Sam Margolis – Jewish Independent

Jewish film festival moves

Robert Albanese, executive and artistic director of the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre. (photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Centre)

Community members who associate November with grey skies, falling leaves, American Thanksgiving and, in recent memory, the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, can now cross the last item off the list. In 2020, the VJFF will be presenting films from Feb. 27 to March 8 instead.

The VJFF, the longest-running Jewish film festival in Canada and one of the longest-running film festivals in North America, will feature a collection of 32 offerings from 14 countries – including many Canadian premières – addressing current, varied and sometimes controversial subjects.

This new annual time period is the most popular season for Jewish film festivals. Of the more than 200 international Jewish film festivals, the majority present films in March. In Vancouver, this will mean warmer weather and less rain.

The move to March also permits the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre (VJFC), the society which oversees the festival, to raise funds at the beginning of the calendar year. Moreover, members of the festival staff believe they will have an opportunity to select from an even wider pool of relevant and available films.

Robert Albanese, who was brought in as executive and artistic director of the VJFC in 2010, highlights the past decade of growth the festival has had in the community, and its impact. He is adamant when it comes to the relevance of film and motion pictures in modern culture.

“Film is the most engaging art form of our era … film accesses and engages the broadest community,” he told the Independent.

“We provide Jewish continuity and an awareness of Israel beyond the front page through storytelling in today’s visually oriented world. It is vastly important to have a visible presence of our culture out in this media-centric world,” he added.

Albanese stresses that the VJFF seeks to engage with the broader community by offering the very best film stories it can find. Three of the international films scheduled to screen in March have been submitted by their respective countries to vie for the Best Foreign Film Award at the 2020 Oscars. In spite of Vancouver’s relatively smaller population, the VJFF has consistently been ranked as one of the top 10 Jewish film festivals for the past several years.

Albanese’s name has been ensconced in the minds of local film aficionados for more than three decades. Before coming to the VJFC, he was a general manager for Cineplex Entertainment for 15 years and served as director of exhibitions for the Vancouver International Film Festival for 10 years. Albanese also helps in the selection process for other Jewish film festivals, such as the one held in Victoria in early November.

According to Albanese, the VJFF aims “to showcase the diversity of Jewish culture, heritage and identity through film.” This can be seen in a quick glance at last year’s program which, as festival-goers might recall, included films on an array of topics, such as The Syrian Patient, about wounded Syrians brought to Israel for treatment; Heading Home, a documentary on the Israeli national baseball team; and Chewdaism, a full-length film on Jewish Montreal and its eateries from internet stars Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion of YidLife Crisis fame.

In addition to the annual festival and other events, the VJFF presents films on the last Tuesday of every month. The November film – on Nov. 26 at 1 p.m. – will be The Invisibles, a 2017 German docudrama following the lives of four Holocaust survivors. The monthly screenings take place at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, where the VJFC office is located, and admission is by donation.

The 2020 festival’s opening film will be held on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 27, at the Rothstein Theatre in the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, and will be followed by a hosted reception in the centre’s Wosk Auditorium. The festival then moves to Fifth Avenue Cinemas, screening films from Feb. 28 to March 5. For its conclusion, the festival returns to the Rothstein Theatre, with films March 6-8 and special closing day celebrations March 8.

There are presently openings at the VJFC for volunteers to help with film research and selection, event planning, distribution of promotional materials and assistance at the festival, among other tasks. Volunteers receive complimentary tickets based on the number of shifts worked.

The full list of 2020 films will be available in early January on the VJFF website (vjff.org) and elsewhere. The 2020 festival is rolling back admission prices, with passes for $144 for all films, a five-film package of $60 for adults ($50 for students and seniors) and individual tickets at $15 for adults ($12 students/seniors). Tickets for gala events are $25 and an annual VJFF membership card is $2.

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

Reimagining Hatikvah

Molly-Ann Leikin (photo from Molly-Ann Leikin)

For most of her five-decade musical career, Molly-Ann Leikin felt something was missing – many English speakers singing Hatikvah had no idea what the Hebrew words coming out of their mouths actually mean. So, she set about creating an English version of the Israeli national anthem.

Her version is not a translation, Leikin stressed in an interview with the Independent, from her home in Santa Barbara, Calif. She contends that no translation could possibly convey the meaning of the original Hebrew. Instead, she wanted an anthem set to the same melody that everyone singing it could enjoy, understand and, as she said, “feel the passion.”

Born in Ottawa, Leikin graduated from the University of Toronto. The author of How to Write a Hit Song and How to be a Hit Songwriter, she has composed themes and songs for more than five dozen television shows and movies, and her work has been performed by a diverse array of entertainers, such as Anne Murray, Tina Turner and Billy Preston. Among many other things, she has done private songwriting coaching in Vancouver since the 1980s.

Early in her career, Leikin said she felt there was no way for a tunesmith to make a living in Canada, so she hopped into her dented red Volkswagen Bug and drove – starting her journey during a severe snowstorm – to Los Angeles. Now, she co-writes and consults with new artists and lyricists, helping them advance their original songs to compete in the marketplace.

