Arts & Culture – Page 130

Prize winners tour Canada

Filmmakers Aleeza Chanowitz, above, and Prague Benbenisty will be in Vancouver for the Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust Film Prize and to help the Jerusalem Foundation celebrate its 50th anniversary. (photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Centre)

Two up-and-coming Israeli filmmakers are bringing their films – and themselves – to Vancouver this month.

The Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust Film Prize event, being presented on May 16 at the Rothstein Theatre by the Jerusalem Foundation of Canada with the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre and Chutzpah!PLUS, will feature a screening retrospective and the 2016 winning films, followed by a question-and-answer period with the Jerusalem filmmakers, Aleeza Chanowitz (Mushkie) and Prague Benbenisty (Blessed).

The Lyons Prize is awarded annually to two students from Jerusalem film schools. There is a monetary component to the prize and the jury-selected students are also invited to present their films at the Israeli Film Festival in Montreal and other festivals in Canada. “By traveling to Canada and being introduced to established film industry professionals,” reads the prize material, “the award winners are given an important stepping stone in their creative and professional development.”

photo - Prague Benbenisty — Prague Benbenisty *(photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Centre)*

Chanowitz and Benbenisty have presented their films in Jerusalem, and Chanowitz’s Mushkie premièred at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. They started their time in Canada in Montreal, and also presented their work in Toronto. During their stay in Vancouver, the filmmakers will tour Emily Carr University’s 3-D film-capture and virtual reality projects, as well as visit studios.

“I’ve had a couple of face-to-face meetings, a ton of phone calls and emails with Nomi Yeshua since mid-November 2015,” said VJFC executive director Robert Albanese about planning the event. Yeshua, who grew up in Vancouver and made aliyah about 25 years ago, heads the Canada Desk of the Jerusalem Foundation. The May 16 event will also celebrate the foundation’s 50th anniversary.

“Nomi had the plan to bring the winning filmmakers to Canada and I was totally on board to make this happen,” said Albanese.

As for Chutzpah!PLUS, Mary-Louise Albert, who runs the annual Jewish performing arts festival, and Albanese have been running a cooperative series of films for the past two years, so she, too, was on board to co-present, he said.

“We’re looking forward to engaging the whole community, especially young adults,” said Albanese. There is no charge to attend the event. At the reception, Yeshua will make a brief introduction, and then attendees will move into the Rothstein.

“I’ll be making a selection of past year’s winning short films and screening those,” said Albanese, “then bringing up this year’s winners to the stage and, after some brief words, screening both of their films and bringing them back up to the stage for a talkback.”

Both Chanowitz and Benbenisty began their studies at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in 2012, and wrote and directed their respective films in their third year of study. Chanowitz, who was born in Brooklyn, made aliyah a couple of months after receiving her bachelor’s degree; Benbenisty was born in Tel Aviv. Their films are very different, in part because of their differing geographies.

Chanowitz’s Mushkie, which runs just over 12-and-a-half minutes, is a day (or two) in the life of two recent olim (immigrants) from the United States, best friends Mushkie and Sari. Chanowitz plays the title character, who is secretly exploring life outside of the boundaries of her religious upbringing, and gets into a little trouble while doing so. Chanowitz’s sense of humor shows not only in the film, but in the credits, where she thanks, among many others, her parents, who, she writes, “… I hope will continue to support me, but never see my work.” Given Mushkie’s sexual explicitness, the sentiment is understandable.

Benbenisty’s 15-minute Blessed offers viewers a glimpse into Sephardi – specifically Moroccan – culture in Israel. While in the biblical story, it is the younger Jacob who steals older brother Esau’s blessing from their father, in Blessed, it is the older, overlooked and unmarried sister, Zohara, who steals – at least initially – from her soon-to-be married younger sister the blessing that is given to all brides before their wedding day. The blessing gives Zohara the ability to see the love that has always been around her, and changes not only her relationship with her sister, but herself.

And there is more to this short film. In attempting to catch Zohara’s attentions, a shy but determined suitor recites to her a poem, “Zohra Al Fassiya,” by Erez Biton. Al Fassiya (1905-1994) was a well-known and popular Jewish Moroccan singer who, when she had to leave her home country, emigrated to Israel in 1962. She fell into anonymity and represents the negation of Sephardi culture by the Ashkenazi majority in Israel until recent years. That Blessed’s Zohara hears and is affected by this poem adds significant meaning to this short film.

The Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust Film Prize event starts at 7 p.m. on May 16 in the Zack Gallery.

Making your own cheeses

Once a full-time organic farmer, David Asher offers workshops through his Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking. He has also recently published his own book, The Art of Natural Cheesemaking. (photo by Kelly Brown)

Have you ever wanted your own cheese cave? If not, David Asher might convince you to crave one.

