A Visit ot MaRS - The Startup Incubator of Toronto
by Richard Gray

The Wealth Conference at MaRS on innovation in Canada opened our eyes to investment opportunities, to the wealth and infrastructure being put into new ideas and most importantly to the energy, enthusiasm, discipline, sweat capital and passion behind these new ventures. FJMC and Foundation have a smattering of it.  I would posit that we are strongest in the personal commitments and weakest in the at-risk seed money required to fund the infrastructure and the new and renewing ventures whose success will provide each of us with enhanced legacy.   So many of us are not willing to bet on FJMC and not willing to not-win all the time. Many MaRS startups were described as starting in their father’s garage, then financed through friends, and finally through venture capitalists.  Each one participating with a different kind of risk:  Sweat capital, Family, Friends, Financiers.  How many ways are you investing in FJMC as infrastructure and innovator to Conservative Judaism?  What have you put into practice lately?

And for a bit of motivation:

Arnie Miller…past regional president, New England asks:

With the FJMC Toronto Convention fresh in our mind, please take a moment to email me (miller.arnold@comcast.net) or call me (Cell/Text  617 877 0250)

• "How FJMC personally impacts your life”…(beyond your Men’s Club/B’hood)
• "What you recognize is the good FJMC does for Conservative/Masorti Judaism”

Bikur Cholim / Visiting The Sick
Buidling Ourselves and Our Communities, One Act of Kindness at a Time
by Rechel Schoenfeld

Visiting the sick means I care, I remember you. You are not alone or forgotten. Whether it’s checking in on a family member who’s ill, your upstairs neighbor, a congregant in the synagogue, or someone you’ve never met before in a hospital or residence. Bikur cholim provides us each with an enormous opportunity and responsibility.
 
As illness is part of the human condition we invariably all know someone, or will know someone, who is ill. And at the same time, each individual’s experience of illness is unique and can feel isolating.  In the fabric of the world God has woven an opportunity for us to remember, to consider those who are sick (whether it’s a slight feeling ‘under the weather,’ or a serious illness), with the mitzvah of bikur cholim. We are actually enjoined, ‘thou shalt show up!’ 
 
Some opinions state that bikur cholim is a biblical mitzvah of “you shall walk in His ways” (Deuteronomy 28) In Genesis 18 we encounter Abraham, recuperating from his bris/circumcision at an advanced age and it is God who visits him, who sets the standard. [Very instructively, what does God actually do in that visit? No written conversation is recorded. G-d ‘simply’ shows up to offer His presence. In other words, “just go, be there, the sick need me, they need us.” Elie Wiesel in © Turn to Me, the bikur cholim documentary].
 
Maimonides says bikur cholim is a rabbinical commandment and an aspect of “You shall love your fellow as yourself.”(Leviticus 19). The Talmud teaches: These are the precepts whose fruits a person enjoys in this world but whose principal remains intact for him in the World to Come, and amongst them are visiting the sick and acts of lovingkindness. 
 
We know that visiting the sick is chicken soup for the soul. Whereas doctors can help cure the body, social support heals and nurtures the soul. There have been more and more studies on social support and resilience and varied studies that discuss the value of social support in the perception of pain as well as ones that link outcome from particular procedures with the patient’s knowledge of social support being available.
 
A card, a phone call, a text, a visit, it feels good to be remembered, to be thought of, so why a mitzvah? Why are we instructed to do it? Because it is not always so simple. We might struggle in finding the right words, making the time, or being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, as we face our own vulnerability and mortality. We fulfill the mitzvah because it is the right thing to do, and we grow and gain from the experience. Visiting can feel so very rewarding, in fact there is a ‘helper’s high,’ that can be experienced, and as we know the Torah teaches “according to the effort is the reward.’ The energy derived from rush of endorphins reported after visiting contributes to sense of wellbeing.Visiting the sick enhances the quality of life for the giver and receiver (especially where chocolate may not be an option)! A deep satisfaction can come from knowing you are doing what’s needed and stretching yourself in the act.
 
