Arts & Culture – Page 129

One of the new “dragons”

Soft-spoken, reserved, thoughtful. Hardly the epitome of a dragon. Yet, Joe Mimran’s definitely a dragon – one of the newest on the panel of investors on Dragons’ Den, CBC’s hit entrepreneur reality show.

The Canadian fashion designer, clothier and entrepreneur is best known for launching the Club Monaco and Joe Fresh brands. He is also a partner in Gibraltar Ventures, investing in early-stage digital businesses.

photo - Joe Mimran — Joe Mimran *(photo from Joe Mimran)*

The 63-year-old, Moroccan-born immigrant has spent nearly his entire life immersed in business, in ventures on his own or with family members, particularly in the clothing industry.

At an early age, he assisted his mother, Esther – who was a couturier in Morocco – in her Toronto-based boutique garment outlet. That business grew, necessitating the purchase of a small factory in Toronto’s garment district in the mid-1970s. Mimran joined to lead operations, manufacturing and finance.

“I was inspired by the design and esthetic world,” he said. “I like designing products, building stores.” He was “inspired by great prints, inspired to want to be entrepreneur.”

That inspiration evolved into Ms. Originals, tailoring suits and pants for women and, soon thereafter, Mimran and brother Saul hired designer Alfred Sung, with a goal to create their own clothing line. The Alfred Sung collection swiftly soared in popularity across the continent.

By the mid-1980s, he launched yet another line, based on the idea that a plain, white, quality cotton shirt was unavailable in the market – and Club Monaco brand was born.

“If you’re not a risk taker and abhor taking risks, entrepreneurship is not for you,” said Mimran.

“There were many people along the way of my career who said, ‘You’re crazy, don’t do this or don’t do that. What do you waste your time for doing that?’ I have stuck to my guns. Sometimes you need to say to naysayers that you have to pursue your dream.”

Unfortunately, the plan didn’t go smoothly at first. The Bay and Eaton’s didn’t want to carry the product.

“We realized that we had all these goods coming in and the only way we could move forward was to open our own stores,” he said.

They rolled the dice on a 5,000-square-foot store in trendy Queen Street West in Toronto, showcasing an array of attire. The day it opened in September 1985 saw their marketing campaign pay off in a major way, with line-ups to get into the store.

“From adversity comes something terrific,” said Mimran. “We realized, as we opened our own stores, we’ll cut out the wholesale margin.”

At the time, such a move was rare. Typically, retail stores bought through a wholesaler, he explained. “But, sometimes, you just have to dive in, make the mistakes, fix it, move forward, make more mistakes, and try different things.”

Mimran dived in, not only opening a flagship Club Monaco store in New York City on Fifth Avenue in 1995, but opening another 120 stores in the next four years. That success caught the eye of Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., who purchased both Club Monaco and Caban (another Mimran line) in 1999.

“A lot of businesspeople, having had lots of problems in the past, will try to dissuade somebody else,” said Mimran. “But your idea might be done in a new way, might resonate in a way that this very experienced person didn’t, couldn’t, anticipate. There’s always an idea that surprises people, and that leads to success.”

Mimran has continued that success, time and again.

Pink Tartan – a women’s line – was yet another Mimran venture, appearing in high-end retail outlets such as Holt Renfrew and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as in its flagship store in Toronto’s Yorkville.

Mimran’s Joe Fresh Style, a private-label apparel line for Loblaw Companies Ltd., was launched in 2006. The label has since opened free-standing stores – the first Joe Fresh opened on Granville Street in Vancouver in 2010 and, soon thereafter, in New York City. Many others followed.

Mimran said the apparel industry is among the most competitive industries in the world. Because of this fact and his own experiences, he empathizes with the entrepreneurs who come to the Den having had tough breaks.

“No matter how good you are, or what you know, you can still fail in our business,” he said. “It keeps you pretty grounded.”

Today, Mimran sees a future of entrepreneurs that have opportunities that were nonexistent a generation ago.

“There’s more willingness to try by the new generation – millennials – who are asset light, where boundaries and borders are not an issue. They live in a virtual world and have the ability to take on more risk. They look at the world in a dynamic way that leads to entrepreneurship,” he explained. “Particularly in today’s world, where things are so different in terms of how one communicates with the consumer, all the new online fundraising channels that are available, what’s old is new, what’s new is old. It’s the Wild West out there.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work can be found in more than 100 publications globally. His is managing editor of landmarkreport.com.

Little Shop fills the Rothstein

The full cast of King David Players’ Little Shop of Horrors. (all photos from King David High School)

On March 16 and 17, the Rothstein Theatre was alive with music and a giant flesh-eating plant, as the King David Players presented this year’s theatre production, Little Shop of Horrors. Featuring a cast of students from every grade, the actors and musicians brought to life the dark comedy/musical. They played to full houses both nights.

Teachers Aron Rosenberg, Johnny Seguin and Anna-Mae Wiesenthal created the production, which involved 50 students, as well as other staff, parents and community supporters.

“When deciding what play to explore this year, we were looking for a musical that was light and fun and that was not too heavily based around social commentary (as is my usual inclination),” said Rosenberg in his director’s note. “I looked through a list of musicals and, remembering childhood evenings watching Little Shop of Horrors with Rick Moranis, Steve Martin and Bill Murray, I sent an e-mail to the administration ensuring it would be an appropriate choice.”

On closer look, the musical wasn’t that light.

“Three of the most problematic characters are Mushnik – the caricature of a greedy Jewish merchant – Audrey – the caricature of a helpless victim in an abusive relationship – and Orin – Audrey’s abusive boyfriend, and a caricature of a dentist with a self-acknowledged appetite for causing pain,” noted Rosenberg. “Perhaps this play’s innocuous reputation comes from an outdated attitude that treated ethnic stereotypes as playful, sexual violence as bland and dentists as inevitably painful. However, in 2016, our modern sensibilities force this play to take on a new life. The dark and irreverent humor of the play remains but, along with it, our cast has worked to uncover a respectful and critical look at the struggles of ethnic shop-owners in low-income neighborhoods, the horrors of domestic abuse and the ridiculousness of gender-inequity in relationships (not to mention the reality that dentists are no longer painful … usually).

