Arts & Culture

Film festival starts next week

Jackie Tohn, left, and Sarah Podemski play longtime best friends Nomi and Mara in The Floaters. (still from film)

The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival opens on April 30 with the award-winning The Ring (Israel/Hungary) and closes on May 10 with the multiple-award-winning Once Upon My Mother (France/ Canada). In between, there are more than two dozen films from several other countries, most of which have been recognized with honours.

Among the offerings at this year’s festival are two locally produced documentaries that the Jewish Independent has reviewed previously: Becky Wosk’s One Thread (jewishindependent.ca/different-but-connected) and Kai Balin’s Son of a Seeker (jewishindependent.ca/sharing-a-personal-journey). Each young filmmaker engagingly investigates, in different ways, what it means to be Jewish. Both docs screen on May 3.

Also screening on May 3 is the American film The Floaters. Leading the cast are Jackie Tohn (Nobody Wants This) and Sarah Podemski (Reservation Dogs) as longtime best friends Nomi, a struggling musician, and Mara, a struggling Jewish summer camp director. When Mara finds herself a counselor short at the last minute, she asks Nomi, who just got fired from her own band, to step in. Reluctantly, Nomi agrees and Mara puts her in charge of a group of teens who don’t fit in at camp for various reasons and who didn’t sign up for any activities – hence, they are “floaters.”

Directionless in life herself, Nomi proves an apt mentor to these lost kids. She learns from them, they learn from her. Nomi and Mara’s friendship is put to the test, the kids are put to a test. It’s a charming movie, with plenty of laughs, that, thankfully, doesn’t resort to crude gags, though a malfunctioning septic tank does add a lightly gross element.

The Floaters is a coming-of-age film about friendship and second chances, firmly rooted in Jewish traditions, from Orthodox to secular, featuring characters who are Jews by birth and Jews by choice. It has a John Hughes-esque feel and a few actors who were popular in the 1980s/1990s have supporting roles. But director Rachel Israel makes the film her own, and Nomi, Mara and the young misfits are at the movie’s heart.

image - Ruth (Niv Sultan) organizes an unorthodox picnic date for her and Baruch (Maor Schwitzer) in Matchmaking 2 — Ruth (Niv Sultan) organizes an unorthodox picnic date for her and Baruch (Maor Schwitzer) in Matchmaking 2. *(still from film)*

Matchmaking 2 (Israel), which screens on May 5, also has a misfit at its heart. Many of the actors from the first movie reprise their roles, including Maor Schwitzer as Baruch Auerbach, a former rising star scholar in his ultra-Orthodox community, now in his late 20s and yet to find a wife. There is no need to have seen the first movie to fully enjoy its sequel. The characters are likeable and, even when Baruch acts like an idiot, you still cheer for him and hope that he’ll find his match.

While Matchmaking 2 gives viewers a glimpse into the cultural differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and into the ultra-Orthodox shidduch (matchmaking) system, it is mainly a rom-com. As The Floaters does, the movie celebrates Judaism and Jewish life with humour, tenderness and respect.

As entertaining, in a completely different way, is the documentary The Stamp Thief (United States/ Poland/Germany), which screens May 7.

The Stamp Thief, produced/directed by Dan Sturman, is fascinating on many fronts. The filmmakers make a potentially convoluted detective story into an easy-to-follow “page-turner” and there are a few moments where you’ll find yourself holding your breath. There are also many moments – well after the film – where you’ll be thinking about humanity’s capacity for doing good and evil, intergenerational trauma, generational responsibility, and many other issues.

photo - Dan Sturman, left, Dylan Nelson and Gary Gilbert in front of the building in Poland, where the stolen stamps were buried in 1945 — Dan Sturman, left, Dylan Nelson and Gary Gilbert in front of the building in Poland, where the stolen stamps were buried in 1945. *(photo from Boxhead Films)*

In The Stamp Thief, it’s refreshing how open the filmmakers are about the morality of what they’re trying to do – steal back for the Jewish community some rare stamps that were stolen by a Nazi officer whose task was to catalogue and appraise the possessions being stolen from Jews entering Auschwitz. The conversations between producer/writer Gary Gilbert and his family are uplifting, even as his family questions his motives and actions, because that’s what loved ones should do – be supportive but not uncritically so.

The story behind the filmmakers’ quest came from screenwriter David Weisberg’s father, who was a psychiatrist. His dad had a patient in the 1970s who was married to the daughter of a former Nazi. The patient revealed that his father-in-law had buried a case of stolen stamps in the basement of his home in Legnica, which was part of Germany until 1945, but is now in Poland.

