Arts & Culture – Page 131

Vilna, the place, its people

It is a master storyteller who can make you feel like you’ve met someone you never knew, visited a city to which you’ve never been, make you long for a people, place and culture you’ve never experienced but from a generation, location and language once, twice or thrice removed. Abraham Karpinowitz (1913-2004) is such a writer. And, thanks to local master storyteller and translator Helen Mintz, more of us can now visit Karpinowitz’s Vilna – a city full of colorful characters, both real and not, and share in a small part of their lives.

Vilna My Vilna (Syracuse University Press, 2016) is a collection of 13 short stories and two brief memoirs by Karpinowitz, translated from Yiddish into English by Mintz. For context and a better understanding of Karpinowitz and his work – notably one of the main “characters” in his writing, Vilna – there is a foreword by Justin Cammy, an associate professor of Jewish studies and comparative literature at Smith College in Massachusetts, and an introduction by Mintz. These two scholarly essays are invaluable, but if you’re completely unfamiliar with Karpinowitz, perhaps jump ahead and read a few of the stories before heading back to these parts of the book. It’s kind of a Catch-22, in that their insight enhances the enjoyment of the stories, but the stories enhance the understanding of the analysis and history.

Romantics will appreciate most the linked stories of “The Folklorist” and “Chana-Merka the Fishwife.” In the first tale, Rubinshteyn heads to the Vilna fish market to collect material for YIVO (the Yiddish Scientific Institute) because he knows that, if the “genuine language of the people” is not documented, “it would be a great loss for the culture.” Dedicated to his work, and a dedicated bachelor, he fails to notice that Chana-Merka has fallen in love with him and, once his research is complete, he stops visiting the fish market, much to her – and his – sadness. In the second tale, Chana-Merka heads to YIVO herself to make sure that Max Weinreich, its director, knows from whom all of Rubinshteyn’s material came: she makes lists of curses for Weinreich, such as “May you speak so beautifully that only cats understand you,” and “May you be lucky and go crazy in a more important city than Vilna.”

Weinreich is one of the real people who appear in this collection where fiction and non-fiction meld. Yoysef Giligitsh, a teacher at the Re’al Gymnasium, is another. Most readers will not be able to identify all of these people and, while there will be added realism for those who can, the characters stand on their own. Besides, these people are secondary to the protagonists, who are the fishwives, the prostitutes, the criminals, the poor.

Despite that everyone is trying to eke out an existence, even the criminals follow a moral code. For example, Karpinowitz notes, in “Vilna, Vilna, Our Native City” that the Golden Flag criminal organization’s constitution includes the admonition, “Our members should behave properly and not forget that even though we are who we are, we are still Jews,” and that “[t]here was a directive for the general treasury to provide dowries for poor brides.”

Karpinowitz pokes fun at communism, capitalism, politics in general. His descriptions put readers right into the scene, almost as if they’re standing on the opposite street corner watching events unfold. And he has some wonderful turns of phrase. In “Shibele’s Lottery Ticket,” for example, Sheyndel’s husband goes off to fill the water bucket and never returns: “Sheyndel missed her husband, the shiksa chaser, less than the bucket.”

Or, in one of the two memoirs, “The Tree Beside the Theatre,” Karpinowitz writes about his father’s choice to sell his print shop to run a theatre, “If he’d stayed in the print shop, he’d be a rich man. My mother reminded him of this every time she couldn’t cover expenses. But everything in the print shop, including the machines and the letters, was black, and everything in the theatre was colorful, even the poverty.”

Karpinowitz’s characters have self-dignity and hope. They are not passive, for the most part, but are actively trying to change their situation for the better or to help someone else. Not surprisingly, many of the stories have bleak endings, with the narratives going from charming and/or humorous to horrific, illustrating just how abruptly and brutally this world came to an end.

These stories that turn on a dime are so moving. They emphasize just how little people at the time understood that most of them would soon be murdered. As Karpinowitz writes in “Vilna, Vilna, Our Native City”: “For years, a Jew with blue spectacles stood on Daytshe Street begging, ‘Take me across to the other side.’ His plea was so heartrending that, rather than asking to be taken across the few cobblestones separating Gitke Toybe’s Lane from Yiddishe Street, he sounded like he needed to cross a deep and dangerous abyss. Maybe he was the first Jew in Vilna with a premonition about the Holocaust. Just the name of the street, Daytshe Gas, German Street, drove him from one side to the other. We could all see the little water pump and Yoshe’s kvass stall on the other side of the street, but through his dark spectacles, that Jew saw farther. Fate didn’t take him to the safer side. He ended up in the abyss at Ponar with everyone else.”

Karpinowitz survived the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, having left Vilna in 1937. He briefly returned in 1944 and then, after two years in a displaced persons camp in Cyprus, moved to Israel. Mintz notes that he wrote seven works of fiction, two biographies, a play and five short story collections. He was awarded the Manger Prize (1981), among several other honors.

In the stories of Vilna My Vilna, the geography of the city is integral, and the maps included are useful in situating the action. The glossary is also an essential part of the book: kvass, for example, is a “fermented beverage made from black or regular rye bread.”

