Local News
‘STAND-UP NATION” – New book highlights Israel’s many contributions to world through international development
Review by BERNIE BELLAN Elsewhere on this website we have a story about an event that was sponsored by JNF Canada at Camp Massad on Sunday, September 1, during which the guest speaker was someone by the name of Aviva Klompas.
As we noted in that story, Klompas is the author of a recently published book whose title, “STAND-UP NATION” is an unabashed emulation of the wildly successful ‘”START-UP NATION,” which was published in 2009.
As I noted in my review of ‘START-UP NATION” in the December 16, 2009 issue of The Jewish Post & News, “This book, simply put, is one of the most uplifting pieces of writing about Israel that has come out in a very long time. For anyone who is a strong supporter of Israel, the stories that (Dan) Senor and (Saul) Singer relate about Israel’s emergence as a high-tech superpower will be reminiscent of past stories about Israel’s military brilliance.”
Fifteen years later, Klompas adopts a very similar style that Senor and Singer employed in their book, which was to provide a series of case studies that illustrated how Israeli creativity and entrepreneurship combined to turn Israel into an economic success story.
While “START-UP NATION” suggested that Israel’s brilliance in the economic sphere was something that had only been a relatively recent development – beginning in the 1990s and fuelled largely by the influx of massive numbers of Russian immigrants, Aviva Klompas’s thesis is that Israel has had a tradition of international development and aid from the very beginning of the foundation of the state.
Her book was 10 years in the making, she explained in an interviews she gave at a recently held event near Boston. It first took root when she was Israel’s sole speech writer at the United Nations (from 2013-15), she said. In that capacity, Klompas noted, she had to immerse herself in a whole range of subjects – including international aid and development – about which, she admitted, she knew very little prior to her period of service at the UN.
But, as she learned more about how much international aid development had been a part of the very fabric of Israel’s founding ethos – especially as it was promoted by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, Klompas began to develop an especially keen interest in finding out as much as she could about how Israel came to be one of the very first nations that advanced the notion of international development in third world countries.
As Klompas explains in the book, the tremendous challenges that the newborn State of Israel faced in the first two years of its existence – when it absorbed over 800,000 new immigrants comprised of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Arab countries – leading to a doubling of Israel’s population almost overnight, “Despite the small population and lack of natural resources, the country’s leaders had big ambitions. Ingenuity and entrepreneurship were celebrated. Chutzpah took root as a national ethos. As time passed, the country’s confidence grew, and its citizens turned outward. They shared their success with other countries confronting similar challenges. With each passing decade, as Israel grew more secure and prosperous, it became a model and inspiration to developing countries that sought to achieve the same transformation.”
How Klompas came to write this particular book is an interesting story in itself. She said, during the interview that, after she left the UN, she began something called “Project Inspire,” in which she took young people on study tours to third world countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Nepal, Guatemala, and India.”
During those tours she encountered project after project that had been started by Israelis who had been inspired by a combination of idealism and experience. Of course, she uses the phrase “tikkun olam” quite often in her book, but that particular phrase is trotted out so often by Jewish organizations and is so general in its meaning that it loses its impact.
Instead, what Klompas does is tell a series of 20 different stories in which Israelis – often Americans who emigrated to Israel by the way, turn to using education and skills that they acquired in Israel into very imaginative projects in countries all around the world.
It was during the Covid epidemic that Klompas first thought of writing a book filled with stories of Israelis who had travelled to distant lands to initiate a variety of aid projects – often without any assistance at first, but then through a combination of fund raising and appealing to the governments of countries to which they had travelled, had achieved remarkable success almost always through their own ingenuity and resourcefulness,
What is so remarkable about many of these individuals is that their stories begin with travelling to a particular country, often backpacking – usually seeking adventure, and during the course of their experiences in those countries, they come to realize that they are well suited to providing exactly the sort of expertise that is so sorely needed in those countries.
