Reflections on the Peretz Jewish Anti-Racism Taskforce
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Nearly a year after the project began, the Peretz Jewish Anti-Racism Taskforce shares practical policy recommendations to help our community take meaningful action against racism, antisemitism, and colonialism in pursuit of a better and more beautiful world for all.
The Jewish Anti-Racism Taskforce (J-ART) was created in October 2025 as part of the Discovering Doikayt initiative with a mandate to create concrete policy recommendations for the Peretz Centre to strengthen our capacity for action against racism, internal and external. I was hired to support and facilitate J-ART, beginning with research into existing policy frameworks and recruiting volunteer members to the project. Six committed Peretz members joined and we got to work.
We are proud to share the J-ART report with the Peretz community and other organizations and people who strive for justice and who are concerned with the current climate of anti-migrant xenophobia, proto-fascism and undermining of Indigenous rights and title. Thank you to all the volunteer taskforce members: Annalee Yassi, Claudia Bulaievsky, David Catzel, Erica Mildner, Gyda Chud, and Joanna Garfinkle. Without their earnest efforts across multiple meetings, initiatives and discussions, this project would not have been possible.
Doikayt & Jewish Anti-Racism
Founded in 1945, the Peretz Centre was born from an urgent need to ensure the continuity of Jewish secular humanistic culture and Yiddishkayt in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Over the last 80 years, the Peretz community has sustained a unique space in Vancouver for progressive and modern Jewish learning, culture, and education and the Yiddish language, taking responsibility for continuing the never-ending pursuit of justice and peace.
Our 80th anniversary poses an opportunity to reflect on what has changed over our organization’s history and what still needs to change today.
Importantly, while Jews are a minority in Canada and while anti-Jewish hatred is on the rise alongside hatred of other minorities (Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians), we are no longer marginalized in a systematic way. By systematic, I mean Jews do not face significant structural barriers to accessing education, institutions, or livelihoods on the basis of their Jewish identity, as had once been the case. It is therefore a unique experience to work on anti-racism at Peretz, where the majority of our membership are European descendants but who share ancestral histories of navigating racism, migration, and colonization, alongside other migrant groups.
At the same time, Jews are not a monolithic ethnic identity and though the Peretz’ was founded to promote Yiddish culture rooted in Eastern European traditions, our community at Peretz is wonderfully diverse. As the Peretz Centre grows, so do our definitions of who is part of our community. Many different kinds of Jews and people with an interest in Jewish culture from all around the world have made Vancouver their home and it’s incumbent on the Peretz Centre to expand our understanding of the demographics we serve to include these new voices and stories while retaining the history, philosophy, and core principles on which we were founded 80 years ago.
These changes in conditions and perspectives since our organization began in 1945 spark important questions:
What can we do to strengthen our commitment to and capacity for action against racism, both within our community and in the interest of our community as we combat white supremacy and antisemitism?
How do we work to address systemic power imbalances that lead to inequality in our cultural spaces?
How do we create a richer, more vibrant, and equitable community at Peretz by supporting solidarity with oppressed groups in our society?
How do we face our community's implication in larger social harms, including colonialism, racism, and classism, and seek repair and redress?
How do we defend and uphold the legacy of progressive Jewish politics in Canada?
To approach these questions and try to respond to them, we are guided by the concept of doikayt ("here-ness"), a core principle of the Peretz Centre’s mission that teaches us that the struggle for justice, equity, and mutual liberation must begin right here, in the places where we live and work.
One lesson I’ve learned as project manager for J-ART is that regardless of complications, the path of doikayt starts with a recognition that our own liberation is bound up in the liberation of other minority groups from these systems of oppression. We cannot "go it alone" without exposing ourselves or others to the same violence that racism exerts on other minorities.
Peretz is 80 years old and yet, I’ve learned through this process that we still have so many more horizons left on our journey. We are a broad-based community and yet we have room to expand ourselves to a great deal more people through solidarity, learning, and support.
Social Justice & Doikayt: Policy Recommendations for Progressive Change in the Jewish Community
J-ART’s final report, Social Justice & Doikayt: Policy Recommendations for Progressive Change in the Jewish Community, is a living document. In other words, it is intended to be a basis for decision-making and collective growth that is ongoing.
The first section focuses on maximizing impact beyond the walls of the Peretz Centre itself, to forge strategic partnerships with organizations who have overlapping goals and share a demonstrable commitment to inclusion and equity. Especially important is seeking active solidarity with Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
The second section aims to advance understanding of internal experience through equity audits, inclusive programming (like promoting diverse Jewish cultures beyond the Ashkenazi centre), conflict resolution, and training members on anti-racism and living with discomfort.
