Books

Memoir, tribute, history

Actor Tovah Feldshuh talks about her new book, Lilyville, on April 15, in an event held in partnership with the JCC Jewish Book Festival. (PR photo)

The long-awaited Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival closing night event – Tovah Feldshuh talking about her new book, Lilyville: Mother, Daughter, and Other Roles I’ve Played – finally takes place on April 15.

The event was postponed to piggyback on the Book Festival of the Marcus JCC of Atlanta and JCC National Literary Consortium In Your Living Room Live series. It will feature Feldshuh in conversation with CNN correspondent Holly Firfer, and promises to be an entertaining evening with many laughs and lots of good advice, if Lilyville is any indication.

Feldshuh’s first book is a unique memoir in that it is framed in terms of her relationship with her mother – the longest and most important of Feldshuh’s roles having been the one she didn’t audition for, being the daughter of Lillian (Lily) Kaplan Feldshuh. The memoir is structured as a theatre piece, starting with the Program Note and ending with Exit Music, with three acts, many scenes and more in between.

Strong women characters, from the fictional Yentl (from the mind of Sholem Aleichem) to the very real U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dominate Feldshuh’s career. She has performed in theatre, film and television, winning numerous awards and nominations for the excellence of her work. She also has been recognized for her charity work. And, it seems, through it all, family has been a priority.

In Lilyville, Feldshuh writes about her upbringing, how and why she became an actor, some of the people and incidents that have influenced her, her marriage (to a lawyer, like her beloved father was, and which she considered becoming at one point) and being a mother herself. Given her successes, readers may be surprised at the professional challenges she has overcome along the way, including being told outright by a director that she’d never make a good actress, she should become an accountant. But the biggest obstacle for her was coming to understand that her mother, who seemed cold and shy throughout Feldshuh’s (and her older brother’s) upbringing, loved them. While hypercritical and emotionally closed throughout their growing-up years, their mother was always there for them. It was only after their father died that their mother – who had been raised to be what was considered a good woman back then, ie. a woman who dedicated herself to her husband and kids, her own aspirations be damned – blossomed.

In an interview with the Detroit Jewish Book Fair, Feldshuh said about writing Lilyville that she “felt compelled to tell her [mother’s] story and mine and how the two of us had a lifelong journey toward each other. In essence, I dig down into the primal relationship between parent and child, with the specifics between mother and daughter.”

Luckily for the women, they had the time to repair and build their relationship, as Feldshuh’s mother lived to 103. Through that century-plus, Lily Kaplan Feldshuh, who was born before women were given the vote in the United States, witnessed countless social, cultural and technological changes, and Lilyville is partly a history of women’s rights in that country.

General admission to Feldshuh’s book talk is free. Admittance to the pre-event meet-and-greet portion of the event comes when, in addition to registering, you purchase the book; the $36US includes shipping and you will receive a copy with a signed bookplate. Visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

Life-changing impact

Sandy Shefrin Rabin’s debut novel is a far-reaching account of Jewish life in a small town in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Targeted to young adult readers, Prairie Sonata may focus on 11-year-old Mira’s friendship with her school (and violin) teacher, a Holocaust survivor, but it touches upon countless issues, from dealing with trauma, to preserving a language and a culture (Yiddish), to understanding different musical forms, to interfaith dating, to society’s views of mental illness, to learning about the impacts of physical disease (polio).

Set in the fictional town of Ambrosia, Man., an adult Mira reflects back on the impact that one of her teachers – Ari Bergman, called Chaver B by his students – had on her.

Chaver B is introduced to his Peretz School Yiddish class by the principal, who only shares, “Chaver Bergman has been living in Europe and just came over to Canada two weeks ago.” But Mira sees his vulnerability right away, the “melancholy about him,” and senses “that this was a man who needed kindness.”

Invited to Friday night dinner by Mira’s mother, Chaver B spots Mira’s violin and offers to teach her. He becomes a friend to the whole family – Mira’s parents and younger brother – but especially to Mira.

The novel is structured in three parts, like a sonata. As Chaver B explains to Mira, a sonata is comprised of an exposition, in which its themes are declared; a development, where the themes are explored and expanded; and a recapitulation, where the themes are repeated, leading to a resolution. In some cases, a coda is added, “to provide a sense of closure.”

Overall, Prairie Sonata is an intriguing novel, and even older readers will enjoy it, especially those who attended a Peretz School or who grew up in the era of the book. At times, when a character is explaining something, it sounds a bit like a Wikipedia entry, but the writing is strong overall and readers will relate to and empathize with the characters. In addition to all of the questions Mira raises throughout, there is a discussion and study guide at the end, with 17 thoughtful exercises for a school group or book club.

