Vicky Tobianah

Vancouver NCSY welcomes Steins

Rabbi Josh and Laura Stein with their daughter Yehudis at Niagara Falls. (photo from Josh Stein)

Josh and Laura Stein come from similar backgrounds – both grew up as unaffiliated Jews just a few kilometres from each other in Toronto, both became more interested in their Jewish heritage as teens through National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), and both ended up learning in Israel, where they met. Now, the married couple (along with their 10-month-old daughter Yehudis) has moved to Vancouver as Rabbi Josh Stein takes on a new role as the NCSY chapter coordinator in Vancouver, hoping to give back what they both gained from NCSY.

“I attended Jewish elementary day school and a public high school. I had no affiliation really,” he told the Independent. After becoming involved with an NCSY rabbi, he said, he learned about a Jewish heritage that he never had experienced before. After high school, Stein chose to spend two-and-a-half years in a yeshiva in Israel, where he became Orthodox.

“Going to Israel for the first time really opened my eyes to a different aspect of Judaism that I never experienced before,” said Stein. “That, coupled with a week in Poland [through a trip organized by his yeshiva], really opened my eyes to my Jewish heritage and kind of endowed with me the exploring of Judaism further from there.”

At the same time, his wife to be was going through a similar journey: she also had left her native Toronto to study in Israel, eventually meeting her husband through the same rabbi who they both met in high school and had sparked their Jewish quests.

After graduating with smicha, a bachelor of arts in Judaic studies, a bachelor of talmudic law and a teaching certification from the Israeli Ministry of Education, Josh Stein and his family moved back to Toronto. Recently, they found their next role, joining the Vancouver Jewish community.

“There are so many people who have helped us along the way in becoming Orthodox that we really felt that it was part of our duty to give back to the community and allow other students to be as fortunate as we have been in discovering our Jewish heritage,” said Stein.

As part of his new role, he’ll be organizing educational and social events for Jewish students in Vancouver, from Shabbatons to paintball sessions and weekly learning classes.

“Essentially, my job is to work alongside Rabbi [Samuel] Ross and bring in new energy to the younger kids coming in,” said Stein. They’ve already held the first Vancouver Shabbaton of the year, which brought together about 100 kids from Western Canada, as well as Seattle and Portland, to spend a Shabbat together in Vancouver.

“The kids had a blast, there was so much camaraderie and this feeling of being part of a greater community,” he said. They have also started weekly Torah High learning classes and have many programs lined up for the year.

NCSY, which has been in Vancouver for about 50 years (and is now in its 60th year nationally), aims to help Jewish teens discover and connect with their Jewish roots through fun, informative and educational programming and mentorship. Although Vancouver is known for its high intermarriage and assimilation rates, the number of Jewish youth involved in NCSY has grown in the past few years, which is one of the reasons why the chapter brought in the Steins.

“We brought them in due to sheer growth,” said Ross, NCSY Vancouver city director. “We are now seeing well over 200 kids a year. Perhaps five [or even two] years ago, kids were coming in here and there; now, the kids are coming in for two, three, four or five times every week for programs.

“In order to be able to continue our growth, we felt this was the right time to bring in the next couple who would complement what Gila, my wife, and I are presently able to offer.”

The Steins are looking forward to being part of the growth of Vancouver NCSY.

“NCSY to me is a family that unites our community as a whole. It’s an organization that really brings Jews together from all different aspects of life and makes them feel like they’re part of a family, no matter their religious level,” said Stein. “We hope to allow each student to find their own uniqueness about Judaism and internalize it for themselves.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].

Food as delight and comfort

Yotam Ottolenghi is in Vancouver on Oct. 21 for a sold-out pre-Jewish Book Festival event to promote his newest cookbook, Plenty More. (photo from Yotam Ottolenghi)

Israeli-born chef, restaurateur and TV personality Yotam Ottolenghi has made a name for himself by bringing creative Middle Eastern and gourmet vegetarian cuisine into the homes of everyday cooks. His debut cookbook, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, published in 2008, co-written with fellow Jerusalem native Sami Tamimi, features nearly 150 recipes selected from his restaurants. Ottolenghi has since published two other bestselling cookbooks, Plenty, which focuses exclusively on vegetarian cooking, in 2011, and Jerusalem, co-written with Tamimi, in 2012. The star chef and author is in Vancouver on Oct. 21 for a sold-out pre-Jewish Book Festival event to promote his newest cookbook, Plenty More, which was published this week by Random House.

