Advance voting is underway across British Columbia for municipal elections that culminate Oct. 20.
There are many dedicated, informed people with excellent ideas running for office in Vancouver and in communities across British Columbia. This is especially fortunate, since this year saw what may be the greatest number of incumbents in recent memory opt not to seek reelection. Of the 10 members of Vancouver city council, for example, only three are running for reelection. (One is running for mayor.) Mayor Gregor Robertson is also leaving the scene.
A similar change is evident across Metro Vancouver, where an inordinate number of incumbent mayors and councilors have chosen not to continue serving. Part of this may be coincidence and part may be that new funding rules put in place by the province have made the task of running more challenging, in some ways. Whatever the reasons, Vancouver and many other communities face a major realignment in our local politics.
Especially at a time like this, it is a little disappointing that there are not more individuals from the Jewish community who have chosen to offer themselves for office. It has been encouraging, on the other hand, to see the number of people from the community who are volunteering on campaigns and taking a very active role in engaging with candidates. The candidates forum for several mayoral hopefuls, sponsored by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the social service agency SUCCESS, was well attended. Another event, organized by CIJA and the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, allowed people to speak one-on-one with those who would like to be mayor of Vancouver.
There are, of course, not a lot of “Jewish issues” in local elections, though candidates for mayor addressed a number of things that are of concern to the Jewish community at a recent candidates forum. (For story, click here.) Ensuring that our municipalities remain welcoming, safe places for members of every ethnocultural community is a top priority. Part of that comes from people in positions of leadership leading by example. We have seen, in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, the licence that can be given to people with ill will when leaders choose to engage in incendiary language. It has been reassuring that there have, to date, been no serious incidents in local campaigns of overtly divisive language or strategies.
While the atmosphere has not been terribly divisive, division is the key word for traditional political parties in Vancouver.
Vision Vancouver, which has dominated the city for the last decade, has collapsed, not even managing to put up a candidate for mayor. The Non-Partisan Association (NPA) is a house divided, with at least two new parties emerging from disaffected former members.
The likelihood of independent candidates being elected to Vancouver city council and boards – as well as to the mayor’s chair – has probably never been greater. It could be an interesting mix for the next four years, with a constructive amalgam of different ideas coming together to synthesize into good policy – or it could be four years of chaos.
On the topic of chaos … a word about Vancouver’s at-large voting system. It is difficult enough to make an informed choice for the one position of mayor with 21 people contesting the race. It is an entirely different ballgame to try to make sense of the 137 candidates running for the 26 positions on city council, school board and park board. There is simply no way to expect reasonable, ordinary people to inform themselves adequately about this number of candidates.
Vancouverites have been floating the possibility of a ward system for decades but still face this daunting and compendious ballot every election. A ward system would not be without it faults – it could have the effect, for example, of elected officials representing their narrow constituencies against the broader interests of the city at large – but it would certainly permit average voters to become more familiar with the candidates who would represent them.
For now, though, this is the system we are in. And finding our way through it and voting with the best information we can access is the least we can do as citizens of a democracy. Despite the fact that local government is the one that has the most direct impact on our everyday lives, it is also the one that tends to attract the lowest voter turnout.
The last election saw a turnout of about 43%, which is comparatively good for a local election. (The one before that saw less than 35% turnout.) Some observers have suggested that the circus-like circumstances this year could help voter turnout, with so many new groups and independent candidates trying to get their supporters to the polls. Still, with 21 candidates for mayor – at least a half-dozen of them serious contenders – the possibility of someone taking the position with, say, 25% of the vote, is a real possibility. If turnout were to rise to a comparatively healthy level of, say, 50%, that would still mean the mayor has a mandate from a mere 12.5% of voters.
But, consider this from your perspective as a voter: the power of your one ballot to influence the outcome may be higher than ever.
Judith Chertkow-Levy, left, and Karen Kelm co-star in the musical Like a Fly in Amber, which will be at Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel Oct. 19. (photo by Victor Dezso Foto)
The Canadian Association on Gerontology Annual Scientific and Educational Meeting (ASEM) is the highlight of the year for those of us who work, conduct research or have an interest in the field of aging,” said Dr. Gloria Gutman, event co-chair. And, as far as she is aware, “this is the first time in the 47 years that the Canadian Association on Gerontology has been organizing ASEMs that it has included a social or cultural event quite like Like a Fly in Amber. When the organizing committee became aware of it, they got excited. It’s just so topical, given population aging; professional, funny and poignant.
“In today’s world,” she added, “many of us, especially women, can expect to be caregivers of frail elderly parents and/or, if we married partners older than ourselves, of a spouse whose physical and/or mental capabilities may become compromised. It’s the new norm.”
Like a Fly in Amber is a two-person musical about aging written by Karen Kelm, and co-starring Kelm and Judith Chertkow-Levy. It sees its Vancouver première at the CAG meeting on Oct. 19. Both the show and the conference are open to the public.
Among other things, Gutman is past president of CAG and professor and director emerita of the department of gerontology and Gerontology Research Centre at Simon Fraser University.
The ASEM, she said, is “where we learn about and present new ideas on how to improve the quality of life of our elderly population. While other organizations may be concerned with a particular age-related disease, CAG is a multidisciplinary organization that is concerned with the health and well-being of the whole person in the context in which they are living.”
Since CAG is a national organization, said Gutman, “the ASEM is held in different parts of the country as a way to build capacity as well as take advantage of what the different venues have to offer in the way of natural beauty, unique scientific and educational offerings, and culture.”
The conference program includes national and international keynote speakers, she said, noting that, this year, there are two from the United Kingdom, one from the United States and one from Vancouver. Preconference events, she explained, allow for more detailed study of particular topics, such as Reducing Seniors’ Social Isolation Through Collective Impact, which is funded in part by the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors Program. More than 600 abstracts “have been accepted for presentation within the eight streams of the scientific program which correspond to CAG’s professional membership: behavioural sciences; biological sciences; clinical practice; health sciences; humanities; policy and programs; social sciences; teaching and learning in gerontology.”