Tale of transformation

Near the beginning of her acting career more than 50 years ago, Beth Kaplan wanted to improve the world through art. “I believe in the theatre as a tool for social change,” she told the director of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art when she arrived for a one-year program. “I’d like to touch people’s lives as a force for good.” His reaction? “Well,” he said, standing up. “I do hope you have a fruitful year. Best of luck.”

Kaplan writes about her journey from acting to writing, from youth to adulthood, from insecurities to self-acceptance, and more, in her memoir Loose Woman: My Odyssey from Lost to Found. Local JI readers may recall her name, as she was a part of the Vancouver theatre scene in the 1970s. But a 1979 trip that included a visit to France to see her best friend, who had moved there, changed Kaplan’s life.

Through her friend’s husband, Kaplan ended up for a spell living and working in a L’Arche community, which brings people with and without intellectual disabilities together. Initially uncomfortable there, the experience and the slower pace allowed her to learn about herself, and to not treat life as a performance. From her time at L’Arche, she sees how, “in one way or another, we are all handicapped.”

In telling her story, Kaplan seems to rely mainly on thoughts she committed to her diaries over the years. She’s kept one ever since her first, which was a gift when she was 9 years old. Some of the terms she uses, like handicapped, hearken back to that time, and it’s a choice Kaplan makes, “to be true to the time, hoping that readers understand that what is offensive now was not so then.” Indeed, through some of the language and the stories of her objectively wild life during the 1970s, Kaplan highlights the advances that have been made in areas like women’s rights and inclusion.

Loose Woman is an interesting book, even though Kaplan is not a completely likeable heroine, despite it being her own story. Some readers might chafe at her harsh judgments (even when she is the target) and her self-acknowledged mix of confidence (some might say arrogance) and insecurity. But others might revel in her tales of debauchery and her resolute openness.

Make memorable meals

Sweet Potato Wedges with Avocado Drizzle, as made by Miriam Pascal, author of More Real Life Kosher Cooking. (photo by Miriam Pascal)

Many people have probably never heard of Miriam Pascal. I was one of them, but now am happily a fan. She describes herself as a 20-something Jewish gal from New York, a self-taught cook. She founded overtimecook.com, a popular kosher recipe blog, and More Real Life Kosher Cooking: Approachable Recipes for Memorable Dishes (Art Scroll, 2019) is her third cookbook.

More Real Life Kosher Cooking has many positive aspects – an introductory remark for each recipe; ingredients in the left column and numbered directions on the right; and a full-page, full-colour photograph for each recipe, including photographs of four dishes before each of the 10 chapters. In the introduction, Pascal recalls memories connected to various recipes and says her goal is to make the recipes in this cookbook “approachable and doable,” as the book’s subtitle states. She wants to help her readers “create delicious food and special moments.”

image - More Real Life Kosher Cooking book cover — More Real Life Kosher Cooking book cover

There are some 200 photographs and 139 recipes in this cookbook, plus directions for 22 sauces and dressings, which can be used with other creations. Chapters are Breakfasts and Breads, Appetizers and Snacks, Salads and Spreads, Soups and Stews, Meat and Poultry, Dairy and Meatless, Vegetables and Sides, Desserts and Drinks, Baked Goods and Pastries, and Sauces and Staples. Among the recipes are Puff Pastry Breakfast Pizza, Crispy Onion Strings, Meaty Root Vegetable Soup, Caramelized Onion and Cheese Manicotti, Two-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse and No-Bake S’mores Cheesecake.

Of the 139 basic recipes, 46 are listed in the Pesach guide at the end. Here are four from the book.

SWEET POTATO WEDGES WITH AVOCADO DRIZZLE
(pareve, makes six servings)

3 sweet potatoes
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
* * *
1 avocado
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
Peel sweet potatoes and cut into wedges. Place into a large bowl; add oil, salt and pepper. Toss to coat.
Place wedges in a single layer on prepared baking sheet. Bake for about 50 minutes, until the outsides are starting to brown.
Meanwhile, prepare the avocado drizzle. Place peeled and pitted avocado into a bowl; mash until smooth. Add remaining ingredients; stir to combine.
Remove roasted sweet potato from oven; allow to cool slightly. Just before serving, drizzle avocado mixture over wedges.

The avocado drizzle can be prepared two to three days ahead. Due to the acid in the recipe, it should not turn brown. Sweet potato wedges are best fresh, but can be prepared a day or two ahead and served at room temperature.