Weisberg had no desire to return to Poland, but his friend Gilbert was game, and Gilbert had a plan – one based on an elaborate “fake movie” scheme that Weisberg’s father had

drawn up in the ’70s. Sturman would direct a fake film, giving him, Gilbert, producer Dylan Nelson and their handpicked team a non-controversial reason to explore the former Nazi’s apartment building. The help they receive from Polish film professional Sylwia Szczechowicz-Warszewska is moving, and the resulting documentary is compelling.

The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival runs April 30-May 8 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, which is a 19+ venue, and concludes on May 10 at the Rothstein Theatre with a few films. For the full lineup and tickets, go to vjff.org.

Musical with heart and soul

Left to right: Josh Epstein, Lisa Horner, Steffanie Davis and Madeleine Suddaby in the Arts Club Theatre Company’s production of Kimberly Akimbo, now at the Stanley until May 3. (photo by Moonrider Productions for Arts Club)

High school is a time of often-volatile highs and lows, joys and sorrows. Now, imagine you are 16 years old but look 72 because you have a disease that ages you faster than normal – a disease that limits your life expectancy to your teens. How do you cope with the stresses of having to pack a lifetime into a few short years while dealing with an über-dysfunctional family?

This is the premise of the quirky Tony Award-winning musical Kimberly Akimbo (best musical, 2023) now at the Stanley Theatre to May 3, presented by the Arts Club. This is not your traditional big-cast musical with toe-tapping songs you sing on the way out of the theatre. With a cast of only nine, Kimberly Akimbo is a layered and nuanced look at who and what we are as humans. Although it takes time to get into the story, the reward comes at the end.

Kimberly Levaco’s family has just moved to small-town New Jersey and she is starting in a new school. The curtain rises on Skater’s Planet, where four Breakfast Club-type misfits (with assorted gender identification and unrequited love issues) are planning ways to raise money to buy school choir costumes. Tuba-playing, nerdy Seth (Jason Sakaki) works behind the counter and is obsessed with anagrams. Enter new-kid-on-the-block Kimberly (Lisa Horner) and cue the teenage politics and romantic possibilities.

Kimberly’s blue-collar family is made up of alcoholic father Buddy (Jewish community member Josh Epstein); narcissist, hypochondriac mother Pattie (Steffanie Davis); and bombastic in-your-face Aunt Debra (Madeleine Suddaby), an ex-con on parole who devises a mail fraud scheme into which she ropes her niece and her niece’s chums.

Horner, who’s in her 50s, has the daunting task of playing Kimberly, an angst-ridden teen in an adult in body – though, when with her family, Kimberly is the only adult in the room. Horner does a terrific job in this role reversal, and she can sing too! At the end of the day, the characters, as flawed as they are – and they are flawed – are likeable, as they grapple with their trials and tribulations. The message: life is finite, so seize the day.

While the songs are not that memorable, Suddaby and Davis can really belt them out. Epstein pleases with two solos and demonstrates some nifty moves in the skating scenes, as do the rest of the cast – kudos to choreographer Shelley Stewart Hunt.

On the design end, the curtain opens on a stark set featuring steel girders and battered school lockers, yet transitions easily from the skating rink to the Levaco home to the school library to the colourful Sweet 16 party and ultimate road trip, the latter backed by large-scale projections. Jewish community member Itai Erdal’s lighting design runs the spectrum to complement each of the changes. To complete the 1990s atmosphere, costumer Stephanie Kong has the teens decked out in grunge and the adults in Value Village-type garb.

Epstein shared his feelings on the show in an email interview.

JI: What drew you to audition?

JE: It’s really an acting role that just happens to live inside a musical, which is my sweet spot. I’ve also loved David Lindsay-Abaire’s writing forever. He has this stream-of-consciousness, offbeat style that I’m really drawn to.

JI: How would you describe your role?

JE: I see him as a deeply loving dad who just doesn’t have the tools or capacity to show up the way he should. He’s overwhelmed, a bit lost in his own fear and vices, and trying to hold onto joy while knowing time isn’t on his side.

JI: What is the message for audiences?

JE: We’re all on a clock, whether we think about it or not, and this show gently forces you to face that. It’s about how beautiful life becomes when you really understand how limited and rare it is.

JI: As far as musicals go, and you have been in many, how would you rank this one in terms of the music, lyrics and choreography?

JE: It’s incredibly smart. Everything has to be precise for it to land and, when it does, it’s kind of genius. The writing, music and movement all support these beautifully strange, nuanced characters in a way you don’t see very often.

