Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver today.
Ben Mizrachi, a young Vancouver man who once wore a hockey jersey to prayers in Israel during an international field trip with his Jewish high school class, was among those killed when Hamas, the militant Islamist group, raided a dance party being held near the Palestinian enclave of Gaza over the weekend.
The 22-year-old, who was raised in Vancouver’s tight-knit Jewish community, left to serve in the Israeli army soon after graduating from Vancouver’s King David High School in 2018.
Mizrachi is one of two Canadians confirmed killed at the desert rave, which was one of the militants’ first targets during their attacks on Israeli communities. Alexandre Look, 33, of Montreal, is the other Canadian known to have been killed. Some 200 other people died at the festival.
Russ Klein, the head of King David High School, posted on the school’s social media that his former student was “full of life.”
“Ben was a friend to everyone and was so proud of his service” in the Israel Defense Forces, Mr. Klein wrote. “One of my fondest memories is being with Ben on the King David Grade 8 trip to Israel 10 years ago, watching him daven at sunrise atop Masada, wearing his Kevin Bieksa Canucks jersey.”
Global Affairs Canada has said at least three other Canadians are believed to be missing in Israel.
Harel Lapidot, a Canadian citizen living in Israel, said his niece Tiferet Lapidot, 22, was kidnapped from the dance party. Her family is pleading for Ottawa’s intervention. Tiferet’s father is a Canadian citizen, born in Regina, though Tiferet has spent her life in Israel.
“At nine o’clock on Saturday morning she called her mother and told her that terrorists are all over,” Harel said in an interview. “Police have detected her phone in Gaza; the same thing with a phone of her friend.”
Harel said his family is asking that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his officials to do their utmost to secure his niece’s freedom.
“My mother used to tell me that once a Canadian, always a Canadian,” he said.
Vivian Silver’s family fears she is also one of the dozens of people Hamas is believed to be holding hostage. Her son, Yonathan Zeigen, told The Globe and Mail he was speaking by phone with his mother when he realized violence was intensifying on the streets outside her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the border with Gaza.
“I heard shots right outside the window. So we decided it’s better not to speak, so they don’t know she’s there,” said Mr. Zeigen, who lives in Tel Aviv with his family. “We wrote messages up to the point she told me they were inside the house. And that was it.”
The family has not heard anything further from Ms. Silver, a 74-year-old grandmother of four, born in Winnipeg. She has lived in Israel since 1974, but still has family across Canada.
Vancouver-based columnist Marsha Lederman, whose parents survived the Holocaust, and who has written a book about her family’s resulting intergenerational trauma, writes in The Globe that few with ties to Israel are doing well in the aftermath of the weekend’s attacks.
“Many Jews are descended from Holocaust survivors, victims of pogroms, and other violent campaigns against our ancestors who were targeted because they were Jewish. My parents were Holocaust survivors and I promise you the inherited trauma is real. I have spent my life having nightmares about being hunted, hiding for my life,” Lederman writes.
“So, no, your Jewish friends are not doing okay,” she continues.
“Your Palestinian friends, who are also the victims of intergenerational and current trauma, are not doing okay either. They are bracing for what’s to come. It’s going to be awful.
“It is awful. For all of us.
“Shalom. Salaam. Peace.”
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.