Workshop 7: Purim Party and the Last Meeting Before JCM! by Emily Cohen

This past Sunday was our last workshop before the Israelis come to Montreal and it could not have worked out better!

This workshop was at the Adath synagogue, unlike the other workshops so far which were held at the Y, so that we could spend the first half volunteering at the Purim party. Most of us dressed up for the occasion. Us girls had planned a group costume: we were the rainbow and I had the honour of being pink.

We helped out with the party doing various tasks such as making hamentaschen, playing with the kids and supervising the bouncy castle. Then we went downstairs for the serious part of the workshop.

Avital, who recently came back from her visit home to Israel, gave us a talk about culture gaps between Israel and Canada, seeing as we are going to meet the Israelis very soon. It started off where we had papers on which we wrote phrases that represented ways to describe people and made two columns, one for Israel and one for Canada. We wrote things along the lines of “always says sorry”, “never apologizes”, “sleeps a lot”, “doesn’t sleep a lot”, “always on time”, “never on time”. After having made two long columns, we went over them and realized that, omitting “hockey”, most of the things we wrote were stereotypes.

Avital then told us about a study conducted with IBM employees around the world, including Canadians and Israelis, that looked at how people were different in certain ways that are often overlooked. We learned that the study looked at many aspects including Power Distance in the different countries. Power Distance means the extent to which lower ranking individuals accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. Canada had one of the highest Power Distance percentages which led to the stereotype of “always on time”, while Israelis had a very low Power Distance percentage which is why they might be stereotyped as "pushy". Another big discrepancy was found in the Individualism percentages - where Canada was much higher than Israel. From this we understood that Israelis are more likely to think about what is best for the group then for themselves individually when making decisions. We discussed the impact that these qualities could have on Diller cohorts. What she had to say was very interesting and we hope to get her back again soon!

After that program we took some time to go over the JCM schedule and work on our assignments. The schedule seems packed and everyone was working hard. The excitement is brewing and we cannot wait to meet the Israelis. We’re counting down the days to April 7^th… 

By Emily Cohen

Workshop 6: BDS and Preparing for JCM by Ian Langleben

The workshop we had last Sunday was both very interesting and a lot of fun. Two McGill students came in to speak to us about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and what happened in recent weeks at McGill -- a motion to support BDS passed at the most recent Students' Society of McGill University General Assembly, but did not subsequently pass after the online student vote. Unfortunately there was also a rise in anti-semitic statements and sentiments during this time.

We discussed the reasons many social justice groups (such as feminists, black activists, etc) tend to side with this movement: it seems that BDS has identified itself as being among this class of activist groups.

We discussed how even though the underlying principles of BDS – equal rights and support to the Palestinian people – were commendable from a moral standpoint, the BDS movement in fact has more a negative effect on them, as it causes industries that supply the Palestinians with jobs to close (e.g. Sodastream). Additionally, our guest speakers explained that the BDS movement does not promote discussion or peace, and rather aims to wipe Israel off the map completely. After discussing an article about BDS at McGill, we spent time in small groups coming up with ways that we would create campaigns to fight this movement. Overall, the discussion was very interesting.

After a break, we made creamy perfect hummus dip. Or, at least, we tried! We followed a recipe that Moriel had provided. However, after following it and putting the right amount of each ingredient into the blender, we found that it didn’t quite match our standards for taste. Oh, well. Either way, we had a lot of fun making it, and it will only be a few months before we can get the real thing in Israel!

Finally, our parents came for an info session on the upcoming Jewish Community Mifgash between our community and our sister community, Be’er Sheva-B'nei Shimon. Everybody is very excited for the Mifgash, and we’re all looking forward to hosting the Israelis!