Refugee Shabbat

Due to inclement weather, this event has moved solely online. Please check your weekly e-blast for zoom info!

CLICK HERE to view the siddur for this service

Join the Danforth Jewish Circle as we participate in Refugee Shabbat, a world-wide initiative focused on aligning our hearts and our actions in response to the plight of refugees and asylum seekers. At this Kabbalat Shabbat service we will bring awareness and reflection, sacred practice, prayer, song and community strength to the project of welcoming strangers and protecting refugees. This special service will feature guest speakers Asma Faiza (President, Afghan Women’s Organization’s Refugee and Immigrant Services) and Joshua Blum (lawyer working in the areas of refugee, immigration and national security law). The speakers will discuss not only the key issues and barriers for refugees trying to come to Canada, but also what actions participants can take to support refugees living here, to carry out advocacy, and to join in efforts to bring more refugees in need of protection to Canada .

Joining us as a guest musical leader is David Gershon. Many of you may know him as part of the dynamic musical duo of Judy and David. David, a multiple Juno Award winner, brings joy and spirit to Jewish music and prayer.  Please come for an interesting, musical, and thought-provoking Friday night service.

A light Kiddush (refreshments) follows the service.

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Asma Faizi, President, Afghan Women’s Organization’s Refugee and Immigrant Services (AWO)

For over twenty years Asma has been a staunch advocate at the national and international level on issues related to the plight of Afghan women, challenges faced by newcomers to Canada, and human rights issues for refugees worldwide. Asma became a Board member of the Afghan Women’s Organization (AWO) in 1998 and has been the President and Chair of its Board of Directors since 2008. The AWO has been providing settlement services for over 30 years to newcomers to Canada with a special focus on women, their families, refugees, and people who have experienced war and persecution. The AWO has also had several home-based/underground schools and educational, capacity building, and income generation projects inside Afghanistan and in the refugee camps in Pakistan. The AWO also established an orphanage in 2004 in Kabul.

In 1986, Asma escaped the war in Afghanistan at age three with her mom and 4-year-old brother. The perilous escape included time spent in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Asma is a lawyer and member of the Canadian-Afghan Lawyers Association and lives in Toronto with her husband and three children. She is also a member of the Atlas Afghanistan Emergency Taskforce, a subgroup of Atlas Women aimed at galvanizing the power of international feminist lawyers to respond to the Afghanistan crisis. For her work, Asma has received: the YWCA’s Women of Distinction Award in 2022; the Member of Parliament’s Sesquicentennial Citizenship Award in 2017; and Asma was among the Atlas Women that received the 2021 PILnet Pro Bono Publico Award – an award that recognizes legal professionals with an extraordinary, passionate, and long-standing commitment to service for the public good.

Joshua Blum is a lawyer working in the areas of refugee, immigration and national security law. He represents clients daily in deportation and detention proceedings before the Immigration and Refugee Board and the Federal Court. Joshua devotes a significant portion of his practice to test case litigation, and has been part of counsel teams challenging limits on access to habeas corpus for immigration detainees; exclusions from refugee status for refugees who take part in national liberation movements; and in the constitutional challenge to the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement.

Membership allows our programs to be accessible to all. Everyone is welcome at the DJC. If you are not a member and would like to attend, we are grateful for any donation you wish to contribute, which you can do so HERE.