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COMMUNITIES
IN TRANSITION
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GROWTH IN NUMBER AND DIVERSITY OF ORGANIZATIONS During more than a century of growth in the Jewish community of Greater Vancouver, there have been unifying forces as well as forces that have led to friction. In some cases, the community has pooled its resources to invest in community-wide agencies. At other times it has diversified. The Jewish Community Centre has long been a focal point for the community, especially in the 1960s when it moved to 41st and Oak in the Oakridge area. Major additions in the 1990s increased its size and facilities. By then, however, the expansion of the Jewish population to the suburbs led some to question the centralization of Jewish community organizations in the Centre and the heavy investment of capital in a part of town where many Jews could not afford to live. |
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In an effort to coordinate community planning, fundraising and leadership development, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver was founded in 1985, supplanting several older coordinating bodies. "The Federation" manages the Combined Jewish Appeal - the community's annual fund drive for local projects and Israel, the Jewish Community Foundation and the new Women's Endowment Fund. Volunteers are essential to the success of the organization. |
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JEWISH EDUCATION AND YOUTH ACTIVITIES The Vancouver Talmud Torah worked hard to satisfy the needs of everyone wanting a Jewish day school education for their children. It expanded in the second half of the twentieth century, but by the 1990s, other day schools had been established in response to demographics or religious needs, e.g., the Orthodox Vancouver Hebrew Academy and the traditional Richmond Jewish Day School. A fulltime Jewish high school has existed for a number of years. It recently amalgamated with the Talmud Torah to expand its student base and appeal to the less Orthodox oriented. |
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Many of the synagogues have long had after-school Judaic programs. Over the last thirty years, regular classes have also been instituted in the suburbs, e.g., in Richmond, on the North Shore and in Burquest (Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam and the Valley). In addition, adult classes are held in all areas with identified Jewish community groups. |
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There is also a strong network of youth and student organizations, which are frequently offshoots of various communal organizations. The Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements run youth groups for various age groups of pre-university students. Habonim Dror, a left-leaning Zionist youth organization, runs programs for young Jews from pre-adolescent years through university. Summer and year long programs in Israel are an important component of their educational agenda. Habonim also runs Camp Miriam, a successful summer camp on BC's Gabriola Island founded in 1948. The North American office of Habonim has over the past ten years been run by a number of Vancouver graduates of Habonim Dror. There are a number of other summer camps, both day and overnight programs. The overnight Camp Hatikvah has been in Oyama, B.C. since 1956, but had existed under various names and in various forms since the late 1920s. It is Jewish in its orientation, and attracts a wide-range of Jewish campers, but does not have a specific political or religious ideology. |
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Student life on the campuses of BC's post secondary institutions is enhanced by the Vancouver B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation. Affiliated with its North American-wide student organization, but funded largely from local sources, BC Hillel offers cultural and social programming with a view to enriching the Jewish lives of its various members of the campus community, especially undergraduate students. In its early days (1940s-1950s), and again in the late 1980s to the present, Hillel has been (and is), recalls Dorothy Morris Grad, "the place to be for Jewish students on campus." |
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COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND JEWISH IDENTITY Along with rapid growth on the education front, many new synagogues and community groups have been founded over the past thirty years, based on both demographic need and differences in religious practise. To meet the demands of this burgeoning community, old agencies expanded and new agencies were established. This structural growth in the Greater Vancouver Jewish community is reflected in other Jewish communities around the province. Many of these religious, educational, social service and philanthropic organizations can be viewed on a community website hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. A similar site for Vancouver Island can be found at http://vvv.com/home/jccv/. For other community links, look under "Other Resources" on this site. |
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I. RELIGIOUS II. ZIONISM, SOCIALISM AND HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION III. SOCIAL SERVICES AND COMMUNAL ASSOCIATIONS |
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OTHER OUTLYING AREAS Jews not associated with community groups live throughout BC in places such as Terrace, Kitimat and Prince Rupert in the north and in the East Kootenays, Cranbrook, Fernie, Kimberley and Sparwood. Each of these cities or small towns has several Jewish families not always aware of the other Jews living in the region, or interested in expressing their Judaism. For those who want some Yiddishkeit ("Jewishness") in their lives, the tendency is to travel out to relative's homes for important festivals, or e.g., to make a Passover Seder* or Chanukah* latke (traditional potato pancake) dinner and invite non-Jewish families to share their traditions. |
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CONCLUSIONS The diversity which has characterized the Jewish community of British Columbia will certainly continue. The rapid growth of the BC Jewish population in general, and Vancouver's Jewish community in particular, will perhaps not continue at the pace of the last twenty years, but there can be little doubt that BC will continue to have the third largest Jewish population in the country for quite some time. As the largest Jewish community in the West, Vancouver, and British Columbia should have a distinct voice in the affairs of Jewish Canada in the upcoming years. In order to be effective, the Jewish community of BC will have to engage in a deep and meaningful pursuit of its relationship to Jewish life, and the Jews of eastern Canada, like their non-Jewish counterparts, will have to overcome a central Canadian bias. |
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