Like a Fly in Amber was part of the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival. “The play revolves around Iris’s writing of a eulogy for her mother while sitting in the attic of the house in which she grew up,” wrote Dr. Carol Herbert, former dean of the school of medicine and dentistry at Western University who now lives in Vancouver, in a review of that production for the Jewish Independent. “She struggles to evoke memories of the person her mother was and to put her personhood into words. The resulting tribute is beautiful.” (See jewishindependent.ca/moving-musical.)
According to the synopsis, Iris returns to the family home the night before her mother’s funeral and “discovers that fiercely independent Grace may have hastened her own demise – accidentally, through stubborn, irrational decisions. Iris reviews the final chapter of their relationship, to make sense of Grace’s kooky self-sufficiency, and find closure.”
Kelm plays Iris, while Chertkow-Levy plays Grace. The two performers met doing Fiddler on the Roof at Theatre Under the Stars in 1975.
“Over 40 years later,” Kelm told the Independent, “we are both enjoying being back onstage together – although I don’t think either of us could have imagined back when she portrayed Tzeitel and I was in the ensemble that she would play my mother one day!”
The two have been close friends since Fiddler. “She would join my family for Jewish holidays and Shabbat dinners and I would sing with her on Christmas Eve at her family gathering,” said Chertkow-Levy. “Although we moved to Toronto and shared an apartment and both pursued music careers, we did not have the opportunity to perform together until 2016. Karen is a gifted songwriter and, when she proposed the idea of doing this show in Toronto, I was thrilled to participate even though I was in San Diego and she was in Victoria.”
In preparation for the 2016 Fringe shows, Chertkow-Levy – who is one of Herbert and Gutman’s sisters – came to Vancouver around Passover for a few days of rehearsal. “Karen joined us for seder at my sister Carol’s home and, at the urging of my sisters, we sang a few bars of one of the songs. The theme of aging resonated with my sister Gloria professionally and with all of us emotionally and she had the idea of doing it sometime at a future convention. The seed of that idea grew and, as this CAG convention was being planned, Gloria felt the show was a good fit.”
While Kelm and Chertkow-Levy haven’t publicly performed the show since its debut in Toronto, they have continued to work with the material and improve it, said Kelm. “For example, the songs are mostly the same but, in the previous production, we performed to recorded tracks. In this production, we will perform with a live pianist.
“The script for the Fringe production emerged from swapping anecdotes with friends about their mothers,” she explained. “I knew Judy and Gloria’s mother (she ladled a lot of chicken soup down my throat over the years) and we laughed till we cried, remembering some of her best moments and priceless sayings. Judy also knows my mother, who, by the way, tells me it’s OK to poke a bit of fun at seniors because ‘we old folks are funny.’ Whew – she may come to the show this time. But, essentially, the first version of the show aimed to present a series of vignettes with songs attached.
“Of course, some of my mother’s idiosyncrasies show up in the script, but my experience performing for seniors in independent living facilities has taught me that many of the things we thought were unique to our moms are absolutely universal. So, after our first production, I took to heart some of the insightful observations of a couple of reviewers and began to write a more compelling script. The result is tighter, clearer dialogue and stronger dramatic structure surrounding the songs, now beautifully supported by a new score.
“I have always had a clear picture of Grace (the mother) because she is such a wonderful composite character, representing many mother figures whom I loved,” said Kelm. “Iris (the daughter) gave me more trouble, both as a writer and a performer, because, at first, I didn’t want to get too autobiographical. In this version of the script, Iris much more closely represents me than Grace does my mother.”
“As Grace,” said Chertkow-Levy, “I find myself drawing on the memories of wonderful mothers in my life who are no longer with us: my mother and grandmother and Karen’s wonderful Grandma Matthews and Aunt Peggy. And, I picture Karen’s mother and my mother-in-law who are modern ‘little old ladies’ who have embraced technology and surf the Net and are only old by virtue of their age in years. All are and were strong, resilient women who loved life and took aging with a grain of salt – accepted it but didn’t give in to it. I feel honoured to be able to draw on them as inspiration and keep them with me in memory. I hope that my portrayal lives up to that memory.”
Tickets for Like a Fly in Amber can be purchased from cag2018.eventbrite.ca. The price is $40 for the show only and $65 for the show plus flatbread and a beverage. It plays Oct. 19, 7 p.m., in the Grand Ballroom at Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel, 1088 Burrard St. For details about the CAG meeting, visit cag2018.ca. There are one-day as well as student and senior reduced registration fees available.
Geoff Berner will help open this year’s Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival on Oct. 24. (photo by Genevieve Buechner)
Recently back from Ontario, where he joined Orkestar Kriminal for a few shows, singer-songwriter and accordionist Geoff Berner will help launch the 15th annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival on Oct. 24.
Berner will be part of Songs of Justice, Songs of Hope, an evening of activist songs, led by musician, composer and conductor Earle Peach and featuring Solidarity Notes Labour Choir, among others. Berner will perform a solo set, but, he told the Independent, “I’m open to some collaboration with the choir, if that’s something they’d like to do.”
Berner has worked with Peach before.
“We’ve both lived in Vancouver for decades. We’ve both been active in left-wing politics and stuff in Vancouver for a long time,” said Berner. “I’ve played events with the Solidarity Notes Choir over the years. We have a lot of ideas in common.”
Heart of the City comprises more than 100 events at 40-plus locations around the Downtown Eastside over 12 days. Presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre with Carnegie Community Centre, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and many community partners, this year’s theme is “Seeds of Justice, Seeds of Hope,” celebrating the community’s “history of advocacy for human rights and social justice.” The website notes there will be “music, stories, songs, poetry, cultural celebrations, films, theatre, dance, spoken word, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibitions, mixed media, art talks, history talks and history walks.”