Adding even more value to this collection are three illustrations by Yosl Bergner that were in the original 1967 Yiddish publication of Karpinowitz’s Baym Vilner durkhhoyf and the painting “Soutine Street” by Samuel Bak is the cover of Vilna My Vilna. Both artists (and the Pucker Gallery, in the case of Bak’s painting) gave permission for their work to be used at no charge, which is an indication of the translation’s import beyond entertainment.

Mintz’s acknowledgements are many, and that she accepted so much input into the book speaks volumes about her integrity and the quality of her work. “Translating these stories brought me great joy,” she writes. “While never swerving from the truth, Abraham Karpinowitz answered genocide with love: love for his characters and love for his craft as a writer.” With Vilna My Vilna, Mintz adds her love, and that of many others, to ensure that Vilna, its people and its stories will not be forgotten.

Love, family, tradition

The 23 authors in editor Liz Pearl’s latest collection of essays – Living Legacies: A Collection of Narratives by Contemporary Canadian Jewish Women, Vol. 5 (PK Press, 2015) – come from a range of backgrounds. They work in fields as varied as medicine, education, the arts, philanthropy, event planning and graphic design. They have served in the army, immigrated from Africa and led all manner of enterprises in business, education and community service. Their essays are brimful of passion, wisdom and intellect.

Among the writers are Victoria’s Vicki Davidoff and Vancouver’s Ada Glustein.

In her essay, Davidoff describes her journey from good friend and wife to skilled caregiver and, finally, “death doula” for terminal cancer patients. Losing her own husband, Ken, to cancer in 2008, Davidoff learned what it means to create a “conscious death.” Together, she and her husband crafted a space for reflection, writing letters to family members as well as his obituary. She describes this space as “sacred,” and she has established a respectful, spiritual program for patients and their families, one that gives structure and meaning to an otherwise terrifying ordeal.

Glustein, the daughter of Russian immigrants, was raised in a kosher home where Yiddish was spoken and the festivals of Canadian society ignored. Defining herself through her religion and culture, she was presented with a challenge growing up. Every young adult longs to blend in with her peers, but this felt impossible. She once made an Easter card at school. Knowing that it could not go home with her, the teacher tore it up, “her best artwork ever tossed in the wastebasket.” It was like an act of violence; combined with the hurtful comments from well-meaning but ignorant peers, Glustein felt like an impostor.

book cover- Living Legacies Times have changed, she notes. Nowadays, we understand that a person’s culture is less like a cold, unchanging monolith than a soft, woven, multi-textured fabric. Coming to understand and respect her parents’ reasons for raising her as they did, Glustein’s values as a teacher and a mother are grounded in the principle of inclusion.

The desire to connect with family is a thread that runs throughout Living Legacies, but the narratives also capture the essence of an organic form of Judaism, in which we all play a role in nurturing bonds both within and beyond our nuclear families. Rituals and traditions are opportunities to slow down long enough to celebrate each other, such as Ruth Ladovsky’s mother exclaiming over the Shabbat dinner table, “Did I ever tell you how lucky I am?”

When Marlene Levenson’s mother was afflicted with early onset Alzheimer’s, which created a sense of “chaos and confusion” in her childhood home, Levenson transformed her anger and grief with chesed, deciding to serve the Alzheimer’s community as a volunteer. Writes Levenson, “I have fallen in love with each and every client…. Being able to give back love and caring to these people is a dream.”

The collection also celebrates the making and eating of food shared with friends and family – blintzes, egg noodles, latkes, the knishes and shtrudel made by Dorothy Rusoff’s mother. Rusoff’s prose is positively delicious, jam-packed with references to cookies, soups, meringues and pastries. The vivid description of her mother and aunt cooking together is served with humor and affection, as well as reverence.

Living Legacies reveals the constant search for growth and inspiration, as modeled by Jewish women who, like Lori Palatnik, observe that “tikkun olam is in our DNA.” These vibrant, dynamic and driven individuals have clear goals for their and their families’ spiritual development. There emanates from this collection the sense of an assembly of leaders.

The stories are entertaining, like the story of the apple pie contest reported by Linda Rosenbaum, as well as challenging and uplifting, like L. Deborah Sword’s account of her unplanned pregnancy. It’s a book best served in small dishes, with lots of room between courses to allow for contemplation.

As is evident from the biographies of these well-traveled writers, many of us are separated from our extended families. Many of us keep a close watch on the clock at certain times of the day, only reaching for the phone when our loved ones in other countries have woken up. Living Legacies is a lovely way to bring the voices of mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters into our minds as we sip our coffee and wait for the golden moment when we can call home and hear our own mothers’ voices.

Brenda Morgenstern’s reflection on her mother’s legacy sums up the collection perfectly: “My mother left me with pride. My mother left me with love for Friday nights, Shabbos. Long tables at Rosh Hashanah and Passover. Tables filled with her legacy, her many children and grandchildren, sharing what was most important to her. Each other.”

Like the communal ring described by Rhonda Spivak, the collection is a symbol of the “core values of which Judaism is based – strength of community, love, family and tradition.”

Living Legacies is available from PK Press.

Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver.

Making healthy eating cool

Adam Segal at Indigo Richmond Hill in Ontario last fall. (photo from adammichaelsegal.com)

Every parent knows how difficult it can be to cajole their children to eat their vegetables. Author Adam Michael Segal has come up with a tool he hopes will make it easier for parents – inspiring children to eat healthy, and combating the obesity epidemic.