Based on British Columbia’s Gulf Islands, the former full-time organic farmer is the author of the recently published The Art of Natural Cheesemaking: Using Traditional, Non-Industrial Methods and Raw Ingredients to Make the World’s Best Cheeses (Chelsea Green). His book covers all the details one needs to know to make a variety of cheeses at home – and, yes, creating a “cave” to age it. Step-by-step recipes include paneer, cheddar, feta, blue cheeses, gouda, and about a dozen others.

“It’s as easy to make cheese at home as it is to make good bread at home,” he said.

For the past seven years, Asher has been offering workshops through his Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking to teach others the “lost” art of creating their own natural cheeses without unnecessary additives. But he wasn’t always a cheese fan – in fact, for most of his life, just the opposite.

“We weren’t a cheese-eating family. We only ate that stack of kosher cheese slices stuck together without plastic wrapping in a slab. I suffered through really terrible cheese as a child,” he said.

Like his favorite food, though, his taste has ripened with age.

As a young boy, he was introduced to “Italian immigrants’ guerrilla gardens” by Montreal’s railroad tracks, where he would relish plucking carrots and harvesting kale. Eventually, he created his own garden and, by his 20s, he was volunteering at community farms.

It was during an organic farming apprenticeship, traveling around visiting other farms, that he met a home cheesemaker, who was “making some inspiring rounds of moldy goat’s cheese” in her home with milk from her very own goats.

“She made this alchemy happen,” he said. “To make this beautiful cheese … without any specialized tools or equipment, I thought, ‘I can do this.’”

On a mission, Asher consulted the go-to cheesemaking guidebooks to find out how to start creating, but he was not inspired by the recipes or by the techniques suggested. Part of the problem, he said, was that the recipes called for freeze-dried packaged cultures.

“I didn’t want to have to purchase these culture starter packages to make my cheese, because I knew that traditional cheesemakers didn’t use these,” he said. “I knew there had to be a better way, but there weren’t really any resources.… There were no references as to how traditional cheesemakers grew their white rinds, their camembert, almost as if that information had been lost.” Truly, he was “feta” up with the lack of “gouda” details.

Through trial and error, he explored and learned natural methods used long ago, for want of a mentor. And then, much like a wheel of provolone, things came full circle.

“After years of experimenting, I felt confident with my techniques. I then decided that I’d write a book,” he said, adding that it also serves as a resource for his students.

Asked if he thought any decent commercially made cheese can be found in mainstream supermarkets, he responded with a deep sigh. “You don’t want me to answer that,” he said. “Call me when you’re ready to make your own.”

For those wanting to make their own, there are three cheesemaking seminars this month: with the Clever Crow Sea Salt Co. in Black Creek May 7-8, with Linnaea Farm on Cortes Island May 14-15 and in Chilliwack at the Valley Permaculture Guild on May 28-29. For more information, visit theblacksheepschool.com.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world. He is the managing editor of landmarkreport.com.

A complex cultural mosaic

Think you know everything about Israel? Looking for an extraordinarily special book to give to someone who has been to Israel or is interested in the unusual aspects of the country that rarely, if ever, get press coverage? The answer to both of those questions is Unexpected Israel: Stories You Never Read in the Media (Gefen Publishing House, 2016) by Ruth Corman.

Corman is a British photojournalist and art consultant who splits her time between London and Jerusalem. Her first publication was with photographer David Rubinger, and his book Israel Through My Lens: Sixty Years as a Photojournalist, which she co-authored and edited.

book cover - Unexpected Israel With her latest book, with 84 vignettes, she writes, “I decided to try a side of Israel that rarely receives attention – the creative, amusing, quirky and moving aspects of the country.” She used the services of Alon Galili, a guide, and John Harlow, a consultant. Many of her tales have appeared in the Jerusalem Post. Her husband, Charles Corman, was the book’s editor.

Writes Corman on the publisher’s website, “Four years ago, I embarked on an expedition through the complex cultural mosaic that is Israel to introduce readers to aspects of the country that never appear in the media…. I was introduced to places that few know about, fossilized trees in the Negev dating back 120 million years and a leopard shrine from a mere 10,000 years ago. I marveled at magnificent pure white chalk hills near the Egyptian border and discovered sculptural rock forms near Timna, the remains of copper mining. I was delighted by a derelict Mandate-era spa by the Dead Sea where hand-painted murals depicting regional topography adorn the walls, and fascinated by the history of perfume production at Ein Gedi and the efforts to recreate the scent that so captivated our ancestors.”

