refugees

Welcome Home

The local chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) is preparing welcome baskets for Afghan families about to ...

A Celebration of New Friendships

Most of us live in a bubble – the bubble of our friends, our family, our workplace and our community. ...

Why My Father Went to War

 I had already seen the cover art of this week’s New Yorker magazine in a news feed, but when the ...

Why American Jews Should Stop Observing Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day

An interesting thing happened two weeks ago.When President Trump issued his executive order banning refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries, ...

Arrived: First of Our Long Awaited Refugee Families!

Or Shalom, Vancouver’s East-Side Shul, the synagogue I serve as spiritual leader, is a community of 200 households that has ...

Why is This Night Different From All Other Nights?

This year, I will be spending most of Pesach (Passover) in a small town in southwestern Missouri. I will be ...

Remember Canada, Don’t Forget

If the wrong candidate wins, you’re moving to Canada.Canada: land of safe haven for refugees, universal health care, hate speech laws, ...

“That I May Dwell Among Them…”

In this week’s Torah portion (Parshat Terumah, Exodus 25:1-27:19), God instructs Moses how Israel should make the sanctuary. He tells Moses, “וְעָשׂוּ ...

Can Our Love Be Bigger Than Our Fear?

My fear is not very far below the surface. It rises when I hear about another shooting in Brooklyn, sometimes ...

They’re Coming to America

For several weeks now, I’ve maintained a careful silence in my 9th grade Jewish Literature classroom about the politics of immigration ...