MONTREAL —  About 50 people attended a recent afternoon and evening of consultation on new ways for Canadian Jews to bring Jewish humanitarian relief and advocacy to the developing world regardless of race, religion or nationality.

Conference co-chairs Reisa Teitelbaum and Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, and others were brainstorming as part of the effort to create a Canadian entity modelled on the American Jewish World Service (AJWS).

The AJWS is an international organization that, its website states, fights poverty, hunger and disease in the developing world through on-the-ground and advocacy work, out of the Jewish imperative of tikkun olam (repairing the world).

“We have had a relationship [with AJWS] and been meeting for the last two years on this,” Jedwab said at the opening session.

AJWS director of development, Riva Silverman, spoke, even though her organization has not yet explicitly endorsed the creation of a Canadian namesake.

“They are very enthusiastic, but have told me they are waiting for us to get more off the ground,” Jedwab told The CJN.

At this point, the Canadian group is called the Canadian Jewish Association for International Development (CJ-AIDE), but it has also incorporated the name Canadian Jewish World Service.

Those supporting the endeavour include former Superior Court justice Hebert Marx, and Barbara Seal, national president of Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University.

“I think this conference brought us closer to the goal,” Marx told The CJN. “A lot of people from across Canada were there, and I think it’s closer to fruition.”

Among the participants were representatives of both Canadian and American Jewish groups with experience in charitable and humanitarian works.

They included UIA Federations Canada’s CEO Linda Kislowicz, national March of the Living director Eli Rubenstein and national director of the Canada-Israel Experience Michael Soberman. Jedwab said, however, that it’s not yet clear what role – if any – UIA Canada might play in regard to the new association.

Others included Will Recant, senior vice-president of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; AIDS researcher Mark Wainberg; Toronto’s Avrum Rosensweig, founder and president of Ve’ahavta, the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee, and Canadian Jewish youths who have been directly involved in relief efforts in such regions as India and Africa.

What makes the new Canadian entity unique, Jedwab said, is the fact that, like the AJWS, it would have people “on the ground” in developing nations doing projects and performing advocacy work as Jews.

Recipients of support in developing nations would be aware that it was coming from Jewish sources, he said.

“We are looking to create an organization that is branded Jewish.”

While the terms of reference of Ve’ahavta sound similar to those of the new association, Jedwab said, Ve’ahavta is less national in scope and does not perform advocacy work.

According to material handed out at the conference, the AJWS is the “template” for the Canadian association. Among the Canadian priorities will be to mobilize strategic alliances, build future Canadian Jewish community leaders, strengthen and modernize Canada’s Jewish community though new outreach, as well as advocate and educate.

But before work can begin on this ambitious agenda, much remains to be done. Jedwab said the next year will be spent developing a “blueprint” and targeting specific projects.

The group will also seek funding from individual and corporate sources, Marx said.

The association will need to identify at least two specific projects, have charitable status and be up and running for at least six months to be eligible for funding from Ottawa, Jedwab said.

At the consultation, Silverman recalled that about 25 years ago, a group of people “much like yourselves, [asked]: What are we North American Jews to do with all our power, security and wealth?”

The answer was AJWS, which now operates in 36 countries and has shown tremendous results in “giving people an opportunity to help themselves – one individual, one family, one community at a time,” she said.

Jedwab said he is “most touched” by the heartfelt and obvious willingness of young people to be part of the Jewish obligation to serve humanity.