MATBUCHA BRISKET
(meat, makes six to eight servings)

1 (about 3 lb) second cut brisket (see Note)
kosher salt, for sprinkling
black pepper, for sprinkling
3 tbsp oil
2 onions, sliced
2 tsp kosher salt, divided
3 bell peppers, sliced, preferably different colours
2 plum tomatoes, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 jalapeño pepper, minced
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes

photo - Miriam Pascal’s Matbucha Brisket — Miriam Pascal’s Matbucha Brisket. (photo by Miriam Pascal)

Preheat oven to 325°F.
Sprinkle salt and pepper over both sides of roast. Heat a large, deep frying pan over high heat. Add roast; sear for two to three minutes per side, until browned on the outside. Transfer to a roasting pan; set aside.
Turn heat under the frying pan to medium; add oil, onions and one teaspoon salt. Cook for about five minutes, until softened
Add peppers, tomatoes, garlic, jalapeño and remaining teaspoon salt. Cook for eight to 10 minutes, until softened.
Raise heat to high. Add cumin, chili powder and diced tomatoes with their liquid. Cook until mixture starts to bubble around the edges. Pour vegetable mixture over the meat.
Cover roasting pan tightly; bake for 40-50 minutes per pound, until meat is soft and tender.

Note: Instead of a brisket, you can use any other cut of meat that does well when cooked low and slow.

The meat freezes well in the sauce, wrapped and airtight. Reheat, covered, until warmed through.

ROASTED VEGETABLE SOUP
(pareve, makes six to eight servings)

2 large zucchini, diced
3 medium yellow squash, diced
2 red bell peppers, diced
2 onions, diced
1 lb frozen cauliflower florets, defrosted
1/4 cup oil
1 tbsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
* * *
4 cups vegetable broth
about 6 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Place vegetables, oil, salt and pepper into a bowl. Toss to combine. Divide between prepared baking sheets. Roast for 50-60 minutes, until vegetables are starting to brown.
Place roasted vegetables, along with any juices, into a large soup pot. Add soup ingredients; bring to a boil.
Simmer for about one hour. Discard bay leaves. Using an immersion blender, blend soup well, for about three minutes, until fully smooth. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

This soup can be prepared ahead of time, and frozen in an airtight container.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is working on a 10th. She also writes restaurant features for janglo.net.

Recalling the Catskills

A postcard of the legendary Kutsher’s resort.

After the Lower Eastside of Manhattan, there is perhaps no place that holds so enormous a place in the imagination of Jewish life in North America as the Catskills.

The Catskill Mountains, really a region of the larger Appalachian Mountain range, is a sprawling section of southeastern New York state. Just 160 kilometres from New York City, the area is a world away from the workaday life that lower- and middle-income Jews of mid-century America experienced. The relative proximity to the world’s largest Jewish population centre made the Catskills a destination for generations of Jewish (and other) Americans.

Phil Brown, a professor at Northeastern University, author of Catskill Culture: A Mountain Rat’s Memories of the Great Jewish Resort Area and founder of the Catskills Institute, delivered a webinar March 3. It was presented by the Jewish Study Centre.

The resort region emerged, to use an inapt metaphor, by farmers trying to create a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The land was not good for farming. Chickens and dairy cows were about all it would sustain, and farmers began opening their homes to temporary lodgers.

“You didn’t come to a hotel, you didn’t come to a resort, you came to our house,” Brown reflected. “You came to our family and they treated you like family. And it didn’t matter if you wanted another potato because we grew them here, we grew the corn, we made the cheese, we made our own butter and the cows were giving us milk twice a day. We could make all the butter and cream and sour cream that you needed…. It was served with a full hand because that’s what people came up here for.”

Elaborate menus were an invitation to excess. “So many things to choose from,” said Brown, “and it wasn’t like you chose one or two of these things for breakfast, you had one from each group. You had the fruit, you had the appetizer, then the cereal, then the eggs and the pancakes.”

In addition to the three meals a day the all-inclusive resorts offered, there was a concession to buy snacks while lounging by the pool or playing tennis, then noshes during the evening program at the “casino” – this wasn’t a gambling den, just the name most resorts gave to the theatre space – and, after that, maybe a drive into town for a bite at one of the late-night diners.

In an astonishing array of about 500 “resorts” – ranging across every quality – and another 500 or so “bungalow colonies,” there was something for everybody. One colony, with accommodations that were a cross between cabins and tents, attracted single young people and newlyweds.

image - Pool scene at the Pines Resort in the heyday of the Catskills — Pool scene at the Pines Resort in the heyday of the Catskills.

In many cases, families would come for the entire summer – two months for a manageable price. Mom and kids might stay all through, with fathers commuting back to the city on Sundays. At its heyday, the Jewish Catskills drew 500,000 visitors a year, making it, in the 1950s and ’60s, the world’s largest resort area.

The glossy catalogues produced by the local tourism agency had subtle and less-subtle code words to segregate their clientele. “Dietary laws observed” was the signal for a Jewish resort, while “Churches nearby” sent the opposite message. The phrase “No Hebrews” left less to the imagination.

Brown’s own family story is a microcosm of Jewish American strivers taking entrepreneurial risks in the Catskills hospitality industry. “My parents began in 1946 as the owners of a small hotel called Brown’s Hotel Royal on White Lake,” he said. “They had that hotel until 1952. Not very long – six years.”