Leikin lists 12 of her clients as Grammy winners, another 17 as Grammy nominees. According to the latest count on her website, she has helped 7,518 writers and artists place their work in movies, television shows, on CDs, in video games and commercials, and their tracks can be downloaded from various sources on the internet.

“My motto is, ‘If you’ve got the tracks, I’ve got the contacts,’” she said.

In addition to writing songs, Leikin writes bar/bat mitzvah speeches, toasts, roasts, vows and memorials.

Revisioning Hatikvah

When she was a university student in the late 1960s, Leikin spent a year in Ashkelon and, after attending an ulpan for four months, could understand the lyrics of Hatikvah (The Hope).

In 2014, while in Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival, she was stung by bees and fell into a coma for two years. By the time she recovered, in 2016, a freak accident on her right foot left her unable to walk for another 18 months. Every doctor she saw in Santa Barbara misdiagnosed her. Devastated and unable to work, she lost her home, her businesses and her savings.

In 2017, an old friend she had not seen in 37 years called from Montreal to wish her happy birthday. The friend arranged for Leikin to be transported from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. There, the doctors discovered the problem and a 45-minute operation fixed it.

On the way into surgery, she promised God, if He would heal her, she would use her gifts to create something to benefit the Jewish community throughout the world.

During her three-month recovery, she tuned into a classical station and kept hearing the melody to Hatikvah. The words to what would become her take on the anthem slowly began to form.

A family in Toronto, for whom she had written a eulogy, asked Leikin what her next project would be. She told them about Hatikvah, and they arranged for a grant for her to record it. (That family wishes to be anonymous.)

Hatikvah became Israel’s official anthem in 2004. The melody had been heard throughout Europe and was adapted by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. The Hebrew lyrics are based on a poem by Naftali Berz Imber, who was from what is now Zolochiv, Ukraine.

A growing number of synagogues in the Los Angeles area and throughout the continent, Leikin said, have been playing her version, the chorus of which is “Feel the hope that’s rising everywhere / Feel our song become an answered prayer / For our sisters and brothers as we stand with all of them / In our homeland Jerusalem.”

The B.C. connection

Leikin maintains strong ties to British Columbia. Early in her songwriting career, she was hired to write “It’s Time to Say I Love You,” the theme song for The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2, filmed at Victoria’s Butchart Gardens.

“I flew up to see what I would be writing about and, in the middle of all that beautiful, I didn’t want to leave,” she said. “Almost every summer since 1977 I’ve been back to Vancouver. I go there to celebrate the High Holidays and Passover. When you guys figure out how to make it rain less, I’m moving into English Bay.”

Leikin’s “Hatikvah” can be heard at youtu.be/XV0cX7jB4Q0.

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

The broader impacts of war

Vancouver Peace Poppies co-founder Teresa Gagné at the White Poppy Memorial in 2018. (photo by Diane Donaldson)

A local group is hoping to broaden the scope of Remembrance Day as more than an occasion to honour the brave men and women who have died while serving for their country. Through the distribution of white poppies, the Vancouver Peace Poppies (VPP) movement strives to extend the focus on Nov. 11 to all those who have suffered as a result of military conflicts.

Teresa Gagné, who co-founded VPP with Denis Laplante in 2008, stresses that the group intends no disrespect towards soldiers. Instead, they wish to bring more awareness to the toll warfare has on the whole population, whether it be the loss of life or other trauma experienced. Beyond representing the victims of war, civilian and military, the white poppy, according to VPP, also challenges the beliefs, values and institutions that create the view that war is unavoidable.

“I have always had respect and sympathy for veterans, who put their life, health and family on the line to serve,” Gagné said. “I believe they deserve recognition and support, but, for years, I was uncomfortable wearing a red poppy, because of the undercurrent of promotion and recruitment for present and future wars that I detect in many public events around the topic of supporting veterans. The white poppy attracts questions, and gives me a chance to explain the nuances of my support.”

A 2016 study by Alexandre Marc, a specialist in conflict and violence for the World Bank, brought to light the overwhelmingly disproportionate number of casualties among non-combatants as opposed to combatants in recent decades. According to some reports, civilians constitute 90% of wartime fatalities, a ratio that has existed since the mid-1950s.

What’s more, Marc’s research points out that global poverty is increasingly concentrated in countries affected by violence and that prolonged conflict keeps countries poor.

Gagné and Laplante have been active in the peace movement since their teens. Their 2008 launch of VPP began by distributing handmade white poppies as a way to promote discussion and a broader focus for Remembrance Day. The following year, while still a “kitchen table” operation, they imported 500 cloth poppies from Britain. VPP now sends out more than 5,000 poppies across Canada annually.

Since 2016, VPP has partnered with the B.C. Humanist Association to host Let Peace Be Their Memorial, an annual Remembrance Day wreath-laying ceremony that includes peace songs, short presentations and poetry. This year, the Multifaith Action Society is also a co-host. The event poster highlights, “The time and location of the ceremony has been chosen to avoid any appearance of competition with, or disrespect for, veteran-focused events.”