JI: What is the energy like with your fellow cast members?

JE: We genuinely love each other and it shows. We’re having a blast even when the material gets dark. There’s a real sense of trust and play, which you need for a show this zany and heartfelt.

JI: Why should people come and see the production?

JE: It’s one of those weird, wonderful shows that only works because it’s so specific and honest, it’ll surprise you, make you laugh, and hit you harder than you expect. Plus, it’s a Tony-winning piece that doesn’t feel like anything else out there, brought to life by an incredible local cast.

For tickets, go to artsclub.com or call 604-687-1644.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Different but connected

Jews are not a homogeneous group in ritual, beliefs, thought or experience. We are diverse, coming from many different places, speaking countless languages, putting our unique spins on food, music and other cultural aspects. We are both a religion and a nation. Yet, despite the differences, we are connected to one another in myriad ways, linked by shared ancestry and core values, as well as by external forces that, all too often, are hostile.

“The documentary you are about to watch highlights the resilience and unity of the Jewish people, surviving thousands of years of persecution, violence and dispersion while staying connected, hopeful and shining light in the darkest times,” narrates Becky Wosk at the beginning of her film One Thread, which screens May 3, 1 p.m., at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, as part of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.

screenshot - Becky Wosk’s documentary One Thread, which highlights the BC Jewish community, screens May 3 as part of this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs April 30-May 10 — Becky Wosk’s documentary *One Thread*, which highlights the BC Jewish community, screens May 3 as part of this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs April 30-May 10. *(screenshot from Instagram)*

The documentary is a reminder that, while there are so many reasons to be proud of being Canadian, many (most?) immigrants to Canada, Jews included, have come here from somewhere else not so much by choice, but because of adverse conditions in their home country. We must also remember that Canada has not always been a welcoming place for newcomers or, of course, for the peoples who were here before any Europeans arrived. Sometimes, Canada has completely closed its doors, as in the case of Jews fleeing the Holocaust on the MS St. Louis in 1939.

In One Thread, Wosk interviews 15 members of the BC Jewish community. They share brief overviews of their family histories, how they ended up in British Columbia. Most of their ancestors were fleeing persecution or arrived as a survivor of it. Their families sometimes traveled via other countries or provinces before settling here.

Wosk asks interviewees what being Jewish means to them, what they wish non-Jews knew about Jews and Judaism, their favourite parts about being Jewish, and other questions. The answers are both similar and different. They offer a glimpse into the challenges and joys of being Jewish.

Wosk has done a masterful job at editing some nine hours of interview recordings into a 42-minute documentary that includes some wonderful archival footage and photographs. She lets viewers know that Jews are roughly 0.9% of the Canadian population (2021 data) and 0.2% of the global population (2023). She bookends the film with two quotes that reinforce her themes of resilience, unity and hope, and she highlights Canada’s message to Jews wanting to come here after the Holocaust: “None is too many.” But, mostly, she lets her interviewees tell the story.

“I was a student in the Langara film arts program (directing stream) and the head of the program, Jonas Quastel, sent me the application for the Earl Parker Award for Jewish Film via the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival,” Wosk told the Independent about the film’s origins. “I applied with the idea to document some of the history of the Vancouver Jewish community, as well as the commonalities of Jews in the diaspora. As someone who is a documentary lover, and a genuinely curious human, I really wanted to share local community members and their stories.”

She found those community members by putting a call out through local organizations and social media groups. She wanted people from a range of ages and genders. While everyone she spoke with lives in British Columbia, some of them are from other places originally, including Argentina, the United States and other provinces.

photo - Becky Wosk, director of One Thread, which screens May 3 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas — Becky Wosk, director of *One Thread*, which screens May 3 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas. *(photo by Kristine Cofsky)*

Her own family history illustrates the different places from which community members have come and the impacts they have had here.

“My paternal great-grandparents came to Canada from Ukraine in the early 1900s,” said Wosk. “That side of the family was actually documented in the book by Shirley Barnett, Don’t Break the Chain: The Nemetz Family Journey from Svatatroiske to Vancouver. My paternal great-grandfather, Abrasha Wosk, was a pioneer of the Vancouver Jewish community. He secured the building and funding for the original Schara Tzedeck and helped start the Hebrew Free Loan Association.”

Her paternal great-grandmother, Abrasha’s wife, Chava (Nemetz), was a community builder in her own right.