Corman also “encountered some unforgettable individuals.” Her entries begin with Tsegue-Mariam, a 93-year-old Ethiopian nun who has written original music and plays the piano. It ends with “A Happy Ending: Rescue in the Skies,” the story of a young child who was on an El Al flight with her. The child was heading to London to undergo a liver transplant, and Corman helped raise from the passengers the money the girl needed. Corman did not keep in touch with the child, who must be over 30 by now.

In between are stories about typical and atypical Israeli aspects – the camel, falafel, floor cleaning (sponga), garinim (sunflower seeds), folk dancing, Machaneh Yehudah (where this author leads weekly walks in English), sabras (the fruit), standing in line, sheshbesh (backgammon), the Temple Mount sifting project (which originated with a friend of this author, Prof. Gaby Barkay), volunteerism and more.

For those who know – or want to know – Israel, it is a delightful read that you won’t be able to put down. There is humor, there is wit, great research and special photographs.

If you happen to be in Jerusalem on May 15, the official book launch of Unexpected Israel will take place at Menachem Begin Heritage Centre. Guests will include Daniel Taub, former ambassador to the Court of St. James, and Steve Linde, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. Corman will present stories and images from the book. RSVP to [email protected] or via gefenpublishing.com (or 02 538 0247).

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads weekly walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.

The story of Miriam Peretz

Those of us who live and work in Israel as journalists and book reviewers for international publications often have to wait until an Israeli bestseller is translated from Hebrew into English. I, for one, am very excited when this occurs, and especially for a biography like Miriam’s Song: The Story of Miriam Peretz (Gefen Publishing House, 2016) by Smadar Shir.

Shirat Miriam was published in Israel in 2011 and became a bestseller, with more than 20,000 copies sold. It is Peretz’s story, as recounted to Shir, who is a prolific author and composer, as well as a senior journalist at the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Peretz was born in Casablanca, where her family lived until she was 10 years old. In 1963, they immigrated to Israel, initially living in an immigrant camp in Beersheva. After graduating high school, Peretz went to Ben-Gurion University and became a teacher.

When she was 21, she met Eliezer Peretz, who was 31, also Moroccan. They married, and he returned to his work in Sharm el-Sheikh. She eventually joined him there, until the city was evacuated. Meanwhile, she began teaching, and they started their family, ultimately having six children.

In November 1998, Uriel, their 22-year-old son, a Golani (special forces) officer was killed in Lebanon, while in the army. Peretz kept going.

“My husband was overcome with sadness and wouldn’t go to work, but I had no choice but to continue functioning,” she says.

Peretz got a master’s degree in educational administration. Her second son joined the army, while she and her husband continued processing their grief for Uriel. She began visiting schools and military bases to talk about her son.

In 2005, her husband died – only 56 years old. And then, in March 2010, her son, Eliraz, married with four children, was killed while in the army.

In December 2010, then-Israel Defence Forces Chief of General Staff Lt.-Col. Gabi Ashkenazi awarded her a medal of appreciation. He said: “Miriam’s ability to continue to express her deep pain and channel it into a contribution to the education and formation of future generations, serves as an example and model of inspiration for us all.”

The next chapters of Miriam’s Song are told by each of Peretz’s four surviving children.

Miriam left her principal position after 27 years to become a Jerusalem district supervisor with the education ministry. After Miriam’s Song was published in Hebrew, Peretz began to travel to the United States for the organization Friends of the Israel Defence Forces. In 2014, she was a torchbearer on Israel Independence Day.

For a feature on International Women’s Day this year in the Jerusalem Post, Peretz was interviewed and photographed along with two other mothers who had each lost a son. Journalist Tal Ariel Amir writes, “these three courageous women have risen from the ashes of their despair.”

People ask what it is like to live in Israel. Although Miriam’s Song is replete with courage, faith and commitment, it is also about tragedy and sacrifice. It is a book to read to understand what it means to be a woman, a wife, a mother in Israel today.

Comic book radio show

The Intergalactic Nemesis: Target Earth comes to York Theatre April 30 and May 1. (photo from Jason Neulander)

The story takes place in 1933. And, were it not the full-color cartoon panels being projected onto a large screen, you might feel as if you were also back in 1933 while watching the live performance of The Intergalactic Nemesis: Target Earth at York Theatre April 30 and May 1.

Target Earth is the first instalment of a trilogy that follows “Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Molly Sloan and her intrepid research assistant Timmy Mendez,” as they “team up with a mysterious librarian … named Ben Wilcott. Together, they travel from Romania to Scotland to the Alps to Tunis to the Robot Planet and finally to Imperial Zygon to defeat a terrible threat to the very future of humanity: an invading force of sludge-monsters from the planet Zygon!”