“With all the creative commitment and hard work from our cast, crew and community, we are left with something not unlike our original goal…. The plot may not be light but the musical numbers are. And, as for social commentary and all this hullabaloo about the self-destructiveness of greed and power, you can take it or leave it. However, if you leave it, don’t be surprised when a giant human-eating plant comes a-knocking….”

photo - Seymour (Daniel Shuchat) and Audrey (Sydney Freedman) — Seymour (Daniel Shuchat) and Audrey (Sydney Freedman).

photo - Audrey II, played by Alisa Bressler and Hannah Marliss — Audrey II, played by Alisa Bressler and Hannah Marliss.

photo - Stage managers Rachel Pekeles and Matty Flader — Stage managers Rachel Pekeles and Matty Flader.

On becoming a great leader

Sydney Finkelstein’s most recent book is Superbosses. (photo from Penguin/Random House Canada)

While the target audience for Sydney Finkelstein’s newest book, Superbosses: How Exceptional Bosses Master the Flow of Talent, is businesspeople, it is clear that his ideas carry well into many aspects of life, not just work, and not just business.

Finkelstein, who is a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., is originally from Montreal. He has authored 21 books and more than 80 academic articles.

“Pretty early on, I was interested in why people did what they did and in people who seem to have a lot of power and influence in society,” said Finkelstein. “I was actually very interested, and still am, in not just business leaders, but political leaders.”

Ten years ago, Finkelstein struck a note with his book Why Smart Executives Fail, and he was invited to give keynote speeches and to consult for several companies.

“Everybody pretty much had the same question, which was how to avoid getting into my sequel,” he said. “In the book, I talked about a lot of things you could do to avoid falling into the trap that led to failure but, over time, I came to realize that there was something else more important – the ability to generate and regenerate talent on a continuous basis. That’s the only way to survive and thrive in the long-term.”

After coming to this realization, Finkelstein set out to learn who possessed this ability. This is what led him to learn of those he came to call “superbosses.”

The Jewish Independent spoke with Finkelstein around the time of his March 8 talk and book signing at Concordia University in Montreal.

“The big difference was the ‘why smart executives fail’ leaders look at people around them – other managers and team members – as people to be used and exploited for their own purposes…. They didn’t really appreciate the fact that the people around them – team members – are actually probably the most important part of what you are doing, because they help you get better.”

Superbosses, on the other hand, wholly prioritized the idea of having great teams and great organizations of great people, understanding that this is the best way to succeed, he said. “The WSEF leaders didn’t understand that. So, that’s a gigantic difference in mindset – thinking about other people and what role they can play.

“Then, when you look at the details of how they run their businesses, there are many, many differences – from how they identify talent, to how they motivate people, how they develop teams, the role of vision and [of] inspiration.”

While most leaders, good or bad, carry with them a certain amount of ego due to their previous endeavors’ successes, Finkelstein said superbosses find ways to put that ego aside.

“This may be the best first thing for people to work on – having a degree of humility about yourself, your own accomplishments and your own personality even,” he said. “Humility doesn’t mean you’re afraid to take on challenges. It means you understand that there are other people who play a role and that you can’t let your ego run away with things.

“By the same token, listening is one of the most important managerial skills I’ve ever seen – the ability to really listen, to understand, not to critique. A lot of people are listening to find a flaw in their argument or to justify a point of view they already have. I’m talking about listening that’s designed to learn something. That’s a tremendous skill and mindset.”

Another important skill Finkelstein advised honing is open-mindedness, ranked highly with its close cousin, curiosity. These are attributes he regularly discusses with boards of directors and management teams.

“You need to have that curiosity about life, about what you’re doing,” he said. “When you have curiosity, you’re asking why a lot. Kids do that, but when we’re older, we don’t do that so much. You learn so much more by doing that.”

Courage is on the list, too – the kind of courage that challenges convention, and the ability to raise your voice when something is not going the way you think it should. “This doesn’t mean you’re going to win the argument or get your way,” said Finkelstein. “It’s about trying to improve the eventual outcome or situation you’re in.

“Many people often remain silent. They just nod their heads. As a result, they’re not engaged in what’s going on. Later, they spend their time complaining and back-biting, rather than being part of the solution. Sometimes, of course, managers or leaders create an environment where, if you challenge, you get punished, so it can be difficult, but I think courage is a critical factor.”

The next item on the list is accountability – recognizing you need to be responsible for your own actions and behavior, as well as instilling a sense of accountability in others.

“I think, by the way, that most people prefer not to be held personally accountable,” said Finkelstein. “I don’t think people should assume people would automatically be accountable. I think people enjoy it when it happens, but they don’t automatically do it. This is particularly relevant in volunteer organizations.

“Being a teacher, a nurturer of talent, is something anyone can do, no matter what their job is,” he continued. “You don’t have to be a famous CEO. You can be an average person doing whatever you’re doing. But, if you spend some time and energy acting to help others get better, often through teaching, sharing and listening … I think that’s a giant differentiator and extremely meaningful in people’s lives. If you have an impact in helping other people, it makes you feel good, too.

“Younger people, earlier in their career, who are ambitious, have high expectations, want to accomplish great things. How do you find people to work with, to work for? I talk a little about that in the book, but I also think that trying to work for someone who is more like a superboss, rather than less like one, is a great way to learn, develop and accelerate your career.”

As the book’s subtitle suggests, Finkelstein sees managing the flow of talent as one of the most important things for superbosses to do, and he segments this aspect into three categories.

“One is finding good people,” he said. “Everyone needs to hire when you’re growing, you need to hire and find people…. That’s the first stage in this flow of talent.

“The second stage, which not everyone engages in, is developing that talent, helping them get better. That’s managing the flow of that talent in a team/organization for a number of years.

