By LAUREN KRAMER, Pacific Correspondent,
CJN
VANCOUVER ? It's not every day that you get invited to serve on the multifaith committee of the Olympics. When Rabbi Shmuel Birnham was asked to be the Jewish clergyman on
that body last year, he jumped at the opportunity.
Rabbi Shmuel Birnham
?I thought, ?How cool. What an adventure,?? he said. ?I'm sure this is the only time in my life I'll get to do something like this.?
The rabbi of Congregation Har El, a Conservative synagogue on the North Shore of Vancouver, Rabbi Birnham, 55, will spend time in the Olympic villages in Whistler and Vancouver. He will also be
on call for Jewish athletes requiring spiritual or religious assistance during the 2010 Winter Olympics, which begin Feb. 12.
Over the past year, he's attended a series of meetings and exchanged a host of phone calls and e-mails in preparation for his Olympic duties, but even so, none of the clergy on the committee
knows quite what to expect.
?They told us that the needs of individual athletes won't be known until they arrive,? he said. ?But consider that the athletes are people who have spent 10 years, perhaps their whole lives,
preparing for this one activity. Most of them are not going to get the medal, so one can only imagine what will be going on inside their heads.?
The multifaith committee has Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Jewish clergy, and each member has sought assistance from other clergy in their communities.
Rabbi Birnham, who will be juggling his full-time job at Har El with his Olympics responsibilities, has asked eight rabbis from all affiliations in Greater Vancouver to cover different times
during the Games.
The other rabbis weren't so keen to volunteer for the job initially, Rabbi Birnham said. But as the date of the Winter Olympics drew closer, they became more enthusiastic about participating.
There will be Friday night and Saturday morning prayer services in each village, and each rabbi will be available on an as-needed basis for spiritual or religious counseling.
VANOC, the local Olympic organizing committee, told the multifaith committee that approximately one per cent of the participants in the Winter Olympics will seek assistance from the multifaith
clergy.
?There's a total of about 5,500 athletes, and some will come with families and coaches,? Rabbi Birnham said. ?There could be 30 Jewish people in each village. But they may want nothing to do with
a rabbi.?
If they do choose to get involved, the rabbis will have prayer books and tallits on hand, and they'll host small kiddushes and onegs over Shabbat.
?We haven't organized a Friday night meal because we have no idea of the numbers,? Rabbi Birnham said. ?Once we meet the Jewish athletes, we can ask about those kinds of things.?
Of course, the rabbis may well provide counselling or a spiritual ear to athletes who are religiously unaffiliated, too.
And all the clergy have been prepped about the ?three-metre rule.?
?When we're visiting in the Olympic villages, we've been told to smile, reach out and be friendly to anyone within three metres, to create a real atmosphere of connecting,? Rabbi Birnham said.
?If someone non-Jewish wants to talk to us, of course, we'll talk.?
As the start of the Games approached, he said he was feeling honoured and excited.
?All of us are looking forward to being there to help the athletes,? he said earnestly. ?Wherever their needs go, we'll help.?
There are no synagogues in Vancouver's downtown corridor, so it's unlikely Olympic security will affect any services or community activity.
Romy Ritter, regional director of Canadian Jewish Congress' Pacific region, said it will be ?business as usual during the Olympics,? for the Vancouver Jewish community.
?Members of our community will be attending events and participating in the Olympics, and there's heightened security in some congregations, and certainly heightened awareness,? she said.
At Ohel Ya'akov Community Kollel in Vancouver, Rabbi Shmuel Yeshayahu said there will be ?more events for tourists this month than usual, but everything other than that will remain mostly the
same.?
Meanwhile, 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 BC Place Stadium for the opening ceremonies.
Karen James, who chairs women's philanthropy for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, will carry the flame about 300 metres on the afternoon of Feb. 12 in downtown Vancouver.
?It's very thrilling,? said James, who swam the 200-metre individual medley in Munich and placed ?17th or 18th.? She can't remember exactly.
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 said, she awoke to the sound of helicopters and remembers watching Israeli athletes and coaches who had been 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.
?The Olympics ? in general ever since then ? I have mixed feelings,? James said. ?I always sort of sit with that ambiguity.?
To keep the Vancouver Games secure, officials plan to deploy a reported force of about 15,000 at a cost of $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 highlighting 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 Olympics were introduced, including the idea of a torch relay, according to
the centre's executive director, Frieda Miller.
?We were very careful not to make a direct link between those Games and the contemporary Games,? Miller told JTA. ?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.?
With files from JTA
