Month: June 2021

CABGU gala now sold out

Mitchell Oelbaum, national president of Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University. (photo from in.bgu.ac.il)

Raising nearly $800,000 at a not-for-profit gala is no small feat, nor is having more than 1,200 people register for an event. When you add a pandemic to the mix and make it a virtual event, one might assume that it would be impossible to come close! But that’s precisely what the Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University (CABGU) did in just seven weeks.

“We are a lean but unbelievably keen staff at CABGU, with an incredibly generous and committed group of lay leaders,” said Mark Mendelson, CABGU’s chief executive officer. “Achievements like this make me so proud!”

Mendelson knew that every detail of the event was accounted for, beginning with the star attraction. Israeli actress Shira Haas, star of the popular Netflix series Shtisel and Unorthodox, recently nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Emmy, is the featured speaker. Fresh off her recent press tour for the newly released movie Asia, she will be joining the event live from Israel. Haas will be taking questions from Canada’s Sen. Linda Frum, who will be moderating the conversation along with Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, BGU’s president.

CABGU’s An “Unorthodox” National Virtual Gala for Brain Research at BGU raises money for the Canada Fund to Advance Brain Research. “The fund will go a long way in assisting researchers at the university with conducting groundbreaking and out-of-the-box research,” said Mitchell Oelbaum, national president of CABGU.

“CABGU launched the Canada Fund to Advance Brain Research at BGU in April,” added Mendelson. “We know that there is a strong appetite for the subject of brain research because so many of us know at least one person, if not more, who is impacted by neurodegenerative diseases here in Canada.”

Tickets for the July 7 virtual gala are sold out. However, a few sponsorships are still available at bengurion.ca.

– Courtesy Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University

Issues surrounding inclusivity

On June 9, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) hosted the webinar Embracing Diversity: Wisdom from an Interfaith, Interracial Jewish Family. The event addressed the issues involved in creating an inclusive setting within a congregation and keeping an open mind about Jewish intermarriage.

Keren McGinity, the USCJ’s interfaith specialist, led the inaugural event, which took place on Zoom. Interfaith is one of four areas of diversity synagogues should hope to include, she said; the others being LBGTQ+, people of colour, and people of all neurological and physical abilities; occasionally, there is overlap.

It was mentioned that the webinar took place close to Loving Day (June 12), which marks the anniversary of the 1958 marriage – and subsequent arrest – of Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, an interracial couple in Virginia. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in its Loving v. Virginia decision.

Guest speakers for the afternoon were Shira and Derrick, an interfaith and interracial couple. Shira grew up in the northeast United States and was raised in the Conservative movement; Derrick was born to Ghanaian parents and raised in an evangelical Christian environment in the Midwest. The pair met at university and began dating in their senior year. Because of their different upbringings, neither believed at the outset that the relationship would last. To their surprise, however, it did. They fell in love, ultimately got married and are now raising a baby daughter.

“There was a lot of internal struggle for both of us,” Shira admitted, explaining that they both wondered whether they were going to go through with it. Also, from Shira’s friends and family, there was concern, not that Derrick is black but that he is Christian.

“When I came to the realization that I would be marrying the love of my life, and not a Christian, it led to a lot of changes in thinking about what relationships meant,” Derrick told the Zoom audience.

“Whenever two people come together, there are always gaps that need to be bridged. What really matters is what are the things that are important to you and what are you willing to talk about,” he said, when asked about the cultural, religious and geographic differences the couple had when entering the relationship.

Intellectually, Shira understood that getting a rabbi to officiate would be challenging, yet, emotionally and spiritually, she could not come to terms with that fact because she knew in her heart that her relationship with Derrick was “the right thing.”

After sharing aspects of their personal journey as a couple, Shira and Derrick were asked by McGinity what the Jewish community could do to be more inclusive. Derrick described the reactions he generally receives when entering a synagogue with Shira. First, people look shocked, then, when they realize they are not supposed to make that face, they come over and make some awkward small talk.

Though Derrick understands the need to maintain certain traditions to make a religious setting what it is, the problem for him “is constantly feeling like the other, despite having a desire to being a part of that space, and not being treated like others who are entering the space.”

For her part, Shira said she thinks people are overcompensating because they are uncomfortable. “We have an idea of what Jewish looks like and assume that Jews look a certain way, even though there are examples in front of us.” One of those examples is their daughter.

“I don’t expect everyone to be completely comfortable with me walking into a room, because I look a little bit different than the majority of those in the Conservative shuls I have attended. What I do recognize is that there is going to be progress,” Derrick said, referencing the Loving case. He pointed out that the Supreme Court verdict was only 54 years ago and that his own marriage would have been illegal in a different era.

“To expect that not everyone in a Conservative shul is going to be comfortable is reasonable,” he stressed. “What I do expect is an openness and recognition that change is coming, and the recognition that there are going to be some awkward conversations. I expect that. What I don’t want is to be the warrior to help explain that to everyone.”

“If someone is in a Jewish space, they’re there to do Jewish things,” Shira said. “And that’s what matters.”

