Posts Tagged year
Torontonians bike for charity in Israel
After five grueling days of riding across desert terrain in support of Alyn Hospital, Ruth Ekstein triumphantly entered Eilat on her mountain bike with 424 other riders amidst a cheering crowd. “It was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done,” says the long-time UJA Federation volunteer. “We didn’t know if we should laugh or cry or yell and I think we did a little of all three.”
One of 50 Torontonians who completed this year’s Wheels of Love charity ride, in which participants biked from Jerusalem to Eilat to raise money for Israel’s only comprehensive pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation centre, Ekstein describes the experience with unbridled enthusiasm. “The scenery was spectacular, the weather was amazing, and there were 425 riders from ten countries so the opportunity to meet a bunch of crazy like-minded people was fantastic. I’d go again in a heartbeat.”
Earl Haltrecht, an orthodontist from Toronto and co-chair of UJA Federation’s Partners Circle raised US $5,500 on the charity ride. “I love riding, I love Israel, and it’s a fabulous cause, so I’d say it was win-win-win.”
Alyn Hospital, a world leader in rehabilitation of children with a broad range of physical disabilities, is the only facility of its kind in Israel.
“Any time there are children involved - whether it’s a congenital deformity or accident victims or victims of terror, your heart opens up and you’ll do anything for them,” says Haltrecht.
Although Ekstein has been supporting the Alyn ride for many years, this was the first year that the occupational therapist from Toronto put her feet where her money is.
From October 29 to November 2, she averaged 100 off-road kilometers each day, going “where roads don’t go, which was really exceptional,” and raising almost US $7,000 for Alyn, which is well on its way to reaching its $2.5 million goal for this year’s ride.
Ekstein first got involved with Wheels of Love five years ago, when her best friend participated in the ride and asked her to help fundraise. At the time, her husband - Alan Lechem - was co-chair of the Israel Action Committee at Beit Rayim Synagogue, and the synagogue took on fundraising for Alyn.
“My husband decided,‘why just fundraise when I can also ride,’ so in 2004 he went with four members of our synagogue and then last year he went again. But this year I and another woman from our synagogue said,‘well if the boys can do it, we can too,’so we went this year and my husband stayed home with the kids.”
http://www.jewishtoronto.com/page.aspx?id=6710
reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC CEO
Jewish groups call for changes at York University
Report about jewish donors’ thought reg. antisemitism in the University of York, ON
reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC CEO
By Giuseppe Valiante, National Post
York University teachers should be prohibited from expressing personal political views unrelated to the course they are teaching, according to a
report from a commission of Toronto-area Jewish groups on improving campus life for Jewish students.
The commission, composed of the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto, Hillel of Greater Toronto, Hasbara at York and the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, compiled hundreds of submissions from students, faculty and Jewish community members after recent events at York “have left many members of our community shocked and shaken,” the report cited.
The final report cites episodes of “intimidation, harassment, ridicule and virulent anti-Israel sentiment” on the York campus over the past year.
Howard English, the UJA of Greater Toronto’s vice-president for communications, said the incidents have prompted Jewish donors to York to express concern to the administration. He added there is a history of anti-Israel expression at York.
“We’re talking about off-hand comments, or scurrilous comments … unwarranted or unjustified political personal opinion that is not based on fact or is unrelated to the course that an instructor is teaching,” said Mr. English.
“We had one case of a [teaching assistant] who told a student who was wearing a Israel Defence Forces T-shirt to never come into his class again with that T-shirt on,” said Mr. English.
The report asks York to establish a confidential hotline for students to report “abuse of the podium” incidents. It also recommends that York implement several other measures, including providing school security forces with “enhanced training in order to deal more effectively with disruptive events and individuals” and to “rigorously define the academic standards expected of all university-sponsored conferences.”
The report also recommends the university should no longer allow Vari Hall, a central meeting place for students, to be booked for political pusposes, for the universitiy to “increase the severity of sanctions for those who repeatedly violate the Code of Conduct,” and “empower York Security to issue reprimands … that would remain on a student’s academic transcript for a period of not less than two years.”
This list of recommendations was delivered to the York University Task Force on Student Life, Learning and Community, which was created in March by university president Mamdouh Shoukri to improve the atmosphere on campus.
Patrick Monahan, the dean of Osgoode Hall Law School and chair of the task force, was not available for comment yesterday. And the York University Faculty Association did not return calls as of press time.
