Joanne Waters, left, and Karen Brumelle. (photo by Olga Livshin) Karen Brumelle and Joanne Waters have much in common. They have been friends for more than 40 years. Both spent their childhood and young adulthood in the United States. Both…
As the Winter Olympics returned to the headlines these past few weeks and we were filled with memories of four years ago in Vancouver, I decided this time around to root for the bronze medal winners. I cheered for the…
The author’s grandfather, Solomon/Zalman (later, Bernard), is at top right. I have been researching my family history for some years now. Usually, over the winter break, when life slows down to a dull roar and I can spend time at…
From left: Leah Deslauriers, Devorah Goldberg, Lisa de Silva, Donna Cantor, Julie Hirschmanner and Charles Leibovitch, with Debbie Sharp in front. (photo by Karon Shear) All of us fervently wish that, as the years gather, we will be able to…
Dr. Charles Kaplan and Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan. (photo from Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan) The small group meeting to pray and learn in living-rooms in the late 1970s and early 1980s couldn’t have known for certain that their community would survive…
Dudu Tassa & the Kuwaitis will play at Vancouver FanClub on March 9. (photo from Chutzpah!) The 2012 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival brought Dudu Tassa to local audiences – on film. The 2014 Chutzpah! Festival is bringing Tassa to the…
Idan Sharabi will be joined by three other dancers when he comes to Vancouver for Chutzpah! (photo by Tami Weiss) From running around barefoot as a child to dancing for audiences around the world, Idan Sharabi has never stopped moving.…
Alon Nashman as John Hirsch in Hirsch. (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann) When theatre and its creative engines become the main focus of a theatrical show, the results can be fascinating. An audience is always hungry for a glimpse behind…
Amitai Marmorstein’s dream as an actor was to play a superhero. However, in an interview with the Jewish Independent in April 2011, he bemoaned the type of roles he was getting and said, “I can never play an action hero,…
In 1492, as schoolchildren used to learn, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In Jewish history, as in the history of North American First Nations, 1492 stands out as a blue year for other reasons. That year is remembered as the…
Congregation Beth Israel’s former parking lot will be replaced by an underground parking garage with a 200-vehicule capacity. The roof will be an interconnected series of courtyards. (photo from Beth Israel) This September, when construction is complete and Congregation Beth Israel…
Since last year’s Chutzpah! Festival, the Jewish Independent has been waiting to see Noah Drew’s Tiny Music. The read-through in 2013 was a unique experience of a work-in-progress, and it will be fun to compare that “teaser” with the production…
Yosef plays for his zaida, Marvin Nider. Six-year-old Yosef Nider has been playing the violin for two years. On Wednesday, Feb. 26, 10 a.m., in the gymnasium at Vancouver Hebrew Academy, he makes his concert debut. Yosef will play a…
On Sunday, more than 200 adults and children converged on King David High School for the first annual Limmud Vancouver. Limmud is a global phenomenon celebrating Jewish learning and experiences in their most diverse and unexpected forms. Now occurring in…
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Richard Newman as Dr. Sigmund Freud, left, and Damon Calderwood as C.S. Lewis. (photo by Damon Calderwood and Chris Robson) When the air-raid siren goes off, it is hard not to heed it, and seek cover. So engaged does one…
This February, the Cultch, in partnership with Western Front New Music, is presenting a unique show, Music from the New Wilderness, curated by D.B. Boyko. This original performance incorporates archival wax cylinder recordings from the Okanagan, recent field recordings from…
Andrew McNee as Oscar Madison and Robery Maloney as Felix Ungar. (photo by David Cooper) In his program notes, artistic managing director Bill Millerd recalls the Arts Club Theatre Company’s 1967 production of The Odd Couple. In those days, the…
A still from the movie Voices from El Sayed. When one is a Bedouin living in southern Israel, ironies seem to multiply with regularity. Two relatively recent Israeli-made films bring this incongruous life into sharp focus. In the first, Voices…
A personal tragedy in Montreal last week exposed yet again a streak of unpleasant racial attitudes in Quebec. A 48-year-old woman died on a Metro station escalator when her scarf became entangled in the mechanisms and she was strangled. Editors…
The intensifying Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have caused opponents of a Palestinian state to revive former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir’s 1969 canard that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” However, “Palestine denial” is less a debating point…
Pioneer Women group, Vancouver, B.C., 1960. (JWB fonds, JMABC L12600) 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 the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting archives@jewishmuseum.ca.
Attendees at the 50th anniversary event in London. (photo from David Schwartz) Behind the treelike doors of Temple Sholom’s aron kodesh are six beautiful Torahs, each with its own history. The Torah in the centre of the top row is…
Peter Gary (photo from Peter Gary) April is a month of miracles for Peter Gary. An April baby, he was born in Poland in 1924, where he first developed his love – and talent – for playing music and composition.…
Major studies like one from the Pew Centre last year suggest that fewer Jewish people are participating in Jewish-specific activities. This would seem like a difficulty for groups like American Jewish World Service, a humanitarian and emergency relief agency with…
Images and symbolism mean a great deal in politics. This was presumably on the mind of Conservative Member of Parliament Mark Adler last week, when he hounded an aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to let him into the cordoned-off…
Left to right, Henry Ross-Grayman, Thomas Gradin and Mayor Gregor Robertson. (photo by Wendy Fouks) There was a full house at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre for the community’s marking of Wallenberg Day on Jan 19. Sponsored for the…
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, centre left, with the delegation in front of the Knesset Menorah. (photo from CIJA-PR) Last April, when Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts announced she planned to turn one square mile in her city centre into a leading centre…
MK Pnina Tamano-Shata speaks to the audience at a convention held Jan. 1 concerning the fate of approximately 7,000 individuals in Ethiopia who are still waiting to be granted aliyah. (photo by Uri Perednik) Last August, 450 new olim made…
“Poplars” by Darcy Mann. The Vancouver Art Gallery’s Art Rental and Sales space is not yet a well-known feature, but the nonprofit program has been quietly promoting emerging and mid-career Canadian artists on the gallery’s main floor. According to the…