Richmond’s Congregation Beth Tikvah is one of the participating synagogues in the USCJ’s Embracing Diversity program.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Writing story of the moment

(photo from flickr.com/photos/lukas_photo)

“Identity is a narrative of the self – it’s a story we tell about the self in order to know who we are.” (Stuart Hall)

In our day-to-day lives, we are always telling stories. We tell these stories to one another and in our own minds. A story is anything that we communicate to ourselves. Stories are how we create and communicate content, understanding and relevance between random events and details. I engage with stories through my therapeutic practice, Threads Education and Counselling, by way of narrative therapy.

When you sit down and reflect upon the story that you have been living lately, or what I like to call your “story of the moment,” you begin to shed a mindful light on how you are feeling and experience an embodied sense of knowing.

Ask yourself: what is the story that you have been living lately? The lived stories are often multifaceted; can be contradictory and not linear. Is it a story, to name some possibilities, that includes struggle, hope, perseverance, love, anger, disappointment, grief, overcoming, expansion, growth, steadiness, survival or rapid change? How would you describe your “story of the moment”? What is sitting heavy inside? What are you preoccupied with and why?

It is important to explore your “story of the moment” and start in this place in order to gain insights. We gain insights relationally, through getting inside the stories where they are living and contemplating them. Describe your story in five to seven sentences. Some people like to narrate their stories aloud, others like to write or type them out in a contemplative writing practice through which I guide them.

Once the story is expressed, ask yourself if this is the story you want to be living right now. Explore the reasons why and the reasons why not. This allows a jumping off point into expanding on the “story of the moment” and looking at outside and institutional influences (family, school, work, relationships, location, age, gender, race, class, religion, health) that impact the stories we live. As a trained witness and narrative therapist, it is my job to ask questions of how circumstances, events and your particular social locations are colouring the stories that you are living and breathing inside and alongside.

In my practice, we would then explore if you need to make some significant changes in your life in order to change the story; if there is a way you can shift perspectives to understand your current story in another way; or if there is a new story that you can tell and inhabit in place of the story you have been living inside of and are speaking about.

Mindfulness grounding techniques, thematic prompts and the possibility of expressive art techniques help round out and fully access the complexities of the stories inside.

Here is an exercise I do to explore the narratives of our lives. I ask my clients to create a self-portrait. Many choose to draw themselves, while others stick with words and create rich descriptors based on self-reflection of who and how they are today. This prompt allows the “story of the moment” to appear from the corner of the heart of mind, untangle from the mess in a drawer and reveal itself so that it can be expressed and understood.

Therapeutic letter writing

A letter is a form of written communication addressed to someone that expresses meaningful messages. In the context of counseling, letter writing has a long history and, in the 2007 book Stories as Equipment for Living: Last Talks and Tales of Barbara Myerhoff, Myerhoff writes about how we can be “nourished by the stories being fed back to ourselves” in the genre of a therapeutic letter. Specifically, in the narrative context, therapeutic letters are used with the purpose of creating double story development, where the listener provides an acknowledgement of the problem as well as rich descriptions of alternative stories that were hidden within the dominant “problem” story.

The therapeutic letter, and the practice and process of writing, offers a tangible and layered documented expression of the complex, beautiful, layered and innovative ways in which the people I work with are responding to the problems in their lives. The letters serve to connect them with the many stories that are circulating around them and permeating inside their mind, as well as embodied within them. Simply, therapeutic letters work in tandem with the therapeutic session to connect them with the stories of their lives. Some people I work with actively respond to the letters I send them, with a response in the form of a returned letter, or a poem, drawing or conversation.

Crafting a therapeutic letter demands that the health practitioner carefully and mindfully reflects on the therapeutic conversational sessions that just concluded. For me, letter writing provides me the crucial opportunity and space to critically reflect on my practices and facilitates further growth and insight on how I can craft more expansive questions, as well as opportunities for the people I work with to engage with their stories with me alongside as an active, trained witness.

Letter writing within narrative therapeutic practice enables a deepening of the work of revising an individual’s relationships with the central issues, preoccupations and problems that inform, colour and get entangled up and inside their selves, bodies and lives. Letters are a tangible product that both allows for and demonstrates active listening and validation. It is an evolving and emergent practice, grounded in the contradictory, the complex, the fluid. It has the ability to hold and express multiple stories of the moment that we all hold, carry and live out in our lives.

Dr. Abby Wener Herlin is a feminist narrative therapist who works with tweens and adults, and a social emotional learning/social justice educator. Her website is threadseducation.com. These discussions of narrative therapy were originally posted at health-local.com/author/dr-abby-herlin.

Indigenous children mourned

The bodies of 215 children were recently discovered buried adjacent to a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. (photo from flickr.com/photos/bcgovphotos)

Jody Wilson-Raybould, member of Parliament for Vancouver-Granville and a member of the We Wai Kai Nation, told students at Vancouver Talmud Torah Elementary School last week that most of her family members attended residential schools and she spoke of the tragic legacy of that project, which devastated Indigenous communities for generations.

“Residential schools, these institutions, are a very dark part of our history,” she said, speaking directly to students at a ceremony organized to mourn the 215 children whose bodies were recently discovered buried adjacent to a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. Most of the city’s rabbis were also in attendance.