Holocaust remembrance

As in previous years, this year’s ceremony at Seaforth Peace Park on Nov. 11, 2:30 p.m., will include a special wreath laid in memory of Holocaust victims.

Two members of the Vancouver Jewish community, Marcy Cohen and Gyda Chud, are engaged in the local movement. In 2017, Cohen attended her first Let Peace Be Their Memorial and then sought to get others in the community involved.

photo - Henry Grayman and Deborah Ross-Grayman with the Holocaust wreath at the memorial last year — Henry Grayman and Deborah Ross-Grayman with the Holocaust wreath at the memorial last year. *(photo by Diane Donaldson*)

“I was far more affected emotionally than I anticipated,” said Cohen of the occasion.

After learning of the history, values and focus of VPP, Chud recently joined the committee, and seeks to profile their work in the larger Jewish community. She represented Pacific Immigrant Resource Society (PIRS), a local refugee service group, in laying the refugee wreath in 2017 and 2018.

“The memorial serves as a powerful and compelling call to action for everything we can and must do to create a more peaceful world,” said Chud.

Last year’s Holocaust wreath was laid by Henry Grayman and Deborah Ross-Grayman, both children of Holocaust survivors. Having each experienced the intergenerational effects of trauma, the couple, both therapists, are facilitators for the Second Generation Group, an organization in Vancouver comprised of children of Holocaust survivors sharing their experiences among peers.

The people laying the Holocaust wreath at this year’s Let Peace Be Their Memorial have yet to be announced.

Poppies’ history

The red poppy widely worn today first appeared in 1921 on what was then called Armistice Day. In 1926, the No More War Movement, a British pacifist organization, came up with the idea for the white poppy and, in 1933, the Co-Operative Women’s Guild in the United Kingdom sold the first white poppies as a means of remembering that women had lost husbands, sons and fathers during wartime.

The wreaths that Vancouver Peace Poppies and other groups make, a mix of white and red poppies, highlight the amount of civilian suffering. VPP also distributes white poppies in schools in an effort to teach students that wars mostly kill non-military people, pollute the environment and send the message that violence as a means to settle disputes, even for adults, is acceptable.

VPP hands out its poppies by donation to increase awareness of its cause and not as a fundraiser. Poppies cost $1.25 each, of which 95 cents goes to the Peace Pledge Union, a pacifist organization based in London, England, which, since 1934, has advocated for nonviolent solutions to global problems. A $1 or $2 donation allows VPP to provide subsidized poppies for classroom use and free poppies to disadvantaged groups.

For poppies and more information, visit peacepoppies.ca or call 604-437-4453.

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

Looking for a family doctor?

Arthur and Anna Wolak opened King Edward Medical Centre on Sept. 16. (photo from KEMC)

The King Edward Medical Centre, a full-service family practice in Vancouver offering comprehensive primary care, officially opened its doors on Sept. 16.

Located in King Edward Mall (at Oak Street), the centre was launched by physician Dr. Anna Wolak and her husband Arthur Wolak, PhD. It is open to individuals and families throughout the Greater Vancouver area.

Longstanding and active participants in the community, the Wolaks believe this is an opportune time to help those lacking a doctor.

“Given there are so many people without family doctors – and there will be more soon, as there is a slate of family doctors who will be retiring within the next few months – people will be looking for a family physician,” said Arthur Wolak, executive director of the medical centre.

Anna Wolak is a family physician and clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the University of British Columbia. Fluent in English and Filipino, her practice focuses on all ages.

She studied medicine at the University of the Philippines in Manila, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston and the University of Adelaide in Australia. In 2007, upon completing her training in family medicine at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Modbury Public Hospital, also in Australia, she moved to Canada.

Before practising in Vancouver in 2009, Wolak had a large family practice in Osoyoos, and was an emergency room doctor at the South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver.

She also has been active in medical education, having served on the planning committees of major medical conferences and programs. She spent many years as an active parent class representative at both the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver preschool and in various grades at Vancouver Talmud Torah.

In 2014, RBC selected her as one of the top 25 immigrants to the country for demonstrating “strong leadership within the medical community.”

“Despite my extensive medical background, I needed the support of an experienced businessperson to pursue this endeavour, as medical training doesn’t include business training,” she told the Independent. “My husband has the skills that I lack. Together, we decided that we could establish a medical centre in the heart of the local community that would fill a great need, as Vancouver is desperate for primary care physicians.”

An entrepreneur and writer who holds several university degrees, including a master’s in business administration, a doctorate in management and a master’s in Jewish studies, Arthur Wolak is the author of numerous articles and books on a wide range of issues, the most recent being The Development of Managerial Culture (Palgrave Macmillan) and Religion and Contemporary Management (Anthem Press).

Born and raised in Vancouver, he is also the president of CMI Chat Media, a marketing company he co-founded with his brother, Richard Wolak.

For his part, Wolak is very excited to serve as the executive director of King Edward Medical Centre, managing the many administrative aspects of the growing office. He had the idea for several years and, with their three children now all in school at Vancouver Talmud Torah, he convinced his wife that this was the time to create a place that would benefit the community.

