Week of April 30, 2015

The beauty of a group

I would like to express my disappointment and disbelief that an article in The CJN would insult group bat mitzvahs (“Celebrating an individual bat mitzvah,” April 16). In fact, the article went so far as to question “how significant a Jewish component could [a girl] perform when there were 10 other girls celebrating alongside her?”

Clearly, the author didn’t attend the Akiva School group bat mitzvah held last month at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim. That event was where my own daughter, Nicole, celebrated her special Jewish moment. This beautiful event featured 20 amazing girls, each with their own parshah, and learning from Lisa Steinmetz, director of Jewish learning at Akiva School. 

What if my family could not afford our own bat mitzvah and only if we took part in a group could it happen? What if my daughter felt more comfortable in a group? Is she less of a Jew and is the milestone less significant? 

I had my bar mitzvah at the Shaar Hashomayim, and now my daughter celebrated her bat mitzvah on the same bimah 29 years later. It was a magical event.

However Jews choose to follow their religious beliefs and commemorate special events, whether individual or in a group, whether in a synagogue, a hotel, or a home, it is their choice and it’s just as important and memorable. 

Steven Singer
Montreal

How to remember the Shoah

The juxtaposition of rabbis discussing how to memorialize the Shoah and the essay of Shireen Afzal (“Genocides still happen, and I’m sick of indifference,” April 16)was as dramatic as it was appropriate.

The rabbis recognized that if it’s not ritualized and doesn’t lead to action, memorializing simply will not lead to a change in humanity’s behaviour. 

Then we turn the page and read an essay from a teenager who is committing herself to that very thing, action, by using her writing talents to discuss the Shoah and other genocides with a view to helping develop an “awareness and compassion in humanity” that actually might contribute to the changing of humanity’s behaviour “one word at a time.”

It would seem that Shireen’s teacher, Ben Gross, at Woburn Collegiate Institute, and presumably other teachers in other public schools, are presenting Holocaust education in a format that is working. Kudos to The CJN for sharing Shireen’s essay with its readers. 

Ron Hoffman
Toronto

Amortizing school tuition

Jewish day school spans about 14 years   and current annual tuition is about $15,000 to $25,000. This means that Jewish education will cost about $300,000, after tax dollars, per child. That’s quite a distance from a university tuition loan, where the need is for between one and five years and is most often backed by the government (“Why not amortize day school tuition?” April 16). 

It seems unrealistic to believe that banks will make loans without substantial guarantees or that UJA Federation could possibly act as a guarantor to the necessary degree. So my vote is for confronting reality.

There are many good and valid arguments for organizing the community to “fight city hall” and work for a justified provincial contribution toward the secular portion of the education offered by the Jewish day schools. It will not be an easy struggle, as I foresee the most difficult resistance will be from our own community; from those who wish to fit in; from those whose principles dictate that preserving Jewish identity is no longer of consequence; from those who view Jewish education as a privilege without understanding its long-run necessity for Jewish preservation; and from those in our community who have political power, but will not spend it for this enterprise.

It is, however, a worthwhile struggle. The issue now is to find a David to lead us in battle with this Goliath and the Philistines. 

Joe Kislowicz
Toronto

Signs of the times 

I very distinctly remember seeing “No Jews no dogs” on a hotel in the New Toronto/Long Branch area in the late 1930s (“‘No dogs, no Jews’: no evidence,” April 9). I was about 10 at the time. 

Seymour Tobe
Toronto