“They were in existence for over 100 years in Canada, from the 1870s to 1996, when the last one closed in Saskatchewan. The last one closed in British Columbia in 1984,” said Wilson-Raybould of the residential schools. “These institutions were created by the law of Canada and run by churches. There were 139 residential schools across the country and it’s estimated that 150,00 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended the schools, forcibly removed from their homes, compelled to attend, and the purpose of residential schools, as stated by the first prime minister of this country, was to remove the Indian from the child, to get rid of the ‘Indian problem’ in this country.”

She added: “People have asked me, as I know they’ve asked many Indigenous peoples, how do you feel? I feel angry. I feel frustrated. And I feel a deep sense of sadness, because this is not an isolated incident. There will be more that will be revealed and we have to recognize that every Indigenous person in this country has a connection to residential schools and the harmful legacies that still exist. But I am still optimistic. Optimistic that, through young people like you … that we can make a change in this country.”

Speaking of her family’s experiences, Wilson-Raybould singled out her grandmother, who she has frequently cited as her hero, and talked of the courage and resilience her grandmother exhibited.

“Most of my relatives went to residential schools,” she said. “My grandmother, Pugladee, was taken away from her home when she was a very young girl and forced to go to the Indian residential school St. Michael’s, in Alert Bay. She faced terrible violence at that school, but she escaped from that school and she made it home and she is the knowledge keeper in my nation.”

Emily Greenberg, Vancouver Talmud Torah head of school, welcomed guests in person and online, expressing empathy for Indigenous Canadians, faced again with the reminder of this country’s past.

“Their wounds have been reopened once again and their suffering renewed,” she said. “Today, our community gathers to grieve with them and open our hearts to their struggles.”

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom contrasted the lives of the children buried in Kamloops with the lives and educational experiences of the Talmud Torah students attending the ceremony, who, he said, “are immersed in their own language and culture and traditions” – the very things Canada’s residential schools system was designed to extinguish in Indigenous young people.

“Our hearts break today not only for the loss of life,” said Moskovitz. “They break for the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, the loss of joy, of play, of family, of heritage that was stolen from those children by the misguided aims of our nation. It was a different era. It was a different time, but if our people, the Jewish people, have learned anything from our history of trauma and persecution, it is these words: that those who do not study history are bound to repeat it. Echoed by the warning of the Jewish people from the Holocaust, from the Shoah – never again – we have learned, and we know in our souls, that the greatest tribute we can offer these children and their families is not words of condolence, but acts of conscience. The purpose of prayer is to lead us to action, to make our prayer real, not in heaven but here on earth.”

Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel said that “the children who we are remembering today were forced to go to schools and to a specific school that ripped away their culture, attempted to take away from them their language, attempted to take them literally away from their families.” Addressing the students, he emphasized the message Moskovitz shared: “Today, we are remembering children who had the exact opposite of the opportunities that you have.”

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner expressed the unity of Jewish, Indigenous and all peoples. “We share a destiny as co-inhabitants of this land and because we are of the same holy stuff, the same flesh and blood and the same God-breath,” she said, encouraging members of the Jewish community to “respond not just in our sentiments but through ongoing engagement service and grace.”

Dresner said: “Justice is what love looks like in the public sphere. Loving our neighbours, our fellows, as ourselves. And so, we stand with Indigenous fellows in love, for justice, for the actualization of recovered records and supportive measures for holistic, multifaceted healing and reparation.”

Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of Congregation Schara Tzedeck spoke of the Jewish concept that one who extinguishes even a single life is considered to have destroyed an entire world. “Today, we remember, at a minimum, the destruction of 215 worlds,” he said. “A significant portion of these children died while trying to escape to reunite with their families. They died of exposure in the cold, the frost, simply trying to do one thing that every human being would … simply trying to return to their own families.”

Carrie Plotkin, a Grade 5 student, read the poem “You hold me up,” by Monique Gray Smith. “It was written to encourage us young people, our care providers and our educators to talk about reconciliation and the importance of the connections children make with our friends, classmates and families,” she said.

Rabbi Shlomo Gabay of Beth Hamidrash read a 1936 poem from Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Carlebach of Hamburg, Germany. Cantor Yaacov Orzech sang Psalm 23.

The 215 bodies were discovered using ground-penetrating radar. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that 4,100 children died at residential schools from abuse, neglect, diseases and accidents. Many were never repatriated to their families and communities and, in many cases, deaths were sloppily recorded using just a given name or a surname and sometimes even completely anonymously. Advocates are calling on the government to commit to identifying more remains and to releasing archival documentation on the schools that has remained sealed.

A new-old agency

There is a new national Jewish community agency with a decidedly retro feel and familiar faces. Several leaders from the defunct Canadian Jewish Congress have founded Canadian Jewish Community Forum, saying they are filling a gap in grassroots activism.

