The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, June 11, 1992-Page 3
Singles groups reach out
By BEN ROSE
TORONTO-
A canoe trip involving 40 Jewish singles during which it rained most of the time turned out to be a most successful event, a forum at the Canadian Jewish Congress was told recently.
"Maybe we Should send more people out in canoes in the rain,"Yetta Nashman, of Toronto, founder of the Nashman Group for Jewish Singles and ccHlirector of Camp Wahanowin, said.
The Nashman Group has attracted 1,000 young men and women to its events, most of which are held in private homes, and six marriages have resulted, she said.
The Group does not receive grants or community funding.
"Our members are the brightest and the bestj" she said. '-They are young professionals, incredibly successful, but under the stigma of being smgle. They are tired of the bar scene and of the dances. As one man said to me 'I've done six months of blind dating at this one brunch.' "
Single parents among the group have taken to organizing events for themselves.
In Winnipeg the emphasis is on arranging events which keep singles involved with couples and with the community, Ellen Fleishman said. "Our aim is to take away the singles stigma and help singles to keep contact with married friends," she said.
There are 3,000 Jewish students on campus at the University of Western Ontario and the number is growing, Francis Ender, of the Ijondon Jewish Community Council, said.
There is a singles group in London with 40 to 45 members, but only 10 are active attenders of events.
In the Reform Temple to which she belongs, Enders said, 30 to 35 percent of the families are mixed marriages.
The Jewish community of Mon-
treal, which has already shnmk from 130,000 to 85,000 since 1976, faces further erosion of young people if Quebec separates, Glenn J. Naishen, a Cote Ste Luc councillor, and president of the Jewish Adult Programming Society, said.
He said a poll revealed that 80 percent of Anglophones will leave the province if there is separation and predicted this would ap^to the Jewish population as well.
The Society, vy^ch has a brandi in Toronto, was founded in 1987 and organizes monthly parties, seminars, lectures, sporting and recreational events for singles and couples.
Since 25 percent of Jews in Montreal ire marrying outside the faith, assimilation has become a "tqp priority" for the Society, Nashen said.
In the discussion period, Jacqueline Swartz said:"There is a frightening antagonism between Jewish men and women and this problem has-been addressed."
Richard Bassett said there should be courses on marriage and relationships in the Jewish Day schools.
Moderator Robert (Eli) Rubenstein said it is a paradox that as Canadian society becomes more open it is more difficult for young Jewish people to meet each otfier.
lans examine rescue
TORONTO -
Yale University arts student Beth-El Tilahun and Concordia University engineering student Natan Assefe were the panelists at the Ethiopian Jewry workshop at the recent Canadian Jewish Congress Plenary in Toronto, presenting their perspective on the rescue and resettlement of Ethiopian Jews, referred to as the Ethiopian Jewish miracle.
The two university students had special insight into the matter as they were both part of the miracle, both being Ethiopian Jews bom in Ethiopia and coming directly to Canada and resettling in Montreal under Jewish conununity auspices.
With respect to successful resettlement and integration, Tilahun acknowledged the importance of providing food, shelter, language training, job training, education and general orientation regarding the host conmiunity. However, she emphasized the importance of the new arrivals to know, respect, and maintain a large measure of their native culture and traditions.
"In order to move successfully in integrating into the host culture," she said, "it is important to know who you are and where you are commg from. It is also important for the host culmre to learn about the culture and
traditions of the new arrivals in order to achieve true integration and mutual respect."
Assetas, bom and raised in the mral village of Woleka in the remote province of Gondar, was a 17-year-old high school graduate upon arrival in Montreal.
At first he found virtually everything confusing and new. He expressed particular appreciation to the Hillel college students for their warm welcome, their friendship and for their efforts in involving him and other young Ethiopian arrivals in many activities.
Asseta also Volunteered that following the competion of his engineering education and training, he plans to join his parents, siblings, and large extended femily in Israel.
Tilahun, bom and raised in the city of Addis Ababa, arrived in Montreal when she was only 8. As a student at Jewish People's and Peretz Schools and Bialik High School, she became fully integrated in the local Jewish community and was relatively untroubled by questions of skin color. Upon arrival at. Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where she has just completed her second year as an arts student, she was shocked to discover some of the realities of the tensions between black and white student
body in general and between die black and Jewish student organizations in particular in the United States.
As the only black Jew on campus, she found that the w^ to cope with the enormous tensions was to withdraw from ivoivement in the organized groups and to find her friends and colleagues on an individual basis. Unfortunately, to the Black Student Association members, she, as a Jew, was not fully accepted. Frwn the local Hillel students, she, as a black person, sensed a certain distancing or reticence from them, in contrast to the normal and warm welcome she had experienced in Montreal.
In response to a question as to where they would likely find their marriage mates, the question seemed premature to the young university sm-dents. However, Assefa stated that in accordance with Ethiopian tradition, he expect^ his parents to either choosee his future wife or at least approve of her, thereby displaying the strong influence of the traditional rural village Ufe which he led until the age of 17 Tilahun inunediately reacted with a loud "no way!"
The workshop moderator was Stan Cytrynbaum, who for 11 years has served as national chair of the CJC Committee for Ethiopian Jewry.
Quebec not a threat to Jews
TORONTO-
Jews are not under any threat from Quebec nationalism, and the Jewish community of Montreal "is not about to close up shop," a McGill university professor said here recently.
But Harold Waller, associate dean of arts at the university, did say that "a lot of young people are voting with their feet and going elsewhere and I think that's a shame.
' 'Jews at best are ambivalent about Quebec nationalism and would Uke to see it contained," Waller said. "French-speaking Jews feel comfortable in the province but are wary and skeptical of the independence project."
Later in the question period of the meeting at Holy Blossom Temple sponsored by the Canadian Jewish "Historical Society, he said: "There is little support for Quebec independence among Jews in Quebec.''
Another speaker. Jack Jedwab, community relations director of fhe Quebec region, Canadian Jewish
Congress, declared: "There is virtually no other place in North America where one can maintain a Jewish identity as well as in Quebec."
Jews can keep a place for themselves in the province if they accept that the majority culture is French, Naim Kattan, former associate director of the Canada Council said.
Described by moderator Rabbi Gunther Plaut as "one of the foremost Jewish personalities in this land," Kattan declared: "The Jewish community can be part of the struggle to keep Quebec French. They can be part of that culture arid make their society an open society, or they can go away, or feel ill at ease or alienated and the worst thing is to feel alienated."
There is anti-Semitism among Frrach-Canadians but Qadbec nationalism as such is not ami-Semitic, Kattan said.
"I can't read the future in Quebec bat the present is confiised.'' he said.
At the University of Quebec in Montreal where he is writer in residence, Kattan said that during die last few months his students have been morose and indifferent. "Young people take it for granted that Queb^ is autonomous already."
Though the number of Jews in the age group 25-40 is decUning, Waller said the Jewish community of Montreal "is vibrant and viable."
He conceded that the "means to raise funds" is declining sharply .There^ will be a higher percentage of Fran<x>i^nes in the community in the future, he said.
"There is a future for some Jews in Quebec, and a future for some Jews elsewhere. We will have a $inaUar community and a smallier proppition of Angl(^^nes."
lltere is no perception among the Jews of Qudiec that anti-Semitism in Qudwc is greater than in the rest of Canada, Jedwab said. Any claims of this kind are "gross distortions."
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