Economic challenge was a part of the Catskills experience in part because of extended families and the porous boundaries between work and play in vacationland. “It was a place where the family came to work, the family came to stay and no one could tell the difference if they were working or staying,” he said. “And this is partly why my parents went broke. People thought they would have a job there and they didn’t really do much work.”

After losing their hotel to bankruptcy, they worked for others. “My mother, always a chef, my father having other jobs, running a concession, working as a maître d’, working as a chauffeur,” Brown said. Young Phil started working in the resorts at a early age. By definition, the places that employed them were the smaller ones; the larger, swanky resorts only hired male chefs.

“After they lost their hotel in 1952, they moved down to Fort Pierce, a little town 150 miles or so north of Miami,” he said. “The idea here is that they would get a new start here and that all of the Jews coming down to go to Miami Beach would be so hungry for good New York food by the time they got to Florida that they would stop in here on the way.”

Opening a restaurant with a large sign declaring “Brown’s Jewish Restaurant” in a community where the Ku Klux Klan was still openly marching took chutzpah. They crossed local norms when an African-American family walked in and was served like any customers would be. But it was not racism or antisemitism that did the business in. “My parents, having lost a hotel because they were good businesspeople, did not do well running restaurants,” he said wryly.

They found their way to Miami Beach and they ran the coffee shop at the Haddon Hall Hotel, which was partly owned by the Kutsher family, who owned one of the Catskill’s most renowned resorts. It was not uncommon that proprietors of Catskills hotels would also own properties in Florida, capturing clientele for the summer season as well as the winter.

The resorts were not just getaways but miniature societies, where people knew lots about each other and created very intimate relationships. This was at least partly because the folks one would run into there were not usually strangers.

The Seven Gables Hotel, where Brown really learned the hotel industry ropes, was known as a “Jackson Heights hotel,” because most of the people who worked and lived there came from the Jackson Heights area of the New York borough of Queens. The owners came from there, they hired staff from there and they recruited guests via the local synagogues and social networks.

There was a huge diversity in the properties, but, generally, he said, lower-cost bungalow colonies had cabins with their own kitchens, so the food was prepared by the family rather than eating in a restaurant or dining hall. These were often built on a lake or river and so did not have swimming pools. Nor did they provide a wealth of entertainment. The bungalow colonies supplemented the low rent by selling groceries to the guests.

On the flip side, the higher-end hotels and resorts not only served multi-course meals, they also imported vaudeville acts from Manhattan’s Second Avenue theatres and other comedians, musicians and entertainers, who would work a circuit in the “Borscht Belt,” often making a good living and building a name for themselves.

By the 1970s, the Catskills were starting to decline as a destination. Some of the old resorts have become yeshivot or Jewish kids camps. Some are being used as boarding houses. Many of the smaller and mid-sized places have been converted into private homes. At least one is now a resort for Korean-Americans and another has been revived by Russian-speaking Jews. But the heyday is well and truly gone, Brown said.

“It’s a world mostly lost to us physically,” he said, “yet so powerful in our memories and emotions.”

Anti-racism fundraiser

Olga Campbell is raising money for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s anti-racism programming. (photo from Olga Campbell)

Half of all sales during March of Olga Campbell’s multiple-award-winning A Whisper Across Time: My Family’s Story of the Holocaust Told Through Art and Poetry will be donated to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s anti-racism programming, engaging youth and teachers in promoting human rights, social justice and genocide awareness. Campbell’s goal is to raise $5,000. Her objective is to raise “concerns about the fragility of democracy and the rise of white nationalism, racism and antisemitism in the world today.”

In A Whisper Across Time, Campbell – whose mother lost all of her family during the Second World War – writes, “This is the story of one family out of millions of families who went through the Holocaust.”

As quoted in the Jewish Independent when the book was published in 2019, “It is ‘the story of survival and death,’ ‘of how trauma of such magnitude is passed from one generation to another to another….’ It is also an ardent call for readers to remember Rwanda, Rohingya, Bosnia, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Cambodia.” Campbell notes in the book that, “by the end of 2016, there were 65.6 million refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people in the world.” She pleads, “eighty years ago, the world looked away / we must not look away now.” (Read more at jewishindependent.ca/a-story-told-in-art-and-poetry and jewishindependent.ca/whisper-across-time.)

Campbell will be giving away five signed copies of her book. Everyone who wins or buys a book before the end of March will also receive a signed miniature print – images from the book.

Winners of the book giveaway will be announced on March 21, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

To buy the book ($32), visit olgacampbell.com/new-book-whisper-across-time.

