opinion expressed by one of our columnists or with a featured speaker at an event we cover, we welcome your letters to the editor. Your opinions are important and we want to hear from you.

Gil Levine

Gilbert Levine, a legendary figure in the Canadian labour movement, passed away, November 16, at age 85, just days after he was diagnosed with leukemia.

In 2007, when I moved to Ottawa to work at the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, Gil was the first Bulletin reader to call and welcome me to the city. Not long after, he came and met me for lunch at the Soloway JCC and I enjoyed the first of several fascinating, stimulating discussions I would have with him about the labour movement, Canadian, Israeli and Jewish community politics, and our shared passion for folk music. Gil added me to his personal email list and I got a steady stream of articles from various publications that he wanted to share with his friends, and an equally steady stream of Jewish jokes.

As I came to find out over the past couple of years, Gil was a mensch of the highest degree and a leading voice of conscience in the Canadian, Ottawa and Jewish communities. I’d like to express my sincere condolences to Gil’s wife, Helen, and their family.