“The third stage is managing the flow of talent sometimes even outside your own region, division or role in the company. Very few managers, leaders or bosses think a lot about … how they should manage people out of the organization. I’m talking about good and very good performers.

“The typical assumption among most leaders is to keep those people forever,” he said. “But, those who work for superbosses, people that really enhance their skills or have this vision, they won’t be satisfied with that small piece of pie. They want a bigger role themselves so, in fact, many of them will end up wanting to leave anyways. Managing the flow of talent should also consider this kind of radical or counterintuitive idea – managing people out of the company itself.”

Finkelstein said, “The best people know they will move around, look for those opportunities. If you know that will happen, the questions become how can you take advantage of that, how can you be strategic in that, how can you create a win-win out of that situation?’ That’s what superbosses do. They make a spinout business. One example from the book is the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). The CEO used to create big opportunities for senior executives who were going to leave anyways. He would create a spinout company in a mental health clinic, surgical centre or what have you. That former team member would be given the opportunity to be CEO of that spinout business but, because you’re doing the spinout, you get to participate in a financial sense.”

To see where you sit on the superbosses scale, Finkelstein invites readers to visit superbosses.com and take a 10-12 question quiz.

“The quiz is because people find it interesting to see how they rank,” he said. “The book can help them get better.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Exploring winter landscapes

Ian Penn’s exhibit Winter Paintings: The Figure in and on the Landscape opened March 10 at Zack Gallery. (photo by Olga Livshin)

The theme of Ian Penn’s solo show at Zack Gallery is winter. The artist’s love for winter, for the mountains of British Columbia and for skiing reverberates through the gallery.

“I’m affected by the seasons, by my surroundings,” said Penn in an interview with the Independent. “I only paint current seasons. In summer, I paint summer; in the fall, I paint its rioting colors. In winter, I paint snow and skiing.”

Penn spends lots of his free time in the mountains. “Our whole family likes to ski,” he said. “When we first moved to B.C., we bought our first place in the mountains before we settled in Vancouver.”

Penn has been skiing since his youth in Australia, but it was cross-country skiing until he immigrated to Canada and saw the mountains. At the age of 35, he started alpine skiing – and loved it.

Around 2000, he went a step further. He joined the ski patrol in Whistler, volunteering part-time his professional skills as a doctor. He still does that. “I like the ski patrol community. They are nice people,” he said.

About the same time, he also became seriously interested in painting, which eventually led to a degree from Emily Carr.

Penn has a general fascination with landscapes, especially mountain scenes, as an art form. He has painted dozens of landscapes, in every season, and some of his favorite areas to paint are around Whistler and the Callaghan Valley.

“I was always interested in mapping a territory, but a map and a territory are not the same,” he explained. “The painting of a landscape is not the same as if you stand in that place, experience it with all your senses. Or with devices – photo cameras and cellphones. I wanted to capture that difference in my paintings. That’s why I started a series of diptychs. My diptychs are like a single painting in two parts.”

There are several diptychs on display in the gallery. One is a landscape, a vista with the majestic mountains and forest, with tiny human figures. The second affords a closer look. The human figure is larger, the artist’s focus has narrowed, and the people in these paintings are doing something, engaging with the mountains. They whip down the slopes on their skis. They stop to take photos. They enjoy the invigorating exercise and the beauty around them. They laugh and horse around.

Penn captures their movement in his paintings. His objects are not static. They don’t pose. They are just going about their business, and the artist is going about his.

“Initially, I wanted to paint on location,” he said. “I want to paint everywhere I go, but I couldn’t do that in winter. It’s too cold both for my hands and for the paints. Or it might snow. What I do when I’m in the mountains skiing, I take photos and make quick drawings.”

The drawings provide him with the first impression, the emotional subtext. The photographs he uses for details.

“All the details in my landscapes are accurate. The precision is important to me. I want to be able to navigate by them. I want the ski patrol to be able to use my paintings when they have to rescue someone,” he said, only half-joking.

Many of his paintings have personal stories attached, some of which are more obvious than others. In one painting, there was to have been a person but there isn’t; the close-up view is surprisingly empty of life. “He got erased. I erased him,” Penn said. “He was a vain fellow. He was dancing around, making selfies of himself with his cellphone, turning so he would get every possible angle. He didn’t notice anyone else, almost stepped on my ski. At first, I wanted to show it, as a portrait of self-absorption, but I disliked the fellow so much, I finally erased his figure from my painting. But, mostly, I want my paintings to tell your stories, not mine.”

The dominating color in all of the paintings is white, of course, overset by green forest and dark mountains. Only people provide splashes of color: a red jacket or a yellow parka.

“I use five different whites for the snow,” Penn said. “And then there are color patches reflecting the surroundings. Snow is never simply white. It’s complex and a challenge. It’s always different. And so is the sky: blue but different in each painting. But I never used black in any of these paintings. When I needed the dark, I mixed colors.”

Penn paints landscapes because they are endless. “Wherever I go, there is a new and amazing landscape waiting for me. Painting them, making drawings, photographing slows me down, allows me the time to look, to see the beauty around me.”

Winter Paintings: The Figure in and on the Landscape will be at the Zack until April 3. For more information about Penn and his work, visit ianpenn.com. An interview with Penn about his exhibit last year, called Pole, can be found at jewishindependent.ca/memorials-to-millions.

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

Experimenter first rate

Peter Sarsgaard in Experimenter. (photo from Magnolia Pictures)

It was neither random nor coincidental that groundbreaking social psychologist Stanley Milgram was Jewish, nor that his parents emigrated from Eastern Europe before the war.

“The Holocaust was a significant motivation to propel him into the areas he was searching, and he explicitly cited [it] as a background for trying to understand darker aspects of human nature,” said Experimenter writer-director Michael Almereyda. “He wasn’t enclosing or limiting how he saw the world, but the obedience experiments – which are his first experiments, how the film begins and what he’s best known for – were shaped by his speculation about human nature.”