About his decision to participate in festivals like Heart of the City, Berner said, “You can feel it when an event or a music venue is not about money, but about building community and getting strength from music and culture. This is one of those.”
Berner has had a busy year. In September 2017, he released a new album, Canadiana Grotesquica, and his second novel, The Fiddler is a Good Woman, came out in October 2017. In addition to performances throughout British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada, a European tour took him to many cities over several months. This coming November, he’s headed to Seattle and Los Angeles, with other dates no doubt in the planning.
In the latest news post on his website (Sept. 14), Berner welcomes everyone back to the September routine, “whether it’s a New Year for you, or not.”
While he makes “resolutions all the time, not only at Rosh Hashanah,” Berner said, “My routine is that I write songs, make an album about once every two years, and then tour around North America and Europe trying to spread the album as far and wide as I can. Then I do it all again. It’s a good job.”
True to form, Berner will head into the studio in January to get a new album ready for October 2019. It will be produced by Josh Dolgin, aka Socalled, with whom Berner has worked since 2010.
“He is a valuable editor and idea generator,” said Berner of Dolgin. “He knows more about the recording studio, more about musical arrangement and more about Jewish music, especially klezmer music, than I do. So that all comes in pretty handy. And if he tells me, ‘no, you shouldn’t do that,’ he’s almost always right.”
People curious about what the album might sound like should mark their calendars for the Heart of the City opening. “There will be some brand new material from me at this festival,” Berner told the Independent. “See you at the show, I hope!”
The free Oct. 24 launch event takes place at Carnegie Theatre, 401 Main St., at 7 p.m.
Also participating in the festival is Vetta Chamber Music, with Seasons of the Sea, which melds contemporary classical music by local composer Jeffrey Ryan with a narrative written by Rosemary Georgeson. The original work, performed by Vetta Chamber Music and Georgeson, “describes the seasons on and by the sea, and is inspired by the 13 moon season of the Coast Salish peoples who used the tides and seasons of the sea as their calendar.” The show takes place Oct. 28, 3 p.m., at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, 578 Carrall St., and is admission by donation to the garden.
Most Heart of the City Festival events are free or by donation. For more information, visit heartofthecityfestival.com.
Vancouver Opera’s production of The Merry Widow opens Oct. 20. (photo by John Grigaitis)
“I am thrilled that The Merry Widow will open our 58th season,” Kim Gaynor told the Independent. “The Merry Widow has only been produced twice before in the history of Vancouver Opera. We have a terrific cast, and director Kelly Robinson also directed our smash-hit Evita in 2016.”
Gaynor, a member of the Jewish community, is general director of Vancouver Opera.
“Franz Lehár, the composer of The Merry Widow, always used Jewish librettists for his operas – in this case, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein – although he was Roman Catholic,” she noted. “The cultural milieu in early 20th-century Vienna was made up of a significant Jewish contingent. And Lehár’s wife, Sophie (née Paschkis), was Jewish before her conversion to Catholicism upon marriage, which was a common practice at the time in the case of a ‘mixed’ marriage.”
Lehár’s The Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe), a comedic operetta, is set in Paris at the turn of the last century. In the Vancouver Opera production, soprano Lucia Cesaroni will be making her role debut with the VO as the wealthy widow, Hanna Glawari, who tries to win the heart of Count Danilo, played by tenor John Cudia.
In the past year, notes the show’s promotional material, Cesaroni “also debuted with acclaim in both soprano roles of La Bohème, as Mimi with Pacific Opera Victoria and Musetta with l’Opéra de Montreal.” She last performed with the VO in West Side Story in 2011.
Cudia has performed in two recent VO productions: as Cassio in Verdi’s Otello (2017) and Juan Peron in Evita (2016). Among his credits, he is the first and only actor to have performed both as the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables on Broadway.
The VO production of The Merry Widow plays Oct. 20, 25 and 27, 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 28, 2 p.m., at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Tickets range in price from $50 to $175 and are available from the VO at 604-683-0222 or vancouveropera.ca.
Left to right are Ann Montague, Dr. Blye Frank, Marta Santos Pais, Jerry Nussbaum, Lillian Boraks-Nemetz and Marny Point. (photo by Tiffany Cooper)
On Sept. 13, at the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture held by the University of British Columbia faculty of education in partnership with the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada (JKAC), the audience listened to the words of a saint.
It is an apt description of Marta Santos Pais, whose middle name does indeed mean saint, in Portuguese. Santos Pais is the United Nations special representative of the secretary-general on violence against children. She has worked for decades with remarkable optimism, resilience, focus and patience to try and create a world where no child will suffer violence. At the least, it’s a saintly endeavour.
Santos Pais, who has a law degree from the University of Lisbon, was appointed to her current position in 2009, after a distinguished career working in several capacities in Europe for the rights of children, including being involved in the drafting of many high-level resolutions and policies. As a global independent advocate, Santos Pais would like to see the elimination of all forms of violence against children: in the justice setting, in the home, in institutional care, in schools, in the workplace and in the community.
The co-sponsor of the lecture, JKAC, was established in 2002 and is dedicated to the remembrance of Janusz Korczak and the dissemination of his ideas about the protection and education of children. Korczak was a Polish Jew who was killed by the Nazis along with the orphaned children under his care in the Warsaw Ghetto. Despite being given the opportunity to escape, Korzcak instead chose to stay with the children and accompany them to Treblinka, where they were all murdered.
Marny Point, a coordinator and instructor in NITEP, the Indigenous Teacher Education Program at UBC, and a representative of the Hul’q’umi’num Salish peoples, spoke in her language as well as in English to open the event. Holocaust survivor, author and JKAC board member Lillian Boraks-Nemetz then spoke briefly, reading from Korczak’s ghetto diary and highlighting the need for those who care for children to first attain self-knowledge.
