Celebrate Healing and Reconciliation Week
Once a year, Rabbi Harry Joshua Stern of Temple Emanu-El in Westmount would invite Protestant, and Catholic clergy along with Jewish rabbis for a morning sharing session. This would be followed by a chicken dinner. He said on every occasion that his goal was to make Christians better Christians and Jews better Jews.
It was at such a gathering that the main speaker was Professor Fackenheim of the University of Toronto. He said it was only after 20 years following the end of the Second World War that he could begin to speak of the Holocaust. It was beyond belief.
As we in Canada celebrate our 150th birthday there are some things that are beyond belief. It is said that the basic unit of any country or nation is the family. Whatever may have been the purpose of residential schools among First Nations people its greatest crime was to separate children from their parents. Children of school age were rounded up in Indian settlements and taken away to such schools. They were not allowed to speak in their mother tongue. They were many miles removed from their homes. They were not allowed home on holidays or vacations. Their parents were unable to visit them at the school.
The stories of all kinds of abuse is now coming out which was inflicted on many of those children. It too is beyond belief. It has affected their whole society and way of life not only of their generation but of their children.
It is during my lifetime and yours that this went on and we never knew about it. Be prepared to hear more and just perhaps we can do something about it. We can lift up their history of being in Canada as their country for thousands of years. Take your children out to the teepee off the TransCanada Highway and have them see the story boards of their history and nation.
“A Healing and Reconciliation Week” is coming up May 1-5 in Medicine Hat. Survivors of residential schools will be speaking and the generational impacts will be lifted up. There will also be native music events of several kinds. There is a Miywasin Friendship Centre at 517 Third Street S.E. in Medicine Hat where you can call Sabrina Prince at (403) 525-0756 to get more information.
If Rabbi Stern can bring together Protestants, Catholics and Jews under one roof perhaps we can embrace and care about First Nations people in our midst. Let it begin now!