Dr. Michael Elterman, who, in the 1980s and ’90s, was a two-time chair of Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, as well as regional chair of the likewise defunct Canada-Israel Committee, is a member of the steering committee of the new group. Renee Switzer, a former national executive chair of CJC, is the other Vancouverite on the committee. Other figures leading the group include past national and regional chairs of CJC, as well as senior staff of the agency, including longtime chief executive officer Bernie Farber.

photo - Dr. Michael Elterman
Dr. Michael Elterman (photo from CJCF)

The first serious discussions among the group started in January, said Elterman.“What we are interested primarily in doing is creating and resurrecting what was an essential theme that brought us all into CJC, which was that it was primarily a grassroots organization where people could become individually involved in, or take ownership of, the Jewish agenda in Canada,” he said. “I guess the feeling is that we would like to re-create that again and get people more engaged and more involved and feeling personally responsible for what happens to the Jewish community in Canada.”

The focus will be primarily on domestic affairs, he said, although the direction the group takes will be determined, first, by a major survey CJCF intends to undertake of Jewish Canadians and, later, through the sort of plenaries and democratic debates that typified CJC.

While the group boasts a wealth of experience, Elterman stressed that a young cohort is also at the heart of the new group.

With the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), which effectively subsumed CJC and the Canada-Israel Committee in 2004, as well as B’nai Brith Canada and Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Canada has no shortage of national Jewish agencies. Elterman sees room for one more.

“There were many people –– which is why you are seeing such interest in the organization – who would like to be more involved both in the setting of the agenda and in the actual participation in an organization,” he said.

The new group doesn’t intend to detract from existing agencies. “I don’t think this organization is in contrast to or competition with any other organization,” said Elterman. “The emphasis on being a grassroots, bottom-up organization, having the agenda driven by the community rather than by a particular group of people, that I think is what is going to make this unique and that is what made CJC unique.”

Organizers have not reached out to CIJA or the others as yet, he acknowledged. “If they would like to join with us, that’s great, but it’s not something that is being done jointly with any other organization,” he said.

Funding for CJCF is bootstraps for now, with members of the steering committee anteing up for federal incorporation and other essentials. The group will seek charity status to issue tax receipts and Elterman said they hope donors will step forward in time.

A priority for CJCF will be to build bridges with other communities on issues of shared concern, something at which Elterman said CJC excelled.

On the new group’s website (cjc1919.blogspot.com), a four-point statement of purpose includes a promise to “engage with other faith, Indigenous, racial, ethnic and cultural communities to find common cause in matters pertaining to the promotion of civil discourse, reconciliation, inclusivity and mutual understanding and to fight against antisemitism, discrimination, racism and hatred in all their forms. Many important issues facing society at large are viewed to be relevant to the Jewish community. If we are to have a voice in the society we are creating together, we must discuss and address issues as they emerge together as Canadians.”

Down but not out

Prior to the Six Day War, which took place 54 years ago this month, the pages of this paper were filled with foreboding and ominous news of enemy militaries amassing adjacent to Israel’s borders. The very next issue was triumphal and jubilant – the war already had ended.

Such is one of the challenges of publishing a weekly newspaper. When a war only lasts six days, it presents difficulties for a journal that comes out every seven. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been on a twice-monthly publishing schedule, adding to the challenges of bringing you news in a time of fast change.

Of course, as regular readers know, we recognize our limitations and strengths and, as the internet has made information accessible 24/7, we have adapted to provide thoughtful, contextualizing essays and ideas, complemented by coverage of local events that only we can deliver.

Still, commenting on events that are subject to rapid flux remains a reality. This week, as we go to press, many or most observers assume that Naftali Bennett will soon replace Binyamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister. Netanyahu continues to insist that such a new government represents something undemocratic. Indeed, his choice of language has been incendiary, and the imagery employed by some of his supporters veers into the realm of the demonization that we saw in the lead-up to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Whatever his political objectives, Netanyahu should beware not to lead Israel down a path of “scorched earth,” as Bennett warned this week.

Bibi seems to be taking a page from the playbook of his ally Donald Trump, who emerged again recently to rehash his lies about stolen elections and assorted nonsense, including his imminent reinstallation in the White House. While scarily huge swaths of Americans (Republicans mostly, of course) believe that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president, we have more trust in the intelligence of Israeli voters to know that whoever is prime minister by the time the dust settles is there by due process.

If, as seems likely, Netanyahu is replaced, do not expect to hear the last of him. Again, like his friend in Florida, Bibi is clearly not done yet. He has been defeated before and returned to hold the position, becoming the country’s longest-serving leader.

Perhaps the biggest variable will be whether his Likud party stands behind him, as Trump’s Republican base has apparently stood by their man. Already, Yuli Edelstein, Netanyahu’s health minister, has said he would challenge Bibi for the party leadership should they lose power.

If successful, Edelstein, or any alternative Likud leader, would almost certainly cause an immediate tectonic shift in politics. That’s because the binary in that country’s politics is now cemented as “pro-Bibi” and “anti-Bibi.” With anyone but Netanyahu at the helm, some of the right-leaning partners in the new, broad coalition would likely look afresh at a deal with the party that has, by a large margin, the most seats in the Knesset.