“I always enjoyed food very much since I was very young, but never considered it as a career option,” Ottolenghi told the Independent. “But when I finished my studies at university, I decided to see if I could make it into the profession, so I enrolled in a culinary course in London in 1997 and really loved it. I thought it was very liberating and very immediately gratifying as opposed to the things I did before. It felt great feeding people and getting immediate feedback from them.”

After graduating from culinary school, Ottolenghi worked in various restaurants, but a defining moment arrived when he teamed up with a group of people and started a deli in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood that specialized in fresh food and pastries.

“I really enjoyed doing it, it became extremely popular very early on,” he said. “We made some nice vegetable dishes, things with pasta and grain that are deeply ingrained in the Middle Eastern food culture,” and it took off. Since then, he’s convinced millions around the world to open up their palates and culinary appetites and take a chance on Middle Eastern food.

In his newest book, Plenty More, vegetables are again the focus and he writes about his cooking methods and gives readers a glimpse into his process. “It was an organic process – the recipes are based on those I write for the Guardian newspaper’s weekend magazine – but the inspiration, or ‘penny-drop’ moment, came when I realized I wanted to organize the chapters around cooking methods rather than ingredients. Certain vegetables can get pigeon-holed – a courgette gets steamed, a squash gets roasted and so forth; focusing on the cooking method, instead, really allowed me to showcase how much more versatile vegetables are than this,” he said.

His next project is already in the works, he said. “I am working on a new book with our head chef at NOPI [in London] and we have plans to open a new Ottolenghi deli in East London next year. That’s keeping the big picture busy, and then the day-to-day work in the test kitchen continues on apace,” he said.

Ottolenghi said he hopes to continue immersing himself in the food world, and do the work that he loves to do – while preparing his own favorites, as well.

“What I love in food is the ability to surprise, delight and comfort all at once. My favorites will change depending on the context, so it will be meatballs cooked with dried Iranian lime one day and tinned smoked oysters tipped onto toast and eaten for breakfast the next,” he said.

Perhaps he’ll even gain a new favorite while he’s in Canada. “Festivals are just a great place to exchange ideas and enthusiasm with like-minded people so I’m looking forward to just being there, having a good time and learning about more ways I can get some great maple syrup into my cooking,” he said.

For more information about the Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival and a full schedule of events, visit jewishbookfestival.ca.

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].

Balancing kids high-tech wants with needs

The start of a new school year used to just mean dealing with the end-of-summer blues, figuring out which classes to take and which books to buy, and making sure you had a first-day-of-school outfit. For today’s kids, however, there’s another real challenge: keeping pace with all the other kids your age, from brand-name clothing to expensive gadgets.

Consider this: about one quarter of children aged 12 to 15 in the United Kingdom have their own tablet while, on this side of the pond, there’s been a five-fold increase in tablet ownership among kids. Couple those statistics with other trends, such as the percentage of children and teenagers who have mobile phones (78 percent) and toddlers who have used mobile devices (38 percent), and it’s evident that children growing up today want and have more technological gadgets than ever before – and that comes with a hefty price tag for their parents.

The struggle to keep up – to give your child what “every other” child seems to have, for fear of making them feel left out – can be daunting for parents. After all, buying your child a $100 mobile phone may not seem like much, until you factor in the cost of the monthly plan. The same goes for gaming systems like PS3 and Xbox, for which a couple hundred dollars now may not break the bank but, before you know it, the next version will come out and you’ll be shelling out more cash.

So, how can parents keep up with the demand, provide their children with some fancy gadgets, without breaking the bank and without spoiling their children?

Back to school: lessons at home

In the back-to-school rush, you may be focused on all the new things your child will learn at school this year, but it’s a great time to think about the lessons you can teach your child at home, with the first one being the value of a dollar (or two). If your child sees you spend hundreds on new smartphones and tablets every two years, they get the message that it’s a normal expense and nothing out of the ordinary, like your yearly taxes or other such payments, when these devices are luxuries, not essentials (although that could be debated).