Novel journeys shared

Ilana Masad participates in the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 23. (photo from the JBF)

Women are at the forefront of two new books. Specifically, how we perceive their (our) roles. Especially, with regard to motherhood.

photo - Myriam Steinberg participates in the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 24 — Myriam Steinberg participates in the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 24. *(photo from the JBF)*

Ilana Masad’s debut novel, All My Mother’s Lovers, is told from the perspectives of a daughter and her mother, and highlights how much we cannot know about the people close to us, while Myriam Steinberg’s graphic novel, Catalogue Baby: A Memoir of Infertility, is a no holds barred sharing of her challenge to become a mom. Both Masad and Steinberg are participating in this year’s Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which takes place online Feb. 20-25.

While the premise is a stretch to my worldview, All My Mother’s Lovers is an extremely relatable read on many levels. Twenty-something Maggie’s mother, Iris, dies in a car crash and Maggie must return home for the funeral and shiva. But, along with her will, Iris has left behind six letters – all addressed to men Maggie hasn’t heard of – and Maggie quickly flees the communal mourning to deliver these missives.

Leaving behind her grief-addled father, who has been the emotional-support parent for her, and her younger brother, with whom she has an older-sister-bossy relationship, Maggie attempts to track down the unknown men. The space from her family and from her current partner, with whom there might actually be a substantial, meaningful relationship brewing, allows Maggie to deal with her long-held insecurities and naïve perceptions of what it means to be married, what it means to be a parent; basically, what it means to be a loving and reliable person. We get to know Iris through the letters and, though Maggie doesn’t get to benefit from these personal musings, she does learn more about her mom, which allows her to connect more deeply with her father, as well as to others in her life.

Masad’s writing is crisp, intelligent, wry and sensitive. The novel starts with a bang – Maggie answering her brother’s call (telling her about their mother’s death) while having sex with her girlfriend. The pace emphasizes Maggie’s confusion as she tries to understand her mother, and herself. Iris’s letters offer slower moments of reflection, but also were a way for Iris to try and better understand her own missteps and successes.

Steinberg’s Catalogue Baby also took me into a world I’ve never personally experienced, though I do know people who have so wanted to have a child but either could not conceive or had great difficulty conceiving. Steinberg’s refreshing openness on a topic that is often spoken about in whispers, if at all, is most welcome. And her voice is amplified by the colour-bursting, energetic and imaginative illustrations by Christache Ross, which take readers right close up into the physical and emotional upheaval and turmoil that Steinberg has lived.

Catalogue Baby takes readers from Year One (starting January 2014), and Steinberg’s admission that her dedication to work, organizing the In the House Festival for 11 years, only occasionally gave her the time to put her “loneliness and unrequited motherhood” front of mind. Almost 40 years old at this point, she “didn’t have time to waste with someone who didn’t eventually want a family.” But, people being who we are, Steinberg nonetheless tries to make an unsatisfying relationship work, all while her biological clock (which follows her throughout the novel’s journey) ticked away. From when she finally decides to go it alone to when she gives birth to twins in late 2018, she goes through much. The list includes 123 blood draws, 31 ultrasounds, multiple fertility treatments, five pregnancies, thousands of supplements, about $100,000, help from dozens of family and friends, etc., etc. – and “25 litres of tears.”

To hear more about and from Steinberg, Masad and many other fabulous writers, check out this year’s Jewish Book Festival: jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

Klein speaks on climate crisis

Seth Klein brings his book A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency to the Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 22. (photo by Erica Johnson)

At this year’s virtual Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 20-25, Seth Klein is among the many writers featured. He will talk about his new book, A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, which came out last September.

Klein was the founding director of the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), a position he held from 1996 to 2018, and was also a founder of the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition. He is a board member with the nonprofit Dogwood and an advisory board member for the Columbia Institute’s Centre for Civic Governance. He is a founder, advisor and instructor for Next Up, a leadership program for young people committed to social and environmental justice, as well. He spoke with the Independent in advance of his Feb. 22 book festival presentation.

JI: How did you come to write this book?

SK: When you spend 22 years at the CCPA, you’re forever in this place of what you think should happen versus what our governments are prepared to consider, but never more so than in the case of the climate emergency, where we all live in this harrowing space. I wanted to write a book that would tackle that, that would convince particularly our political leaders, specifically those who say they get it, to be more daring than they have been to date in tackling the emergency.

Originally, the book was to have a single chapter on the Second World War, as an example of rapid economic transformation, but the more I delved into that story, the more I saw parallels between the war and the current crisis – not just on the economic front, but well beyond that. I saw parallels in terms of the role of civil society, the mobilization of the populace, the role of Indigenous people and the need to take care of those who make sacrifices; for example, those working in the fossil fuel industry, who need a just transition, modeled after the care for returning soldiers. I also saw cautionary tales around the squashing of civil rights, the things we don’t want to repeat. To speak to a parallel to which the Jewish community has the most connection: the response to refugees.