The dozens of characters are voiced on stage by three actors. They are joined by a Foley artist, who creates all of the sound effects, and a pianist/organist who provides the music soundtrack. The full-color comic book is projected onto a movie screen. In Vancouver, the actors will be Rachel Landon, Brock England and Jeff Mills, with Kelly Matthews in charge of the sound effects and Harlan Hodges on piano and organ.

The series – comprised of Target Earth, Robot Planet and Twin Infinity – is produced and directed by Jason Neulander.

photo - Jason Neulander — Jason Neulander *(photo from Jason Neulander)*

Neulander grew up in New Jersey and went to college at Brown University in Providence, R.I., where he majored in theatre.

“Right out of school, I founded a company called Salvage Vanguard Theatre in Austin, Tex., where we developed and produced new plays. The Intergalactic Nemesis came out of that company, originally as a radio play,” he told the Independent.

“I ran Salvage from 1994 to 2008 and built the company up to a point where it’s now something of a local institution. They’re still going strong without me. In 2008, I decided to focus entirely on The Intergalactic Nemesis and got invited to bring the show to the Long Centre for the Performing Arts [in Austin]. The venue there was 2,400 seats and I felt like that was too big to house my little radio play. So, I came up with the idea of projecting comic book artwork to create a visual spectacle to fill the room. That version of the show premièred in 2010 and we’ve been on the road with it ever since.”

Based on an original idea by Ray Patrick Colgan, the touring show was adapted from the radio drama by Colgan, Neulander, Jessica Reisman, Julia Edwards and Lisa D’Amour. The comic-book artwork for Target Earth is by Tim Doyle with Paul Hanley and Lee Duhig; the sound effects were created by Buzz Moran; and Graham Reynolds was the composer. Others, of course, helped bring the whole production to fruition.

For his part, Neulander said his biggest inspiration for The Intergalactic Nemesis was his kids. “I wanted to make something that I could enjoy with them,” he said. “That’s actually worked out pretty well! Artistically, this show is all about pushing my own inner-kid buttons. I was 7 when Star Wars came out (the first one) and 12 when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out and I love that kind of storytelling.

“One of my favorite memories as a kid was watching the old Flash Gordon serials and the old Ray Harryhausen movies on TV with my dad on Saturday mornings. When I was a little older, I got really into golden-age sci-fi short fiction, like Bradbury and Asimov and those guys. When I was a young adult, I discovered golden-age Hollywood movies for myself – His Girl Friday hugely influenced our script. I kind of backed into both radio drama and comic books, so maybe those are actually a little less influential on the show than those other things.”

While there is no overt Jewish aspect to the story, Neulander said his sense of Jewish heritage played a role in its creation.

“This show is all about the heroes defeating the bad guys more through smarts than through violence,” he explained. “The main male character is a librarian, so I feel like there’s got to be some Talmud in there somewhere. But, more than that, I think my upbringing taught me that if you work hard, you can succeed against all odds. I’m not sure if that’s solely a Jewish thing, but it’s definitely what the story of this show is all about.”

And Target Earth won’t just take you to another time, but place.

“It’s so much fun!” said Neulander. “It’s like getting to watch an animated movie and seeing how they do it all at the same time. The visual images are just beautiful to look at and then you have three voice actors playing so many characters, often in the same scene, you have one person using all these unusual objects to make sounds you never thought they could make (my favorite is a trail from a box of mac and cheese), and the music just soars. You really do get taken to another world.”

While Neulander is taking a creative break from the Intergalactic world – “I’m just wrapping up a script for a thriller, which will be my film directing debut” – the series’ shows keep touring. This summer, said Neulander, “we are taking Twin Infinity to the fringe festival in Edinburgh in what we think will be a very splashy U.K. première.”

But first, Target Earth and target Vancouver.

“We’ve been itching to get to Vancouver for a few years now,” said Neulander. “I think that your city really is one of the ideal places for this show. I just think audiences are going to eat it up! Can’t wait to get there!”

Shows are April 30, 4 and 7 p.m., and May 1, 2 p.m. Tickets start at $25 from tickets.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363.

Ballet BC dances Bill

Ballet BC dancer Gilbert Small is among those who will perform Program 3. (photo by Michael Slobodian)

Ballet BC finishes this season with Program 3, which features the remount of artistic director Emily Molnar’s 16+ a room and of Finnish-born choreographer Jorma Elo’s I and I am You – as well as the Canadian première of Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal’s Bill.

Already in Vancouver setting Eyal’s work for Ballet BC is Osnat Kelner, who has been choreographing since 2001. In addition to her own creations, Kelner is an assistant choreographer for Eyal and American-Israel choreographer Barak Marshall.

“I met both Sharon and Barak for the first time when I was dancing in the ensemble Batsheva in 2000 and they created pieces for the company,” Kelner told the Independent.