Those 1961 experiments found that most ordinary people would reluctantly follow an order to inflict pain on another person from an authority figure who took responsibility. The controversial results, obtained the same year as the Eichmann trial though published later, suggested that Americans were capable of behaving in a not-dissimilar way than Germans and others infamously did.

Almereyda’s thoughtful, poignant and dryly comic Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder, centres on the obedience experiments, the fallout and Milgram’s subsequent career. One of the finest American films of 2015 yet inexplicably overlooked, the DVD was released earlier this year and it can also be rented online.

Almereyda informs the audience of Milgram’s Jewishness from the outset, and provides several reminders in the course of the film.

“It seemed inappropriate to elide it or blur it or ignore it because it was a key part of his identity, as a man in the world but also as a scientist asking questions about human behavior,” he said. “I was aware of how deeply Jewish he was, that he married a Jewish woman who also was the daughter of immigrants, that there weren’t that many Jewish people in the community at Harvard and his friends tended to be Jewish, and how that sense of his identity was a huge part of who he was.”

As a Jew and a social psychologist, Milgram’s perspective was affected by the Holocaust.

“Milgram comes out with a very heavy quote talking about how, ‘during the Second World War, people were exterminated with the efficiency applied to making appliances,’” said Almereyda. “That’s a carefully worded and rather cynical statement, but its impact is resonant to this day. Genocide is a very efficient undertaking these days, and has been throughout the 20th century. You don’t have to be Jewish to be mindful of genocide, but we’re cognizant of that as one of the main shadows in recent human history, and he was trying to come to terms with it.”

A soft-spoken, self-described “displaced Midwesterner” and longtime New Yorker, the 57-year-old writer and director received a secular Jewish upbringing in Overland Park, Kan., before his family moved to Southern California when he was 13. His quirky independent films include Twister (starring Harry Dean Stanton and Crispin Glover), mood piece Another Girl Another Planet, vampire saga Nadja with Peter Fonda and Hamlet with Ethan Hawke and Bill Murray.

Almereyda researched and wrote the Experimenter script about seven years ago.

“It’s abidingly interesting and relevant and compelling,” the filmmaker mused during a visit last May when Experimenter played the San Francisco International Film Festival. “He left a lot of papers behind and they’re all at Yale and one can have access to them. I didn’t make up much of this movie. Almost everything, even the wacky, quirky things, is verifiably true.”

Almereyda confided that he originally wanted a Jewish actor to play Milgram, but was forced to relinquish that ideal.

“There is, as far as I know, no young Dustin Hoffman who’s a leading man right now,” he said with a smile. “Young Dustin Hoffman would have been a great Stanley Milgram.”

When Sarsgaard was suggested, Almereyda checked out his performance as Jewish man-about-town David Goldman in An Education (2009) and was instantly persuaded.

“He’s a very agile actor, he can do a lot of things and he believes that he could write a book,” Almereyda said. “You can’t say that about all leading men, you know. So whether he’s Jewish or not, he’s very equipped to play the part.”

Experimenter quickly succeeds in shifting the viewer’s mind from the lead actor’s ancestry to the more pressing question of how much empathy we feel for strangers.

“The film is meant to be a bit of a mirror, as Milgram’s work was [meant] to mirror human nature,” said Almereyda. “It’s meant to make you question your own behavior and your own life – not as an indictment but as a kind of exploration, because we can all be more conscious. That was Milgram’s hope. There’s a lot of ways that immoral or questionable or violent behavior is inescapable in life and in history, but the process of self-awareness is one way to turn the tide.”

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.

Cooking healthy, eating well

Rose Reisman’s newest cookbook is Rush Hour Meals: Recipes for the Entire Family. (photo from Rose Reisman)

Cookbook author, chef, television personality and columnist Rose Reisman helps people make better lifestyle choices.

After self-publishing a cookbook in 1988, she focused on healthy eating with Rose Reisman Brings Home Light Cooking (1993), which sold more than 400,000 copies. Since then, she’s been an oft-quoted expert on eating well, has appeared on TV and radio, worked as a teacher, and acted as a health and wellness consultant to businesses.

Reisman attended the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition to become a registered nutritional consultant. The mother of four ran a cooking school for four years, and then launched Rose Reisman Catering in 2004. She is also a nutritionist and adjunct professor at York University’s faculty of health, where she is a founding member of the university’s obesity task force.

Reisman also helps people eat well through the Personal Gourmet, a daily food delivery service launched in 2008 that offers both weight loss and healthy living plans she developed with the help of dieticians and weight management doctors. She has been a spokesperson for the national campaign of Breakfast for Learning and the national awareness campaign for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, and has been an ambassador for the Canadian Diabetes Association.

In coming weeks, Reisman’s newest cookbook will be released, Rush Hour Meals: Recipes for the Entire Family. It will be her 18th – chai – book guiding readers to a better life.

When she first started cooking, she told the Independent, she was making “very delicious, high-fat foods when everybody flocked to my home. I continued to do that and I became a good cook using loads of butter and cream and chocolate…. But then I found my own family history wasn’t that healthy. I had lost my dad to heart disease in his 50s, my grandmother at 52 to diabetes type 2. Everybody had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity, and I was an overweight child.

“This was all going on in my early 30s. I was slim and running every day, and I had lost the weight I had as a kid, and I figured I was fine. But then I went for a routine physical and my cholesterol was literally off the charts like somebody in their 60s or 70s who’d been eating steak every day.

“I realized that what I ate, even though I exercised and maintained a healthy weight, was still clogging my arteries, and my family history was such that I couldn’t afford to do it. It was then that I turned around, in 1993. I started researching healthier cooking, and I started to write my first book in healthy cooking. I’d written three or four books before that in higher fat meals.”

Like Reisman once did, many people equate being thin with being healthy.

“If you have skinny children, you kind of turn away as they’re eating junk because you think it’s not going to hurt them,” she said. “But what I started to learn is that cholesterol, diabetes, all of these things start when they’re children. Today, they’re finding kids in their early teens who have already got blocked arteries, high blood pressure, diabetes.”