Instead, you want to show your child that you’re happy to provide them with some of the latest trends but not all of them, all the time. Consider saving the bigger-ticket items for special occasions or milestones you want to celebrate. As well, involve your child in the discussion: how much is too much for a kid’s first phone? How long do they think it takes for you to work to earn the price of that phone?

According to Kevin Sylvester, co-author of Follow Your Money: Who Gets It? Who Spends It? Where Does It Go?, parents can and should explain the value of money to children with practical examples. For example, say your son wants the new iPhone. You buy it, but explain that the purchase means no movie tickets or outings for him for the next six months, until he’s helped pay for it. One of the reasons this can be difficult for kids to understand today is because of how little they actually see real, physical money.

“Money has moved away from the physical to the abstract. [Before] kids were forced to deal with the reality of how much something cost (they had to count coins, for example) when we needed actual money to buy things,” he writes. “But with credit cards, debit cards and automatic e-transactions, that tangible relationship with money is almost gone. So, [kids] need to know the underlying ideas about ‘value,’ ‘cost’ and so on to understand what they are spending.”

To do this, he encourages parents to give kids ownership over how much they’re spending and what they’re buying, as well as discussing why saving is important – even if it means waiting until the iPhone 15 comes out.

Quiz time: self-evaluation

Dr. Jim Taylor, author of Raising Generation Tech, reminds readers that kids pick up what they see their parents doing. The average child spends more than seven hours in front of a screen per day. If you think that’s much too high, then it’s time for a back-to-school quiz: are you any better? If you’re spending hours on your phone, computer or tablet – whether it’s watching TV, working or playing games – your child learns it’s OK to spend your day in front of a screen. However, childhood should be a time to explore, imagine and wonder, which gets lost if a child has a computer doing it for them.

“How did your children develop their relationship with technology? In all likelihood, from your relationship with technology. You influence your children’s exposure to technology in two ways,” says Taylor in a blog post about creating a healthy relationship with technology. “First, whether consciously or otherwise, you determine the technology to which your children are exposed and the frequency of its use. You buy it for them, give them permission to use it, and provide them with the time and space for its use.

“Second, and perhaps more importantly, you model the presence and use of technology in your own life. In doing so, you’re constantly sending your children messages about the role that it should play in their lives. Think about how often you, for example, watch television, play video games, surf the internet or check your email, and you’ll probably see the kind of relationship that your children have or will develop with technology.”

It’s too early to tell what impact technology will ultimately have on children who don’t know life without it, but Taylor’s points remain true nonetheless: too often we think of technology as an end itself, a way to pass time, a chance to get the kids to quiet down while we finish our day’s work, but it developed as a means to an end – a way to enhance the quality of life and do more with less.

By reminding your kids and yourself of these origins, you can instil in them the value that technology can bring – efficiency, independence, ingenuity and, perhaps, a better quality of life – while showing that they don’t have to have everything at once. And that there are other ways to work and play.

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].

Okanagan Jewish community small, close-knit

The sanctuary of Kelowna’s Beth Shalom Synagogue, which was founded in 1990. (photo from OJCA)

Kelowna boasts a small but tight-knit Jewish community, with its synagogue, Beth Shalom, located in the Okanagan Jewish Community Centre (OJCC). Although it’s estimated that more than 1,000 Jews live in this region and the surrounding area, only about 60 families are actively involved in communal life, which offers some unique benefits – and challenges.

“We’re not affiliated with anyone, so we cover the entire Jewish spectrum of Jewish identities and religious views, and we all respect each other’s differences,” said David Spevakow, president of the Okanagan Jewish Community Association.

photo - David Spevakow, president of the Okanagan Jewish Community Association. (photo from OJCA) — David Spevakow, president of the Okanagan Jewish Community Association. *(photo from OJCA)*

Spevakow and his wife moved to Kelowna in 2002 and have been very active in the community, which offers Sunday Hebrew school classes, holiday celebrations, a community Passover seder and more.

“It helps that it’s a smaller community,” he said. “When we see each other, everyone knows each other. We’re all friends and family.”