“I started setting Sharon’s pieces in 2005 after working with her again, this time as the rehearsal director of ensemble Batsheva, where she created another piece.

“I started working with Barak as his assistant in 2008. A year earlier, I met him in Israel, after his long absence. He discussed the option of coming to create a new piece, said he still remembered how great it was to work with me, and that he’d like me on his team.”

Eyal, who is based in Tel Aviv, is former resident choreographer of the Batsheva Dance Company. She currently is artistic director of L-E-V, a company she and Gai Behar formed. For Bill, she again collaborated with Behar and musician, drummer and DJ Ori Lichtik. In the work, notes Ballet BC, “Eyal combines dance, music and design into an instantly recognizable whole of raw, unexpected beauty created with equal parts ebb and flow. Premièred by Batsheva Dance Company, Bill showcases Eyal’s trademark shifts from large group to smaller ensemble, which, in turn, morph into breathtaking solos.”

“In order to set another choreographer’s pieces,” explained Kelner about her role in the production, “you firstly need their trust, you need a really good memory, the ability to see the big picture and the smallest details, and a way with people. It means you are responsible for passing information to dancers who have never worked with this choreographer before, and you try to stay as honest to that person’s vision as you understand it.”

Kelner also has her creative vision, which she focuses on more than one artistic endeavor.

“As a freelancer,” she said, “I do many different things. I choreograph, I stage other choreographers’ pieces, I work as rehearsal director for independent projects, I make costumes for dance and theatre, I sometimes perform myself and I’m the mother of a 19-month-old boy. I can’t imagine it any other way. I love being involved in many different projects, in different roles, and sometimes at the same time. I only grow and learn from it, as an artist and a person.”

Audiences at Program 3 will also see Molnar’s 16+ a room, set to music by Dirk Haubrich and inspired by the work of writers Jeanette Winterson and Emily Dickinson. According to the press material, it “displays Molnar’s unique choreographic language through a complex study of time, transition and stillness, where the space between is as important as the space occupied, where one is left with the feeling of both liberty and disappearance.”

Finally, Elo’s I and I am You, first performed by Ballet BC in 2013, features “Elo’s signature virtuosic vocabulary and lightning-fast musicality interspersed with moments of enormous intimacy and tenderness.”

Program 3 is at Queen Elizabeth Theatre May 12-14, 8 p.m. Tickets, which range from $30 to $90, can be purchased at 1-855-985-2787 or ticketmaster.ca.

Artistic Pesach midrashim

“Question Mark” by Sydney Freedman and Rachel Pekeles is among the works created by King David High School Grade 12 students. (photo by Nancy Current)

In conjunction with their current show at Zack Gallery, Visual Midrash, artists Robin Atlas and Nancy Current conducted a two-day workshop with the Grade 12 students of King David High School. Rabbi Stephen Berger, head of the school’s Judaic studies, and some of his more outgoing students talked to the Independent about the project.

“Every year, we do a project for Passover with our Grade 12 students,” said Berger. “The Haggadah is one of those Jewish texts that’s had the most number of interpretations throughout our history, as every generation and every family bring their own understanding. So, I ask the students every year to write their own versions, a short essay on one of the aspects of the Haggadah. This year, we decided to combine the writing with the visual component. The students pitched their ideas, which topic they wanted to explore. I tried to limit the same topics but I didn’t force anyone. They were free to choose. Now, after all the art is done, we’ll put the project online. We’re also going to publish a hardcopy as a pamphlet. One of our former students, Daniel Wiseman, is helping me with the particulars. We will distribute the copies at the JCC, at the synagogues and Jewish delis.”

The rabbi joined his students in creating his own interpretation of the Haggadah, using a sheet of matzah as the base for his artistic journey. “Matzah represents both our slavery and our freedom,” he said. His piece opens the pamphlet.

Like the rabbi, most of his students hadn’t done much visual art in years and were not going to pursue art as a career, but they enjoyed working on Visual Midrash for this assignment.

“They put so much thought into their pieces,” said Current. “Some of them first tried to come up with concrete images, but it’s hard without artistic training. Then Robin and I suggested they should think about some abstract interpretations. What ideas come to mind? What concepts are associated with those ideas? The results were amazing.”

One of the students, Izzy Khalifa, chose the most fun-filled tradition of Passover – the search for bread. “When I was a kid, it was a game in our home. I loved it,” she said. “Now that I’m older, I think it’s not simply a search for bread but it has a deeper meaning, like a search for yourself.”