The Toronto-based health communications expert and former elementary school teacher has penned Fartzee Shmartzee’s Fabulous Food Fest, a fun and whimsical book for children ages 4 to 7. The main character, Fartzee, is a quirky child with multicolored spiky hair on a quest to persuade his family to eat nutritious food. Through a series of hatched plans, a food festival and a sticker game, he succeeds in showing everyone in town that eating right can be fun.

The book is made more visually appealing with drawings by 20th Century Fox illustrator and animator Daniel Abramovici.

“This is an entertaining and imaginative story that educates children about healthy eating practices and behaviors,” said Dr. Samantha Witt, a pediatrician based in Maple, Ont.

Part of the inspiration for writing it, Segal told the Independent, included the lack of books specifically directed towards young children to teach them, in a fun way, about eating well.

According to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity rates in Canada have nearly tripled in the past 40 years, with close to a third of children considered either overweight or obese. Diabetes, heart disease, stroke and some cancers are among the many issues that can arise from obesity.

“For generations, kids have been led to think of junk food as cool and fun, which has contributed significantly to the prevalence of childhood obesity,” said Segal. “With Fartzee, I am trying to completely shift the paradigm to obesity prevention, empowering kids to discover that nutritious food is cool, fun and delicious.”

Segal said he flipped through scores of children’s books to get a feel for what his target age group would find compelling. This is one reason why, in his book, “food is all over the place; it’s kind of messy but fun.”

For some parents, the main character’s name might sound too coarse for a child, but Segal said, so far, parents and educators haven’t had any problems.

“I was a little concerned and nervous,” he admitted, when initially sending out the book to a Grade 2 teacher, a librarian and a parent. “Not a single one had an issue with it. They said that there are already books, at least 10 others, with a character that did farts. It’s not anything unusual or out of the norm. Even someone from the ministry of education reviewed the manuscript and didn’t flinch at it, and they were a teacher for 30 years.”

The book has been read to more than 5,000 students at 15 schools across the Toronto area thus far, according to Segal. He’s finding that kids aren’t as resistant to eating right as we might have thought.

“I ask them why we eat healthy food, and they really get it. Even a 6-year-old will say it gives energy, helps you grow, it’s good for your body and brain,” he said. “At a young age, they actually understand a lot more about the benefits of nutrition than I would have thought when I wrote it.”

Fartzee Shmartzee’s Fabulous Food Fest is available through adammichaelsegal.com or amazon.com.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer and the managing editor of landmarkreport.com.

Revenge story with humor

Before you get to the fifth page of text, it will become apparent that you haven’t yet encountered a period. Don’t be put off by that. Curt Leviant’s King of Yiddish (Livingston Press, 2015) is a page-turner. It is a comedic tour de force, interspersed with a detective story that will have you following Shmulik Gafni through Poland in an obsessive pursuit. He is hunting the man he witnessed murdering his father and uncle in Kielce, Poland, a pogrom that occurred 14 months after the end of the Second World War.

Shmulik is described as an “overlyfull professor” of Yiddish at the fictional University of Israel in Jerusalem. The pogrom in Kielce is a well-known tragedy that did occur, but Leviant’s fertile imagination weaves an original tapestry from that terrible time and place.

So, where’s the comedy? The humor centres around a basic human failing: men will be men, and Shmulik falls under the spell of Malina, a Polish Catholic linguist determined to become proficient in Yiddish. She also happens to be half Shmulik’s age and is unbelievably beautiful and well built. Malina is his second obsession.

The two stories, solving his father’s murder and getting to the bottom (and the top) of Malina, are interspersed narratives that keep you guessing and entertained. Along the way, the reader encounters a Chassidic un-kosher kidnapping that goes awry (imagine the Marx brothers in black hats) and a bris (kosher or not depending on whether you are Orthodox or Reform) that are grist for Leviant’s mill of linguistic tomfoolery. You meet other academics, letting you in on university rivalries and gossip. Believe it or not, but a cookie with an incredible miniature topping in a Vienna café is an important character in the plot development that might have been written by Kafka, Borges or Nabokov, but it is pure Leviant, plying his considerable art as a fabulist.

Leviant also steps outside the narrative and talks to the reader. At one point, the author says you can skip a chapter. Take my advice: keep reading. As you join Gafni in his quest for justice, you will also find allusions to previous works by Leviant. These, he jokingly attributes to famous Hebrew and Yiddish writers, telling us that other colleagues translated those books. One of these is the Icelandic writer, C. Urtl Eviant, a self-referential invention who also plays a role in King of Yiddish.

Considering all the word play in English, Yiddish and Hebrew, my favorite occurs when a colleague of Shmulik’s is calling 911. He tells the operator he is a linguist with the City University of New York. Propriety in a family publication requires you figure it out for yourself. Revealing any of the other plot twists would spoil the fun.

If you have read Leviant’s other critically acclaimed fiction, you will catch many of the references here. If you haven’t, you may want to back up and read some of his earlier novels. The Yemenite Girl, The Man Who Thought He Was Messiah and Diary of an Adulterous Woman are good places to start. He has produced a body of work that has been widely translated throughout Europe.