Netanyahu may yet pull another rabbit out of his hat before Bennett can take his place. More likely, we are about to see a political shift that will see Netanyahu out but not down. That is, he seems to have enough capital to remain a major player in Likud and Israeli politics in general. The corruption case currently proceeding against him may affect that, but it has done little so far to dislodge his defenders.

If, as smart money has it, Netanyahu is unseated in the next few days, we will truly see a new era in Israeli politics. But we would caution that such a new era will begin with a time of flux. The new coalition is unwieldy and may not hold. Netanyahu has been the centre of gravity for Israeli politics for a very long time. In his absence, everything changes.

Our next issue is June 25. We promise this: plenty will have changed by then.

Leaving one home for another

Rabbi Don and Meira Pacht with their children, left to right, Ora, Shimie, Shoshana and Aharon. (photo from Pacht family)

“We’re very excited for this new adventure,” said Vancouver Hebrew Academy’s Rabbi Don Pacht of his family’s impending move to New York City. “But Vancouver is a huge part of our lives and always will be a huge part of our lives.”

Pacht has been head of school at VHA since 2004. On July 20, 7 p.m., the school will host the Virtual Garden Party, honouring Pacht and his wife Meira for their service to the community and in support of the school’s Fortify Our Future campaign.

“Hebrew Academy is going to need the support of the community,” Pacht said. “And, as it goes through a leadership transition especially … we need to ensure they are fiscally stable.”

VHA has found a new head of school – Rabbi Barak Cohen, who will come here from St. Ives, Australia. “He used to live in Victoria,” said Pacht, “so he understands the West Coast of Canada as a community.”

Cohen comes with much experience in Jewish day schools, added Pacht, who has known Cohen for many years. The two rabbis have been in touch “in terms of passing the torch of the school,” but there won’t be a physical overlap. “For the next school year,” said Pacht, “I’m going to remain connected as a consultant and available, essentially, for Rabbi Cohen, for the board, for anyone who needs whatever is still in my head and not on paper.”

Pacht and his family will be in Vancouver until late July. They came here from Rochester, N.Y., via Torah Umesorah, the National Society of Jewish Day Schools. When the organization suggested the position in Vancouver, Pacht was interested because his friend Rabbi Dovid Davidowitz had recently come to the city, along with Rabbi Noam Abramchik, to set up the Pacific Torah Institute (which left Vancouver in 2019, after 16 years of operations).

Two aspects in particular of the city’s Jewish community struck him.

“Number one, there was a real growth-oriented spirit,” he said. As well, he added, “I think it is unique and special in the integration across the gamut of the community. You can live your entire life in New York City and never meet a Conservative Jew.” But, in Vancouver, “no one would think twice about attending Hebrew Academy’s events even though they themselves are not Orthodox or families of Hebrew Academy and I wouldn’t think twice about attending an event put on by another organization or school even though they’re not my ‘flavour’ of Judaism.”

That everyone works together “for the cumulative benefit of the broader community was very, very impressive to us,” said Pacht.

When Pacht began his first year at VHA, there were more than 100 students. Currently, he said, enrolment is just under 100. He pointed to demographic changes.

“In the 17 years that I’ve been here,” he said, “I would say we have been more successful over time in attracting a broader spectrum of families. But, we continue to lose Orthodox families in the community. There are rabbis who are leaving, or just families who have aged out of the school system. That’s really what happened to PTI…. All the pioneer families that helped establish the organization, all their boys went through and graduated and we weren’t replacing them with new Orthodox families.”

The exodus worries him, he said, “as someone who is concerned about the global Orthodox community and global growth of Torah and Judaism.” But, with respect to VHA, he said he believes the school “will be just fine” because it offers “a product that is not available in any of the other schools…. And, because it’s something that can’t be done anywhere else in Vancouver, Vancouver understands that we need it.”

For example, he said, if you’re a Schara Tzedeck family, you know that, in order to have rabbinic leadership at the synagogue, you need Orthodox education in the community. Similarly, if you want Judaics teachers, even in non-Orthodox schools, you need to educate those leaders.

When he first came to VHA, the school already had two portables and another was added. “At the height of our enrolment, we probably had 130 students in a facility that was really built for 60, and we accommodated them with three portables, and bursting at the seams,” he said.

“It was always the vision to find a more suitable home,” he continued. “We started with trying to buy the property from the Vancouver School Board.” While not successful in that effort, VHA did manage, a handful of years ago, to secure a 10-year lease from the school board. With that security, it launched a capital campaign to replace the portables and improve the property.

“The dream of being able to offer full-day daycare for 3- and 4-year-olds was finally realized a year-and-a-half ago, when we opened this new facility,” said Pacht.

Then COVID-19 hit. “It has been, without a doubt, the most difficult experience that any of our staff, myself included, can remember,” he said. Part of that was because it entailed a whole type of education that no one had been trained for – remote learning – but also because everybody has been traumatized in some way by the pandemic and schools have had to deal with much of the fallout.

VHA’s relatively small size was an advantage in this instance, said Pacht. “I think schools have been doing a phenomenal job overall, but it’s easier when you only have two cohorts instead of eight cohorts.” When students initially were permitted to attend school in-person again, for example, VHA could accommodate more of its student body within the capacity limits set by the government. Generally speaking, said Pacht, all of the students have since returned to the classroom.