JI: Can you say a little more about that last point?

SK: Despite Canada rallying to fight the good fight in Europe, we slammed the door on Jewish refugees before, during and after the war. Years ago, I heard Cindy Blackstock, the amazing Indigenous child welfare advocate, give a very simple definition of reconciliation: reconciliation means not having to say “sorry” twice – you learn from what you did. Canada’s behaviour towards the Jewish community during the Second World War was shameful. I believe that the issue of global climate refugees is going to be one of the defining issues of the next 50 to 100 years. We’re going to have to decide who we want to be this time.

JI: You write that the Mackenzie King government resisted entering the Second World War until the last moment and, even after joining, was slow to ramp up efforts to what was needed. You note that the first nine months of the war are called by historians “the phony war,” and write that we seem to be in the “phony war” stage in our fight against the climate crisis. Can you elaborate on that?

SK: The comparison is really strong. The “phony war” is the period between when they declared war and when things got real. At the beginning of the war, the threat was not clear and present to most Canadians. The fall of France was the moment that the popular zeitgeist shifted. Today, we have the Trudeau government passing a bill acknowledging the climate emergency one day, in the summer of 2019, and then, the next day, re-approving the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. That is what I call “the new climate denialism.” It manifests in all these governments who say they get it but don’t act like they actually do. In our province, it manifests most clearly in having the most robust climate plan in the country, which we do, and, at the same time, doubling down on fracking and LNG – and you can’t make the math work. That’s the phony war.

JI: What are the assumptions that block government progress on climate action?

SK: The measures that have been adopted so far are largely grounded in what are called “neoliberal” assumptions, which state that society should self-organize according to individual economic interests – the “free hand of the market,” as opposed to the idea that government should function to ensure what is in the best interests of all, so change is left to be voluntary. That’s not working now, and it wouldn’t have worked during the war. When something is an emergency, you don’t make it voluntary.

JI: There is an incredible parallel to COVID-19.

SK: Yes! How do you know when a government knows it’s in emergency mode? These are the four markers: 1) You spend what it takes to win; 2) You create new economic institutions to get the job done, like C.D. Howe, the Liberal cabinet minister [in King’s government] who created 28 new crown corporations to get the job done; 3) You move from voluntary, incentive-based measures to mandatory ones as needed; 4) You tell the truth about the nature and the extent of the crisis and what you have to do.

We did all four of those things in the war. In COVID, we can quibble about the extent that our government has done all four of those things, but I would argue that they have. We’re spending – though it still doesn’t hold a candle to what we did in the war, by the way, but we’re spending. We shifted to mandatory – we locked down the whole economy for some time. We’ve created audacious new programs like CERB that, 10 months ago, none of us would have imagined. Is it too slow sometimes? Yes, but they’ve shifted the mindset. And we have briefings every day, which tell us the truth about the severity of what’s happening. Yet, when it comes to the climate emergency, none of our provincial or federal governments hits any of those markers.

JI: You also describe some cautionary lessons from our wartime experience. Can you elaborate on those?

SK: Aside from the response to refugees, there were all kinds of shameful things, such as War Measures Act stuff, like interning political activists and making political parties illegal, and, most shamefully, the wholesale internment of Japanese-Canadians. There was also the poisoning of Indigenous lands by the very crown corporations whose formation I was so impressed by. These are all examples of state over-reach. The point in recalling these things is to go eyes wide open into the next emergency. To some extent, we have, in fact, already learned as a society – [Brian] Mulroney replaced the War Measures Act with the Emergencies Act, which has safeguards against those types of things. We need the leaders of today to be as bold and innovative as the leaders we had then – and we also need them to be different.

JI: What was the scale of the economic transformation during the war, and how did they pull that off? What are a couple of highest priority steps in your “battle plan”?

SK: The same four steps I’ve already outlined: spend what you have to spend to win, create new economic institutions, move from voluntary to mandatory as required, and rally the public by telling the truth. During the war, they increased government spending tenfold. When C.D. Howe was pressed about the amount of money being spent, he simply said, “If we lose the war, nothing matters.” He carefully controlled all of the supply chains to prioritize the war, including recruiting private businessman, big names like H.R. Macmillan, J.W. Woodward, who abandoned their private interests and served for years as “dollar-a-year men” to serve as controllers and head up these crown corporations because, in an emergency, you don’t leave the allocation of scarce resources to the market – you prioritize what has to be done.

Remember, from 1942 to 1945, the sale of private automobiles in the U.S. of A., the heart of car culture, was illegal. That didn’t happen due to the goodwill of the automakers. They were told. They were busy making stuff for the war effort, making money, but they didn’t decide what to make. We need to approach the climate emergency like C.D. Howe approached the war. We need to conduct an inventory. How many electric buses do we need, how many heat pumps, how many solar arrays, how many wind farms? And, if there is a gap – and there is – we need to decide how we’re going to fill it. Through contracts with the private sector? OK. And, if that’s not enough, we create a new generation of crown corporations to expedite what needs to happen.