To help attract and keep rabbinic leadership in smaller Jewish communities, there is a new pilot project, called Bridging Mountains, between Beth Tzedec in Calgary and the OJCC, on either side of the Rockies. It offers the OJC community rabbinic leadership, consultation and guidance on religious practices and questions. As part of the project, Beth Tzedec’s Rabbi Shaul Osadchey serves as a mentor to the community, answering questions and visiting the region.

“The rabbi gives us a feeling like we have leadership in a spiritual and rabbinical aspect,” said Spevakow.

A small community

Being part of the close-knit community afforded Jeremy Finkleman, who was born and grew up in Kelowna, with an opportunity to really develop his own Judaism without the outside pressures of strict religious infrastructure.

“I really found who I am as a Jew growing up in that community,” said Finkleman, 31, who now works as a transportation planner in Vancouver. “I was able to forge a Jewish identity for myself completely independent of what people were telling me Jews are supposed to behave like or think like. It really gives you an opportunity to take charge of your own Judaism and take leadership roles, whereas in other communities, you’d sit more on the sidelines.”

Since the community has no Jewish day school, Finkleman’s father taught him Hebrew and Judaic studies for more than 12 years.

“I can’t think of a better way of learning. It’s a lasting bonding experience,” he said. “Just like the commandment says, you should teach it to your sons – he took that very literally. We’d get together twice a week for two hours in the evening and we learned everything from Hebrew language to Jewish history to ritual practice to politics.”

With no Jewish day school, Kelowna Jews like Finkleman were exposed to a variety of different cultures, and were taught from an early age to respect others’ religions and differences.

“Everyone kind of shares in each other’s cultures there. Being part of such a small community, I would go with my best friend to Christmas Eve mass every year and then I would go over for Christmas dinner,” said Finkleman. “It was a cultural sharing experience, and he would come to OJC for the annual Chanukah party. Everybody shares in each other’s experiences and it was all very positive and open-minded.”

Challenges to face

A “tourist hub,” Kelowna’s population almost doubles in the summer, as out-of-towners come to visit the area’s sandy beaches, taste its fresh fruit, tour the wineries and play the golf courses. The city, however, faces many challenges similar to those faced by other small Jewish communities. Although Finkleman noted he probably wouldn’t be as observant as he is today had he not grown up in Kelowna, he said life for an observant Jew is not easy there.

“If you want to have any type of regular observance of things, even regular Shabbat services, there just isn’t the interest to have services once a week,” he said. He noted there isn’t much Jewish infrastructure in Kelowna and so, for example, you can’t purchase kosher meat there either.

“If you were an observant Jew who wanted to live an observant Jewish lifestyle, it is challenging in Kelowna,” he said.

The synagogue, founded in 1990, does have a Torah and does hold services, although not regularly. It was built by families in the community who spent a lot of time and money to acquire the land and build the structure, including Finkleman’s parents. He said his parents held many community events at their house before the synagogue was built and that his father has been involved in leading services at the synagogue for many years.

“We’re very, very proud of it,” said Finkleman. “There was a lot of energy around the building of the synagogue and leading up to it, and immediately following it. After a number of years, however, it started to wane and people started to come and go.”

As the city expands, thanks, in part, to developments at the airport and the new University of British Columbia campus, the city’s demographics have shifted as well, with younger families moving into the region, attracted to the opportunities and searching for a more affordable life than Vancouver can provide. As more professionals and young families move into the region, Spevakow said he is hopeful the community will expand and develop.

“We’re committed to building a growing and evolving Jewish community while enriching Jewish life by providing opportunities for social, cultural and educational development. We’ve got the same problems other small communities have, but I’m optimistic about the direction we’re going in.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].

Kesher Hadash teaches about Israel in all its complexity

The 2014 Davidson School group on Vision and Voices, the 10-day trip that precedes Kesher Hadash. The goal of this day in January was to explore the connection to the land and visit Ben-Gurion’s Desert Home in Sde Boker. The conversation there focused on David Ben-Gurion’s vision for Israel in general and for the desert in particular, as he wanted to make the desert bloom. (photo from Davidson School)

Growing up attending Jewish day school in Vancouver from nursery until Grade 12 gave Elana Wenner a strong connection to Judaism and Israel, but not a full understanding of the realities and complexities of Israeli society. With the goal of one day becoming a teacher in Jewish day schools in Canada, and eventually Israel, Wenner wanted a more comprehensive education – and went about getting one.