Whether it’s in the areas of agriculture – which is a very common theme in the book, or often health care, Israelis time and time again have gone into some of the poorest parts of the world to offer assistance. And, in contrast to many other individuals from other countries that have also become involved in development projects, many of the Israelis profiled in “STAND-UP NATION” have stayed for years, rather than mere months. Often they’ve learned native languages – and customs, and rather than attempting to inject foreign concepts into the lives of the people with which they’re living, they adapt those concepts to native traditions.
Even after they’ve returned to Israel a great many of the individuals Klompas describes in the book have kept going back to the countries where they helped to initiate projects – often to check up on those projects or to begin new ones.
At the beginning of the book, Klompas describes Israel’s very first international development agency, known as MASHAV, and how it actually preceded international development agencies from countries such as the US, Canada, and Britain, as well as the UN’s own international aid agencies.
While Klompas does concede that, to a certain extent, MASHAV was intended to improve Israel’s image within third world countries, she notes that even to this day, MASHAV has training programs for thousands of individuals coming from countries that have been highly critical of Israeli policies – especially since Israel’s incursion into Gaza.
Given that the book was released only recently, Klompas often refers to how much Israel’s image in the world has changed for the worse since October 7. Yet, in a series of often poignant post scripts that she includes at the end of many of her chapters, Klompas quotes from many individuals who have either been working closely with Israelis in their respective countries or who have benefited from receiving training and education in Israel itself. In many of those excerpts from emails sent by various individuals, they remark upon how much anguish they feel for Israelis – also for Palestinians.
One question that did occur to me as I read this very well written book (and Klompas’s years of experience as a speechwriter shine through as she manages to imbue each story she tells with a freshness that keeps the book from bogging down into repetitiousness) is: How many of the many aid projects that had been undertaken by Israeli-based organizations have been severely affected by how badly Israel’s image has suffered in the past year? In many of the cases Klompas cites – and these were situations in which Israelis had gone to countries that either had no relations with Israel at all or had very poor relations with Israel, the Israelis going into those countries hid their identities as much as they possibly could.
Klompas also describes how Israeli disaster relief teams have gone into countries – such as Turkey and even Syria, to provide relief, often at great danger to the members of those teams.
One final note: Considering that Aviva Klompas was the special guest speaker at an event sponsored by JNF Canada Manitoba-Saskatchewan Region, and JNF Canada is now in the midst of a terrible situation in which its charitable license has been revoked by the CRA, I thought it appropriate to refer to a section of “STAND-UP NATION” in which Klompas writes about the many projects in which the JNF has been involved that have directly led to enormous benefits, not only for people in many third-world countries but, at least prior to October 7 – Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza as well. (Again, I would have liked to know to what extent projects involving students from the West Bank and Gaza have now had to cut ties with students from those areas since October 7. What a tragedy.)
Klompas writes about the Central Arava Research and Development Centre, “which is developing new crops and improving existing techniques so farmers in the Arava Valley can compete in the global produce market;” about the Kasser Joint Institute for Food, Water, and Energy Security, “which develops techniques and technologies to aid communities in arid and hyper-arid low income countries in addressing their food, water, and energy insecurities cost effectively and sustainably;” about the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, which brings together “students from Israel and Jordan, along with Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip…who train together in the fields of sustainability and the environment;” and the Arava Institute for International Training, which is “attracting young men and women from developing countries all over the world.”
While Klompas doesn’t specify exactly how much the JNF has been involved in each of those projects, the point is that the JNF’s contributions to research in the areas of crop development in even the harshest, most arid conditions, have been of benefit not only to Israel, but to countries all over the world – also to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. And to think: the CRA has questioned JNF Canada’s “charitable object.”
Just as Israeli international aid organizations have been motivated by a combination of a desire to do good – as in the concept of “tikkun olam,” also to a certain extent, Israel’s desire to improve Israel’s image in the third world, what difference does it make so long as all those individuals working in third world countries are contributing so mightily to the well being of the people with whom they are working?