John Irving has written that he always composes the last few sentences of his novels before he begins page one. Leviant must have done this with his novel. For those of you who like to look at the end of a book before you begin … please resist. King of Yiddish is a gripping narrative that will fascinate you from the opening paragraph to its surprising last.

Sidney Kessler is a freelance writer in Glen Allen, Va. His most recent articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

From nonsense, knowledge

To help readers remember what they learn, Hilarious Hebrew uses silly sentences and illustrations. (all images from Hilarious Hebrew)

“The poor monkey has a cough.” “If you’re feeling sleepy, let the lights dim, yawn and let your imagination run free.”

Through such silly sentences, readers of Hilarious Hebrew: The Fun and Fast Way to Learn the Language (Pitango Publishing) learn that, in Hebrew, the word for monkey is kof (pronounced similarly to cough) and that imagination is dim’yon (pronounced dim, yawn). If the context of the sentences isn’t enough, the illustrations should ensure you remember.

“The method in Hilarious Hebrew is aimed at teaching vocabulary rather than whole sentences because the whole point of it is to teach a Hebrew word in the context of a sentence in English that would convey the pronunciation and the meaning of the new word (in Hebrew) through a familiar, easy context (in English),” explained Hebrew teacher Yael Breuer, who co-authored the book with musician Eyal Shavit.

The writing duo is continually coming up with new teaching phrases, which they often post on the book’s Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter accounts, said Breuer.

“I’ve used the method over the years with my Hebrew students and classes and knew that the method worked well – the words stuck in the students’ minds! – and that it added an element of fun to the lessons.”

And her testing ground has been extensive. The longtime teacher has worked with a wide variety of students: “people with family members in Israel, people who planned to visit Israel, partners of Israelis who want to learn some Hebrew, people converting to Judaism, a vicar, nuns – a real interesting mix,” she said.

About the book’s origins, Breuer said she shared a list of 20 to 30 sentences that she used regularly in teaching with Shavit, who is also an Israeli expat living in Brighton, England.

“Eyal loved the idea so much and started making up new sentences and texting them to me to make me laugh. I started reciprocating with new sentences that I would make up and, for awhile, we were just making up sentences for our own amusement. A few months down the line, however, when I realized that there were about 300 sentences that taught a variety of Hebrew words from various fields and at all levels, I suggested to Eyal that we share the resource – and that’s how the idea of the book came about.

“It took us about a year from conception to publication,” she continued. “We did not approach a publisher, as we knew how we wanted the book to look and feel. It was a long and rather hard process at times, and we would regularly spend hours rewriting one sentence so that it taught the Hebrew word in the best possible way. We also had to liaise with designers, find the right illustrator, choose the right printers and make many decisions, but we completed the process, are getting fantastic feedback and are very pleased with the result!”

An important part of the book’s appeal is the drawings by cartoonist, writer and illustrator Aubrey Smith, who has contributed his art to several books and also has written How to Build a Robot with Your Dad and Screw It, both published by Michael O’Mara Books.

In addition to teaching Modern Hebrew, Breuer writes for the Jewish Chronicle; she also has had her articles on British culture published in Israeli newspapers Haaretz and Maariv. From Rehovot, Breuer moved to Brighton 27 years ago, she said. “My husband, David, is English and, although he is originally from London, he already lived in Brighton when I met him.”

Shavit, who is from Kibbutz Kfar Szold in northern Israel, has been in Brighton for nine years. “He was working elsewhere in the U.K. but someone recommended Brighton as a vibrant and arty place where he could pursue his music career, so he came here and stayed,” said Breuer. “He studied music in Brighton and has been making a living as a musician (plays the guitar and sings) ever since.”

The two friends met fellow Brightoner Smith, who is English, “by pure chance through my neighbor, Dave,” explained Breuer. “As soon as we saw his wonderful, humorous style, we knew that he was the one. Aubrey has never had a connection to Judaism or Hebrew but, through illustrating the book, he himself learned some Hebrew words and would sometimes use them in his emails to us, which was another proof that the method works!”

The Jewish community in Brighton is a few thousand strong, said Breuer, with “four active synagogues – two Orthodox, a Reform and a Progressive, and a Chabad branch, too. There is a small community of a few dozen Israelis but it is a vibrant one – we meet regularly in a pub in Brighton, celebrate festivals together and keep in touch. Many of the Israelis here and their English-speaking partners or children have been our ‘guinea pigs’ when writing the book and their feedback helped us tremendously.”

Hilarious Hebrew is available at hilarioushebrew.com, some bookshops and gift stores and also on Amazon.

Life legacies in writing

“I am now face to face with dying, but I am not finished with living,” writes Oliver Sacks as the dedication to Gratitude (Knopf Canada, 2015), a collection of four essays that were written in the two years preceding his death last August.

“I have given much of my life to the Jewish world, and I wish I had many more years to serve this noble calling,” writes Edgar Bronfman in concluding his book Why Be Jewish? A Testament (Signal, 2016), which he completed mere weeks before his death in December 2013.

Bronfman continues, “But everything has its natural end, and so now, as my time on earth draws to a close, I would thank my stars even more if you would choose to stand at Sinai; if you would choose, as I did so many years ago, to join this remarkable people who generation after generation held fast to the dream that through our individual and collective efforts we could transform the troubled world we share into a more perfect, more humane, more civilized place.”