There are also endless ways to communicate caring that can also use one’s talents and interests, playing a musical instrument or singing with someone; running an errand;  bringing over dinner;  doing homework with a child; playing a game, reading them a book, meditating together, praying with, or on someone’s behalf, or “just” being there with the gift of your presence. Ever heard of mitzvah clowning? You can ‘clown around’ and bring comfort as well. There are many skills one can learn that will enhance one’s knowledge and comfort level with the mitzvah.   
 
To quote a long time, devoted bikur cholim visitor: “These acts of chesedshould not be taken for granted because they enhance communal experience and feelings of inclusiveness.  Each of us individually can give so much to our community. Each persondoing their part, is the HEART and SOULof the synagogue.”
 
The Jewish Board's Rabbi Isaac N. Trainin Bikur Cholim Coordinating Council hosts an Annual Conference on Visiting the Sick each autumn where participants can learn from inspirational keynote speakers and choose from amongst many practical, skill building workshops.  The 30th Anniversary Conference, Community at Its Best: Enhancing Our Life and the Lives of those we Visitwill be on Sunday, November 10, 2019 at UJA-Federation of NY. Please email jcs@jbfcs.orgfor more information.
 
The Rabbi Isaac N. Trainin Bikur Cholim Coordinating Council is a program of The Jewish Board, Jewish Community Services (JCS). JCS integrates expertise in social work with spiritual care, providing a broad range of services, year-round, to Jewish organizations, individuals, and families facing life's challenges and transitions.  For more information about Bikur Cholim, please visit: www.jewishboard.org/bikurcholim.

Rechel Schoenfeld is Program Director, MSW, Rabbi Isaac N. Trainin Bikur Cholim Coordinating Council, NY of The Jewish Board.

Jews & Science Fiction
by Daniel M. Kimmel

Along about the time I was doing my third story on a prominent science fiction author for a Jewish weekly, the editor asked me, “What is it with Jews and science fiction?”

Although, quite obviously, most people in the field are not Jewish, there are a sizable number who are. Isaac Asimov, whose centennial will be celebrated next January, was Jewish although he was decidedly secular. Other past and present authors include Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, David Brin, William Tenn, Jane Yolen, Ellen Kushner, Robert Sheckley, Avram Davidson, and Neil Gaiman. Indeed, magazine publisher Hugo Gernsback, who created the first science fiction magazine with “Amazing Stories” in 1926, is considered of such importance that the awards for the best works of the year given at the annual World Science Fiction Convention are known as the Hugos.
 
Not all embraced the faith of their fathers, but the influences can often be seen. Brin, whose father ran Jewish newspapers in California, told me that his novel Kiln People– where people can create temporary forms of themselves to undertake certain tasks – was influenced by stories of the Golem. Tenn recalled using Yiddish words in some of his stories when he needed something in an “alien” language. He pointed it out to his editor, who was also Jewish, who responded by removing the words from one story. After that, the author said, he did not volunteer such information and they breezed by.
 
It’s easy to see why there is a Jewish affinity for the genre. Science fiction is a literature of ideas, of “what if?” The notions that they play with are similar to the Talmudic rabbis debating points of Jewish law with sometimes fantastic hypotheticals. Like two young Jewish men – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – who created the original “Superman” comic book character in the 1930s, it also allows those who may feel outsiders to address their concerns through other means.
 
Sometimes even mainstream authors such as Bernard Malamud, Marge Piercy, and Philip Roth dabbled in the field. In Roth’s “alternate history,” The Plot Against America, he places his own family in a 1940s America where Charles Lindbergh is elected president.
 
In my own latest novel, Father of the Bride of Frankenstein, the monster faces a number of modern problems starting with planning to marry into a Jewish family. Intended as a comic tale, I had the interesting task of making the father, the narrator of the story, less knowledgeable about Jewish beliefs and practices than I am, as the family navigates wedding plans, protests, legal and medical challenges… and Frank, the monster, deciding he wants to convert.
 
This barely scratches the surface of Jews who’ve made a mark in the field including comic book legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, “Star Trek” actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling. If you’re interested in exploring the Jewish aspect of science fiction, the perfect place to start is the classic anthology Wandering Stars,which includes Tenn’s “On Venus Do We Have a Rabbi.”

Daniel M. Kimmel is a movie critic and author who was editor of The Jewish Advocatein Boston and served ten years as Emcee for the New England Region of FJMC.