Of accomplishments during his tenure, Pacht pointed to the new building and other physical improvements to the school, “along with the broader community profile. I think it’s a fair statement to say that the number of people who are aware of Hebrew Academy, whether or not it’s the school they send their kids or grandkids to, and the appreciation for Hebrew Academy, it has a very significant standing within the community…. It allowed us to expand and it allowed us to have a successful capital campaign. And it allows us to maintain a school of excellence…. I can say without a doubt that the level of education at this school is really top-notch.”

While Pacht and his family are leaving the city, he said, “This is where our children grew up. This is home – when my kids talk about home, they’re thinking Vancouver. We are leaving because an opportunity came up that we could just not say no to, and that is, I received an offer from a school in New York City that happens to be the elementary school that I graduated from … and it puts us in a neighbourhood where we are in walking distance to my parents, my children and my grandchildren.”

The Virtual Garden Party is free to attend, with donations welcome. To register, email office@vhebrewacademy.com or call 604-266-1245.

Six Jewish musical journeys

Amber Woods and Gary Cohen are the musical duo Kouskous. They were among the speakers in the six-part Journeys in Jewish Music series. (photo from Kouskous)

In ordinary times, the Victoria Jewish Community Choir meets in person at the synagogue building of Congregation Emanu-El. Unable to do so during the pandemic, the choir has instead been offering Zoom presentations on a diverse array of Jewish music.

Throughout the spring, the six-part Journeys in Jewish Music series, funded by the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island, has brought in an audience from around the world. It has featured talks on biblical cantillation by Vancouver’s Moshe Denburg; the songs of Sefarad, with Prof. Judith Cohen of the University of Toronto; Chassidic meditative melodies (niggunim) with Emanu-El’s Rabbi Matt Ponak; and Sing a New Song to G-d: New Prayer Compositions, with Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel, who lives on Hornby Island. The last event in the series, which takes place June 20, will see Denburg return, to speak on the topic The Way of the Klezmer: Klezmer and Yiddish Song.

The Jewish Independent attended the May 23 musical voyage, which was guided by Gary Cohen and Amber Woods, who form the Victoria-based duo Kouskous. It explored Mizrahi music and how it differs from other Jewish musical styles. To demonstrate this, Cohen and Woods took the liturgical song “Lecha Dodi” and sang it with Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi interpretations.

“In general, we see the Mizrahi world being divided into three major geographical blocks: North Africa, Turkey and the Middle Eastern (Arabic) countries,” said Cohen.

Following their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardi Jews migrated to many countries in Europe, as well as going to North Africa, Greece, Turkey and Middle Eastern/Arabic countries. “Wherever Jews went, they blended their own musical traditions with those of the countries to which they moved. For example, the Sephardim combined their own musical style with Moroccan rhythms, Arabic instrumentation and Middle Eastern vocal expressions,” he explained.

“The Sephardim in Turkey and Greece often incorporate odd-metered rhythms such as 7/8, 9/8 in their music. In addition to traditional Arabic instruments, Greek instruments like the bouzouki were commonly used,” Cohen said.

Sephardi musicians who moved to Middle Eastern/Arabic countries were heavily influenced by Arabic musical styles, including “a wide melodic range, as well as vocal and instrumental embellishments,” he said. “Lyrics were often in Arabic, Hebrew or Judeo-Arabic.”

Throughout the presentation, Cohen and Woods performed some musical selections – including a few hot and spicy numbers – from the aforementioned genres for the assembled Zoom audience.

Carol Sokoloff, who co-directs the Victoria Jewish Community Choir with Kenny Seidman, is the person who came up with the idea for the lecture series.

“It has been so well-received it seems natural to repeat it and I hope to do that in the fall, going deeper into many of the subjects, as well as exploring new territory, such as Jewish composers of popular songs, Jewish women’s music, the music of the hidden Jews of Spain and Portugal, cantorial traditions and more,” Sokoloff told the Independent.

“Jewish music has so many flavours and is so rich and varied we have only begun to scratch the surface. Through our conversations, we are learning about other people with knowledge to share and, so far, everyone has been very generous in their enthusiasm for this series,” she said.

The shift from live venues to Zoom since the start of the pandemic has allowed the choir to expand its audience outside of Victoria.

“The series has been wonderful in that people who never knew about the Victoria Jewish Community Choir are now aware of us,” said Sokoloff, “and I believe that, when we finally can meet again to sing together, we shall likely attract many new members or new audiences for our performances and concerts. So, the series has allowed the choir to weather this challenging period and likely emerge stronger than ever! I think it has also generally increased interest in Jewish music in our region as well – all very happy outcomes.”