Even though he became intrigued with Judaism late in life, Bronfman still defined himself as secular, “not comfortable” calling himself an atheist “in the face of the complexity of the universe.” He had a connection to Judaism through his grandfather, but it was weak. “My parents,” he writes, “for whatever reason, failed to instil much-needed Jewish pride in their children.”

Sacks was a self-described atheist. For him, it was his mother’s strongly negative reaction to the news of his homosexuality that pushed him away from belief: “The matter was never mentioned again, but her harsh words made me hate religion’s capacity for bigotry and cruelty,” he writes.

book cover - Gratitude However, the final essay in Sacks’ Gratitude is called “Sabbath.” In it, he recalls his parents’ observance of Shabbat, a day that “was entirely different from the rest of the week.” He recalls how the family would mark the day, how he became bar mitzvah, his break with his family and community in England after he qualified as a doctor and moved to Los Angeles, his “near-suicidal addiction to amphetamines,” his recovery and how he “became a storyteller at a time when medical narrative was almost extinct.” In addition to being a neurologist, most readers know, Sacks was an author – he wrote more than a dozen books, including Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other Clinical Tales and An Anthropologist on Mars.

Sacks comes to appreciate Shabbat: “And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life – achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.”

Gratitude is a short but powerful collection. It is masterfully written and nearly impossible to get through without crying. All of the essays have been published before, but having them together for re-reading, rethinking and re-feeling is more than worthwhile. Every read will be a cathartic experience.

The first essay, “Mercury,” was written just before Sacks’ 80th birthday in July 2013. In it, he talks about what it feels like to be turning 80, some of his regrets, but mostly how much he has left to do, “freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.”

“My Own Life” is named after the autobiography of one of Sacks’ favorite philosophers, David Hume. Sacks shares a couple of paragraphs from that 1776 work, using it to lead into a discussion of his own state of mind. “My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself.” While not without fear, he writes, “my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written.”

In the third of the four essays, “My Periodic Table,” Sacks talks of his love of the physical sciences and how, since “death is no longer an abstract concept, but a presence,” he is surrounding himself again, as he did when he was a boy, “with metals and minerals, little emblems of eternity.” On his writing table is a gift from friends for his 81st birthday, thallium, as well as lead, for his recently celebrated 82nd birthday. After discussing the treatment of his cancer, he expresses his skepticism about reaching 83, his bismuth birthday. He did, indeed, pass away at 82.

book cover - Why Be Jewish? Bronfman died at 84. It is particularly fitting to be discussing his book Why Be Jewish? as Passover nears. Two of the nine chapters are directly related to the holiday: Chapter 8 is about its rituals, the story, the symbolic aspects, its importance, while Chapter 9 presents the principles and practices of leadership as demonstrated by Moses – not Moses the manager, but rather, “Moses the man who, as flawed as he was, executed brilliant strategies that ultimately transformed much of the world. These principles are also relevant to everyday leadership, from parenting to day-to-day responsibilities at work.”

There are many lessons Bronfman derives from Moses and the Exodus story. Good leadership involves standing up for something, perseverance, vision, pragmatism, courage, celebration of accomplishment, allowing opinions (even complaints, perhaps especially complaints), awareness of one’s strengths and shortcomings, adherence to a moral code, the duty to pass the mantle. He doesn’t believe that Moses’ non-admittance into the Promised Land was a punishment – instead, from Mount Nebo, Moses is permitted to see the entire Promised Land, “God is showing Moses the future that is really what most leaders want: they want to know that their dreams and vision will live on.”

Bronfman notes about the Torah’s last word, Israel: “It seems to me that we are being told that the commitment to Israel – the people – must be the focus, not Moses. And since ‘Israel’ means wrestling with God, the Torah also seems to charge the Jewish people with the task of ‘wrestling,’ a term I take to mean a commitment to struggling with that which we find difficult to embrace and not letting go until we find the truths we seek.”

In another chapter – on the rest of the Jewish holidays – Bronfman writes that he “would like to see the institution of Yom Ha’atzmaut Circles in synagogues and communities where Jews of multiple views could come together to discuss books that put forth different ideas on Israel’s situation, from Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel to David Grossman’s novel To the End of the Land.”

He also talks of Shabbat, referring to the group Reboot, “a network of young, creative Jews who have sought ways to grapple with questions of Jewish identity and community in terms that will be meaningful to their generation….” He gives examples of other youth who are engaged in a meaningful Jewish life and the book’s foreword is written by Angela Warnick Buchdahl, who was a Bronfman Fellow in Israel in 1989. The program for high school juniors was founded by Bronfman, former chief executive officer of Seagram Co. Ltd., who also was chair of the board of governors of Hillel International and president of World Jewish Congress. Bronfman has written other books, including The Bronfman Haggadah with his wife, artist Jan Aronson.

The goal of Why Be Jewish? is to encourage nonreligious Jews – especially the younger generation – to practise the elements of Judaism that speak to them, and it is written to that audience. He touches upon all the basics of Judaism from the perspective that, “Judaism does not demand belief. Instead, it asks us to practise intense behaviors whose purpose is to perfect ourselves and the world.”