The same can be said of JNF Canada. While the CRA may be nit picking individual projects in which JNF Canada has been involved, saying the paperwork trail is deficient, how can one question the incredible humanitarian contribution that the JNF has been making for years – in ways Klompas cites?
Perhaps at some point we’ll be able to find out from Klompas how each of the 20 projects she profiles in this very important book have been affected by what’s been going on in Gaza the past 11 months. But, if anyone needs to get a better idea how enormous an impact Israel has had in the area of international development – on a scale the country has had in the area of entrepreneurship – as described in ‘START-UP NATION,” read “STAND-UP NATION.”
“STAND-UP NATION…Israeli Resilience in the Wake of Disaster”
By Aviva Klompas
213 pages
Published by Wicked Son, 2024
Available at the JNF office in Winnipeg (phone 204-947-0207) or an Amazon.ca
Local News
Marty Green expands his protest against extremist Jewish settlers to two more venues – and is arrested twice more
(Tuesday, October 27) We received the following press release about Marty Green being arrested again, both at the University of Manitoba and at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue:
Both sides came to blows on Saturday, October 24, at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue as security personnel sought to prevent Marty Green from interfering with synagogue traffic as he protested just outside synagogue grounds against the actions of religious settlers in Israel’s occupied West Bank territory. Synagogue Executive Director Rena Secter Elbaze quickly intervened to prevent further escalation. Police arrived shorty thereafter and detained Green for 45 minutes before driving him home and releasing him. It is not clear whether their decision not to lay charges was the result of their own onsite investigation or whether it was at the request of the synagogue executive.
Green has now been arrested four times in the last month and faces multiple charges for disturbing the peace, including two episodes at the Asper Campus and one more this past Friday (Oct. 23) at the University of Manitoba. While Green says initially he was merely handing out leaflets (at the Asper Campus), since his first arrest on September 23, he has returned to the campus with a large placard and an acccordion, accompanying himself while singing songs with lyrics that include such phrases as “The Jews Are Bananas….B-A-N-A-N-A-S”. In addition to listing actions of the religious settlers as including arson, vandalism, and theft, he pointedly alleges that the IDF has been backing up the settlers in their actions.
Green had earlier notified the Shaarey Zedek that he was contemplating bringing his protest to the synagogue. He was told that if he attempted to enter the grounds he would be prevented from doing so. At that time, Secter Elbaze told Green that his intentions were inappropriate, declaring the synagogue to be “a house of worship dedicated to prayer, learning, community, and spiritual engagement.” Green responded that if the synagogue were willing to contact the Crown and inform them that “that there was never any legal basis for their claims that I was conducting myself inappropriately at the Asper Campus” (with regard to his earlier arrests) that he would “voluntarily refrain from carrying his informational campaign to the synagogue(s).”
Green further argues that the recent “psak” (religious ruling) by leading Israeli rabbi Rov Dov Lior, in which Lior declares that it is not merely permissible but praiseworthy for Jews to steal olives from Arab orchards….that this ruling brings his protest within the proper realm of religious discourse. He says further that if the local rabbis were willing to speak out to their congregations against the aforesaid psak, that he might have refrained from taking his campaign to their grounds.
Although Green was released on Saturday without charges, police confiscated his placard. They explained that it was being held as evidence pending an investigation by Major Crimes as to whether it constituted hate literature.
There was no further information given as to what happened at the University of Manitoba.
Local News
Third annual JFest Winnipeg will be offering programs for all ages
By MYRON LOVE JFest Winnipeg is back with a good variety of musical performances, a book launch, popular Jewish-themed films, children’s activities, and a family-oriented Shabbat dinner.
“JFest,” observes Laura Marjovsky, the Rady JCC Director of Programming, “is an opportunity for our community to experience Jewish art and culture. With our range of JFest events, we are trying to reach out beyond what has been our base audience and appeal to all ages. We have a commitment to bring top notch Israeli performers to share the highest caliber of Israeli entertainment with our audiences.”