“My father, Dr. Edward Wolak, was a physician and I was brought up with an understanding of the importance of helping people. It was a natural fit for me, even though my academic and professional background, though very broad, was not medical. Anna has the medical skills. I bring other skills to the centre,” he said.

His mother, Elizabeth Wolak, was renowned as both a music teacher and choral conductor, having established and led Jewish choirs in Vancouver for nearly 50 years. She was awarded the B.C. Community Achievement Award and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her Jewish choral work in Canada.

Both his parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland.

Over the years, Arthur Wolak has been active in various Jewish organizations. He was treasurer of the Western Association of Holocaust Survivors – Families and Friends, on the advisory board of Vancouver’s Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning (an initiative of the Hebrew University) and on the planning committee of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. He is presently a member of the board of governors of Gratz College, the oldest independent and pluralistic college for Jewish studies in North America, situated in suburban Philadelphia.

King Edward Medical Centre is currently accepting new patients. The website is kemedical.ca.

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

Much going on for songwriter

Harriet Frost performs at Jacob’s Ladder Festival in Israel last May. (photo from Harriet Frost)

How best to describe Harriet Frost’s music? “Impressionistic poetry, witty wordplay, music that is intimate and universal,” is what CBC Radio had to say. “Folk rock with a jazz funk twist,” read another recent write-up ahead of a performance at the renowned Jacob’s Ladder Festival in Israel this May.

“My music explores personal, topical, political and spiritual landscapes. They can be humorous, joyful, painful, ironic, beautiful and not so beautiful. It’s poetry, folk, jazz, rock, spoken word, ancient and postmodern,” she says in her own words.

What is not open to interpretation is that the Vancouver singer, songwriter and musician has had a busy spring and summer. In addition to her Israeli performance, she has been organizing local house concerts in town and working on a new album.

Music is an integral part of what she does outside of being on stage or in a studio, as well. Her work at the Louis Brier Home and Hospital has shown the therapeutic effects music has on people regardless of their age. “You can reach people, even those in deep states of dementia, through music,” she said. Frost also teaches Judaic studies, trains youth and adults to chant from Torah, and has been exploring cantorial music.

The Israel connection

Jacob’s Ladder is more than a music festival to Frost – it is the title of a song she wrote and dedicated to her father, who escaped Nazi Germany for Palestine in 1939. He witnessed the birth of the Israeli state in his decade living there. The song is featured in the Lucy McCauly documentary film Facing the Nazi Era.

Canada ultimately became home for the Frost family, yet the connection with Israel remained. When it was time for university, Harriet chose four years at Hebrew University in Jerusalem – a student by day and a musician playing in the cafés at night. She was the musical director of the groundbreaking theatre troupe, the Gypsies, made up of Palestinian, Israeli and North American artists who performed peace-themed musicals for Israeli and Palestinian youth. Her personal musical biography is so resonant with Israeli content that when a friend told her last year about Jacob’s Ladder and urged her to look into it, she couldn’t resist. The invitation from its organizers came a few months later.

Founded in 1976, Jacob’s Ladder is the longest and most established music festival in Israel, featuring a wide selection of folk genres and international music presented each spring and fall. Located in the north, on the Sea of Galilee, Frost said her first feeling upon arrival was like being at the Vancouver Folk Festival at Jericho Beach Park, due to the proximity to the water.

“It was 45 degrees,” she recalled. “I had no idea what to expect. When I was first introduced as a Vancouverite and the only Canadian performing at the festival this year, people started cheering. It was so welcoming and fantastic.”

She played in an air-conditioned 250-seat hall filled to capacity with an audience comprised of Americans, Israelis, Europeans, Canadians and fellow musicians “of all ages,” she said, “teenagers, families with kids, millennials, a full arc of generations.”

At the Ginosar Kibbutz and Hotel, which hosts the famous event, she met numerous performers who had come to the festival and were playing music in the hotel lobby between their own sets. It was an extraordinary opportunity to connect with some of the country’s most notable folk musicians, she said.

Concerts and album

Through November and beyond, along with other venues, Frost is organizing a series of house concerts, given the positive response to one she held in April in advance of her Jacob’s Ladder appearance. As the name suggests these are concerts hosted in someone’s home, where, according to Frost, “musicians have an opportunity to present their original material in a concert situation, unlike in a café or club where folks may be eating, drinking and socializing.

“There is an intimate concert vibe that is created in the home. You have the freedom to play a full night’s worth of material and really connect with a small audience (between 30 and 50). People attend specifically to listen to new music.” Currently, Frost has been collaborating at these concerts with Vancouver multi-instrumentalist Martin Gotfrit.

And a new album is in the works. Working title: Jacob’s Ladder.

For more information about the album and upcoming concerts, visit harrietfrost.com.

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

Saving audio memories

Stan Shear has been on countless stages with figures Benjy, Jasper and his original puppet, Danny, now retired at the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Ky. (photo from Stan Shear)

To walk into Stan Shear’s studio at his Oakridge home is to take both a step back and a step forward in time. A portrait of a penny-farthing hangs on the wall, old manuscripts and books line the shelves, yet in among the memorabilia is the technology he believes will connect the past with the future.