“Judaism grows on you,” the rabbi remarked, and Khalifa agreed. She also liked working with the abstract concept. “People can take more from an abstract picture, interpret it in different ways,” she said.

photo - “Blue Heart” by Adi Rosenkrantz and Ashley Morris — “Blue Heart” by Adi Rosenkrantz and Ashley Morris *(photo by Nancy Current)*

Classmates Adi Rosenkrantz and Ashley Morris decided on more concrete imagery. Their blue heart on a blood-red background symbolizes the first plague of Egypt – the plague of blood. “The blue heart is like the heart of the Nile,” said Rosenkrantz. “The abrupt color change, from blue to red, from water to blood, disrupted the Egyptian way of life.” Their heart is almost anatomically precise. “I just did a unit on cardiovascular system,” Rosenkrantz explained, “and it was fresh in my mind.”

Ma’ayan Fadida and Shmuel Hart’s illustration was more metaphorical. They selected a controversial theme for their work – the wicked son. In their artistic interpretation, the wicked son walks a black path, which winds its way across the pink and orange brightness of other family members.

“We wanted to do one of the sons,” Fadida said. “This one makes the decision to separate himself from the others; that’s why his path is black. And the abstract allowed us to show how he was thinking.”

One of the most powerful pieces is a mixed media collage: a large black question mark with the background of newspaper snippets. Created by Sydney Freedman and Rachel Pekeles, it also touches on the story of the four sons but focuses on the son who doesn’t know how to ask.

“We wanted to take a complicated topic and present it as a symbol. The black mark blocks our ability to ask,” explained Freedman.

“The information is all there. You just have to be willing to look for it,” Pekeles elaborated. “It is a challenge. Sometimes, we choose not to ask when we should.”

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

Glimpse into The Valley

Daniel Doheny and Kerry Sandomirsky in The Valley, which tackles the subject of depression. (photo by Emily Cooper)

As The Valley opens, a young man addresses the audience with the words, “Encounters with the police No. 1.”

It’s a stark opening, as the character – Connor – stands in a spotlight on a circular stage, with the three other actors behind him in the shadows. The monologue represents both the beginning and end to the play. It establishes a sense of the past – about what brought the characters to their current situation – as well as the present, when they are revealing themselves in a healing circle. Each of the players eventually gets to speak directly to the audience in turn, and the drama of the performance unfolds between the monologues.

Essentially, the play is about the effect of depression in two different families – a police officer (Dan) and his wife (Janie), who has just given birth and has a history of depression; and a mother (Sharon) and son (Connor), who has an episode when he’s 18. Amazingly, all the action takes place within the circular stage – a relevant choice for the performance.

“The show is a very intimate show, though the Granville Island stage is not considered intimate,” set designer Amir Ofek explained. “We wanted it ‘in your face,’ not hiding behind a proscenium arch.”

When faced with the decision of whether to use a more literal interpretation of the play for the set design, Ofek said he wanted to avoid switching between the staging of homes of each family, the police station, the Skytrain and other locations in order to keep the intensity going.

“As a designer, I have to delve into the play to find a unique way of doing things,” he said, adding that he tried in the design to convey the protagonists’ characteristics of intensity and fragility by having part of the set jut out of the stage, as though it might fall on the audience any minute.

“There’s a sense of brutality in the play, as well,” Ofek said. “It’s reflected in the edginess of the material of the set.”

Intense, brutal and fragile are perfect words to describe the characters. When Connor quits university after wanting to go for so long, his mother Sharon is at a loss. She tries so hard to change his mind – pleading, cajoling, trying logic and guilt. She is helpless against an illness that has yet to even reveal itself. When an “incident at Joyce Station” takes place, her lament to the audience is heartwrenching: “What to expect at 18 years, three months – your child will break in two.”

In the other household, Dan struggles to be supportive of his wife when she is having depressive episodes, but he has his own demons to bear from being a police officer.

“Every holiday you’ve ever looked forward to – they’re all on our s–t list,” he says, referring to the increase in crime and misdemeanors around holiday time. “Hookers, jumpers, pushers, junkies, racers, strippers – hundreds of things you don’t want to hear about.”

Ironically, it was through his work that Dan met his wife, helping get her clean and off the street. Their struggle is particularly disquieting to watch as it’s so clear how much they love each other, but seem to be always living on the edge of a breakdown.

When Dan arrests Connor in the “incident at Joyce Station,” there’s a struggle that sends Connor to the hospital and results in months of being housebound in his depression, unable or unwilling to listen to his mother, who is constantly on him to do something.

Eventually, Dan and Janie get an invitation to a healing circle to help Connor deal with the aftermath of the incident. But, like his refusal to pay attention to his wife’s bouts of depression, Dan refuses to hear anything about a healing circle. Janie goes on her own and is able to connect with Connor because she shares his ailment and understands what he’s going through. Through Janie, Sharon finds out something that allows her to let go of her own anger.