“I wanted to learn for myself and to be able to teach a more nuanced version of what’s going on in Israel,” said Wenner, 26.

To do so, she participated in Kesher Hadash from January to May 2014. The immersive, semester-long program is offered by the Jewish Theological Seminary’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education in Israel, although you do not need to be a student of the Davidson School’s master program to participate. Kesher Hadash strives to give the cohort of Canadian and American students a deeper understanding of Israeli politics and society, a chance to go beyond the picture students are taught in Jewish day school education.

“We had regular history classes teaching … history not just from the Israeli perspective but from other perspectives, from all sides of the political spectrum,” said Wenner. “We took classes at the [Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts] where we watched movies made by religious filmmakers expressing political views through film.”

“The goal is to explore the Israel-Diaspora relationship, to look at the educational vision of Israel and how we are going to teach Israel: what are we going to do, what are different ways to teach [about] Israel, what is the Israel we want to expose our students to?” explained Ofra Backenroth, dean of the Davidson School. “We believe you can’t be a Jewish educator if you don’t understand Israel and all its complexities.”

The program’s name articulates the two core aspects of the program: kesher, meaning connection, shows the goal of creating a deep connection with Israel, and hadash, which means new, expressing the desire to re-imagine the contours of the Israel-Diaspora relationship and suggesting new approaches to contemporary Jewish education.

The program’s name articulates the two core aspects of the program: kesher, meaning connection, shows the goal of creating a deep connection with Israel, and hadash, which means new, expressing the desire to re-imagine the contours of the Israel-Diaspora relationship and suggesting new approaches to contemporary Jewish education.

The program, said Backenroth, is life-transforming, as the students interact with different segments of the Israeli population: secular and religious, Israeli Jews and Arabs, Palestinians and others.

“We learned the nuances between lots of different aspects of Israeli society that are often not brought up in day school, that go beyond just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also the conflict between religious and secular Jews and the differences between Arab Israeli citizens and Palestinians,” said Wenner.

One of their weekly classes was made up of nine North American Jews, nine Israeli Jews and nine Israeli Arabs, where they discussed tough questions about Israel’s existence, history and politics.

“We often got into big disagreements and really had to experience for ourselves what it’s like to be faced with someone who has an opposite opinion and learn how to be respectful of their opinion,” said Wenner.

The journey for students is not easy, she noted. On the school’s website, however, many say that it opened their eyes to the realities of the difficulties and benefits of Israeli life.

“We need to be able to understand that there are not just Jews living in Israel but other people living there and it’s their country, too.”

“It was really difficult,” acknowledged Wenner, “but it wasn’t supposed to be easy. We need to be able to understand that there are not just Jews living in Israel but other people living there and it’s their country, too. During one program, we went on a guided tour of Bethlehem and met Palestinian families and talked to them about what goes on a daily basis. For a lot of people, it was a very challenging experience because it’s so contrary to what we’re used to hearing and knowing about the conflict.”

Wenner, who is currently pursuing of master’s of arts in Jewish studies at Concordia University in Montreal – and who is doing an internship this summer at the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia – hopes to take the knowledge she learned during this program and apply it as a Jewish educator in the future.

“A lot of people don’t want to teach about any of the difficult or bad things going on in Israel because they think then we won’t love Israel. I was raised believing you should love Israel like you love a baby – you want to give it everything and, no matter what, love it anyways.

“But we want to love Israel like we love a teenager, where you help it grow and change and try to show it the right way,” she continued. “And that, to me, is the role of educators in North America. That’s the kind of love we should be teaching.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].

NCSY Vancouver celebrates organization’s 60 years

Graduates of NCSY’s Impact leadership program at the spring regional awards banquet in Harrison Hot Springs, with Rabbi Samuel Ross. (photo from Rabbi Samuel Ross)

In a Jewish community with one of the highest assimilation rates, the role of youth groups such as the Vancouver chapter of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY) has become more important over the years. NCSY Vancouver’s parent organization was founded in 1954 and the local chapter, which emerged about a decade later, is helping celebrate the 60th anniversary milestone.