In non-pandemic times, the choir sings a variety of Jewish music: Psalms and prayers in Hebrew and Aramaic, niggunim, Yiddish songs, Sephardi music in Judeo-Spanish, Israeli songs, Broadway tunes, Yemenite music and contemporary compositions. For more information or to support the choir, send an email to jewishmusictalks@gmail.com or visit their Facebook page, where you can also learn how to receive the link for the June 20, 7:30 p.m., talk.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Artwork flies, returns home

Suzy Birstein in her studio, with works featured in her solo exhibit Tsipora, now at the Zack Gallery. (photo from Suzy Birstein)

Suzy Birstein’s Hebrew name – Tsipora – means bird. The artist’s new show, Tsipora: A Place to Land, which opened at the Zack Gallery on May 20, expatiates on her name’s meaning and its connection to the winged creatures of the sky.

“I love feeling like an exotic bird,” Birstein told the Independent. “I like bringing colour and joy to the people who visit my shows.”

Birstein’s art is bursting with bright hues and glitter. Both her sculptures and her paintings seem to aspire to one purpose only: to instil gladness in people’s hearts, which feels especially important during COVID and all its associated hardships and anxieties.

“The show’s idea was born out of a personal tragedy,” said Birstein. “A few years ago, one of my close friends passed away. I grieved but I knew I didn’t really lose her. She stayed right there, always with me, like a bird on my shoulder, and I thought: what a wonderful concept. I decided to create a series of sculptures of women, with birds incorporated into the whole in different ways.”

Almost every sculpture in the show has a bird. Sometimes, it is a tiny golden bird peeking from behind a woman’s shoulder or hiding in her skirt. Sometimes, it is an elaborate hair ornament. And, sometimes, it is implied rather than shown. But the idea of a bird is always there.

“When I started this series in 2017, my thoughts were all about freedom and travels – flying like a bird,” Birstein said. “I’ve always liked to travel and visited many countries: Europe, Asia, Mexico. I like seeing something new every day.”

Accordingly, the first few sculptures of her new series were reminiscent of her travels, their dark texture a reference to the ancient sacred sites she had visited. Their diaphanous tutus a playful metaphor of dance and flight, a symbol of the weightless grace of a ballerina.

“In 2020, I was planning to travel to the south of France, with a show scheduled in Cannes, when the pandemic hit, and all travel stopped,” Birstein said. After that, the focus of her art changed, becoming more home-oriented.

“Instead of flight, my sculptures became about nesting,” she said. “I couldn’t teach anymore because of the pandemic, didn’t teach for a year due to the school closures, so I took the opportunity and the time to indulge in self-exploration. I asked myself: what is beautiful? And my answer was: birth. And rebirth. Each sculpture I made during that time was of a pregnant woman. Not flights anymore but home and harmony.”

Many sculptures also have mirror fragments embedded in them, making them festive, shining. “The mirror shards help me bridge the inner world of a woman, her home and soul, with the outer world of traveling and flying,” Birstein said.

The show includes not only sculptures but several paintings as well. “The sculptures always come first,” she explained. “They are inspirations for my paintings. After a sculpture is ready, I sometimes paint it: like another version of the sculpture, an exploration of a unique perspective. It is a different experience – working on a flat surface with no fear of breaking the fragile pottery. I don’t use a brush. I paint with a tiny palette and my fingers. It feels almost like working with liquid clay.”

Clay was the medium that catapulted her into the art world, and she feels a deep affinity for it.

“When I was a child,” she recalled, “I couldn’t draw realistically. I thought I couldn’t be an artist. I danced and I modeled for artists. I was about 22 when I started working as an artist model full-time for an art school in Toronto. The administration of the school offered me any art classes I wanted for free, and I decided to try pottery. Clay spoke to me. I also took up weaving and fibre art and liked it. Later, when we moved to Vancouver because of my husband’s work, I wanted to take more art classes. There was no fibre art school at the time, but I enrolled in Emily Carr as a sculptor. They accepted me on the basis of my portfolio – the pieces I created in Toronto.”

Birstein uses white clay for her pieces and paints them before she fires them. “Sometimes, this process has several iterations,” she mused. “I paint the sculpture. Then I fire it, but firing is unpredictable. Colours might burn out or melt into each other in unexpected ways. Then I paint the piece again, maybe add some elements. Fire again. Some pieces take five or six times in the kiln before I know they are ready, but I don’t do perfect. I make mistakes sometimes and then play with my mistakes. I love quirkiness and imperfections.”

It helps that she owns her own kiln. “My kiln is in my basement,” she said. “It was a wedding present from my parents. They knew pottery made me happy.”

It is significant that the most important tool of her art was a gift to celebrate her family.

“I feel free like a bird in my art, but only because I have such strong support from my husband,” said Birstein. “I have stability in my life, a safe place to return, a secure home, and that allows me my freedom of artistic flight.”

That’s why the only image in the show with a man in it is her husband’s portrait.

“I was looking at all those sculptures and paintings of pregnant women in this series and thought: who made them pregnant? There must have been a man,” she said.

“It depicts my husband and my art,” said Birstein of the portrait painting, which features a man standing beside a sculpture of a pregnant woman.