Bronfman’s approach is appealing in many ways, and he offers practical advice for the non-observant on how to connect with Judaism’s tenets and traditions. Even for the somewhat-observant Jew, many of his ideas will be interesting. His outlook is positive and well conceived. It is also inclusive.

He writes, “My own feeling is that Judaism is a big family of individuals with a common bond that has stayed strong through a long history and much hardship. Those who want to become part of this story are Jews, too. I believe the tent should be open and welcoming to anyone who wishes to join.

“For younger Jews today, choosing a particular ethnicity or culture may seem too narrow a form of self-identification. But I do not see Judaism as a form of tribalism that divides rather than unites. The Jewish people are one of the many vibrant patches on the richly diverse quilt of humanity. Each patch has its own design and, together, they make a beautiful whole. Embracing your heritage deepens your understanding of who you are and where you come from and brings you into a more meaningful relationship with the multicultural world.”

A loveless family saga

A powerful family saga, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (Thomas Dunne Books, 2016) by Sarit Yishai-Levi is brutally honest. It starts with the narrator, Gabriela, talking about her childhood in 1950s Jerusalem. Her relationship with her mother, Luna, is strained at best; more accurately, a mutual aversion. Luna is a dismal mother and a horrid wife, a cold, spiteful woman. Disliking her immensely, I wanted to know what happened to Gabriela, but the book didn’t go in that direction.

Instead of moving the action forward, the author goes back in time, almost to the banishment of the Jews from Spain. From there, she follows several generations of the Ermosas, a family of merchants in Jerusalem. The story that emerges is an anatomy of animus, a fictional dissertation on the topic of what happens to people who deny love – because they all deny it.

Rafael doesn’t love his wife Mercada. He married her at the behest of his mother, an obedient Jewish son doing his duty, while his heart belonged to another for all of his life. He doesn’t allow himself even to acknowledge his torn soul, but his unloving marriage poisons the family for generations to come. Some describe it as a curse, and Mercada becomes a bitter, hateful woman.

When Mercada and Rafael’s sunny-natured son Gabriel falls in love with a woman not approved by his family, his mother punishes him by marrying him off to the worst bride she can find. She ruthlessly ruins her son’s life and never regrets it.

The curse passes on to Rosa, Gabriel’s wife and one of the few nice characters in the book. Rosa is not beautiful or educated. Poor and orphaned when she was young, she took care of her younger brother from the age of 10. She is kind, with a heart full of emotions she doesn’t know how to express. She would have loved Gabriel, if he were even a little bit willing, a tad more tolerant of her faults, but instead, Gabriel despises her. No matter how hard Rosa tries, Gabriel doesn’t accept her, and his antipathy fills his life with venom and sadness.

Of course, their daughter Luna, born of such a union, doesn’t know how to love at all. The most beautiful woman in Jerusalem, the beauty queen of the title, Luna is frigid and uncaring. She adores clothing and makeup but the only person she truly loves is herself. Repulsed by her husband’s touch, she hates his sexual advances. She doesn’t even try to understand his pains or his interests, and her treatment of their young daughter is cruel. She is a horrible character but, for some reason, the author dedicates most of the book to her. Perhaps she was exploring Luna as the embodiment of self-absorption, but there is little or no pleasure in reading these ruminations.

Only in the last fifth of the book does the story return to Gabriela, showing how hard it was for her to break the curse, to learn to love. Forgiveness, like love, is something the Ermosa family lacked, too, and it takes Gabriela years of self-hatred to even grasp the concept.

Overall, none of the major players in the tale is likable, and it’s difficult to understand their stubborn resistance to love. This difficulty colored my perception of the novel as a whole, and I didn’t enjoy the jumps back and forth in time either. They made the story feel like a jigsaw puzzle, and even when I assembled the entire picture, the squiggly lines between the tiles were blurry.

Fortunately, the Ermosa family drama unfolded on the background of Israeli history, and the historical aspect of this book was fascinating. The Turkish rule of Palestine and the British Mandate, the Zionist movement and the Declaration of Independence, the war of 1948 and the siege of Jerusalem by the Arabs – the Ermosa family lived through it all.

They lived through the Holocaust, never even noticing it. While Jews died by the millions in Europe, the Ermosas’ petty concerns focused on their small shop and their unloving spouses. While the Etzel (aka the Irgun) unleashed bloody terror on the British, with constant bombings and shootings, the Ermosas only cared about their personal safety and their neighbors’ approval.

Some of the younger generation, Luna’s sisters in particular, try to participate, but never Luna or her parents. Gabriel forbids his daughters anything nontraditional, and filial obedience was mandatory in this family of narrow-minded people who didn’t know how to love.

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem was originally published in 2013 in Hebrew. The English version was translated by Anthony Berris.

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

Secrets from best chefs

Leah Schapira and Victoria Dwek work together often. Instalments of their Made Easy cookbook series have been featured in the Jewish Independent, with positive reviews. And now, the pair have co-authored Everyday Secret Restaurant Recipes (ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, 2015).

Here are not just 103 recipes, but they all come from restaurants, many from across the United States, but also from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Israel, Panama, Thailand and Uruguay. For each recipe, there is information on the restaurant, a large introduction and photo(s), ingredients, instructions, tidbits or hints for the home cook, and sometimes comments from the chef.