The week-long festival (November 14-21) kicks off with a performance by top-ranked Israeli singer-songwriter Harel Skaat. The popular Israeli star began singing as a child. He shot to fame when he finished second in the second season of “Kochav Nolad” – Israel’s version of “American Idol.” His first album was released in 2006 and achieved Platinum status – with one of the songs being ranked as “song of the year.” He followed that up in 2009 with a second album that reached Gold status. In 2010, he represented Israel at the Eurovision competition.
Skaat’s performance is scheduled for the Seven Oaks Performing Arts Centre (which is attached to Garden City Collegiate) beginning at 8:00 P.M. on Saturday, November 14. Patrons will have the opportunity to purchase an enhanced ticket to attend a meet and greet with Harel.
All other JFest programs and activities will be at the Rady JCC.
Music Producer Karla Berbrayer says Ben Caplan’s performance on Saturday, November 21 will also be another highlight. “Ben Caplan redefines what it means to be a modern folk artist,” Berbrayer says. “His music and stories are matched by his larger-than-life stage presence. This concert focuses on how his Jewish upbringing has influenced his entire performance career.”
“Flatland Famous” is returning by popular demand. This quintet, known for its performances at Winnipeg Jets games, will be presenting its concert, “Jewish Soul of Rock and Roll,” on Wednesday, November 18, at 7:30 pm. This year’s show will feature songs by Amy Winehouse, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Simon and Garfinkel, and other famous Jewish icons.
On Tuesday, November 17, local author Deborah Schnitzer will be taking centre stage with the launch of her new book, “The Woman Who Swallowed West Hawk Lake.” The University of Winnipeg English Professor Emeritus’s new novel explores intergenerational trauma related to Nazi breeding programs. Joining Schnitzer on stage will be a panel of professionals who have experience working with children who have experienced trauma.
And of course, “Best of the Fest” is back. Films to be presented will include“The Floaters” and “We Met at Grossingers,” two wildly popular movies at last spring’s Winnipeg International Jewish Film Festival.
“The Floaters,” to be screened on Monday , November 16 at 7:00 pm is a funny and bang-on depiction of Jewish summer camp culture.
“We Met at Grossingers” is a loving look back at the Borscht Belt in New York’s Catskills, where generations of young Jewish performers earned their dues and developed their acts. The film will be screened on Thursday, November 19 at 7:00 P.M.
On Friday November 20, JFest will host a Family Shabbat dinner featuring Anat Kriger, an Israeli-born, Toronto-based musician, actor, and children’s performer, who has made several appearances in Winnipeg at major communal events.
Kidfest on Sunday, November 15, will be a day-long potpourri of programming that will include live performances, workshops, bouncy castles, games and crafts, and much more.
Readers seeking more information about JFest can contact Laura Marjovsky at 204 477-7539 or lmarjovsky@radyjcc/com
Local News
Hen Mazzig, leading Israeli advocate, makes first Winnipeg appearance
By MYRON LOVE On Tuesday, October 6, a large number of members of our community packed the chapel at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, eager to welcome Hen Mazzig in his first appearance in our community.
Over the past few years, the Israeli-born Mazzig – who was appearing at the invitation of our Jewish Federation and Combined Jewish Appeal team – has become one of Israel’s and the Jewish people’s leading advocates on the international stage. His online platforms reach as many 100 million viewers a month with a regular following of almost 1 million. He has been interviewed by numerous leading media outlets and has given addresses at close to 500 universities in recent years.
Mazzig’s presentation in Winnipeg (which was funded by the Asper Family and the Asper Foundation) took the form of a question and answer format with Sarah Mali, the Director General of JFC-UIA (Jewish Federations-United Jewish Appeal) Canada in Israel, asking the questions.