The show Tsipora runs until June 27. In addition to being able to book a walk-through of the exhibit with the gallery, people can arrange a personalized tour with the artist via her website, suzybirstein.com, or by calling her at 778-877-7943.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Superstein plays at jazz fest

Andrea Superstein performs July 4 from Pyatt Hall during this year’s TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, which starts June 25. (photo from Wendy D Photography)

Vancouver vocalist, composer and arranger Andrea Superstein has a new song out. It’s cheerful, upbeat. And she will perform “Every Little Step,” which was released in March, live for the first time at this year’s TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, which starts June 25 and runs to July 4.

“‘Every Little Step’ was my saving grace during the pandemic,” Superstein told the Independent. “I wrote it at a time when I was feeling really overwhelmed by the uncertainty that living through a pandemic brings. I was emotionally exhausted from listening to the daily press conferences and I just needed something good. I received a Digital Originals grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and that was the impetus.

“The song was inspired by the beautiful landscapes of B.C., which I experienced on a family camping trip to Nelson,” she explained. “We live in such a beautiful place and being able to spend so much time in nature really saved me during the pandemic. In a way, it’s my homage to B.C.”

Of course, Superstein couldn’t meet in-person with musicians to workshop the composition, so, she said, “I had this crazy idea to reach out to musicians across Canada (some of whom I’d worked with before and others who to this day I still haven’t met in person) to write, arrange, record and make a music video completely in isolation. It was wild! We didn’t have one rehearsal – we didn’t even have a group Zoom meeting. Elizabeth Shepherd and I wrote and arranged the song together over Zoom and we communicated some ideas to each specific player and they self-recorded (audio and video) from their home studios. And we made a super-fun music video for it, as well.

“The more I think about it, I can’t even believe what we accomplished. I love the song so much! The vibe is a super feel good ’90s groove but, symbolically, it was so meaningful because, despite all being trapped at home, we found a way to be together in this weird virtual way. It was transformative for me.”

On the video, Superstein and Shepherd’s song is performed by them, with Superstein on vocals, Shepherd on keys, Carlie Howell on bass, Isaac Neto on guitar, Colin Kingsmore on drums and Liam MacDonald on percussion. For the jazz festival performance, Superstein will be joined by Chris Gestrin (keys), Nino DiPasquale (drums) and Jodi Proznick (bass).

“I’m so happy to be playing with them,” said Superstein. “They each offer such a unique perspective to the music and they’re all wonderful humans!”

The show is on July 4, 7 p.m., at Pyatt Hall and will be streamed on Coastal Jazz & Blues Society’s YouTube channel, she said. “Regarding a possible audience,” she added, “the festival is closely monitoring all provincial health orders and will make a decision on indoor audiences after the next provincial health update on June 15.”

Superstein is looking forward to being able to perform live again.

“I miss that special relationship that is forged during live performance,” she said. “There is something truly magical about collectively experiencing a moment in time that can never be recreated. That being said, I am blown away by the digital innovation that has emerged during the last year-and-a-half to keep the arts alive, and I attended some amazing concerts and theatre this year.

“As for me, it’s been relatively quiet on the performance front. I did a livestream concert through Or Shalom’s Light in Winter series in early 2021, which was so incredible. Other than a few other small things, I’ve been keeping it pretty low key, slowly working away at composing new music and taking my time with life.”

Playing at the jazz festival, she said, “I think it will be an incredible way to give momentum to many of the creative ideas I’ve been sitting with these past two years and a great chance for music lovers to reconnect, seeing as it’s been some time since my last performance.”

The last time that the Independent interviewed Superstein was in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit in full force. Among other things, she spoke about her then-new album, Worlds Apart, which she had described to CBC as having the themes of “the pain of being in a one-sided relationship, the loneliness of technology, and positivity in times of destruction.”

“As an artist, I like to observe life and then transform those observations into stories. I think this was helpful for me at the beginning of the pandemic because my curiosity was heightened, there was so much unknown,” she explained. “I found that to be both scary and exhilarating. I was also trying to figure out how to homeschool a 5-year-old while teaching full-time online without completely unraveling. So, creativity, flexibility and leaning in helped me survive most of 2020. Those are definitely skills that I use a lot as an artist. Truthfully, though, I don’t think anything could have prepared us for the pandemic.”

In addition to the new song “Every Little Step,” Superstein has started working on a new album, which she is hoping to release in late 2022.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” she shared, “with lots of moving parts, culminating in a multimedia performance. It will showcase collaborations with Elizabeth Shepherd, whom I treasure, and my dear friend Ayelet Rose Gottlieb (who you have featured before), among others. There’s also upcoming opportunities for non-musicians to be involved in the process, so people can stay in touch with me over social media if they want to know when and where that’s happening.”

As for her upcoming performance, she said, “In terms of what people can expect from the show, we’ll be doing some brand-new arrangements and compositions, a few gems from Worlds Apart, as well as a few old favourites. Like a true Superstein show, I’m going to take the audience on a sonic journey, whether that’s direct from Pyatt Hall or from their living rooms, it’s going to be a celebration!

For tickets ($11) to Superstein’s July 4 concert or any of the jazz festival’s more than 100 virtual events, visit coastaljazz.ca. There will be performances by local artists, as well as streams from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Amsterdam and Paris; free online workshops; club performances; and a continued partnership with North Shore Jazz. All streams will be available until midnight on July 6.