“How can we aspire to become the kind of teacher and human being Korczak was?” asked Boraks-Nemetz, underlining his claim that it was through knowing ourselves that we may begin. Evoking Korczak’s warning that children are too often overlooked amid the storms that blow through the adult world, Boraks-Nemetz quoted him to that effect: “It is the children who always have to carry the burden of history’s atrocities.”
Dr. Anton Grunfeld presented a graduate scholarship to Ann Montague, a researcher in child education. She was awarded the scholarship on the basis of an ethnographic study of children’s education she conducted in Bali with an eye towards “mobilizing children as agents of care for the environment.”
While Dr. Blye Frank, dean of the faculty of education, introduced Santos Pais, Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, an Allard School of Law professor who works at the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre – and who served as British Columbia’s first representative for children and youth from 2006 to 2016 – spoke a bit about Santos Pais first. She highlighted Santos Pais’s influence on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 94 calls to action for the federal government, especially the sixth, which advises the abolition of Section 43 of Canada’s Criminal Code allowing the corporal punishment of children. Several of the evening’s speakers noted the importance of convincing the Canadian government to repeal Section 43 and join other countries that have outlawed all physical violence against children. Turpel-Lafond noted with particular gratitude the work of JKAC president Jerry Nussbaum in this regard.
Santos Pais began by acknowledging Korczak’s legacy, citing its role in inspiring the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). She drew a connection between the achievement of sustainable development and putting children first – starting with investing in the early years and creating a safe, loving environment for all children.
Progress has been made in the areas of “data, legislation, policy and program developments,” but the daily reality of millions of children, particularly the most vulnerable and marginalized, cries out to be addressed with more effectiveness, she said.
Santos Pais spoke of the goal to “leave no children behind anywhere and at no time – but, of course, the world is not yet there.” She noted that 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the CRC, giving us an occasion to recommit to addressing the one billion children still affected by violence each year.
Santos Pais spoke of the UN’s efforts both to listen to children around the world about their experience of violence, and to comprehensively study the wider social and economic costs of violence towards them. According to Santos Pais, presenting such evidence can be an important piece in motivating governments to see preventing violence towards children not as an expense but as a benefit to their country as a whole. Still, she said, many governments have told her that the goal of completely eliminating violence towards children in the near future is too idealistic, that it is “a joke.” To the contrary, she stressed, “We tend to believe that this goal can be accomplished and that there are many practical steps that we can take towards it.”
After Santos Pais’s speech, Nussbaum and Frank presented her with a Janusz Korczak statuette in honour of her service to children. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I’m going to cry now in my seat.”
Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.
סוף למשבר העמוק ביחסי ארצות הברית וקנדה בעידן טראמפ: שתי המדינות הגיעו סוף סוף להסכם סחר חדש. בפועל קנדה תצטרף להסכם הסחר שהושג כבר בין ארה”ב למקסיקו בסוף חדש אוגוסט. הסכם הסחר המשולש בין המדינות של צפון אמריקה שיחליף את הסכם נפט”א (נחתם באלף תשע מאות תשעים וארבע), יקרא יו.אס.אם.סי.איי (ארה”ב, מקסיקו וקנדה). הוא אמור להיחתם בין הצדדים בסוף נובמבר בטקס חגיגי, לאחר שיקבל את אישורי בתי המחוקקים של שלוש המדינת.
קנדה יש לזכור היא שותפת הסחר השניה בגודלה של ארה”ב לאחר סין. ועל כן להסכם החדש יש משמעות כלכלית גדולה מאוד לשתי המדינות השכנות, וכמובן גם למקסיקו. ההסכם החדש דן בתחומים רבים. ובהם: יבוא מכוניות, יבוא מוצרי חקלאות, יבוא חלב, יבוא תרופות, סוגיות של קניין רוחני, סוגיות של סחר דיגיטלי והמנגנון לפתרון סכסוכים בין המדינות. תוקפו של ההסכם שש עשרה שנים, ושלוש השותפות יבדקו אם יש מקום להכנסת שינויים בו רק בתום שש השנים הראשונות.
מיד עם היכנסו לבית הלבן לפני קרוב לשנתיים הודיע הנשיא האמריקני, דונלד טראמפ, כי הסכם נפט”א הוא הסכם גרוע מאוד לארה”ב ויש להחליפו. טראמפ החל במסע איומים קשים נגד קנדה ומקסיקו. זאת כדי לאלצן לחתום על הסכם סחר חדש. טראמפ הפנה את זעמו בעיקר לכיוון קנדה ומסע ההשמצות וההשפלות כנגדה הגיע לשיאו, עת הנשיא האמריקני סירב ללחוץ את ידו של רה”מ קנדה, ג’סטין טרודו, באו”ם בסוף חודש ספטמבר. טראמפ הגדיל לעשות והצהיר כי “אנחנו לא ממש אוהבים את הנציגים שלהם”. הנשיא האמריקאי התכוון בוודאי לשרת החוץ הקנדית, כריסטיה פרילנד, שעשתה רבות להשגת ההסכם המדובר. לטראמפ יתכן והפריע שפרילנד הוכיחה שהיא עומדת על שלה ופועלת בנחרצות לטובת האינטרסים הקנדיים – ועוד מדובר באישה! בשל התנהגותו הבוטה של טראמפ מערכת היחסים בין שתי המדינות שנחשבו לקרובות בעולם, הידרדרה לרמה שלא זכורה מעולם.
