Interview with Chagai Shrem and Evyatar Kerner

Chagai Shrem and Evyatar Kerner are shlichim (Israeli educational emissaries) working with the Jewish community in Montreal. In this interview, they share their personal backgrounds, their impressions of Jewish life in Montreal, and the message they hope to convey to the Jews of Montreal.

Chagai

My name is Chagai Shrem. I’m twenty-three years old and I live in a small town called Hashmonaim. I studied for five years in a Hesder Yeshiva in Karnei Shomron, and during that time I also completed a degree in education. I believe my mission in this world is to be an educator and to influence the next generation of the Jewish people. I came here to learn a different educational culture, and also to share the unique spirit of the Land of Israel.

Evyatar

My name is Evyatar Kerner and I live in Modi’in, Israel. After five years of Torah study, I felt a strong desire to give back and contribute outward. After receiving so much from the system, I came to Montreal as a shaliach to work with students in Jewish schools and share my connection to Israel and Jewish life. My mission is to strengthen the bond between young Jews here and in Israel, and to show them the beauty and vitality of living a Jewish life with pride and joy.

How was your experience with the Montreal Jewish community? 

Evyatar: Every year the community welcomes a new group of shlichim. And every year, the families here embrace them. It's really touching to see how they open their homes and their hearts to them. When we're working with the students, we see all the challenges of keeping their identity as a jew in a non-Jewish environment. It's really impressive to see them staying firm in their ideas and their religion with a lot of anti-Semitism around them. They have a lot of public pressure on them and they are still true to their identity. When I say Montreal, I see a big hug and a big welcoming. The community here is the greatest community that I ever had the privilege of visiting.

Chagai: It was crazy for us. We came to a place where we didn’t know anyone, and people welcomed us in such a beautiful way, with so much kindness. In the beginning, we didn't know anyone, and they said, “if you need something, just call and we will for sure help you”. Sometimes we were stuck and we needed help. For example, before Shabbat, we made a mistake and realized we didn’t have a place to eat. At two o’clock, right before Shabbat, we had to arrange somewhere to go. After five minutes and two phone calls, we already had places to eat. How people treated us in the community was so amazing. 

If you could describe the (Jewish) community in one word what word would it be? 

Chagai: Kindness. There’s so much kindness. Everyone that we met said, “if you need something, you can make a phone call and we are going to help you”. 

Evyatar: The Jews of Montreal are like a family. It's like a community. You feel it in your blood. You're embracing your culture. We were in Montreal only for two months, and we felt it.

What are some values or some ways of life that you find present in Israel but not as common in Montreal? 

Chagai: I think it’s the difference between the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. In Israel, it doesn’t matter at all. You are friends with everyone.
In Montreal, I spoke with one of the students and she said that she’s going to marry a Moroccan. And I said, “Okay… why?”
In Israel, you don’t have this. You can marry a Yemenite or Ashkenazi, it doesn’t matter, because I see you for who you are and what your personality is.

Evyatar: When we got to Montreal we saw the guard of the shul didn’t have a gun. In Israel, you have to defend yourself so you have a weapon. Everybody has a weapon. In Canada, no one has to have a gun. It's not frightening, because we felt very safe in Canada. It was very strange to go from a country where a lot of people have guns to a country where only the Secret Service or elite teams have guns. 

Did you grow up in a religious, traditional, or more secular, Jewish environment?

Chagai: My mom came from Russia and my dad was born in Israel. They were both not religious. My father got married in his 40s so they saw how his friends were raising their kids. He wanted to raise his kids in a different way. When my older sister was born, my parents did chozra be'teshuva together. They became closer, and because I’m the youngest, I was raised in a very religious community. I grew up in a religious area, but because my sister, my mother, and my dad did chozer b’teshuva, I have cousins and family members who are not religious. 

Evyatar: I grew up in Modi’in. I don't think I can say that it's a religious place. We have 70% non-Jews, non-religious, and 30% religious.  In Modi’in, we have very open discussions between religious and non-religious people about how to manage the city. For example, a lot of people get offended when the shops are not open on Shabbat. I think everybody is a little traumatized from religion so they can't go to the middle. Usually when people don't have boundaries and don't know what to do or what to say, they go to one side. They have to go to one side and I think this is a big problem for us; we can't embrace the middle. The middle is the greatness, I think. 

How would you compare the Jewish community to the Israeli community? 

Evyatar: In Israel, you have your family and this is your tribe. In Canada you have the community, it's like the big family of all the Jews in Montreal. You feel it in Chabad that every Jew is welcoming. You feel it in the community of the Shuls that everybody is welcomed and is invited to come. In Israel, you have your family, your family friends, but you don't have this community. We have to bring this to Israel. One example of this is, every Friday, our neighbors made a Shnitzelim for herself, for her family, but she realized that she had a shlichim downstairs. So every Friday she took a few Shnitzelim and she brought some for us before Shabbat. We could feel that we were not neighbors, we were family. 

Do you have any message or piece of advice you'd like to share with the Jewish community in Montreal? 

Evyatar: Visit Israel. I think this is the most important thing that they need to understand. A lot of people are encouraged to do Aliyah but they don't understand the effort to do Aliyah. When you get to Israel and you see the happiness, culture and people in Israel, you get attached to it. 

Chagai: Come to Israel. Now that I got exposed to different communities in the North of the US, I’ve heard speeches about why you should be American and stay in the US. That this is the place to stay in to make a difference for the nation of Israel. I never hear this in Montreal. It's like the whole community in Montreal agrees that we need to come to Israel. And now it's the first time that I hear “I am Jewish, but I am American and my place is the U.S. and this is how I like helping the Jewish people”. Maybe they have some truth when they say they can help us in a lot of ways, but to say that the US is the place for the Jews to stay in, I think it's wrong and the place for Jews to be is in Israel.