NCSY works to develop a connection with Jewish youth before they embark on their university and professional lives. Rabbi Samuel Ross, NCSY Vancouver director, spoke about the “unique, beautiful situation” in which the chapter works. He said they “cater to anyone and everyone, which is an ongoing challenge but it’s really reaping rewards.” Indeed, many of those who join or take part in NCSY activities develop lifelong connections to Judaism and Israel, which was Nicole Grubner’s experience.

Grubner grew up in West Vancouver and became involved with NCSY when she was in Grade 9. She started attending their Shabbatons, and loved the warm atmosphere and Jewish connection that she felt at these events. By the end of high school, she was on the NCSY student leadership board, began keeping Shabbat, and had signed up for a post-graduate year at a seminary in Israel.

“I think the goal of NCSY is for it to be a jumping off point for you, so I used it as that and continued my Jewish education after high school,” said Grubner, 25. “It brought a lot of meaning into my life and week and I enjoyed the sense of community that it brought.”

NCSY Vancouver hosts a mix of educational and social programs, everything from a mock casino night to sushi in the sukkah to Shabbatons, trips and leadership programs.

“The city is growing, the chapter is exploding, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I’m actually bringing in someone else to come work for me next year,” said Ross, who has been leading NCSY Vancouver for the past three years. “We do the best we can to inspire them enough so that they’ll want to continue their Jewish growth once they get to university.”

In Grubner’s case, after her year in Israel, she studied at Stern College in New York, returning to Israel every year.

“I actually went back to NCSY and staffed summer programs in Israel for three years,” she said. “I had an amazing Israel experience and it was important for me to give that to someone else.”

Her love of Israel and connecting with the Jewish people didn’t dampen after university ended. In October 2012, she made aliyah.

“In Vancouver, we know that assimilation is a really huge problem, so NCSY is really important to the Jewish community in Vancouver because it’s a connection point, one that many kids don’t get the opportunity to be a part of.”

“It had a very big impact on my life, so much so that I made my best friends and closest connections in NCSY. I’m really grateful for the base it gave me, for the fact that I was able to get so involved and so connected in high school,” she said. “In Vancouver, we know that assimilation is a really huge problem, so NCSY is really important to the Jewish community in Vancouver because it’s a connection point, one that many kids don’t get the opportunity to be a part of. NCSY has really changed the face of Vancouver’s Jewish community,” she said.

NCSY is a globally recognized organization that connects Jewish youth through social, recreational, educational and spiritual programs.

“It’s about connecting kids to their roots and to their Jewish identity. Whether kids become religious or not, to me, that’s almost less important than kids thinking about their Judaism and it being something important to them in whatever way they choose to practise,” said Grubner. “It shouldn’t be a part of their identity that passes them by because of apathy or lack of knowledge.”

In Vancouver, the number of Jewish youth involved in NCSY programming has been growing. This year, they’re sending 16 youth to programs in Israel. Some of their programs draw 100 kids, and there are already 25 applicants this year for the NCSY Vancouver youth board.

“When I first came three years ago, we had to beg kids to be on that board,” said Ross. “Now, it’s really hard to get on. The kids have to write an essay why they like NCSY and what they can add, and it’s beautiful. You see how they write how Judaism has made such a difference in their lives and how passionate they are and how much they enjoy coming.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].

Celebrate Canada’s start in P.E.I.

From left to right, the Hon. Robert Henderson; Gary Schneider, Confederation Forest Project; John Horrelt, chair, PEI 2014 community advisory committee; and Penny Walsh McGuire, executive director, PEI 2014 Inc. (photo from pei2014.ca)

Prince Edward Island is where the idea of our country first took shape. On Sept. 1, 1864, the Charlottetown Conference brought together representatives of the Maritime colonies and the province of Canada (present-day Quebec and Ontario) and the “Fathers of Confederation” laid the groundwork for Confederation, which became reality on July 1, 1867.

