I
World
Lighting The
Olympic Torch
Vancouver Jews gearing up for the Games.
Ben Harris
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Vancouver
S
hmuel Birnham's road from
Vancouver rabbi to official Jewish
clergyman of the 2010 Winter
Olympics began, in all places, at an inter-
faith service with the Dalai Lama.
During the Tibetan
leader's 2004 visit to
Vancouver, Hong Chian,
a local Buddhist doctor,
invited Birnham to be
one of the Jewish repre-
sentatives at the service.
When the Olympics
Rabbi Birnham rolled around, Chian,
who serves on the mul-
tifaith committee for the Olympics, called
on Birnham again — this time to head up
the team of Jewish clergy providing spiri-
tual support services to visiting athletes.
As head of a team of rabbis serving the
Olympic and Paralympic Games, Birnham
is helping to arrange services at both
Olympic Villages — the Whistler moun-
tain resort and in Vancouver itself — and
provide counseling to athletes who, having
trained for much of their lives for a brief
shot at Olympic glory, may find them-
Detroit Ties
U.S. ice dancers
have strong local
connections.
Alan Hitsky
Associate Editor
D
etroit will be well represented
by the old and the new at the
Olympic Winter Games in
Vancouver.
U.S. ice dancing pairs Charlie White
and Meryl Davis are Detriot area natives,
and Ben Agosto and partner Tanith Belbin
trained here for years.
20
February 1i • 2010
selves facing crises for which spiritual
guidance would be helpful.
"I ran track at Dickinson College said
Birnham, who heads the Conservative
Congregation Har El in West Vancouver.
"Even at that measly low level, I have a
sense of what goes on. I cannot imag-
ine the pressure of a once-in-a-lifetime
chance
Birnham is among a number of mem-
bers of the city's 30,000-strong Jewish
community gearing up to support the
thousands of athletes and Jewish tour-
ists expected to descend on Vancouver,
the most Jewishly active city ever to host
the Winter Olympics. The Olympics start
Friday, Feb. 12.
Synagogues are organizing Shabbat
dinners for visitors. Several events will
introduce the community to the three par-
ticipating Israeli athletes.
A local Jewish woman who competed
in the 1972 Munich Olympics will be
among the last torch bearers carrying the
Olympic flame on its way to B.C. Stadium
for the opening ceremonies.
Karen James, who chairs women's phi-
lanthropy for the local Jewish federation,
will carry the flame about 1,000 feet on
the afternoon of Feb. 12, beginning near
Rodney's Oyster House on Hamilton Street
in downtown Vancouver.
"It's very thrilling:' said James, who
swam the 200 individual medley in
Munich and placed "17th or 18th."
At the 1972 Games, James was returning
to the Olympic Village after hours when,
rather than walk around to the main gate,
she and her friends took a shortcut over a
fence. Some dark figures nearby decided to
climb with them.
The next morning, James awoke to
the sound of helicopters and remembers
watching Israeli athletes and coaches
taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists
being led out to a bus. Eleven Israelis died
later in a failed rescue attempt at a nearby
airport.
On Feb. 14, James will light a candle in
their memory at a ceremony in Vancouver.
To keep the Vancouver Games secure,
officials plan to deploy a force of about
15,000 at a cost of nearly $1 billion.
As part of the Jewish community's
observance of the Olympics, the Vancouver
Holocaust Centre will run an exhibit for
the duration of the Winter Games high-
lighting Canada's dilemma over whether to
participate in the so-called Nazi Olympics
— the 1936 Games in Berlin. It was in
Berlin that many features of the modern
Both White and
Agosto are Jewish.
White, 22, and Davis
grew up not far from the
Detroit Skating Club in
Bloomfield Hills. White
is the son of Jacqueline
and Charles White of
Bloomfield Hills and
grandson of Miriam and
Dr. H.J. Kreiman of West
Bloomfield. Davis is
from West Bloomfield.
The two athletes were
paired at the age of 8
and 9 by DSC coach Seth
Chafetz, according to
Ben Agosto
White's mother. "We've
never had to move or go
elsewhere [for training]," Mrs. White said
last week."We've been lucky, and they've
had a lot of success."
White and Davis, who both attend the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,
trained at the DSC with Chafetz until
they both graduated high school in
2005. White attended Roeper School in
Birmingham and played violin in a school
string quartet.
After graduation, White and Davis
began training with coach Igor Shpilband
in Canton Township. The two won the U.S.
Nationals in 2009 and 2010.
The White family, including Charlie's
half brother and three half sisters, will
attend the games in Vancouver.
Agosto, 28, is a Chicago native who
moved here in 1998 to train with Belbin.
He completed his last two years of high
school at Birmingham Groves and gradu-
Vancouver's 30,000-strong Jewish community will help host the Winter Olynpics.
Olympics were introduced, including the
idea of a torch relay, according to the cen-
ter's executive director, Frieda Miller.
"We were very careful not to make a
direct link between those Games and the
contemporary Games',' Miller said. "It's not
a polemic. We do not pass judgment. We
present the dilemmas and the situation as
is and let people make their own analogies:'
The history of Jewish Vancouver dates
to 1872, with the arrival of the city's first
Jewish settler, Louis Gold. Vancouver's
second mayor, David Oppenheimer, was a
German-born Jew who generally is con-
sidered the city's founding father.
The first synagogue was built in 1916.
Today there are 12, in addition to six day
schools, three Chabad centers and a com-
munity kollel, or subsidized religious
study program for adults.
The local federation has prepared a dos-
sier with details of the city's Jewish history
to help guide visitors to the Jewish oppor-
tunities available in Vancouver.
Like the athletes themselves,
Vancouver's Jews are experiencing a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show-
case their city and community to the
world.
White and Davis hope to wrap up a
gold medal.
ated in 2000. He played in a school jazz
band.
Agosto and Belbin trained in Canton
until 2008. Agosto works as a skating
coach but also dabbles as a voice actor.