Shear is launching My Audio Memories (myaudiomemories.com), a project in which he takes recordings – some made in his studio, others that may have been passed down within a family – and combines them into a high-quality MP3 file on a USB stick.

His service is directed at private individuals and, because it is based in his home, he can create recordings at a cost far below those of commercial services.

The process is straightforward but requires a seasoned hand to deal with the production side, which, with decades of musical and engineering experience behind him, Shear offers.

First, you would go to his studio with stories you would like to record, along with any other audio files or recordings you might already have. These are then mixed together with various inputs and accompaniments – i.e., music and other sound effects – to capture the perfect backing for the end result. Finally comes the mastering, the stage that distinguishes a professional from an amateur recording.

“I can bring a recording to the highest level with the resources and experience I have to create a unique sound that will bring out all the hidden qualities of a person’s talents and make them come alive,” said Shear.

The cost of an individual project will vary depending on the amount of production involved.

The man behind the sound

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Shear was a well-known pianist in his younger days. He appeared on SABC (South Africa’s national radio) on several occasions and, at the age of 19, performed the Beethoven C minor Concerto with the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra. Playing in concert halls around the country during his youth, he later became a licentiate in music.

At the same time, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Johannesburg, earning his master’s and doctor’s degrees, and specialized in information systems, working mainly on hospital communications systems. He would later teach information systems at the University of Cape Town until his retirement.

Shear, who came to Vancouver in 2004, remains a versatile entertainer and keeps a busy schedule. He plays a number of other musical instruments – guitar, harmonica, piano accordion and ukulele – and has had an active career as a singer, performing in solo concerts and singing with choirs.

In 1976, while still in South Africa, he became fascinated with ventriloquism after discovering a book at the library. Since then, he has been on countless stages, including the International Puppet Festival in Israel, with figures Benjy, Jasper and his original puppet, Danny, now retired at the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Ky. (See stanshear.com.)

He also has been officiating as a chazzan for 40 years, both in South Africa and Canada.

Together with his wife Karon, he is a practitioner of auditory integration training (AIT), a method for improving listening and cognitive skills. Their processes are used to help overcome learning disabilities and improve foreign language skills.

Shear has woven his own story into his new project. He divides his account into three periods, starting with his early, formative years, devoted to growing up, schooling and other events that shaped his life. This is followed by his post-secondary education and early career, and includes extracts from concerts and broadcasts.

The third stage comprises Shear’s mid-career to the present, a “mature” but nonetheless very fruitful time, with musical performances, ventriloquist shows and the My Audio Memories project, as well as his positive views on the future, as he sees it, in his senior years.

“I am following this up with a separate project of my memories of my parents, including recordings that I’m fortunate to have of my mom and dad and members of their families talking, singing and playing the piano,” said Shear. “My mom’s family were very musical and I’m lucky to have these recordings made on an early tape recorder by my dad, and transcripts of my dad’s memoirs, which he wrote.”

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

Kolot Mayim installs rabbi

Rabbi Lynn Greenhough represents a series of firsts for the Victoria Jewish community. (photo from Kolot Mayim)

When Lynn Greenhough is officially installed as rabbi of Kolot Mayim Reform Temple in Victoria tonight, Sept. 6, she will bring with her a series of firsts to the city’s Jewish community: its first rabbi born on Vancouver Island, its first Canadian-born rabbi, its first full-time female rabbi with her own congregation and its first rabbi who was not born into Judaism.

A stalwart in Victoria’s Jewish life for nearly 30 years, Greenhough has been Kolot Mayim’s spiritual leader since 2017, while simultaneously completing her rabbinical studies at the program offered by the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute (JSLI) in New York.

For someone born and raised in Happy Valley – 15 kilometres west of Victoria – at a time when the area was still a farming community, the rabbinate was not a calling many in the community, or indeed on the Island, might have considered.

Her first taste of Judaism, and some of the recent history of the Jewish people, came in Grade 5, when she found a copy of William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in her schoolroom library, and her curiosity and sense of connection to Judaism ensued. She recognized that justice had tragically failed Jews during the Holocaust and she felt a need to be part of rebuilding a world where such a failure could never happen again.

“I consciously gravitated towards Judaism because of its inherent sense of justice,” Greenhough told the Independent. “At that early point, I realized, I would be a Jew.”

Life, jobs and family followed. She finished school, married and had a son, helped open Everywoman’s Books in Victoria and then worked for Canada Post as a truck driver for 20 years.

In the 1980s, Greenhough attended a few Jewish events at Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El. She began to light candles and tried to build a sense of Shabbat into her week. She also looked for a Jewish partner who could help her build a Jewish home. Yet, it wasn’t until she was in her late 30s that she was determined – accompanied by now-husband Aaron Devor – to convert. Devor grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood on Long Island, but was not a regular synagogue attendee. Along the way, the couple became deeply engaged in Jewish life.

By 1992, Greenhough’s conversion was complete and, from then, it was full-on immersion to the point where she became a leader and educator. At Emanu-El, she guided historical tours, joined the board of directors, led services, including chanting Haftarot and Torah, joined the Chevra Kadisha (Burial Society) and served as a funeral officiant.