She said that one child out of three born after 2000 will have diabetes type 2.

“I really encourage parents to be the role models at home,” she said. “I used to set the most delicious meals on the table, and they were good. I wasn’t talking vegan style, poached or steamed, but it was heart-healthy fat, and my kids would often turn up their noses. But, over the years, they picked it up, it was in the back of their minds and, today, all four of them, they’re adults, they’re really good eaters, they exercise.

“That’s one of the reasons that I launched into the books, the media, the catering company, the restaurant consulting,” she said, “because it’s really a great way to spread your message.”

It’s also a great way to spread less healthy messages. There are dozens of TV shows on food – a whole network, in fact.

“They call it ‘food porn,’” said Reisman. “It started back when I was entering the food world. I had my own TV show in 1998 to 2002. That was when the Food Network was just starting to get launched. I thought a show like that would never be successful, I thought no one would watch 24 hours a day of food. Boy, was I wrong. People loved it. And the shows got crazier and crazier, and more reality and more extreme.

“They’ve done these studies from Harvard that people who watch these shows are actually heavier than other people. Nobody really wants to watch a healthy cooking show. There’s only one or two healthy cooking shows…. It’s ridiculous. You’re piling up butter to your elbow when you’re mixing, and people just love watching that decadence.

“But, when Paula Deen came out, and she was diabetic, all of a sudden people went, ‘you know, you can’t be that heavy.’

“You don’t see in seniors homes obesity in people in their 80s. If you notice that, people die off in their 70s, 60s, from cancer, heart disease or stroke, or diabetes when you’re obese.”

For people just starting to cook for themselves, a mistake they make, said Reisman is “they can just whip something off, and not measure and not read the recipe.” She said that’s not really possible, “unless you really have a food gene,” and there are only “a handful of people like that. I’d say 99% of us can’t do that.”

Even with years of experience, Reisman still finds new foods that she both enjoys and that are healthy.

“A couple of foods that I like, that allow me to maintain a really healthy body weight, are quinoa and Greek yogurt,” she said. “Quinoa is the only seed-grain that’s considered a complete protein: a half a cup is equal to three ounces of chicken or fish. So, on the day that you don’t want to eat the hormone-injected chicken or the farm-raised fish, you can have quinoa. Put dressing on it, make it with tomato sauce, and it is a powerhouse of nutrients.

“But, the most important thing is, after you eat a bowl of quinoa versus say white rice in a Chinese food situation, [where] you burp, you eat again, you burp … with quinoa, you walk away full and you’ll find you won’t get hungry for about three hours. That’s because the glycemic index, your blood sugar, is rising very slowly, whereas with white rice or with white starch, what I call an empty grain, it’s rising quickly and then it crashes, which means you need more of that food.”

As for Greek yogurt, she said, “you can have it plain or mix it with berries for breakfast. You can even have Greek yogurt with quinoa. Greek yogurt has 18 grams of protein for three-quarters of a cup, which is unbelievable, more than you could ever imagine in eating fish or chicken in the morning, so it’s a super breakfast.”

And what about that morning coffee?

“I think coffee by itself is great, and the studies now prove more and more that it lowers cholesterol, it’s got some great antioxidant powers,” said Reisman. “The key is, you can’t be drinking coffee after coffee after coffee. If you’re starting to get anxious, or you’re not sleeping at night, you’re drinking too much!

“The problem is that coffee shops are mixing in whipping cream and syrup and tons of sugar,” she added. “If you have two double doubles every day, you’ll gain something like 12 to 13 pounds in a year, just from the cream and sugar in those two drinks. It’s not coffee. It’s candy.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work can be found in more than 100 publications globally. His is managing editor of landmarkreport.com.

Saying what he wants

Ari Shaffir was in Vancouver Feb. 18-20 as part of Just for Laughs NorthWest. (photo from Ari Shaffir)

Ari Shaffir is a long, long way from his yeshivah. The 42-year-old stand-up comedian and actor who lives in New York and Los Angeles appeared in Vancouver Feb. 18-20 as part of Just for Laughs NorthWest and entertained packed audiences with his deep baritone and casual conversation, drawing plenty of laughter.

Shaffir grew up Orthodox and shomer Shabbat in Kemp Mill, Md., attending Hebrew academy and the Jewish day school before spending two years at Beth Midrash HaTorah, a now defunct yeshivah in Jerusalem. When he returned, he enrolled at Yeshiva University in New York. That was the year he lost his religion.

“Mostly it was inward reflection that caused me to turn away,” he said. “I was doing these religious things because I was expected to, and I was succeeding, but I’d never stopped to think why I was doing them. When I really thought about it, I didn’t see a belief inside me. It just wasn’t there.”

At 20, he left Yeshiva University for the University of Maryland, taking arts courses like English and screenwriting. His parents and friends were dismayed by his change in lifestyle. “My friends tried to talk me out of it,” he said. “They would be happier if I were dating a Jewish girl who was a completely worthless human being as opposed to Mother Teresa. When I thought about it, I started feeling mad and decided this is not the way I should live my life.”

When a friend moved to California, Shaffir decided to join him. “I’d done stand-up once in college and had always thought about it, because I was one of the funnier guys at school, but it didn’t seem like a legitimate career,” he said. “Initially, I tried to find a fun regular job, but couldn’t, so I did an open mic one time in California and that was it. I was totally focused.”

Shaffir’s career has been on an upward swing in recent years. His stand-up album Revenge for the Holocaust was released in 2012 and went to No. 1 on iTunes and amazon.com the week of its première. His show Passive Aggressive premièred on chill.com in 2013 and on Comedy Central in 2015, while his weekly storytelling series This is Not Happening premièred on Comedy Central in 2015. Season 2 of This is Not Happening will air this year, and it was recently picked up for a third season on Comedy Central. He hosts the podcast The Skeptic Tank, a weekly interview show that averages more than 100,000 downloads per week, and he just shot a feature film, Keeping Up with the Joneses, slated for release this spring.