It’s been a tough 50th anniversary for York University. Three of its unions went on strike for months last fall, delaying classes and final exams, the university’s endowment is down by 18% and recent reports cite that 7% fewer Ontario high-school students accepted a full-time, first year spot at York than last year.
Mr. English said York might feel a financial strain if Jewish students continue to feel intimidated.
“Well, we know that many Jewish donors to the university are very concerned … many Jewish donors have spoken in the most honest terms, in the most candid terms with [Mr. Shoukri] and other administration officials,” he said.
Mr. English said that he is not aware of a “mass withdrawl” of donations at this point, but said “the longer an atmosphere exists at York which is considered by many Jewish students to be intimidating or hostile, the greater the risk of donors withdrawing funds.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/06/16/report-calls-for-york-profs-to-keep-political-opinions-to-themselves.aspx
Property Woes Slam Cities Across Continent, But Not Vancouver
Moishe Alexander, CFC CEO : there is a basis for careful optimism.
The picturesque city of Vancouver, Canada, has turned into an unexpected oasis in the bleak desert of the commercial real-estate market.
In most cities in the U.S. and Canada, sales activity has frozen to a standstill. Would-be sellers are unwilling to accept the steep drops in value of office buildings, shopping centers and other commercial property. Even if they were, buyers can’t get financing.
But then there’s Vancouver, a city of about 578,000 people with views of the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountain range. Its office market has logged seven building transactions this year capped off by Germany-based Deka Immobilien’s recent $263 million purchase of Bentall V, a 33-story tower in the heart of the city’s district. Just as impressive, prices have held up well. By contrast, only five office properties valued at $5 million or more have sold in Manhattan in the first two quarters of this year, and average prices paid are off 32%, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate research firm.
First of all, Vancouver’s office market hasn’t suffered the sharp increase in vacancies seen in most other cities. Vacancies are ticking up and putting pressure on rents. But the diversified economy, driven by a mix of companies that include mining, lumber and port-related businesses, and a lack of significant new construction leave it better positioned to weather the stormy global economy, brokers say. The first-quarter office vacancy in downtown Vancouver was 4.2%, below downtown Toronto’s 5.7% and downtown Calgary’s 6.9%, according to CB Richard Ellis. “It’s quite incredible compared to the rest of the country,” says David Eger, senior director with the Toronto-based Altus Group.
Such a high volume of sales is unusual for Vancouver, a city where small investors and pension funds are known for buying and holding properties. The seven office transactions that took place this year through May in downtown Vancouver, a city with a total of about 21 million square feet of office space, compared with two transactions in the year-earlier period, according to CB Richard Ellis.
But amid the global financial crisis, institutions have looked first at properties that have retained value as a less painful means of unlocking equity in their portfolios. The seller of Bentall V was SITQ Vancouver Inc., a real-estate subsidiary of Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. SITQ says it wasn’t under pressure to sell the building and only did so after getting an unsolicited bid. “We made a profit. That’s why we sold it,” says Amelie Plante, an SITQ spokeswoman. “It was very satisfying.”
Buyers in Vancouver have included Canadian pension funds and private investors, CB Richard Ellis says. Deka Immobilien Investment GmbH is a real-estate asset manager and a subsidiary of the DekaBank Group. The seven deals this year have had a total value of C$502 million (US$449 million).
By contrast, Manhattan, with some 1.6 million residents and about 366 million square feet of office space, saw the number of large office transactions this year through May slip to just five deals valued at a total of $984 million, from 45 sales in the year-earlier period, according to Real Capital Analytics. The average price paid per square foot in Vancouver this year fell just 2% to C$355 from the year-earlier period, compared with a 32% drop in Manhattan to $451.
The Bentall property sale price also has given hope to area sellers worried by deep discounting seen elsewhere. The nearly 100%-occupied building sold for a price that equates to a capitalization rate in the 6% range, just slightly higher than the 5.5% range it might have traded at during the height of the market a year or so ago, according to Jim Szabo, executive vice president with CB Richard Ellis, which represented Deka Immobilien in the transaction. Cap rates are closely watched valuation metrics in the commercial real-estate industry derived by dividing a building’s net operating income by the price paid.
http://futurerealestate.blogspot.com/2009/06/property-woes-slam-cities-across.html