נציגי ארה”ב, קנדה ומקסיקו פתחו במגעים מואצים וארוכים להגיע להסכם החדש. לאחר שלושה עשר חודשים תמימים של משא ומתן הושג ההסכם הראשון בין ארה”ב ומקסיקו, בסוף החודש באוגוסט. ואילו ביום ראשון לפני כעשרה ימים (ה-1 באוקטובר), הושג ההסכם השני בין ארה”ב וקנדה. כל הצדדים נאלצו לוותר על חלק מהדרישות והתנאים המוקדמים להשגת הסכם סחר חדש של מדינות צפון אמריקה. נושא טעון אחד נשאר מחוץ להסכם ועל קנדה וארה”ב מוטל להמשיך ולדון בסוגיה, עד להשגת פתרון מוסכם. מדובר במכסי המגן שהאמריקנים מטילים על ייצוא של פלדה ואלומיניום מקנדה. מכל מקום מחלוקת זו לא תמנע את החתימה המשולשת על ההסכם החדש.
האופוזיצה בקנדה מיהרה לתקוף את ממשלת טרודו על כביכול הוויתורים הגדולים שעשתה לאמריקנים, כדי להגיע להסכם. לעומת זאת בנק אוף אמריקה מציין כי קנדה עשתה וויתורים סמליים בלבד. לפי אנליסטים של הבנק חלק מסעיפי ההסכם הם סמליים בעיקרם. ההסכם כולל הפחתה קטנה בפרוטקציוניזם לרפתנים מקנדה. עתה ליצרני החלב האמריקאים תהיה גישה ל-3.59 אחוזים משוק החלב הקנדי לעומת 3.25 אחוזים שהיו נהוגים עד כה. השינוי הנ”ל יגדיל את ייצוא החלב האמריקני לקנדה בכ-70 מיליון דולר בלבד.
עם השגת ההסכם אמר טראמפ על טרודו: “הבעייה היחידה של ג’סטין היא שהוא אוהב את העם שלו, הוא נלחם קשה למען עמו. תמיד היו לנו יחסים טובים והם קצת הידרדרו בחודשיים האחרונים”.
Members of the Tikun Olam Gogos show off some of the paddles being auctioned, until Oct. 10. (photo by Paula Simson)
Last fall, Sue Hyde, dragon boat master and member of Tikun Olam Gogos (which loosely translates as Grandmothers Repairing the World), walked into a board meeting with a hand-painted paddle she had decorated herself. Her idea was to sell paddles like it to raise money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, which supports grandmothers in Africa who are raising children orphaned by AIDS.
Tikun Olam Gogos is a Jewish charitable organization, sponsored by the Sisterhood of Temple Sholom, and it is dedicated to fundraising for Grandmothers to Grandmothers. The board was in favour of Hyde’s idea – and one of the board members bought the paddle on the spot. Paddles for African Grandmothers was born.
Hyde had access to more than 30 vintage paddles and the Tikun Olam Gogos asked various artists to paint them. The resulting paddles are being auctioned off until Oct. 10 at tikunolamgogos.org/on-line-auction.
“The paddles were done by a selection of different artists, including one stand-up paddle done by a Syrian refugee,” Tikun Olam Gogos member Sunny Rothschild told the Independent. “The rest are meant to hang on the wall. The paddles are amazing, intricately carved as well as painted. Some are two-sided and some aren’t.”
The fundraiser will culminate with an evening concert on Saturday, Oct. 13, featuring the City Soul Choir and a meet-and-greet with the artists. Winning bidders can pick up their paddles then.
Marie Henry, the founder of Tikun Olam Gogos, also spoke with the Independent. The Tikun Olam Gogos are part of the Greater Vancouver Gogos, which includes more than 25 groups.
“I was visiting in-laws in Kelowna, and I went to a public market and saw a stall where women were selling beautiful tote bags. I found out they were supporting the Stephen Lewis Foundation,” she explained. “I came back and joined the group in Vancouver, but the only problem was I was the only Jew in the group and events kept conflicting with the Jewish calendar. ‘This is crazy,’ I thought, ‘I’m going to form my own group.’”
Henry did just that, in 2011. Today, the group, which is named after the Jewish concept of repairing the world (tikkun olam) and the Zulu word for grandmother (gogo) has Jewish and non-Jewish members. Henry said that only some of the members are actual grandmothers, with the rest being “grand others.”
There are a few hundred Grandmothers to Grandmothers groups across Canada, as well as organizations in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Tikun Olam Gogos has sold more than 2,000 tote bags, with all profits going to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. That’s some $200,000 in donations from tote bags, said Rothschild.
“The admin costs are 11% of all the monies raised, one of the lowest rates of all charities in Canada,” Henry added.
While Henry takes care of notes and minutes and other administrative details for the group, she said, “We have a lot of really talented women in the group, like Sunny, who takes responsibility for part of the group and helps run it.”
Rothschild joined Tikun Olam Gogos almost four years ago, when she was slowing down her career as a lawyer and had more time for volunteer work. She is active in sewing the group’s signature tote bags, as well as taking turns selling them at local craft fairs, where the Gogos get a chance to tell people about their work and the Stephen Lewis Foundation. “That’s the best part,” she said.
“I have a Post-it up in my house – ‘May my life be for a blessing,’” said Rothschild. “This is one of the things that I do because I want my life to be meaningful and to have mattered.”
“The reason that I started this group when I found out what they are doing,” said Henry, “is to help these grandmothers raise up to 15 grandchildren. My grandchildren live a life of privilege and I feel so horribly guilty that these women in their senior years have to suffer so horribly badly. Doing this, I feel useful. In the final analysis, we are performing tikkun olam.”
“I don’t think that the governments in Sub-Saharan Africa understand the revolution that is going to take place because of these women becoming empowered,” said Rothschild. “There are amazing stories of what women are doing, standing up for their rights. It’s really quite amazing what’s happening.”
“The support that we give them helps them to do that,” added Henry. “I see this as the same to the way that suffragettes in North America stood up for their rights, and here it’s happening in a similar way nearly a hundred years later.”