The third section emphasizes the importance of building a library of interventions, recommending that Peretz undertake a resource review to ensure that anti-racist material and authors from the global south are represented in our Kirman Library, share knowledge through collaborations with organizations like the Vancouver Public Library to promote progressive Jewish thought, and enshrining Yiddishkayt to connect Yiddish radical history with modern activism.
Lastly, J-ART members also created an appendix to the report with a list of contacts, resources, and references for further reading. A portion of the taskforce’s discretionary budget was used to purchase anti-racist books for the Kirman Library, which are available to Peretz members and the general public.
The full report is available on the Peretz Centre website, or in PDF format (click to download).
Supporting Anti-Racism Education
The taskforce’s activities extended well beyond creating policy recommendations. In our efforts to achieve the goals of the project, the J-ART has produced several important events and opportunities to work towards anti-racism at the Peretz Centre and beyond. The following list is incomplete but demonstrates the important efforts of so many Peretzniks, who have shown up to expand our horizons and engage in meaningful conversations and actions:
A capstone event where the J-ART final report and policy recommendations were shared with the wider community. The event was facilitated through breakout groups and feedback was recorded. (Thanks to Gyda Chud and Claudia Bulaievsky from the taskforce for helping to facilitate and record feedback!)
A detailed survey of the cross-section of Peretzniks who attended the capstone event on their perspective for the path forward for anti-racist work at the Peretz Centre.
An anti-racism training workshop with professional facilitators from RADIUS social innovation hub at SFU to help move from policy recommendations to tangible actions at Peretz, attended by Peretz members and members of the Board of Directors.
An anti-racism educational workshop for two cohorts of Pnei Mitzvah students (one of Peretz’s educational programs for youth ages 10-13), led by Gyda Chud and Claudia Bulaievsky.
A membership motion successfully passed at the Peretz Annual General Meeting to support the “Better Together” campaign led by the Canadian Council for Refugees, a national campaign for migrant and refugee rights.
In addition, the taskforce sponsored three events to support anti-racism education:
Fraytik tsu Nakht (Friday night) cultural shabbes dinner with after-dinner learning on "How Colonization Dismantles Food Systems," presented by taskforce member David Catzel on decolonization and food justice as it relates to Jewish culture.
Fraytik tsu Nakht cultural shabbes with after-dinner learning on "Indigenous Sovereignty, Land Defence, and the Fight Against Ecocide," presented by longtime activist and Peretz member Bob Ages on his experience and analysis of solidarity work with Indigenous self-determination struggles rooted in Jewish secular humanist principles (hosted by taskforce member Erica Mildner).
Revolutionary Yiddish Singalong workshop introducing archival anti-authoritarian Jewish folk songs from the early 20th century, led by local historian and musician Dan Carkner & and Brooklyn-based DJ Chaia.
What’s Next for the Peretz Jewish Anti-Racism Taskforce?
The J-ART project was a great step on a longer journey for the Peretz Centre. The final report of the taskforce has been presented to the Peretz Board of Directors , which will include multiple new projects that pick up the work of the taskforce.
Peretz is a charitable organization with limited staff, a volunteer board, and some motley volunteers, but this project showed me that this community can lead the fight against racism in the Jewish community. It starts by approaching this issue with curiosity, listening to one another, and working together towards a vision of a truly humanist approach to Jewish culture.
The J-ART project was created within the secular humanist vision of the Peretz Centre. We worked to help create a foundation for Peretz to grow, with the goal of being a model for anti-racist and equity-centered values within Jewish cultural and educational spaces across Canada.
We must work to fight anti-Jewish hatred and racism by learning from and sharing in the struggle for social justice. Now is a crucial time for Jews of conscience to act in solidarity with other minorities to preserve dignity and respect for all.
We acknowledge the support of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation with funding provided by the Government of Canada.
About the Author
Omri Haiven is a grassroots community organizer, communicator, and researcher. From July 2025 to June 2026, he facilitated and supported the work of the Peretz Jewish Anti-Racism Taskforce's volunteer members, sharing his expertise in community-building, knowledge mobilization, political advocacy, and research.
Omri has worked and volunteered in a range of initiatives connected to systemic change over the years, including climate justice, economic justice, racial justice, Indigenous solidarity, food and energy sovereignty, and anti-oppression education. His Masters (M.A.) project through the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU) focused on agrivoltaics (the integration of solar panels with farming) through a political-economic lens, aiming to uncover how we can solve both energy and food security problems while promoting peri-urban economic development. In addition to his role as J-ART project manager, Omri is the Agrivoltaics Policy & Community Engagement Coordinator with the Clean Energy Research Group (CERG) at SFU and an active member of the Peretz community.
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