This play is not easy to watch but it’s an important one to see, if only to get a bit more understanding of how people suffer with despair and hopelessness – sometimes for months or years at a time. It’s estimated that 10% of adults in Canada will experience a serious depressive episode in their lifetimes.

The Valley stars Daniel Doheny as Connor, Kerry Sandomirsky as Sharon, Pippa Mackie as Janie and Robert Salvador as Dan. It’s directed by Mindy Parfitt, with lighting by Itai Erdal, and runs at the Arts Club (artsclub.com) Granville Island stage until May 7.

Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer and media trainer in Vancouver. Her consulting work can be seen at phase2coaching.com.

There are lessons to learn

“My principal lesson of the Holocaust is … beware of lessons.” With this warning, renowned Canadian Holocaust scholar Michael R. Marrus, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, has written an essential but also essentially frustrating book, claiming that there is nothing to be “learned” from the study of the Holocaust – Lessons of the Holocaust (University of Toronto Press, 2016).

All the mantras usually marshaled to justify Holocaust studies, such as “never again,” or “who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it” or “evil will triumph when good people do nothing” are bogus, says Marrus. For “history does not speak to the present with … an admonitory voice”: historians are not moralists or mentors, and certainly not preceptors – their mandate is to “handle history with care” and to insist on “getting it right.”

But, if Holocaust studies have nothing to teach us, should we not ask to what end should Holocaust historians and educators “get it right”: and how does a Holocaust scholar’s commitment to “getting it right” differ from that of a botanist’s or a quantum physicist’s or, for that matter, an athlete’s or a bricklayer’s? It is the failure to answer this question that makes Marrus’ book so frustrating.

Marrus’ credentials in Holocaust studies are impeccable. His books on the Holocaust have received prestigious awards; he has served on some extremely important international committees designed to air out crucial Holocaust issues, and has met, and often argued publicly, with some of the world’s most prestigious Holocaust historians, including Raul Hilberg and Elie Wiesel, as well as Hannah Arendt, Emil Fackenheim and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, all of whom he takes issue with in this book for suggesting that the Holocaust can offer lessons.

Marrus’ problem with regarding Holocaust history as a learning project is rooted in his historiography: what can one learn from history when history itself is so subjective? “If one looks hard enough at evidence,” says Marrus, “one can come up with the answer – or the lesson – that one wants.” And, again: history is “continually evolving,” its terrain endlessly “shifting,” exposing “new questions.” In other words, history is inevitably “a matter of interpretation.” (Marrus’ emphasis.) Thus, the lessons that one presumes to deduce from history will inevitably be the lessons that one preemptively wanted to find. As Marrus puts it, “lesson seeking often misshapes what we know about the event itself in order to fit particular causes or objectives.”

Fair enough, when it comes to comparing the Holocaust to “the rape of the environment [or] the harshness of bureaucracy,” but what about the larger, and more relevant, issues of social justice, of our moral duty to future generations, of our sacred duty to remember? Hitler saw carte blanche for his genocidal intentions by asking, “Who remembers the Armenians?” Surely it is crucial that no future Hitler be able to ask, “Who remembers the Jews?”

Marrus is on more solid, if more obvious, ground when he condemns the appropriating of Holocaust history by right-wing politicos in Israel, such as Menachem Begin and Binyamin Netanyahu, who he sees as using Holocaust references to manipulate opinion toward acceptance of their conservative policies. This political exploitation of Holocaust history has “crippled Israel’s capacities to respond imaginatively to questions of national identity and to seize new opportunities in a flawed global community.” Here, Marrus is probably right.

Marrus also condemns, again quite rightly, the enlisting of Holocaust precedents by special interest groups, such as advocates of gun control or those opposing bullying in schools, opponents of gay rights and animal abuse and so on – all anxious to further their causes by referencing the Holocaust and, in so doing, trivializing it.

Most pointedly, and again with some justification, Marrus attacks the thinking of those who would “universalize” the Holocaust, making Holocaust studies “a school for tolerance,” a warning against hate speech, against political apathy or against overly celebrating the actions of the pitifully few Nazi-fighting heroes, such as the leader of the Munich White Rose students,

Sophie Scholl, who was recently voted in Germany fourth among “the most important Germans of all time” – ahead of Bach, Goethe and Einstein. Again, this is an important point, and one that quite rightly occupies a lot of serious thinking in Holocaust studies.

Marrus’ final chapter, a brief 11 pages, is entitled “Lessons of the Holocaust,” and readers may be forgiven for thinking that Marrus is, finally, at the end of his book, going to take a stand.