For now, Henry and Rothschild are hoping the community will come out to support Paddles for African Grandmothers at the Many Rivers to Cross concert.
“We’ll be selling tote bags,” said Rothschild. “People can buy a glass of wine, there will be food too – it will be a lovely event.”
Tickets for the Oct. 13, 7 p.m., show at Temple Sholom can be purchased via tikunolamgogos.org/events.
Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.
Rae Maté is one of the many artists who have donated work to the fundraiser for a Hornby Island gallery. (photo from Rae Maté)
Hornby Island, in Georgia Straight, is known for its natural beauty. It is no surprise that many of its small population – 1,016, according to the 2016 census – are artists. While the community hasn’t had a regular exhibition space, this is about to change. On Oct. 10, the Hornby Island Arts Council is holding an auction fundraiser in support of building a new art centre.
“A full 40% of residents of Hornby are visual artists, dancers, musicians, poets, actors and writers,” Cheryl Milner, auction chair, told the Independent about the need for a permanent gallery. “For too many years, local visual artists have been using a 1967 mobile home with a small display area to show their work. Otherwise, artists have built their own studios or hung their work in the local co-op general store to get in front of the island visitors.”
About the concept for the fundraiser, Milner said, “The idea came to me because I became familiar with this amazing woman on the East Coast of Canada, Zita Cobb. She lived on Fogo Island, left after high school, made it in the high-tech business and went back home to see how she could help her native island, particularly because the cod fishery had closed. She started a foundation to create greater cultural resilience for the region.”
Milner doesn’t want anyone to compare her to Cobb, but she wants to help Hornby Island and its artists on a smaller scale. “My thought was to marry Vancouver to Hornby Island as Toronto supports Fogo Island. The auction is our first attempt, and we’ll see how it goes,” she said. “The parallel goes only as far as helping support the gallery. We don’t wish to expand things further than that for now.”
She said a gallery has been on the radar of the arts council for years. “We have some new blood in the organization and want to help make it happen,” she explained. “We are also applying for some matching grant opportunities, which means that we could potentially double the capital we have been scrimping to save. Currently, we have about $180,000 saved. This will give us a good foundation to move forward. We do have a couple of architects on board to support this venture, so there appears to be quite a lot of momentum to get this done.”
Attracting tourists is one of the reasons the auction will take place in Vancouver, not on the island itself.
“Many Vancouverites frequently visit Hornby,” Milner said. “They love the place and their special time there. We are giving Vancouver an opportunity to support the artists they love by helping to build a proper facility to house a permanent gallery, exhibition and workshop space for future generations.”
The artists of Hornby Island are excited about the gallery and the auction.
“Approximately 35 artists donated their works,” said Milner. “About 25 are in the live auction and another 10 in the silent auction, which will focus on items and services of interest to Vancouverites.”
Besides their art, some participants are offering “Hands-on Hornby” artistic experiences to bidders. Among these will be cutting a song with Marc Atkinson at the Barn Studio and a two-day workshop with ceramicist Rachelle Chinnery, which includes a rental stay.
One of the visual artists who donated their work for the auction is Vancouver Jewish community member and well-known local artist Rae Maté. In 2011, she had a solo show at the Zack Gallery, and the Independent published an interview with her at the time. Since then, much has happened in her artistic life.
“In 2015, my third book in the Crocodile series with the author Robert Heidbreder, Crocs at Work, was published by Tradewind Books. My silly crocodiles are back and, this time, they have jobs and professions, which they do in very surprising and funny ways,” she said.
Since the death of her mother in 2017, Maté has devoted herself to art full-time.
“I’m excited to be using oils again as well as acrylics,” she said. “I’m exploring new directions: abstraction, non-figurative works and landscape. This summer, I had a very successful show on Hornby during the art festival in August. I was one of the four artists invited to mentor Hornby children. The children’s art was shown alongside with the mentoring artist’s new works. It was an exciting and rewarding experience for us all.”
Maté’s ties to Hornby Island are longstanding. “Our family fell in love with Hornby Island in the 1980s, when my sons were little, and we spent several summer holidays camping there,” she said. “After my daughter was born, we purchased a small cabin. Five years later, we sold it and bought a larger place with indoor plumbing. We are still there today and we have many Jewish friends who live nearby. For years, we have been having potluck Shabbat dinners at Grassy Point, a wonderful park with a meadow and a beach a short walk from us. It is famous for its sunsets.”
Maté has enjoyed the island and its artistic atmosphere for years. It feeds her creativity.
“I used to tell people that being an artist on Hornby Island is like being a Jew in New York,” she said. “Almost everyone is creative and involved or interested in the arts. I feel very inspired and at home there.”
She also contributes to the arts scene on Hornby. “I regularly sell my art cards at the co-op store and at the farmers markets in the summer. I had a few solo and group shows at the community hall.”
Not only do she and her family spend most summers on the island, but she usually manages to get there for about a week every two months. “I do so much of my painting and illustrating work there, on my deck in the garden, when the weather allows, or in the studio during the colder months,” she said.
When Maté heard about the auction, she knew she wanted to donate her works for it.
“When Cheryl approached me at the market, I said yes immediately. This is a cause I whole-heartedly support. I am offering three paintings for the auction, all new, created especially for this event.”
The Oct. 10 auction will take place at Sage Bistro, which is behind the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia. To learn more, visit hornbyislandartscouncil.wordpress.com.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
Colleen Winton as Mrs. Lovett and Warren Kimmel as Sweeney Todd in Snapshots Collective’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which runs Oct. 10-31. (photo by Nicol Spinola)
“To seek revenge may lead to hell, but everyone does it, if seldom as well as Sweeney,” said Stephen Aberle, quoting from the finale of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Aberle plays Judge Turpin in the Snapshots Collective production of the musical, which will take place at Mrs. Lovett’s Pie Shop, or at least a facsimile of it, at 348 Water St., in Gastown, Oct. 10-31. Most shows are already sold out.
