U.S. has many other priorities
It turns out Fidel Castro is still alive and making as much sense as ever. In an article in Cuban state media a few days ago, the former president ranted against the United States, Israel and NATO, the latter of…
freelancer
Garay’s 20 years, with 20 dancers, 20 places
Left to right, Michelle Lui, Bevin Poole and Vanessa Goodman. (photo by David Cooper) Dancers Dancing and SFU Woodward’s present the world première of 20.20.20, in which audiences will not just see, but feel the city come to life onstage.…
Milton Berle inspired today’s comedians
Maury Wills, Milton Berle, Jimmy Piersall and Willie Mays in a salute to baseball on the television program The Hollywood Palace in 1967. (photo from ABC Television via Wikimedia Commons) Today’s comedy superstars, especially those whose careers are driven by…
A Hebrew Birthright
The Israeli-American Council (IAC) has partnered with the Taglit Birthright Israel program to launch a special Hebrew track called IAC Shelanu. The new program offers a 10-day trip to Israel designed specifically for Israeli American young adults, ages 18-26. IAC…
Discovery of copper awl at Tel Tsaf a game changer
A copper awl from the fifth millennium BCE that was discovered at the site in Tel Tsaf. (photo by Yosef Garfinkel via Ashernet) Excavations at Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley, near the Jordan River, revealed in a woman’s grave…
Rebuilding Gaza: Will PA and EU become more involved?
With the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are asking when and how reconstruction of the battered coastal enclave will begin. United Nations workers in Gaza say that 55,000 refugees are still taking shelter in 41…
DNA’s not only factor
Epigenetics: environmental effects influence how genes are turned on or off. (photo by Yuval Robichek via wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il) Blood stem cells have the potential to turn into any type of blood cell, whether it be the oxygen-carrying red blood cells or…
Taking pianos to the streets
Sean Pacey dabbles at the keys in Burnaby, near the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. (photo from Sean Pacey) Keeping a business afloat for more than four decades is accomplishment enough, but to keep it in the family is especially…
Keys to healthy marriage
Last month marked my 15th wedding anniversary. Every year has felt significant, but 15 has a somewhat mystical overlay. The Hebrew equivalent for 15 would normally contain two of the four letters of the tetragram spelling God’s name (yud and…
This week’s cartoon … Sept. 5/14
For more cartoons, visit thedailysnooze.com.
Israel trip inspires choreographer
Crystal Wills in rehearsal for The Way They Walked Through the World. The work includes the use of more than 300 pairs of army boots. (photo by Christie Wood) The female experience of war. This part of the description of…
Jewish flare at Fringe Festival
Naomi Steinberg debuts Goosefeather. (photo from Naomi Steinberg) The Vancouver Fringe Festival starts next Thursday, Sept. 4, and runs until Sept. 14. There are many shows from which to choose and five of which, at least, include members of the…
Hundreds unite to stitch Torah
Sisters Brenda Silver, Susan Rubin and Mimi Wolch are among the hundreds who will contribute to the Torah Stitch by Stitch project. (photo by Phillip Silver) A new Torah scroll is in the making. The brainchild of Temma Gentles, Holy Blossom…
Talking about Israel
In British Columbia, this summer has been among the finest in living memory. Yet, for Jewish British Columbians and for all those watching events around the world right now, the summer has brought a very dark cloud. It has not…
Abargil makes Brave Miss World worth seeing
Cecilia Peck, left, and Linor Abargil in Princeton, N.J. (photo by Motty Reif) Former Israeli beauty queen and international cover girl Linor Abargil is a sharply intelligent woman with a cause: survivors of rape. Empathetic yet unsentimental, highly visible but…
Journey across water, time
Members of the Gitxaala Nation at the 2014 Qatuwas Festival. (photo by Kris Krug) Vancouver, Erev Tisha b’Av (Aug. 4): As Jews across North America are preparing themselves for the sombre, mournful fast commemorating the destruction of the holy temples…
Importance of prayer
The holy month of Elul has begun, the sixth month in the Hebrew calendar. There is a rabbinic allusion that the month was named from the initial letters of “Ani le dodi v’dodi li” (“I am my beloved’s and my…
Mystery photo … Aug. 29/14
Group in evening dress, State of Israel Bonds, Vancouver, B.C., 1960. (photo from JWB fonds; JMABC L.14505) If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at…
How to talk about the Middle East peacefully
Some of the violence in the Middle East has inflamed tensions closer to home. Online, there is a recent interview conducted by the University of British Columbia with its resident expert Prof. Robert Daum, who offered his thoughts on navigating…
Seeking donors for Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial
London, Ont. What began as a last-minute visit to one of the most solemn places in history has grown into a nationwide campaign supported by many distinguished people and groups, including the Canadian and Polish ambassadors and the Centre for…
Life-changing March for survivor
Teens on this year’s March of the Living helped Lillian Boraks-Nemetz face down haunting memories. (photo by Adele Lewin Photography) Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, a Vancouver poet and author who was a child survivor of the Holocaust, initially declined the offer of…
Winnipeg’s CMDA donates second ambulance
The ambulance being sent to Israel by the Winnipeg CMDA is the same type as the one pictured here. (photo from CMDA) With the recent violence and tensions in Israel, Magen David Adom (MDA) is, once again, being pushed to…
Mordechai Edel exhibits tapestries of light on canvas
Mordechai Edel at work in the studio. (photo from the artist) Mordechai Edel is not a stranger to grief and pain. His parents escaped Austria in 1939. His uncle spent years in the Nazi concentration camps. His father died when…
Monsters at the Zack
Claudia Segovia’s creations are colorful, whimsical monsters. (photo from Claudia Segovia) It took Claudia Segovia a long time to find her niche. “I always liked art,” she said in an interview with the Jewish Independent, “but I’ve been primarily a…
Dorrance headlines Vancouver tap festival
Dorrance Dance will perform at the Rothstein Theatre on Aug. 30. (photo from Vancouver International Tap Festival) “It would be like a jazz festival presenting Oscar Peterson,” said Sas Selfjord, executive director of the Vancouver International Tap Festival. She is…
Elan Mastai taps family history for F Word
Zoe Kazan and Daniel Radcliffe on the red carpet in New York City. (photo from facebook.com/thewhatifmovie/photos_stream) When Elan Mastai’s father said hello to a pretty stranger in a Jerusalem café some four decades ago, it was the only English word…
Tunnels pose serious threat
Weapons recovered from a Hamas tunnel. (photo from IDF/FLICKR) “One hundred Israeli schoolchildren killed in Hamas attack.” Israelis say this would have been just one of many similar headlines announcing untold loss of civilian life had Operation Protective Edge not…
IDF’s minority soldiers
Fact: There are 200 Christian Arab Israelis serving in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Fact: There are 200 Muslim Arab Israelis serving in the IDF. Fact: There are 1,400 Bedouin serving in the IDF. Fact: There are 4,000 Druze serving…
Aliyah even in hard times
The Babani family at New York’s JFK airport, moments before they boarded the plane to Israel. (photo by Shahar Azran via Nefesh b’Nefesh) Despite tensions surrounding the war in Gaza, 338 new olim (immigrants) from the United States and Canada…
Our Israel connections – the need to tell our stories
The Six Day War may have been history’s most illustrative example of the limitations of a weekly newspaper. Reviewing this newspaper’s archives from 1967 shows one week’s paper filled with ominous foreboding and the next issue, triumphal jubilation. Every year,…