He didn’t completely lose his cultural identity, if his performance on Feb. 18 was anything to go by. In one part of his show, he joked about visiting Germany and urinating outdoors anywhere he could, hoping to pee on Hitler’s grave. “If anyone tried to stop me, I’d play the Jew card,” he said. (The part about urinating outdoors was no joke, he admitted in a telephone interview. “I did that.”)

Shaffir says the Bible is now his least favorite book: “There’s a lot of holes in the story.”

He enjoys using material he learned in his religious life in a completely opposite way than how it was intended. “I get joy out of that,” he said. “For example, the Torah says if someone is coming to kill or rob you, you’re allowed to defend yourself up to the point of killing them. A child cost $500,000 to raise and they’re going to take that from you, so the Torah would tell you to kill them to protect your income.”

Defying his parents’ expectations and leaving the community of Kemp Mill wasn’t easy, and there are still things Shaffir misses from that life. “It took my parents years to get over it. My mother was more concerned with me losing the culture of Judaism, the songs on Pesach, the camaraderie. My dad was angry. He had swayed from religion for a little while, but I swayed way further. Years later, he realized he didn’t want to lose me as a son and we were able to move on.”

Shaffir’s casual, unassuming storytelling style accounts for his popularity. His stand-up routine is peppered with sex and toilet jokes, rants on why he hates kids and anecdotes from his travels. Throughout his routine, he appeared relaxed and at ease, and his hour-long performance went by quickly.

If he has any remaining link to his Jewish life, it’s cultural, Shaffir said. “When I hear a news story come on about Israel, my ears perk up a little more than they would about another country. Otherwise, I have nothing left to do with the religion. But I miss the community I had in Kemp Mill, where everyone knew me. You had this gigantic family that you’d see in synagogue every weekend. To lose all that – now I’m on my own and I’m just floating. You lose those friends. You can’t go to restaurants with them because we’re into different things. They’re into family and religion, I’m not into either.”

A page on his website is called Shroomfest and, on it, Shaffir has taken time to write everything he feels others should know about mushrooms. “That’s not a joke, it’s real, and I do it a few times a year,” he said. “I took a lot of time to write that and it helps a lot of people take mushrooms the right way.”

Shaffir described feeling free on stage to say what he wants, but when it catches up with him in a private setting, he feels some guilt and embarrassment. “I feel guilty about all sorts of stuff, not committing to women, not being monogamous. If I’m at a dinner party and it comes up that I had a threesome last week, then, yes, I’m embarrassed.

“I’m proud that I’m a free comedian,” he reflected. “I say and do what I want, what I feel is correct creatively, and both criticism and praise are irrelevant to me. I’m living as a stand-up comedian! It’s one of the coolest jobs in the world and I have an apartment I pay for, just by doing that!”

For a link to his podcast visit arishaffir.com/category/podcast.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

A-WA to electrify Biltmore

A-WA plays at the Chutzpah! Festival on March 12. (photo by Tal Givony)

For a breakup song, “Habib Galbi” is pretty darn upbeat. And the three women in the video – who are singing of a lover who has left – don’t seem too crushed. In fact, they end up dancing the Yemenite step with three young men in tracksuits and baseball caps, who seem to have popped in from a hip-hop video. Colorful clothing contrasts with bleak desert, a traditional melody pulses with a pronounced electronic beat. In a word, A-WA.

The three women are sisters Tair, Liron and Tagel Haim. They hail from the village of Shaharut in southern Israel. The video for the title track of their first CD was filmed nearby, though the sisters have been based in Tel Aviv for about five years now. “Tel Aviv is one of our favorite cities in the world and one of the coolest places in terms of culture, food, fashion and music,” they told the Independent in an email interview.

And they have been to many cities in recent years, touring all over Israel, Europe and now North America. On March 12, they perform at Biltmore Cabaret as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. The week later they’re in Toronto. The only other place they’ve performed in Canada to date is Montreal. “We had so much fun and we can’t wait to be back again!” they said.

A-WA’s CD Habib Galbi (The Eighth Note, 2015) is described as “electronic, funk/soul, folk, world and country”; its style, “Afrobeat.” Produced by Tomer Yosef of Balkan Beat Box, it comprises 12 traditional Yemenite songs that have been modernized with the help of Yosef’s unique vision, for sure, but the Haim sisters grew up listening to, creating and/or performing an eclectic musical mix, from “Greek music, Yemenite music, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, reggae, progressive rock and more,” according to their website. And they grew up in a culturally mixed household, with their father’s parents having come to Israel from Yemen and their mother being of Ukrainian and Moroccan heritage.

“We grew up in a very musical family,” they explained to the Independent. “Our parents are both music lovers and they used to play records around the house all the time; a lot of Middle Eastern stuff, but also a lot of great pop from the West. Our dad used to play his bouzouki and guitar every day – he’s obsessed with old Greek music. We have one brother and two younger sisters and they all sing and play instruments. Our brother is a sound engineer and he helped us from the very beginning to record demos for the album. Our littlest sister, Tzlil, is working on composing the film score of her dreams.”

When the sisters heard the recording by Yemeni singer Shlomo Moga’a of “Habib Galbi,” they were hooked. “From there,” reads their website, “a door was opened [to] a hidden treasure of ancient Yemenite women’s chanting, that was passed from generation to generation for centuries and has been recorded a few times. Moga’a was one of the only chief curators of these songs and after passing has left a legacy just waiting to be discovered.”

“When we released the track ‘Habib Galbi,’ we had no idea how people would react to it, but we loved it and wanted to share it with the world,” the sisters told the Independent. “We always had a good feeling but the fact that it went viral so fast and reached so many people worldwide is still overwhelming for us. It was such an awesome surprise!”

In an August 2015 article in the Forward, writer Madison Margolin describes A-WA – pronounced Ay-Wah, and meaning yes or yeah in Arabic – as “part of a movement that celebrates Jewish-Israeli cultural roots in Arabic. Now, after decades of discrimination, the younger generation of Mizrahim is rediscovering their Jewish ethnic identity as Middle Easterners and reclaiming their heritage.”