JI: Do you think we can rise to the climate emergency in time?

SK: I am trying, in the book, to walk a line. I think, too often, for years, climate communication has been polarized between Pollyannas and pessimists. The leaders we most remember from the Second World War walked a careful line between telling the truth about the severity of the crisis and still imparting hope. Can we do this in time? We don’t know. The reminder I offer to readers is that Canada had a population of 11 million people in the Second World War and over one million Canadians enlisted. You know what they didn’t know? Whether they could win. We know how the story ended, but they didn’t [when they volunteered]. They did what they had to do anyway, and that’s what we have to do.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He has been published in Philosophy Now, Tricycle, the Forward and elsewhere. He blogs on Medium and is master teacher at Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver.

Jewish Poland in 1932

This photo, called “Generations,” was taken by Tim Gidal in Tel Aviv in 1935. (courtesy Zack Gallery)

The current show at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, Invisible Curtain: The 1932 Polish Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal, was organized in partnership with the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 20-25. Gidal (better known as Tim Gidal or Tim N. Gidal) was a renown photojournalist of the last century and the exhibit’s images come from the new book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal. (For a review, click here.)

The driving force behind the book’s publication was Yosef Wosk, who wrote its preface. Wosk approached Zack Gallery director Hope Forstenzer and Jewish Book Festival director Dana Camil Hewitt about a year ago, Forstenzer told the Independent. “He suggested we have a Tim Gidal show at the gallery to coincide with the festival and his newly published book,” she said.

Both Wosk and Forstenzer curated the exhibit. “Together, we chose about 50 images for the show, as many as the gallery could fit. It couldn’t include all the images in the book, of course,” said Forstenzer.

photo - A self-portrait by photographer Tim Gidal, taken in 1974 — A self-portrait by photographer Tim Gidal, taken in 1974. *(courtesy Zack Gallery)*

The history of the photographs is best described by the photographer himself in the book’s introduction. In 1932, Gidal, then 23, traveled with two friends to Poland from his hometown of Munich, Germany. It was his first trip abroad. “My knowledge of the political, economic and social conditions of the Jews in Poland didn’t seem to square with my feelings about their spiritual life,” he wrote. “So I decided to go and see for myself.”

Gidal, who passed away in 1996, took numerous photographs of people and places, as he went from shtetl to shtetl on his three-week “little odyssey.” He wrote: “I encountered spiritual and material heights and depths: material well-being and abject poverty, rejuvenation and dissolution. Some were rich, but many more were very poor. It was a hopeless poverty, endured with an incredible humility. I met men of faith and hypocrites … atheists, socialists and communists, Zionists and Bundists, Orthodox and assimilationists. We also experienced the all-pervading Jewish humor.”

photo - Tim Gidal’s cousin Gershon in the doorway of the family’s rope shop, in Lowicz, Poland. The photo was taken by Gidal in 1932 — Tim Gidal’s cousin Gershon in the doorway of the family’s rope shop, in Lowicz, Poland. The photo was taken by Gidal in 1932. *(courtesy Zack Gallery)*

Everything the young photographer experienced was reflected in his images, including those now on display at the Zack. We see children laughing and women looking far older than their real years. We see ancient eyes and tired, worn hands. We see educated men reading in front of a synagogue, and broken windows and peeling walls the next street over. And we know something Gidal didn’t know at the time, which makes this book and the show all the more poignant: not many years later, most of these people would be murdered in the Holocaust, and they and their entire way of life would be lost. But, in Gidal’s photos, his subjects remain alive. According to Wosk, “Each photograph is a monument, a letter in light.”

Gidal’s 1932 Polish photo essay comprises only a small portion of the master’s body of work. His photography journey spanned almost seven decades and encompassed most major players and momentous events of the 20th century.

One of the pioneers in the field of modern photography, Gidal made his debut in 1929 with his first published photo report. He was a proponent of the style of the “picture story” and he captured most of his subjects unaware, instead of staging elaborate scenes. Very few of his subjects posed for his photos, and every image tells a story.