Not at all. He says here, “we learn a great deal from the history of the Holocaust.” What, exactly? He doesn’t say. And, again, Holocaust studies are “intellectually enriching and facilitate our understanding of the world around us.” How so, and to what end? No answer. “We are wiser” for knowing Holocaust history. How so and, since there are no lessons in it, so what? In this final chapter, Marrus repeats over and over that Holocaust history “deepens appreciation of human reality” and “makes us more mature.” How so, since there’s nothing to be learned from it, on his own terms?

Holocaust educators will, I suspect, find Marrus’ position difficult to accept: they know exactly why they are teaching Holocaust studies – to impress upon (especially) young people the fragility of our human institutions and thereby to arm them against demagoguery. In other words, “never again.”

Demagoguery has been raising its head again in recent months in the United States. It would indeed be encouraging to all teachers of Holocaust studies if they could believe they’ve helped to effectively warn against it, a clear and inarguably important lesson to be learned from the dreadful past century.

Graham Forst, PhD, taught literature and philosophy at Capilano University until his retirement and now teaches in the continuing education department at Simon Fraser University. From 1975 to 2010, he co-chaired the symposium committee of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Interpreting Torah with art

Artists Nancy Current, left, and Robin Atlas at Zack Gallery. (photo by Linda Lando)

Visual Midrash: Plagues and Visions, which opened at Zack Gallery on April 7, features the work of Seattleites Robin Atlas and Nancy Current, the only West Coast artists creating in the genre of visual midrash. The show is the culmination of a four-year collaboration that started in 2012.

“We met through the Jewish Art Salon in New York,” said Current. “Even though we both live in Seattle, we didn’t know each other at that point.”

Atlas elaborated: “The president of the Jewish Art Salon sent us both an introductory email. She said we probably knew each other already, but we didn’t – and we lived only 10 minutes apart.”

“Robin was about to open a new show in L.A. and she brought her works to my studio,” said Current. “I was amazed. There was so much beauty and thought behind it all. That’s what visual midrash is all about. It requires two elements: the clarity of story and the visual beauty of the artist’s interpretation. I looked at Robin’s art and I said to myself, I’m going to work with her forever.”

They started working together, but their chosen genre – interpreting Torah through visual art – is not widely known. “We didn’t have a ready audience in the West,” Current explained, “not like in New York. We needed to build it, so we started teaching adult classes two years ago. The classes include the texts from the Torah, introduced by a Torah instructor, and a visual component, taught by an art instructor.”

“We would do slide shows, video presentations, and the students would have a chance to create their own art,” Atlas said. “Linda Lando, the Zack Gallery director, facilitated the first class we did in Vancouver earlier this year.”

For the current show, the artists explored the theme of the 10 plagues. “We were drawn to the story,” said Current.

Although each artist works with different media – Atlas with textiles and Current with glass and paper – their creative vision is similar. Their symbolic abstracts mesh extremely well, as if the images belong together, buzzing with the same esthetic sense and the same muted elegance, complementing each other to tell the same tale.

While the Vancouver Jewish community was introduced to Atlas when she exhibited at the Zack in mid-2014, Current is a new name for most local art appreciators.

“I always drew and painted as a child but I can’t say that I had the conscious idea to be an artist,” Current recalled. “I grew up in Seattle, in an old house with stained-glass windows. That undoubtedly affected my later fascination with glass. I learned to blow glass when I was about 24, but gave that up in favor of painting on stained-glass.”

She explained, “Glass is different from other mediums because light passes through it (transmitted light) instead of bouncing off [of it], like with paper or canvas (reflected light). Transmitted light, especially through colored glass, connects to a person’s emotional centre more directly than reflected light. It also has a spiritual aspect. Think of all those stained-glass windows in churches and synagogues. That is important to my Jewish work.”

Although she has worked in other visual genres, Jewish themes absorb her artistic passion now.

“Jewish art has gradually replaced my other work, life drawing and landscape, because it is much more meaningful,” she said. “Visual midrash is the most meaningful Jewish art of all. It requires a lot of study and thought, and those are things I highly value about living a Jewish life.”

Current pointed to two particular influences on her development as an artist.

“The first was studying at Pilchuck Glass School,” she said. “The school attracted many artists early in the history of the American studio glass movement. I studied there with the amazing British glass painter Patrick Reyntiens. He is 90 years old now and still a good friend.

“The second was finding the Jewish Art Salon (JAS) in New York. Becoming a fellow in the JAS has led me to friendships with several Jewish artists who have been doing visual midrash for years. They have helped a lot.”

Current doesn’t concentrate on making a living with her art. Her main concern is to share it with as many people as possible. “Of course, eventually I want to sell my work,” she said, “but not until I’ve had a chance to show it in several exhibitions. The purpose of doing my work is to cause people to think about their Jewish heritage.”

Current and Atlas’ show runs until May 8.

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