Mali , who was visiting Winnipeg for the third time in the past three years, began by expressing how honoured she felt about having the opportunity to converse with Mazzig – referring to Jewish Federation of Winnipeg President Carrie Shenkarow’s comments regarding Mazzig’s “devotion to Israel and the Jewish people”, his “deep sense of purpose, moral clarity” and “willingness to enter some of the most difficult spaces and conversations.”
The first question that Mali posed to Mazzig was related to his visit to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights and its controversial and one-sided take on the longstanding and ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She referred to a comment that Mazzig had made on X the day after visiting the museum, in which he wrote that while he “has no problem with people learning about Palestinian history,” he wished that “Palestine Uprooted” didn’t “distort the regional events, including the displacement of 800,000 people just like my grandmother, Hela, who became a refugee when Iraq turned on its Jewish community” post-1948.
“History can only lead to reconciliation when it is told honestly,” he observed. “Otherwise, it is just fuelilng an agenda.”
What most disturbed him about the exhibit, Mazzig told his audience, is that it erased his own family’s history. Expanding upon his family’s roots, he noted that his father’s family came to Israel from Tunisia and his mother’s side from Iraq. He spoke in particular about his maternal grandmother, Hela, who left behind “a beautiful civilization” – Jews had been living and thriving in Iraq since before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem 2000 years ago – to a new land (Israel), where she had to learn a new language (Hebrew) and rebuild her life.
Mazzig added that his grandmother is his anchor in life and the inspiration for all that he has accomplished.
Mali asked Mazzig about his ability to empathize with Palestinians. It was difficult to do, he answered. He got to know Palestinians, he recalled, during the Covid epidemic when he was serving as a medic with the Israel Defense Force and found himself responsible for helping Palestinians through that difficult time and transporting sick Palestinians to Israeli hospitals.
“Even though I fight so hard for Israel,” he observed, it doesn’t mean that I can’t feel empathy for anyone else.”
Mali asked Mazzig how October 7, 2023, changed him.
“I chose not to become a victim,” he said, “but rather to engage more with the world, bear witness, share our stories and talk about genocide. While I was actively advocating for Israel before October 7, I have been much more in demand since. I have become a lot more visible.
”I have found that a lot of people support us,” he continued. “They see what is happening and are on our side.”
On the other hand, he added, a lot of people don’t know anything about Israel. “It is a matter of education,” he said. “I encourage people to go to Israel and talk to Israelis.”
Mali’s last question was what Mazzig means when he writes that “I promise to love being Jewish ten times more than anyone hates me for it.” What does it mean to him to love and find joy and happiness in being Jewish”, she added?
It means cherishing our rich history, Mazzig responded, enjoying Shabbat dinners with family and friends, celebrating all of our holidays and traditions.
“The Jewish People have been through so much over the past 2000 years,” he said. “Many people have tried to destroy us, but we have survived. We are arisen from the ashes numerous time and continued to move forward. Not only are we still here but we have returned as an independent people living again in our ancestral homeland.”
Also addressing the audience at the Shaarey Zedek was Steven Shulman, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of Canada. Shulman heaped much praise on our Jewish community in Winnipeg.
“Winnipeg is special,” he noted, “not just in Canada but worldwide. Your CJA campaign continues to be the most successful in North America. You have an outstanding CEO (of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg) in Jeff Lieberman, who is universally respected.”
He further praised Gray Academy and our community’s highly successful GrowWinnipeg campaign – which has attracted thousands of new families to our community over the past 25 years.
He noted that he was particularly impressed with how our community has come together to protest the biased Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
He also spoke of the many supporters that we have among non-Jewish Canadians – singling out, as an example, the police officer in Belleville who put his own life on the line protecting the city’s only Jewish congregation from a terrorist attack during yom tov services.
The last word went to Jeff Lieberman, who thanked all the members of our community who have contributed to the CJA campaign this year, as well as our many non-Jewish friends who continue to stand with Israel and the Jewish community.
