Dr. Peter Gary discusses A 20th Century Passion, which is set to première in Jerusalem Oct. 17, in a documentary-in-the-making by Hilary Pryor and David Malysheff. (screenshot from a20thcenturypassion.org/documentary) For most of his life, Dr. Peter Gary never spoke of…
Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library librarian Helen Pinsky, left, and master’s student Alisa Lazear, who is working on the library’s audiobooks collection. (photo by Olga Livshin) In past centuries, reading aloud was an integral part of family life. People gathered…
Robert Krell, left, and Elie Wiesel. (photo from Robert Krell) I met Prof. Elie Wiesel in 1978. I was 38 years old. He was 49. Elie, as he insisted I call him, came to Vancouver to speak at a commemorative…
There used to be just conservatives. Then there came the neo-conservatives, a largely American variation on the theme that venerates free markets, but marries it with an interventionist foreign policy. Neo-conservativism got a black eye after the interventionism its proponents…
Cancer. Now I’ve said it. Just saying it tightens up my gut. It makes me want to swallow. I look around to see if anyone can sense the anger, the blind rage that surges through me. I find myself breathing…
The Swirsky family. Jackie Swirsky has written a children’s book, Be Yourself, which features illustrations by her eldest child, Jacob, and her sister-in-law. (photo from Jackie Swirsky) Maybe it’s because I’m an academic, but I tend to gravitate to categories,…
This two-album anthology was created to celebrate the launch of the Milken Archive’s new website. It features a sample track from each of the archive’s 20 thematic volumes. The Milken Archive of Jewish Music: The American Experience has launched a…
Shula Klinger creates her vibrant, whimsical designs with cut paper. The art is then scanned and reproduced as prints and greeting cards. Selections of her work can be purchased at Delish General Store (Granville Island) and Queensdale Market (North Vancouver).…
Arlene Doyle, right, was joined for part of her adventure by her friend, Jennifer Williamson. (photo from Arlene Doyle) In early February, Arlene Doyle, a 53-year-old massage therapist and writer based in Ottawa and Perth, Ont., set off on the…
The Choral Temple in Bucharest. (photo from Wikimedia Commons) We spent two weeks in Romania in the late summer of 2015, also visiting Bulgaria. We took this trip partly because it was an area of vibrant Jewish life from Roman days…
In Livingstone, Zambia, visitors on the Jewish tour will see a church that used to be a synagogue. The Jewish population peaked in the late 1950s, to some 1,000 community members. (photo by Rebecca Shapiro) “This guy came to stay,…
A scene from Migdal David’s The Night Spectacular: the Queen of Sheba with her entourage. (photo by Amit Geron) While growing up in the United States, my friends and I never seemed to tire of asking each other, “Who is…
The author, Sybil Kaplan and Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at the opening of the exhibit In the Valley of David and Goliath, now at Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan) “As the Philistine moved closer to attack…
Salt print of Adolphe Crémieux, December 1856, by Nadar (1820-1910), from the J. Paul Getty Museum. (photo from Wikimedia Commons) While Jerusalem’s French connection thankfully lacks the violence and crime of the 1971 movie by the same name, both the…
Andrew Nagorski will talk at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre on Nov. 29, as part of the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival. (photo by Andrew Rudakov) The night before the legendary operation that captured Adolf Eichmann, Isser Harel, the…
For Donniel Hartman, putting God second is a way of maintaining a religious life and faith in God, but without God undermining our responsibility to our fellow human beings. (photo from Donniel Hartman) Donniel Hartman, an Orthodox rabbi and president…
Before you begin reading Curt Leviant’s latest novel, Kafka’s Son (Dzanc Books, 2016), you are confronted with a curious bit of information. There are a dozen quotes from French reviews before the title page. Why? Because the book first appeared…
Books can take you to the most captivating places. Not always happy places, but places worth exploring, places where the people, environment, challenges and culture are different. A place you can have adventures, learn from what has happened to others…
Two quirky books. Both historically based, both written with humor, both dark and light. But there the similarities end. The quiet and quirky Fever at Dawn by Péter Gárdos is based on letters his parents sent to each other immediately…
In writing Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015) with Steven Cook, Michael Solomonov hopes to share with other cooks “some of the magic” found in Israel. Israeli-born Solomonov grew up from the age of 2 to…
In my collection of cookbooks is The Complete International Jewish Cookbook by Evelyn Rose. For more than 30 years, she was food editor of the London Jewish Chronicle. When I received the press release that 100 Best Jewish Recipes (Interlink…
Add some apples to your honey cake this year. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan) In the spirit of trying new things and as the New Year approaches, here is a recipe from my kosher kitchen, a slightly different take on…
The High Holidays are all about family and friends coming together and sharing a meal. Kosher Taste: Plan. Prepare. Plate (Feldheim, 2016) by Toronto-based Amy Stopnicki offers home cooks a new formula for kosher cooking, with more than 100 recipes…
Museloop’s app that it created for Israel Museum. (photo from Museloop via Times of Israel) How do museums and other purveyors of history attract visitors and make the past relevant, especially as people come to expect more and more digital…
An artist’s impression of the newly discovered planet, Proxima Centauri b. (photo from ESO Kornmesser) An international team announced recently that a planet with a mass similar to that of earth has been observed orbiting the star Proxima Centauri –…
A European honey bee extracts nectar from an aster flower. (photo by John Severns via Wikimedia Commons) Around the world, bee populations have been decreasing in number, year by year, at an alarming rate. Such a tragedy isn’t just stinging…
This year, Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of Oct. 2. On the first day of the holiday, we read the Haftorah that tells us the story of Chana the prophetess, who prayed to G-d for a child. She prayed…
In just over a week, many of us will be in the synagogue. While listening to the sounds of the shofar, feel their power and reflect. (photo from Wikimedia Commons) Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the synagogue listening…
To make biblical date honey, Middle Eastern Jews boil and press dates that range in color from yellow to brown. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan) The Torah describes Israel as eretz zvat chalav u’dvash, the land flowing with milk and…