In 1996, she served as an instructor at the synagogue’s Hebrew school and then began teaching and coordinating b’nai mitzvah classes. In 1998, she began to teach Torah and Haftorah studies for adults and, in 1999, taught an introduction to Judaism course for those interested in conversion.

However, it was the Chevra Kadisha that became her passion. In 2000, Greenhough completed her master’s degree at Royal Roads University under the supervision of Dr. Rabbi Neil Gillman, z”l, from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Her thesis – We Do the Best We Can: Chevra Kadisha in Small Jewish Communities in North America – looked at both the history of Jewish models for care of the dead, and present-day practices and training models from 16 different small Jewish communities.

This work led to further connections. Greenhough, along with Rena Boroditsky of Winnipeg, Man., and David Zinner of Maryland, worked together to organize the first of now 16 international conferences dedicated to learning about these burial practices.

Greenhough has also taught Judaism in the University of Victoria’s religious studies program (2007-09), was scholar-in-residence at Temple Beth Shalom in Phoenix, Ariz. (2009) and taught courses in academic writing at Royal Roads (2012-16).

In 2014, she joined Kolot Mayim as a member and led Torah studies and Shabbat and holiday services as needed, before becoming its spiritual leader in September 2017. Synagogue members are glowing in their praise of Greenhough as their choice.

“She brings a richness of experience as a born and raised ‘Island Girl.’ Indeed, she has attracted, and continues to attract, new members through her wisdom, spirituality, empathy, knowledge and quirky sense of humour,” said Sharon Shalinsky, president of Kolot Mayim.

Kolot Mayim was founded in 1998 by a small group of individuals and families, initially meeting monthly at the Victoria Jewish Community Centre. As the congregation grew, the frequency of services increased, ultimately to a weekly schedule. The synagogue has struggled to find a permanent rabbi and has, at times, been challenged in terms of membership recruitment and retention. The past year, though, it has seen a 70% increase in membership.

To mark the installation of a new rabbi at its westernmost location, Dr. Pekka Sinervo, the head of the Canadian Council of Reform Judaism, will be on hand at the ceremony, as will Rabbi Allan Finkel, who, along with Greenhough, is a 2019 graduate of the JSLI program and now leads services at Temple Shalom in Winnipeg.

Ahead of the occasion, Greenhough reflected, “This was not a career move, but the fulfilment of a dream.”

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

Festival Judío in August

Brazil’s Mauro Perelmann takes part in the upcoming Festival Judío. (photo from mauroperelmann.com.br)

For eight days, Aug. 2-9, the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture will be transformed into a hub of Latin American culture as it hosts Festival Judío, a multifaceted celebration showcasing Jewish artistic work from Argentina to Mexico. The festival, revived after its original 2004-2006 run, is expected to be the largest of its kind in terms of scope anywhere in the world.

“There is so much material to choose from that there could easily be separate festivals for Latin American Jewish visual art, books, films and music,” said organizer David Skulski, who also spearheaded the previous festivals.

Jewish Connections

Among the highlights of this year’s event is a show featuring Mauro Perelmann, who fuses various Brazilian styles with Israeli and klezmer music.

“My aim is to stir emotions through my music. I want to be evocative and create an atmosphere. It is more important for me to get a reaction from people than to play what is written,” he told the Jewish Independent from his home in Rio de Janeiro.

The samba was invented in the same Rio neighbourhood that later became a Jewish enclave, and there have always been links between Jews and Brazilian music in the city, he said. “With some modification of the scales,” he added, “I am able to turn familiar Brazilian tunes into sounds that resemble klezmer.”

A known composer and choir conductor in Brazil, Perelmann is no stranger to Vancouver audiences, having performed here in 2015 and 2016. His Festival Judío appearance on Aug. 8, as part of a nine-piece musical ensemble, will be preceded by a samba dance lesson.

Buenos Aires-based bandoneonist Amijai Shalev will present the lecture Tango: The Jewish Connection. “Jewish musicians and songwriters were very involved in the creative process of tango,” he explained. “The style of the violín tanguero is that of a Jewish violin arriving in Rio de la Plata (Argentina and Uruguay).” His Aug. 5 discussion of the parallels between tango and klezmer will examine the habanera rhythm (heard in George Bizet’s opera Carmen) that is present in both tango and klezmer. He will also trace the Eastern European origins of the bandoneon, a concertina that is a fixture in tango music.

photo - Vancouver’s Andrea Fabiana Katz will perform several works by Jewish composers — Vancouver’s Andrea Fabiana Katz will perform several works by Jewish composers. *(photo from andreafabiana.ca)*

On Aug. 3, Argentine-Canadian mezzo-soprano Andrea Fabiana Katz’s performance will cover several works by Jewish composers. “People associate tango with earthiness, passion and emotion…. The texts are very, very rich and full of metaphor and deep emotions, mostly about love, especially old familiar love. The poetry is always wonderful,” said Katz, who lives in Metro Vancouver.

The evening will be a milonga, which can be taken to mean both a musical genre and a tango party. Prior to the concert will be a tango dance lesson, and Jewish foods from Latin America will be available.