“Part of the power of the piece,” explained Aberle, whose character sets Sweeney on his murderous path, “is that we can identify with all of the characters, see their strengths and their flaws, and observe how much we share with them. That’s what makes it troubling, that irresistible doubt: would I do anything differently?”
Let’s hope most people would, as Sweeney Todd slits quite a few throats in his barber’s chair – providing the main ingredient for Mrs. Lovett’s pies – before getting to the object of his revenge, Judge Turpin, who abused Sweeney’s wife and exiled Sweeney for a crime Sweeney didn’t commit.
“When we decided on doing Sweeney Todd,” director Chris Adams and choreographer Nicol Spinola told the Independent in an email interview, “we knew we wanted Warren Kimmel as Sweeney, so we approached him first to see if he would be interested in playing the title character. He was on board almost immediately and we started moving forward to cast the rest of the show. We next approached Colleen Winton for the role of Mrs. Lovett and held auditions for the rest of the cast. We weren’t shy in letting auditioning actors know that our show was going to be different and that seemed to excite them. We were thrilled with the turnout and were able to cast the show exactly how we saw it.”
And the intimate audience – theatre capacity is about 56 – will be right in the midst of it all.
“The show is staged around the entire venue with some seats being directly in the action,” said Adams and Spinola, who are also co-producers of the show, with Ron Stuart, Wendy Bross Stuart and Kat Palmer. “There will be interactive moments between the actors and the audience, although there is no audience participation required. Sometimes the action will take place right in front of you and other times the action will be across the room.”
Kimmel looks absolutely terrifying in the production’s 44-second teaser.
“It’s always more fun, interesting, to play dark or evil characters than good ones and, for the most part, I am cast as good guys rather than bad guys so this is fun from that point of view,” said Kimmel of playing the title character in the musical, composed by Stephen Sondheim, with book by Hugh Wheeler. “Also, Sweeney Todd is probably one of the most challenging pieces in the musical canon to perform, so that makes it a stimulating and scary experience as well, which is, I suppose, fun in a twisted fashion.”
“I think this is a tremendously important story for our time,” said Aberle, “a time when the power structures that reinforce men’s privilege and women’s presumed subservience (as well as racialized, class-based and other power imbalances) are being challenged by some; desperately defended by others. We read about Judge Turpin analogues just about every day in the news. I think it’s particularly important for those of us who possess power to check in with a story like this and consider our own exercise of that power. To what extent am I being a self-serving brute in this situation? Are there ways I might reduce that extent? The play, it seems to me, asks questions like those pretty insistently.”
About how he has chosen to portray Judge Turpin, Aberle said, “I’m looking for him the way I generally look for a character: by trying to figure out what he wants in the context of the given circumstances. That context, for a judge in mid-19th-century England, was power, privilege and prestige.
“One of the things that makes Judge Turpin interesting, to me, is that he’s not merely a psychopath or even a simple, spoiled narcissist: he tries to do ‘the right thing’ according to social convention and struggles with his desires (though more because of deeply ingrained inner shame than because he really understands his own power to harm, or empathizes with his victims). There are some questions about the man that I’m interested in exploring. What was his blue-sky vision of the perfect outcome when he set this engine of vengeance rolling, 15 years before the play begins? Why, especially given the power of his urges, has he gone through life so far without marrying? Why did he adopt a year-old infant as his ward? There are several plausible answers – and plausible combinations of multiple answers – for each of these, and I’m enjoying playing with them.”
Echoing Kimmel’s assessment of the music, Aberle added, “And, really, let’s face it. This is Sondheim at just about his Sondheimiest. If I can sing the material more or less in time and on pitch, I’ll be pretty happy.”
“The music plays a central role in telling this story,” Bross Stuart, the show’s musical director, told the Independent, “and there is no one more brilliant than Stephen Sondheim to do this for us. Central to the core of this music is the Gregorian chant, ‘Dies Irae’ (‘Day of Wrath,’ ‘Day of Judgment’) theme, heard throughout this work. We hear fragments of this musical motif hidden everywhere. Extended, shortened, pulled out of shape, but it’s there. We know it is the underpinning of Sweeney Todd’s motivation. It helps us understand Mr. Todd’s state of mind; and how revenge morphs into mental illness. When we are in the asylum, in Act 2, some of the ‘patients’ sing a demented version of ‘Dies Irae.’
“Another example is Sondheim’s use of a repeated note for more than 100 bars. Why does he do this? It is Mr. Todd’s obsession with murdering Judge Turpin. Even while the men are having a seemingly ‘friendly’ conversation, Todd is thinking along more sinister lines.”
“Sweeney Todd, as far as we can tell, is a normal man with a wife he adores and a new young daughter,” said Kimmel. “Without spoiling the plot altogether, life deals him a hand that most would find impossible to survive, let alone overcome, and so we have a perfect vehicle to allow us to ask what we would do in his position and, if we are honest with ourselves and had the courage to follow through, we could easily imagine doing the same things he does.”
But, he added, “In the end, I think it is a very moral story and the final destination is morally inevitable – although we feel for him and want to see him get his revenge, and although he and Mrs. Lovett almost get away with what they have done, it cannot be…. The world is set to rights at the end of the piece.
“You could say that this is just a Victorian melodrama, a deliciously dark tale underlining all the Christian moral virtue of the period,” he continued. “However, like all great drama, I think the rules of the game are timeless – first dramatized in Greek times or even biblical times. You cannot fool God; you cannot escape the price that must be paid for transgressing His rules. There is a fashion now to believe that we have moved past these religious moral strictures and that religion has less to offer a modern society but, in the end, this is a morality tale that resonates with very deep archetypal themes. No matter how justified it may seem, revenge will lead nowhere good.