There is also an essay on kosher food trends by Elan Kornblum, founder of Great Kosher Restaurants Magazine, and an interview with him, followed by some basics that prep cooks do. Another essay covers the topic of sweets in the prep kitchen, and yet another, the smoking of foods.

There are 21 starters and sides, like avocado egg rolls from Bocca Steakhouse in Los Angeles; 16 soups and salads, such as a green salad from Milk N Honey in Melbourne; 12 sandwiches, including Philly steak sandwich from Retro Grill in Brooklyn; 17 chicken and meat recipes, such as gong bao chicken from Dini’s in Beijing; 10 fish recipes, like a salmon from Fresko in Aventura, Fla.; 14 brunch and lunch suggestions, including fettuccine with pesto from Deleite in Rio de Janeiro; and 12 baked goods and desserts, such as a halva from Lula by Darna in Panama City.

There are 148 mouth-watering color photographs, both full-page and stamp-size. Whereas a previous version of the cookbook focused on upscale restaurants, this cookbook’s subtitle is “From Your Favorite Kosher Cafés, Takeouts & Restaurants.”

If you know someone who enjoys traveling and eating, or just trying new recipes, this would make a great gift. The cookbook is more than just recipes, it is also a wealth of information.

ARTICHOKES, ROMAN-STYLE
Tevere 84, New York City, Lattanzi brothers (owners/chefs)

6 medium or 2 pounds baby artichokes
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
additional oil for frying
12 minced garlic cloves
sea salt

Cut off the top of each artichoke just above the middle. Remove some of the outer leaves and the interior immature and hair-like leaves.
Using a peeler, peel the stems of each artichoke.
In a bowl, toss artichokes with lemon juice.
Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add garlic. Add artichokes and sprinkle with sea salt. Cook, side by side, stem side up. Cook until artichokes are tender, turning several times for overall browning, 15-20 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, press each artichoke firmly to the bottom of the pan so that the leaves flatten out. Cook for 10 minutes. (Optionally, for very soft and hot artichokes, you can also transfer to the oven and bake at 400˚F for an additional 10 minutes.
Before serving, heat additional oil in a sauté pan. Flatten artichokes to the flower shape and fry for two to four minutes before serving. Makes one to two servings.

ISRAELI BREAKFAST
Café Tamara, Jerusalem Technology Park, Ohad Vansuv (chef)

2 finely diced Persian cucumbers
2 finely diced tomatoes
1/2 finely diced red onion
handful chopped parsley
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
salt to taste
pepper to taste
olive oil for frying
4 beaten eggs
1 tbsp preserved lemon/lemon spread
1 tbsp harissa
1 cup yogurt
2 tbsp tahini

In a bowl, combine cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.
Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add eggs, preserved lemon, harissa, salt and pepper. Scramble eggs until cooked.
Place salad onto a plate. Top with eggs, yogurt and tahini. Garnish with parsley. Makes two servings. Serve immediately.

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.

Jungle comes to the city

Luc Roderique as Shere Khan and Camille Legg as Mowgli in Carousel Theatre for Young People’s The Jungle Book. (photo by Tim Matheson)

This month, Carousel Theatre for Young People presents The Jungle Book, the musical adaptation of the classic story by Rudyard Kipling. For the production at Waterfront Theatre, which opens April 17, local Jewish community member Anton Lipovetsky takes on the role of sound designer and additional music.

The Studio 58 alumnus is no stranger to the Vancouver performing arts scene. Lipovetsky has worked as an actor for many local companies since graduating from the Studio 58 acting training program in 2011. “Now I spend about half my year working as an actor,” he said, noting that he’ll be joining the cast of Bard on the Beach again this summer, “and, roughly, the other half creating music and musical directing for local theatrical productions.”

He approaches each project in a different way.

“I try to be as prepared as possible for theatre gigs, but, especially if I’m in a designing role or leadership role like musical director, I have to make more decisions, and make them earlier, and those decisions will affect more people. I suppose there’s more pressure at the beginning. But then, unlike performing, as rehearsals get underway, I’ll become more and more hands-off, showing trust to the performers, creative team and crew,” he said.

Lipovetsky does not remember one exact moment when he realized he possessed a talent for composing and sound design. Rather, he noted that he has been playing the guitar and writing music his entire life, and music naturally worked its way into his career.

“I’ve been singing and writing songs for as long as I can remember,” he said. “I fell in love with theatre in high school (I had great teachers). Then, through my training at Studio 58, I learned how multi-disciplined a theatre artist can be. I’m always looking for new ways to challenge myself as a creator.”

Regarding his latest endeavor, The Jungle Book, Lipovetsky said there are inherent nuances when working on an adaptation, but there is always room for further expression.

“There’s always a degree of pressure when dealing with any story as beloved as The Jungle Book, but I think [director] Kayla Dunbar’s innovative concept will allow audiences to approach the show from a new angle.… The adaptation, written by Tracey Power, comes with some great tunes by Tracey and her collaborator Steve Charles, and encouragement to create jungle soundscapes and rhythms. I will be working with the fabulous percussionist Todd Biffard to devise a score played through traditional Indian instruments, like the tabla and dhol.”