“It seems like there is a revival of Mizrahi culture and also a longing for the magic and simplicity of old times, not only in Israel, but in the whole world, and we think it’s great,” the sisters told the Independent. “People feel a strong desire to explore their histories, especially artists, who are constantly seeking inspiration from their roots. For us, Yemenite culture was always really fascinating and something we are very proud of.”

The sisters said that, in school, they all took dance, theatre, art and voice lessons, and performed as much as they could around the area. But then they went their separate ways for a spell. Tair got a BA in music and did her master’s at Levinsky College of Education, Liron got a degree in architecture and interior design, and Tagel studied illustration and visual communication.

“We started A-WA,” they said, “because we were always already playing music together and just wanted to keep creating, so the project was born. Music was always our passion and having our own band is a dream come true. We actually are best friends (really!) so working together is a lot of fun and it keeps our bond strong.”

About touring, they said, “Being on tour means having a very dynamic schedule with long hours of traveling, but the chance to meet new people, see cool places for the first time, expand our own perspectives, and opportunities to try a lot of different food, make it all worth it. It is also really challenging because of the feeling of being away from our home and family and close friends, but, in a way, it keeps us and the whole band very united.”

While they’ve already started working on their next album, the sisters said, “We’re mainly focused right now on the release of our debut Habib Galbi in the U.S. and Europe, but, in the meantime,” they admitted, “we’re already jotting down songs for the next album and finishing up collaborations with some musicians we’re really excited about. We will always keep true to our funky Yemenite sound and might mix in some English stuff, but as for the Greek” – the music their father loves so much – “we’ll have to wait and see.”

For more on A-WA, visit a-wamusic.com. Their March 12 performance at Biltmore Cabaret, 2755 Prince Edward St., starts at 8:30 p.m. For tickets ($29/$25/$21), call 604-257-5145 or visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Stand-up rabbi returns

Rabbi Bob Alper will perform as part of Congregation Beth Israel’s Purim festivities on March 23. (photo by Sultan Khan)

It’s too good not to lead with – Pope Frances’ honorary comedic advisor, Rabbi Bob Alper, will be bringing his comic stylings to Congregation Beth Israel on erev Purim March 23.

A professional comedian for some 30 years now, Alper said his life hasn’t changed that much since he became the papal advisor last fall. “I now drive my very own popemobile in my hometown in Vermont,” he said. “It gets 150 miles to the gallon, but is not great in blizzards. Otherwise, nothing has changed, though I do ‘use’ the title whenever I can. It’s a great story.”

No doubt, Alper will be flying to Vancouver. He was invited by the congregation, “people who obviously know how to make Purim rock,” he said.

He’s been here twice before, “once for a show at Temple Sholom and, earlier, for a Federation event. One of the most difficult of my career, since it fell just two weeks after 9/11.

“I’ll only be in Vancouver for a day or two,” he added about this month’s trip, “but I hope to do the highlights. The best part of every trip, for me, is performing!”

Alper won the title of honorary comedic advisor to the Pope in a contest held by the Pontifical Mission Societies in honor of the Pope’s September 2015 visit to the United States and to raise awareness and money for three pontifical missions. He beat out more than 4,000 people from 47 countries, including fellow American funnymen like Bill Murray and Conan O’Brien. You can watch his video, as well as those of the other contestants, at jokewiththepope.org, but the joke is: “My wife and I have been married for over 46 years, and our lives are totally in sync. For example, at the same time I got a hearing aid, she stopped mumbling.”

“I grew up in a religious Reform family for whom our synagogue was central, and my uncle was a Reform rabbi,” said Alper of his background. “My father loved humor, and told long ‘shaggy dog’ stories, which, naturally, prompted me to take the opposite route into the quick-hit world of stand-up. Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman and Mel Brooks records were my childhood companions and, in Jewish youth group, in high school, I would memorize and perform their routines at regional convention talent nights, thereby attracting the hottest girls. Comedy is good.”

Nonetheless, Alper was ordained as a rabbi in 1972 and then worked in congregations for 14 years. It was another contest that led him to become a comedian.

“In 1986, living in a Philadelphia suburb and armed with a doctoral degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, Bob was charting a different path, trading congregational life for a counseling practice,” writes editor David Crumm in the introduction to Alper’s book Thanks. I Needed That. And Other Stories of the Spirit (Read the Spirit Books, 2013). “But, at that same time, comedy reared its ugly head in the form of a ‘Jewish Comic of the Year Contest.’ Bob entered, came in third behind a chiropractor and a lawyer, and went on to make stand-up a full-time career.”

Alper’s wife, Sherri, is a psychotherapist. On his website, it notes, “Professionally, he makes people laugh, while she helps people cry.”

With literally thousands of shows under his belt, Alper has made a lot of people laugh. “It gets easier and easier,” he said about performing. “That’s how comedy works. I agonized before I did my first five minutes in 1986. Now performing is a delight and, since stand-up is cumulative, I have tons of material from which to choose.”

Among Alper’s shows are duos with Muslim comedians.

“My Muslim colleagues include Ahmed Ahmed, of Egyptian background, Azhar Usman, of Indian background, and Mo Amer, a Palestinian born in Kuwait,” writes Alper in Thanks. I Needed That. “We do Muslim-Jewish shows, frequently enhanced by the addition of a Baptist minister, Rev. Susan Sparks. And we have so much fun at each performance, it’s almost criminal.

“We call our shows Laugh in Peace.

“Back in late 2001, Ahmed and I were brought together as a gimmick by a savvy publicist,” he continues. “Our relationship quickly developed into a friendship based on the camaraderie of fellow artists and the breezy banter of guys who really enjoy one another’s company. We laugh together a lot.”

Alper began working with Usman when Ahmed became more focused on acting, and he also works with Amer quite often.

