I was on the JIAS board for ten years, and was the president throughout 1989-1991. In 2007, the year before the Ometz merger, I was asked to sit on the board again for another year.
In relating my years with JIAS, I remember that the years surrounding my presidency were years of significant change in immigration in Canada and our community. JIAS initiated the “creation” of the Ethiopian community that now exists in Montreal –mainly as teenage students. The Montreal community agreed to sponsor 100 Russian Families which was also a shared government effort; the Canadian Jewish community was split between supporting more immigration to Canada and directing new immigrants to Israel. These were interesting and challenging times. As a prior board member for 8 years, most of the activities had commenced under prior presidents and concluded or still transitioned under me. It took a great deal of co-ordination between our well trained staff and many agencies to make it happen. JIAS, in many ways, was a transitional agency for immigrants. Our budget was at the will of the community and the politics of the day regarding immigration to Canada. We may have been the face of the community at the airport and in pre-entry into Canada, but very quickly the other social agencies were involved. I was an active proponent of a more proactive immigration policy with the ideology of building the depleting population with immigration and integration policy. It was not a popular stance amongst the majority opinion of the day which seemed to favour making Aliyah instead.
Under my leadership we worked on a few different local projects, the most enduring was effecting the creation of Le Mercaz. Prior to Le Mercaz, there existed a “JIAS Coat/Clothing Room” where immigrants could come and get winter coats and other items of clothing. As nominal as it may seem, people and companies would donate new and old clothes that were in good shape; donating to JIAS to help the immigrants. For me, this was the only connection many in the community had to JIAS. It was informal and a project for charity event at many schools, but it was a connection and let families use the phrase “JIAS Clothing Room” when talking of charity and community. It was closed down during the early 80s but many of us felt strongly that there should be another similar service that could aid both new immigrants and the larger community to JIAS. We quickly initiated the project and found a location. As we were connecting to other social agencies, the Community took over and funded and named it “Le Mercaz “. We had also envisioned combining it with corporate support and creating a “trade school” for tailoring, carpentry, upholstery, electrical repairs, etc. This unfortunately did not happen.
One of my favourite memories was the creation of “show and tell” at our annual meetings. We started having immigrants tell their stories at the annual meeting. Most of them brought tears to everyone; stories of people who crossed mountains to escape their country, describing their process and resettlement in Montreal, and how the community helped them; young artists on their way to professional careers playing their instruments, and many other heroic stories.
Living in Montreal, we were all immigrants at some point. We’ve set our roots here. Being an immigrant can be very isolating, and we shouldn’t forget that thanks to our families’ choices and hardships we have the luxury of being Canadian and having our homes in this wonderful community.
I know that the merger with Ometz has provided new and more efficient services and is continuing the JIAS role in building the community. Being president of JIAS was the most fulfilling opportunity I have had to participate in our community.