This summer marks the 150th anniversary of that conference and the historic moment will be celebrated in what many consider to be the birthplace of Canada – Charlottetown, P.E.I. There will be more than 150 different festivals, events and activities in the province.

“P.E.I. is proud to have hosted such an important meeting in our nation’s history in 1864,” said Penny Walsh McGuire, executive director of PEI 2014, which is organizing the celebrations. “One hundred and fifty years later, Prince Edward Island is very proud to be playing host yet again – this time to all Canadians and visitors from around the world as we celebrate the creation of our nation.”

photo - Constructed between 1843 and 1847, Province House is Canada’s second-oldest legislature building and it is still in use, as the home of the Prince Edward Island House of Assembly — Constructed between 1843 and 1847, Province House is Canada’s second-oldest legislature building and it is still in use, as the home of the Prince Edward Island House of Assembly. *(photo from en.wikipedia.org)*

The 70 days of celebration, from July 1 until Sept. 7, feature daily concerts, theatre performances and comedy on the Atlantic Lottery/Red Shores Main Stage, cultural arts and heritage exhibits in the Canada Pavilion, chef demonstrations and local food tastings in the Culinary Pavilion, interactive activities in the Kids Pavilion, as well as historical walking tours.

While celebrating Prince Edward Island’s history, and our nation’s, it would be remiss to not also highlight the long history of the province’s small but strong Jewish community.

Prince Edward Island’s first Jewish settlers were recorded in a newspaper article about a celebration of Passover in 1908. The community grew very slowly, with only a dozen Jewish families reported as residing there before the Second World War. In the 1970s, a Torah scroll was brought to the island for the first time and there were the first recorded High Holiday services; 1976 marked the celebration of the first bar mitzvah there.

“Coming here for the first time was almost like coming to Israel the first time. I felt like I belonged,” said Leslee Sack, a New York native who moved to Prince Edward Island in 2007. She is now the secretary of the P.E.I. Jewish Community (PEIJC).

“This place is what Brooklyn was like in the ’50s,” she said. “Everyone wants to talk to you, everyone wants to know your story.”

For 40 years, Sacks worked as a travel agent in New York; her office was in a building across from the World Trade Centre. She wasn’t at work on Sept. 11, 2001, but later found out her boss had sent everyone home after the first tower fell.

“I would’ve been under building two waiting for the train,” she said. Deciding to make a change, she went on a Maritimes cruise and, after some deliberation, chose to settle and retire in Charlottetown.

“I came up here knowing no one and now I cannot walk the streets of Charlottetown without saying hi to someone,” she said. “It’s a beautiful place, terrific sightseeing, nice people. I’ve never looked back.”

Sacks estimated that there are about 150 Jews in Prince Edward Island. The province is the only one in Canada with no synagogue or rabbi, she said, but she insisted that the community is doing well. “We celebrate every single holiday except for Shavuot, which somehow gets left in the dust, in someone’s home. People volunteer to host, it’s always potluck. And, we recently acquired two different kinds of kosher wine, you can get kosher cheese, fish, but not kosher meat.”

If you haven’t made the trek to the other Canadian coast, this summer would be the perfect time to do so. Here are some highlights to check out:

• Visit the PEI 2014 Celebration Zone at Confederation Landing Park on the Charlottetown waterfront on July 1 for a fireworks show, as well as daily concerts, interactive walking tours, cultural exhibits and more continuing through until Sept. 7.

• Immerse yourself in the province’s history by attending a Belfast Historical Society Lecture Series event.

photo - Delegates from the legislatures of Canada, gathering on the steps of Prince Edward Island's Government House for the Charlottetown Conference in 1864 — Delegates from the legislatures of Canada, gathering on the steps of Prince Edward Island’s Government House for the Charlottetown Conference in 1864 *(photo by George P. Roberts via en.wikipedia.org)*

• Pay tribute to the Fathers of Confederation during Founder’s Week from Aug. 28-Sept. 8, which features concerts, fireworks and other activities.

• Get an inside look at the controversies for and against Confederation by visiting the Eptek Summer Celebrations from June until October.

• Attend the Summerside Highland Gathering, filled with Celtic gift shops, live Celtic music and different clan tents.