He admits, “No question, Laugh in Peace was conceived initially as a way to further our comedy careers, to book more gigs, to raise our visibility. It would be disingenuous to suggest anything else. But as the act and our personal relationships evolved, we quickly understood how Laugh in Peace brought a sense of hope and relief and healing that shared laughter, especially shared laughter between communities in frequent tension, can provide.”

Alper is also the author of Life Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This, a collection of stories, and the cartoon book A Rabbi Confesses, and he has produced two CDs and a DVD. For more information and a five-minute demo of Alper’s comedy, visit bobalper.com. Readers can also watch the video “Rabbi Bob Alper’s dog respects religions” and many others on YouTube.com.

Beth Israel’s Purim celebration starts at 6:15 p.m. on March 23 with a kid-friendly Megillah reading and costume parade, followed by carnival activities. The full Megillah reading and comedy by Rabbi Bob Alper starts about 8:15 p.m. Food will be for sale during the evening. Visit bethisrael.ca for more information and to register for the kids events.

Yom Ha’atzmaut confirmed

Achinoam Nini (photo from Federation)

The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver has confirmed that it has invited Israeli singer Achinoam Nini (Noa) to perform at the Vancouver Jewish community’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on May 11 at the Chan Centre.

After initial controversy because of Nini’s political views, including a petition that has stalled at just over 430 signatures and the withdrawal of funding by JNF Canada, Pacific Region, support has grown.

The Jewish Independent was one of the first to publicly support Federation’s decision, telling the Canadian Jewish News in a Feb. 19 article that the controversy was “unmerited,” and following up in a JI editorial that was published online Feb. 22 and in the newspaper last Friday. (jewishindependent.ca/lets-talk-about-nini) Also on Feb. 22, a group of more than 30 Israeli Canadians sent a letter urging Federation to “stick” to its invitation.

On Feb. 23, Federation announced two new event sponsors: the embassy of Israel in Canada and the consulate general of Israel in Toronto, which is the official representative office of the government of Israel in Ontario and the Western provinces. “We were thrilled when both the embassy and the consulate approached us with offers to be official sponsors of our Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration,” said Stephen Gaerber, chair of the Federation board, in a statement. “As official representatives of the state of Israel, we see support from the embassy and the consulate as strong messages that there is room for diversity both within Israel and within our community. We are also very happy that the deputy consul general is once again planning to represent the state of Israel at our Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration.”

JNF Canada chief executive officer Josh Cooper and president Jerry Werger issued a statement on Feb. 25 clarifying JNF’s position: “We want to be absolutely clear that JNF Canada is not protesting, boycotting, delegitimizing or censoring this event. After hearing from so many of our donors, we simply are not comfortable using charitable funds to support this particular artist.

“JNF Canada is a non-political organization which believes in strengthening the state of Israel for all of her citizens. It remains our position that Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations and other community events should be inclusive.”

Last week, Federation received letters of support that are cited here and can be found in their entirety at jewishvancouver.com.

In addition to saying, “in no way can we allow for differences of opinion to undermine those core values which unite us in our desire for a strong Jewish future with a strong Jewish democratic Israel at the centre,” Natan Sharansky of the Jewish Agency for Israel wrote, “As one who has often had the pleasure of enjoying Noa’s outstanding voice and spectacular talent, I applaud the Vancouver Federation and I know your Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations will be wonderful.”

The director general of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Alan Hoffmann, also issued a supportive statement: “Canada and Israel share the same democratic values that allow for a wide range of opinions, including diverse expressions of Zionism. An inclusive dialogue about Israel is at the heart of JAFI’s efforts to build a thriving Jewish future and a strong Israel.”

Former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Mark Gurvis, who is now executive vice-president of Jewish Federations of North America, wrote, “In today’s political environment, which is so highly polarized, it has become all too common to brand political opponents as enemies – disloyal, treasonous. It isn’t unique to Israel – we see it today in every Western democracy. It is a phenomenon that is ultimately a far greater threat to communal or national cohesiveness than the different ideas themselves.”

Gurvis spoke of the compromise that was necessary to arrive at the recent landmark decision in Israel to create an egalitarian prayer space at the Kotel. He concluded that there should be a place at the celebration of “Israel’s central place in our collective Jewish gestalt … for the broadest possible cross-section of people who love Israel. The only way we have a future together as a people is if we make our tent larger, and not smaller. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with one another. It just has to mean we recognize and accept each other’s place in our collective journey.”

Julia Berger Reitman and Linda Kislowicz of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA also stressed the importance of pluralism and the need to “support the values of Israel and Canada where democracy and freedom of expression are promoted.” They pointed out, “Artists often play a unique social role. Not only do they entertain us, they also help us to confront issues and stretch beyond the usual sensibilities. They help us find new forms of expression through their art.”

From several local rabbis, Federation received letters of support, or was copied on letters that thanked Israel’s representatives for Israel’s support and/or discussed the importance of a large tent and a multiplicity of opinions in Judaism. Writers included Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of Congregation Schara Tzedeck and Rabbi Philip Bregman of Hillel BC. Beth Israel Rabbi Jonathan Infeld wrote a letter thanking Israeli Ambassador to Canada Rafael Barak and made a short video for his congregation, which can be viewed on the home page of jewishindependent.ca.

Members of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver – Moskovitz, Infeld, Rosenblatt, Bregman, Beth Tikvah Rabbi Howard Siegel, Har El Rabbi Shmuel Birnham and Or Shalom Rabbi Hannah Dresner – expressed their “appreciation to all of those that have come out in support of our community’s Yom Ha’atzmaut concert and celebration…. Our community, like others, has a spectrum of opinion about Israel, its policies and politics. We are grateful that the spirit of democracy, which is one of Israel’s trademarks in the Middle East, has been championed in Vancouver by Israel’s diplomats.”

The RAV letter concluded with the hope that members of the community would include the May 11 concert “among their observances of Yom Ha’atzmaut.”

More than 50 Jewish community organizations support the annual event.