Film screenings

Among the festival’s offerings are five films. An Unknown Country employs firsthand accounts in following the lives of Jews who escaped from Nazi Germany to Ecuador, and shows their contributions to the economic, artistic, scientific and social life of their adopted country. Director Eva Zelig will be on hand after the film, on Aug. 7, for a question-and-answer period.

Other films at the festival include Los Gauchos Judíos, based on an Alberto Gerchunoff novel portraying the thousands of Russian Jews who came as farmers to Argentina in the late 1880s and 1890s; and The Fire Within, a documentary chronicling the integration of Moroccan Jewish settlers with the indigenous women of rural Peru in the late 19th century.

Two dramas, the bittersweet comedy Nora’s Will (Mexico) and the slow-burning thriller The German Doctor (Argentina), complete the cinematic line-up.

Lectures and artists

The Song of Lilith, an Aug. 6 talk by visual artist, filmmaker and Jungian therapist Liliana Kleiner, explores the ancient myth of Lilith found in the Talmud and in kabbalah, its incarnations through the ages, and how this legend relates to the present day.

Additional events include a writers workshop led by young-adult author Silvana Goldemberg and a presentation about the reality of the situation in Venezuela, led by Jack Goihman, who was an agriculture engineer when he left his home country of Venezuela because of its political instability. Arriving in Vancouver in 2014, Goihman completed a master’s in business administration and now works as a project manager.

A visual art show and sale will exhibit works by local and internationally shown and collected artists, including Miriam Aroeste and Kleiner, as well as a mural by the late Arnold Belkin.

A book sale, primarily of selections from the University of New Mexico Press, includes Oy, Caramba! An Anthology of Jewish Stories from Latin America, edited by Ilan Stavans, and Yiddish South of the Border: An Anthology of Latin American Yiddish Writing, compiled by Alan Astro, with a introduction by Stavens.

“Festival Judío is a double celebration of Jewish culture and Latin American culture,” observed Shalev. “Both are expressions of the richness and diversity of humanity.”

For more information on the festival, visit facebook.com/festivaljudio.

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

The first Shtisel book

Maurice Yacowar and wife Anne Petrie. (photo from Yacowars)

Shtisel, the unlikely yet addictive hit television series about a Charedi family in Jerusalem, is now the subject of a new book, Reading Shtisel: A TV Masterpiece from Israel, an episode-by-episode analysis penned by Victoria writer and critic Maurice Yacowar, which he will share at the Jewish Community Centre of Victoria June 2.

Yacowar, a retired film professor, began his project in December 2018, as Netflix started airing the series that has become de rigueur viewing among Jews and non-Jews alike. As with many of the show’s aficionados and binge watchers, he was hooked, but his is the only book on Shtisel written thus far. The book’s first printing took place in March.

From his perspective, the show transcends what some may initially dismiss as soap-operatic tendencies. Not a character, not a scene, not an action in the two-season, 24-episode show is out of place, according to Yacowar.

“People (and animals) come and go, some questions may seem unanswered, but those elements are not relevant to the story. Nothing in the show is superfluous or unnecessary. Everything has a reason. We enter their domain, and we leave it, just at the right time,” he recently told the Jewish Independent at a Victoria restaurant.

Hence, the use of the word masterpiece in the book’s subtitle. “People from all cultures are able to relate to the drama and the compassion,” Yacowar explained.

“What’s more, no character stands for a safe idea,” he added. Shulem, the patriarch of the Shtisel family, is the most confounding of them all. At times, he is bullying to the point of being dictatorial; at other times, gentle and caring.

All involved do things that are not “in character,” said Yacowar, which takes viewers along various side streets or smaller stories within the story. There is the studious Zvi Arye, who, after watching a video taken in childhood, laments having had a shot at singing stardom thwarted; the scheming Lippe, who, for a time, abandons his family, though exhibits moments of great kindness and affection to those closest to him; and the show’s least sympathetic character, Nuchem, who doesn’t want his daughter, Libbi, to marry a deadbeat artist, aka his nephew Akiva, Shulem’s son.

Throughout the series are connections to the world outside the strict ultra-Orthodox confines of the Geula neighbourhood in Jerusalem, said Yacowar. Grandmother Malka is fixated by American daytime dramas, Giti’s need for money after her husband departs for Argentina leads her to seek work as a housekeeper for a clothing store manager, and cellphone use among this set of Charedim is ubiquitous.

It is Akiva’s desire to be an artist, though, which perhaps represents the greatest struggle between the secular and the religious in the show, not to mention the personal psychological conflict for the character himself. There are times, particularly those when he is immersed in his art, that Akiva appears to shift seamlessly from one world to another. And others, such as the scene where Akiva is presented with an award and funds for his art at an elite gallery, when the distinction between the pious Shtisel family and mainstream Israeli society could not be more pronounced.

Akiva, Yacowar pointed out, manages to rise in his battle and become his own person as the series concludes at the end of Season 2, no longer shackled by the vagaries of his father’s moods. In contrast, Shulem’s flaws – his conceit and ego, his inability to accept his son’s success in that other world – are on full display.