Given that Carousel Theatre is geared towards youth – on, behind and in front of the stage – it is expected that much of the audience will be made up of children. Parents should note, however, that the theatre company recommends that viewers be 6 years old at least, as “[t]here are some intense moments and strong themes, with characters in the play dealing with topics that include hatred, prejudice, killing and death.”

Aware of who the audience will be, Lipovetsky said, “The most important value for me in this process is making sure the sound/music is clear for the youth and economical (not too long!). I do think the sound/music is going to elicit a big range of emotions from the youth … we will definitely mine the comedy, but we’ll search for dramatic depth, as well. Keeping the stakes high is important to a discerning young audience.”

The Jungle Book is, above all, a story of finding empathy and acceptance in the face of prejudice and intolerance.

“I think everybody feels like an outsider at some point in their childhood,” said Lipovetsky. “Jewish children may feel that especially because of how small the Jewish population is; they may feel underrepresented. Mowgli is treated like family by Baloo and the wolves, even though he is so different from them. Because of this kindness, Mowgli learns integrity, ultimately connecting with his roots and becoming a hero. I hope children root for him! And I also hope they want to be like Baloo in their own lives … compassionate and helpful to others.”

Lipovetsky believes that the story of The Jungle Book serves to emphasize that it is often through unlikely connections with those who may be different to us that we are able to become better ourselves.

With respect to how theatre can transmit values and offer guidance for how to approach life, Lipovetsky said, “What I have found is that art helps me to better understand others and better understand myself. I think understanding is more powerful than tolerance.”

The Carousel Theatre for Young People production opens April 17, just two days after Disney’s The Jungle Book remake hits movie theatres. Lipovetsky called it “the spring of The Jungle Book” and believes the movie will help the play’s success.

For tickets to The Jungle Book, which runs Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m., until May 1, visit carouseltheatre.ca.

Brittni Jacobson is a freelance writer living in Toronto.

Is life all about luck?

Colleen Wheeler and Scott Bellis in Good People. (photo by Emily Cooper)

It’s always a treat to see Colleen Wheeler on stage, as her performances never disappoint. And she keeps the track record going in Good People at the Arts Club. However, the overall feel I came away with after the play didn’t match the level of enjoyment I had for the acting.

Wheeler plays Margaret, a feisty, mile-a-minute talker who can finagle her way into anything, except work.

Living in South Boston, a dense, lower-class neighborhood, Marg blames her situation on bad luck – growing up without the guidance of parents, not being able to go to a better school or get a better job. She fears she will end up like former classmate Cookie McDermot, an alcoholic living on the street.

As the play opens, Marg is being fired from a cashier’s job at a dollar store after coming late several times. The single mother is often late because she has to tend to a daughter who has mental health issues – a daughter for whom she gets no child support and who may or may not be the child of a former high school flame.

She commiserates about life over McCafés in bingo parlors with her friend Jeanne (Jenn Griffin), former supervisor Stevie (Ben Elliott) and landlord Dottie (Patti Allan), who is supposed to watch Marg’s daughter but often forgets to show up. One day, Jeanne mentions that she ran into Mike, an old boyfriend of Marg’s who has become a doctor, so Marg sets out to talk her way into a job.

Within minutes of walking into Mike’s office, she profanely insults his secretary and comments on her physical appearance. She insults Mike himself, saying he’s not a “Southie” anymore, that he now lives “lace curtain.” And she passive-aggressively follows up every abuse with the disclaimer, “Awww, I’m just bustin’ your balls.”

Despite all of this, her mastery at twisting Mike’s words and actually making him feel guilty for the altercations get her invited to an upcoming party. When Mike calls her later that week to cancel because his daughter is sick, Marg begins to think he doesn’t want her to attend – and goes anyway. It is in this scene where Marg, Mike and his wife, Kate, face one another that the skeletons of the past are unleashed.

It starts out as a respectful interaction, with Kate being the gracious host, despite Marg’s rough demeanor and colorful language.

“How’s the wine?” Kate politely asks.

“How the f–– should I know?” Marg retorts, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of the question.

But the discussion deteriorates, as expected, as Mike tries desperately to get Marg to leave. When details of past affairs and questions of “Who’s the baby’s father?” come up, Marg pulls out the claws and tries to tear strips off Mike, lashing out at him for having had the luck he needed to rise out of the South End, the luck to have parents who pushed him, the luck never to have to really struggle.

In much of the play, we are listening to people arguing, complaining and name-calling, which gets tedious. At one level, Marg is a likeable, even inspirational, character. Consider how often we pretend to be aficionados of art or wine or food, just to be accepted. Marg makes no apologies for not knowing how wine should taste.

But, for most of the play, Marg is insufferable. Her constant stream of talking is exhausting. She resorts to, “I’m just bustin’ your balls,” to cover up insults based on her true feelings. And she is stuck blaming everyone and everything around her for her situation. We should be provoked into asking ourselves, how much does luck actually play in success in life? The problem was, I didn’t care by the end, and I think it’s because I just disliked Marg.

However, I did like the set. Wonderfully thought out and detailed, the modular rooms rotate into, out of and around the stage, with beautiful precision. You could hear the audience’s “oohs” and “aahs” as the curtain rose on the second act.

Good People was written by David Lindsay-Abaire and is directed by Rachel Ditor. It runs until April 24 at the Stanley (artsclub.com).

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