Four years after his trip to Poland, Gidal moved to Palestine. During the Second World War, he served as a staff reporter for a British army magazine. A wanderer and a chronicler of life, he traveled a lot and lived in the United States for awhile. He taught and illustrated books. He exhibited widely.

photo - Tim Gidal took this photograph of Buchenwald survivors arriving in Palestine in 1945. It is one of the images featured in the exhibit Invisible Curtain, on display until Feb. 25 — Tim Gidal took this photograph of Buchenwald survivors arriving in Palestine in 1945. It is one of the images featured in the exhibit Invisible Curtain, on display until Feb. 25. *(courtesy Zack Gallery)*

A portion of the Zack exhibition is dedicated to Gidal’s artistic photography after 1932. The pictures demonstrate his technical progress, as well as his breadth of interests and subjects. There is a lyrical photo, “Generations,” taken in Tel Aviv in 1935 and another – a dramatic portrait of the youngest survivors of Buchenwald, taken in 1945 upon their arrival in Palestine. There is a photo of Mahatma Gandhi at the All-India Congress in Bombay in 1940 and the fascinating picture called “Handshake,” taken in Florence in 1934, which shows two men shaking hands in front of a wall covered with multiple posters of Mussolini.

Half a century before Photoshop was invented, Gidal experimented with his images, compiling them in different combinations and creating something unique, like his triptych of Winston Churchill of 1948 or the Rhomboid photomontage of 1975.

As a photo reporter, Gidal used his camera to record the 20th century in all its glorious and painful contradictions, and his early 1932 Polish photographs serve as a symbol of his multifaceted canon.

Invisible Curtain opened on Jan. 5 and the exhibit will continue until Feb. 25. To see the show’s digital equivalent, visit online.flippingbook.com/view/891736. To book an appointment to see it at the gallery, email Forstenzer at [email protected]. To attend the virtual book launch on Feb. 11, 7 p.m., and to see the full book festival lineup, visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Gidal’s photos speak volumes

The book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal lets the photos do most of the talking. And they speak strongly and with passion of a lively, bustling and diverse community, the vast majority of whom were killed in the Holocaust.

“Of the 3.3 million Jewish residents of Poland before World War II, only 380,000 were still alive by 1945,” notes the book’s curator, local scholar, writer and philanthropist Yosef Wosk, in the preface. Wosk will help launch the release of Memories of Jewish Poland on Feb. 11, in a “prologue” event of the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which opens Feb. 20. He also helped organize Invisible Curtain, the current exhibit of Gidal’s work that is being co-presented by the festival with the Zack Gallery.

photo - Yosef Wosk will launch the book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal on Feb. 11 at a virtual Jewish Book Festival event — Yosef Wosk will launch the book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal on Feb. 11 at a virtual Jewish Book Festival event. *(photo by Joshua Berson)*

Wosk was friends with Gidal, who he met in Jerusalem, where Gidal lived. Born in Munich in 1909, Gidal had made aliyah in 1936, but then lived in various places before returning to Jerusalem in 1970; he passed away in 1996. It was not only Gidal’s dying wish that the 1932 Polish photos be published in book form, but that they be allowed to “speak for themselves.” And that request has been honoured. In addition to Wosk’s brief preface, the book opens with some notes written by Gidal for a 1984 exhibit and includes an introduction to Gidal’s work by photography historian, researcher, author and curator Nissan N. Perez, founder of the Israel Museum’s photography department. At the end, there is a list of the plates included in the book and a brief biography of Gidal. A map of Poland, indicating the locations in which the photos were taken, bookends the commentary and photographs.

“This book illustrates the largest number of photographs from Gidal’s Polish photo essay ever assembled. It is not, however, a catalogue raisonné: more than 20 images are not included,” writes Wosk. The reproductions included in the volume are taken from prints in Wosk’s collection and that of the Israel Museum. Wosk thanks Diane Evans, “master teacher, photographer, bookseller and friend in photography,” for serving “as a patient, experienced and disciplined midwife in giving birth to this book.”

Gidal – born Ignaz Nachum Gidalawitsch – was motivated to travel to Poland “by his desire to know more about his family’s background,” writes Perez. The photographs Gidal took were “actually a rather small chapter of his oeuvre at the beginning of his outstanding career, an exercise in perfecting his vision.”

“He gains the interest of the viewer not by staging elaborate scenes, but by capturing expressions and gestures that can only be described as both intimate and straightforward,” explains Perez. “As he said in one of the many meetings conducted toward the exhibition in 1995, ‘My photographs, I like to think, are variations on the everlasting tragicomedy of human life.’”

The images in Memories of Jewish Poland are prime examples of Gidal’s ability to capture images of life as it is happening, in all its unromantic but beautiful distinction.

“In the heterogenous assembly of the Polish galut (diaspora), I myself became immersed in the flow of Jewish life from the past to the future,” wrote Gidal for the 1984 exhibit. “When we left Poland after three weeks, I had passed through an invisible curtain, which had separated East and West. Now the curtain had opened, and I was made to feel the unifying presence of Jewry.”

A selection of Gidal’s 1932 Polish photos is currently on display at the Zack Gallery (for the full story, click here). The Memories of Jewish Poland book will be launched at a virtual Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival prologue event Feb. 11, 7 p.m. For tickets to the prologue and other Jewish Book Festival events, visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.