• If you’re interested in visiting Prince Edward Island, PEIJC tries to answer every email they receive through their website, peijc.org.

Vicky Tobianah is a multimedia writer, editor and strategist based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or by email at [email protected].

Amber Funk Barton premières piece with lululemon tie-in

The Art of Stealing grew from Barton’s desire to explore what’s considered right and wrong in a post-apocalyptic world. (photo by Chris Barton)

When Amber Funk Barton was constantly dancing around her house at the age of 4, she didn’t realize that one day she would become a professional dancer and choreographer. But the Vancouver-born artist, now 33, is living her dream. Her latest production, The Art of Stealing, created by her choreography company, the response, premières on May 28 at the Firehall Arts Centre.

“I didn’t think I had a future as a professional dancer, I thought choreography was one way I could still be involved in dance,” said Barton. “My dream was to have my own company and to choreograph.”

The Art of Stealing grew from Barton’s desire to explore a dark theme, what she describes as a “post-apocalyptic world” and the difficulties in understanding what’s right and wrong in this haunted, mysterious future.

“The small picture is the obvious thing – the obvious literal act of stealing, that’s physical, taking something physical without consent,” she said. “I found it very interesting in this post-apocalyptic world that all of sudden it’s OK to steal – and if you don’t steal, you’re gonna die. It’s related to survival. On the bigger level, I started really thinking about it – the stealing that we can’t control at all – our time, our energy, our youth. Essentially to me, death is the ultimate thief in life.”

The 60-minute piece is the third full-length work that the response has created. Established in 2008, the company’s two previous pieces, RISK (2008) and Portraits and Scenes of Female Creatures (2011), also premièred at the Firehall.

photo - choreographer and dancer Amber Funk Barton — Choreographer and dancer Amber Funk Barton. *(photo by Chris Barton)*

Although Barton said she had been dancing since she was a little girl, she only started dancing professional at 21. Perhaps her maiden name, “Funk,” was a glimpse of the career trajectory her life would take.

But Barton isn’t just making her mark in the dance world. While creating the piece, she teamed up with active-wear clothing line lululemon’s innovation hub, called lululemon lab. “The lab is very inspired by different groups in the community and works with them to make functional fashion for people specifically in our community,” said Barton. She was introduced to Jean Okada, team director at lululemon lab, who was impressed by Barton’s creative piece.

“She came up with the idea that she would like to pitch what the lab calls a capsule collection. So they essentially designed our costumes,” said Barton. In addition to designing the dancers’ costumes, they created a collaborative clothing line, which launched last week, on May 16. “They’re selling it in stores and we’re wearing [that] same clothing on stage. It’s a really beautiful exchange,” Funk said. The clothing is in line with the dance piece’s theme – it’s dark and edgy and promotes Barton’s unique ideas about the struggle for survival in a dark world. The limited edition capsule collection produced three pieces for women and three for men and will be available only until the items are sold out.

“First of all, having a line designed is beyond what I was imaging in the first place. It was amazing. They had such respect for what we were doing as artists. They asked dancers thorough questions, what our needs are. I was able to share images and whatever I had collected in terms of inspiration. They actually took what I wanted and integrated it into the line. I was part of fittings. It was beyond what I was hoping for,” said Barton.

Reflecting on her beginnings and how far she’s come, Barton said, “I started dancing probably around 4 years old and it was with ballet and I had some kind of alignment issues. I had weak mobility in my legs so the doctor recommended ice skating or dance to strengthen the alignment of my legs. My mom noticed I was dancing around the house all the time anyways and she also didn’t want to sit in an ice rink at 5 a.m., so she enrolled me in ballet classes and that’s basically how it all started.”

Now, she wants to focus on choreography and creating more unique pieces, as she embarks on what she calls her “mid-career artist years.”

“I feel very fortunate and very grateful,” she said. “My company is a small, project-based company. It’s like a little home where I can make what I’m interested in and make my art. Sometimes I just pinch myself.”

The Art of Stealing is on stage May 28-31 at the Firehall Arts Centre. There is an artist talk back after the performance on Thursday, May 29. For tickets, contact the Firehall at 604-689-0926 or visit firehallartscentre.ca.

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].