“From a performance point of view, it is always a gift to be able to play someone truly morally compromised and, in a broader sense, I think that is what the theatre is really for: to allow us to watch this story and go through all that life is able to throw at us, to imagine, to understand and even to justify truly extraordinary behaviour, and yet to laugh and cry and cringe and know that, at the end, the moral compass of the world is back on true north.”
An emotional connection to the show is one of the reasons that the Stuarts wanted to be involved in this production. “We saw the original Broadway production in New York City in 1979, with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou,” said Ron Stuart. “It was brilliant and riveting and unique in the genre – like West Side Story was 20 years before or Showboat before that.
“Our co-producers had the concept of an immersive version of the show at a Gastown venue around Halloween, and we thought it was an interesting way to present the work.”
In addition to funding, he said, “with projects of this scale, we are also very hands-on. Our director, choreographer, music director and assistant director are also producers. We readily share our contacts in a variety of specialities, such as costumes, set design, lighting, instrument rental, legal issues, marketing, etc. Moreover, we are a collective under Equity rules, so we all have ‘skin in the game.’”
This is Palmer’s first experience as a producer. “It has been nice to learn from professionals who have been through this journey from beginning to end,” she told the Independent.
Knowing that they wanted this show to be immersive, the venue not only had to work from a mechanical perspective, “but add to the experience,” said Palmer, who is also in the ensemble.
“It’s been a fun challenge,” she said, “to be switching between my assistant stage managing hat and my performer hat – ‘this prop will need to be pre-set here, oh no, this is the lyric, this person has a quick change.’”
Palmer described the show as being very difficult technically, “there is not just Stage Left and Stage Right to worry about, there is a whole building.”
This is part of the attraction for Bross Stuart.
“We, the musicians, are very close to the audience and to the actors,” she explained. “Communication, page-turning, singing as you play – could be problematic. And the action is very immediate and very gripping. Very exciting!”
“My favourite number in the show,” said Palmer, “has to be our opening number, ‘The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.’ Our amazing choreographer, Nicol Spinola, has created something so eerie, unique and unsettling. It immediately brings the audience right into this dark and thrilling world of 1840s London. Not only does it sound fantastic to have our entire cast of 17 singing Sondheim’s challenging music, but it also sets the mood for the entire show. I get chills performing it and I am very confident the audience will have never experienced anything like it before.”
For more information and tickets to Sweeney Todd, visit sweeneytoddthemusical.ca. And plan to have dinner at the venue before the show – pies, of course.
“Our pies come fresh each day from the Pie Hole located on Fraser Street in Vancouver,” said Adams and Spinola. “We are offering a traditional steak-and-stout meat pie, an aromatic Moroccan chickpea vegetarian pie and a delicious Thai coconut curry vegan pie. Pies can be added on when you are purchasing your tickets.”
As we come to the end of the High Holy Days, we set ourselves on paths of new beginnings. On Simchat Torah, we mark both a beginning and an end. The cycle of Torah reading ends and then immediately begins again. It is said that we read the same passages of the Torah every week, every year, but the meanings change because we are different people year after year, experiencing life and the world with different eyes and, hopefully, with increased wisdom.
The Days of Awe are a time of critical introspection. This period of teshuvah invites us to recognize our shortcomings and commit to improvement. This mission is both individual and collective. As a people, we are obligated to repair the world, and this year calls on us with no shortage of issues to collectively confront: inequality and suffering, environmental degradation, inhumane treatment of animals, the pursuit of justice.
On the latter front, our cousins in the United States are absorbed in a drama around the appointment of the next justice of the Supreme Court and things that he may have done many years ago. The senators considering his nomination heard two irreconcilable narratives last week from the accuser and the accused. The testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford echoes the testimonies of so many people, mostly women but also men, who have felt empowered, motivated or obligated to share their most personal experiences in what has become known as the “#MeToo era.”
Yet the senators’ motivations hinge on more than determining who is telling the truth. Political considerations – advancing President Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee to the bench before the November midterm elections – seem to be the factor front of mind for some elected officials, regardless of Blasey Ford’s testimony. It seems clear that politics may trump justice in this case.
Politics in Canada is not as brash as that in the United States, but populist and exclusionary ideas may be finding a voice here that they did not have before. A new federal political party seems prepared to amplify views that, until recently, were more limited to online discussions and whispered conversations. Meanwhile, the party that won Monday’s provincial election in Québec mooted during the election campaign the idea of throwing out newcomers who do not gain an adequate grasp of the French language within three years of arrival. Unconstitutional as such a policy may be, even voicing such ideas brings us to a new chapter in Canadian public life.
Immigration and refugees are a perennial issue, with the nature of a society at the heart of the discussion. The groups of people at the centre of the discussion – immigrants and refugees – change generation by generation. In this era, Jewish Canadians have an opportunity to bring hard-learned wisdoms to the debate. The federal government is set to formally apologize next month for a most egregious historical example of exclusion: the rejection of the passengers on the MS St. Louis. Indeed, this memory should inform our reaction to the current discussion and the realities for the millions of displaced people and refugees fleeing conflict around the world.
Personal experiences inform our political ideologies. And, through our personal actions, we can affect political affairs. This can be in obvious ways – like showing up to vote in the municipal elections on Oct. 20 or in advance polls – or in more subtle but profound ways, like educating the next generation, modeling the values we hope to advance and creating ripples of goodness across our circles of influence.
In matters of public policy and in the more private ways we behave in our lives, the holy days remind us to take stock of our own role in advancing justice and a better world.
We may feel insignificant in the grand scheme. How can we affect the powers in the White House or in Ottawa or around the world? But Jewish tradition is clear. “It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either,” said the Mishnaic sage Rabbi Tarfon.
Inward reflection is the first and easiest step we can take as individuals to address faults in our world. Based on this reflection, we may choose to move to action. Where it will end, we cannot always tell at the beginning. But it is our job to get the ball rolling.