Yacowar doesn’t expect everyone to agree with his assessment of the series. “Other critics may well choose different points of emphasis, different connections and implications in phrase, situation or device,” he writes. “That’s the beauty, magic of connecting with a drama of such extraordinary richness and complexity.”

There is one point, however, on which he does expect readers of his book to be in agreement: “Let there be the illumination of a Season 3 – but only from the same creators and the same depth and integrity.”

Yacowar has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from the films of Alfred Hitchcock to the comic art of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. He has written two books about The Sopranos and a humorous work, Mondays with Moishe.

Reading Shtisel: A TV Masterpiece from Israel is available online and at Congregation Emanu-El and the JCC of Victoria. Yacowar’s June 2 presentation at the JCC will start at 11 a.m.

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

Historic cemetery full of life

Victoria’s historic Jewish Cemetery. (photo from Amber Woods)

Who could imagine that a book about a cemetery would be so full of life? But then, the people who populate Amber Woods’ Guide to Victoria’s Historic Jewish Cemetery (Old Cemeteries Society, 2018) were among the most vivacious of sorts, starting with the daring, westward-bound pioneers eager to start a new life on a new frontier, to those who went on to be well-known judges (Samuel Schultz), politicians (David Oppenheimer) and artists (Reuven Spiers). Written on the cemetery’s gateway, the phrase Beit HaChayim (House of the Living) welcomes visitors.

The cemetery has had a storied existence. There have been fires, upkeep challenges, pleas to the public to locate graves of prominent individuals and, sadly, in recent times, the desecration of five gravesites in late 2011.

photo - Amber Woods — Amber Woods *(photo from Amber Woods)*

The discovery of gold along the Fraser River in 1858 brought an influx of people to the region, mostly from California, Jews among them. Jews arrived largely as merchants and proved adept at figuring out what was needed in the community. Having already developed trading networks, they did not need to rely on the Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) for supplies or for getting their goods to other markets, and “could move quickly from one business to another.”

On May 29, 1859, a group met to create the basis of a Jewish community, including a synagogue and a cemetery, in Victoria. A cemetery committee was formed and, on Oct. 1 that year, 1.7 acres of land was purchased from Roderick Finlayson, the chief factor of the HBC. In February 1860, the cemetery was consecrated, making it the first Jewish cemetery – and the oldest non-indigenous cemetery – in continuous use in Western Canada.

The first funeral at the cemetery, on March 20, 1861, was the result of a most unsavoury encounter. Businessman Morris Price, an immigrant from Prussia, was in his shop in Cayoosh, what is now Lillooet, on Feb. 1, 1861, when three men entered. He was found dead the next day. All the perpetrators were found guilty; two were executed, the third convicted of manslaughter and given a shorter 12-month sentence for his cooperation with officials. As Victoria’s was the only Jewish cemetery at the time in the region, Price’s remains were sent from the mainland.

Herein, too, are remembered several who were prominent in Victoria’s early commercial hub – liquor salesman, saloon operator and real estate tycoon Max Leiser; clothier Frederick Landsberg, who learned Chinook to trade with First Nations people and who would later go into curios, real estate and, finally, philanthropy; and restaurateur H.E. (Henry Emanuel) Levy, who opened the first gourmet establishment in the Pacific Northwest, the very “unkosher” sounding Levy’s Arcade Oyster Saloon, which became a local hangout. Levy’s son, Arthur, followed in the family business, setting up various popular diners, such as the Poodle Dog Café. Once retired from the restaurant business, Arthur Levy began a mission of world peace, which saw him correspond with many a noted statesman of his time, including Nikita Khrushchev, David Ben-Gurion and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Many of those buried at Victoria’s historic Jewish Cemetery lived the sort of life that could have been turned into a novel or film – tales of shipwrecks, of bankruptcies turned into successes.

There are fascinating biographies, such as that of Samuel Schultz, who, despite living to be a mere 51 years of age, did more in those years than most do in a lot longer. Schultz was a musician, athlete, activist and lawyer. He is credited with pitching the first no-hitter in British Columbia, played flute and clarinet for the Victoria Symphony, composed music, served as a correspondent for several newspapers and was a founding member of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith and became the first Jewish judge in Canada.

Then there is Lewis Lewis, who served twice, in non-consecutive terms, as one of the first presidents of Victoria’s Temple Emanu-El (now Congregation Emanu-El). His is a story shrouded in questions. “Much of the information available about Lewis Lewis is contradictory, incomplete or, in some instances, false,” Woods writes. Many myths and mysteries exist about this early Jewish settler, from his place of birth in Eastern Europe to how he changed his name, from the story of his arrival in Victoria, to his legacy within the local community.

The historic Jewish Cemetery is situated four kilometres from downtown Victoria, where Fernwood Road meets Cedar Hill Road. Visitors enter through the pedestrian gate of the main entrance.

Woods’ book is part of the Stories in Stone series organized by the Old Cemeteries Society. Copies can be purchased at the Jewish Community Centre of Victoria, Congregation Emanu-El, area bookstores (Bolen, Munro’s and Ivy’s) and online at jewishvictoria.wordpress.com.

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