“My maternal great-grandmother, Rose Cohen (Beckerman), came from North Dakota; her family came over from Eastern Europe. My maternal great-grandfather, Maurice Cohen, was from Lithuania, the rest of his siblings went to South Africa. He came to Prince Rupert and opened a dry goods store called Director, Cohen & Co.”

Wosk’s grandparents were all born in Canada, she said, except for her paternal grandmother, who was from Manchester.

“It reinforced the feeling of being part of something bigger than oneself, something very deeply rooted in ancient spirituality,” said Wosk about making the film. “I loved being able to chat with the interviewees about our favourite foods and holidays. I just love witnessing the common thread in our existence, the ties to our ancestors, and the genuine desire to learn.”

As winner of the 2024 Earl Parker Award for Jewish Film, One Thread screened at the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival in 2025.

“It’s one thing to create something, but to get it in front of an audience is a whole other matter, so having these opportunities is invaluable,” Wosk told the Jewish Federation of Edmonton’s HaKol at the time.

She is very excited to have the film now screen at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. “I want our community to know that we are stronger together, and we need to lift each other up – especially in the face of adversity,” she told the Independent.

“As a people, we face a lot of hate, especially online” she said. “It’s easy to open up Instagram and just be bombarded by antisemitic individuals and just awful comments. I try to find peace and strength in the fact that we do have this incredible community of resilient, strong and compassionate people. We are part of an ancient quilt, and we can always tap into that communal comfort whenever we need to.”

Currently working as a freelance director and videographer, Wosk said she will soon be starting a feature screenplay that relates to her family history and, separate from that, she is hoping to start a new documentary film in the next year or two. Her band, Hollow Twin, will be releasing some new music later this year.

The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival runs April 30-May 8 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, which is a 19+ venue, and May 10 at the Rothstein Theatre. For the full lineup of films and tickets, go to vjff.org.

Musical celebration of Israel

Local Israeli cover band HaOpziot will get people dancing at this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21. (photo from JFGV)

“As we hold Israel close to our hearts, we are reminded that our connection transcends oceans,” wrote Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, in a recent enewsletter. “We have the power to bring Israel closer, to feel it and to celebrate it together right here at home through our community’s signature Yom Ha’atzmaut event.”

On Yom Ha’atzmaut, April 21, 7:30 p.m., Israeli musician and producer Ben Golan will headline our local celebration of Israel’s 78th Independence Day. (See jewishindependent.ca/story-of-israels-north.)

Golan came onto Federation’s radar when Shanken saw him perform during a 2024 visit to our community’s partnership region in Israel, the Upper Galilee. Golan is from Kiryat Shmona, where he also runs a recording studio.

In addition to his own performance, Golan will join local Israeli cover band HaOpziot for a couple of songs during their set.

HaOpziot is comprised of Goor Cohen (vocals, guitar), Kobi Gabay (vocals, guitar), Yotam Ronen (bass guitar), Avishai Weissberg (lead guitar) and Omer Yehi Shalom (drums). The group was founded by Ronen and the band’s former drummer, Maoz Kaufmann, in 2022. The pair posted a call-out on Facebook looking for musicians.

“The rest of us responded, we clicked instantly, and the Optziot were born,” said Cohen.

The band performs a few times a year, at clubs around Vancouver, as well as at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. To find out where and when they’re playing, people can follow the band on social media: Instagram, Facebook and/or YouTube.

When asked how to describe their musical sound or style, Cohen said, “In short: high-energy, loud and often fast.

“Our sound is a fusion of hard rock, punk and heavy metal, with subtle touches of Mizrahi influences, creating a style that strongly resonates with Israeli musical taste and culture,” he elaborated.

Each band member brings their different influences to the music, said Cohen, “ranging from mainstream to underground, old-school to contemporary, and classic to anarchistic. That diversity is a big part of what shapes our unique sound.”

Federation’s website page promoting the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration highlights some of the songwriters whose music HaOpziot performs, including artists like Mashina, Eifo Hayeled, Berry Sakharof and Monica Sex.

The band’s popularity in the local Israeli community is how they came to Federation’s attention, their sound suiting the vibe that Federation would like the event to have, with the night ending in a dance party.

“This will be the biggest crowd we’ve played for so far,” Cohen told the Independent, “and we’re really excited to have more members of the community come see us in action.”

Unfortunately, Gabay won’t be able to make the Yom Ha’atzmaut concert. But no worries.

“For this show,” said Cohen, “we’ve asked Noga Veiman, our unofficial band manager, to join us on stage and take part as a band member – so, together, we’ll deliver the high-energy show we’ve been planning.”

The night, of course, will begin in a more sombre fashion, with the conclusion of Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembrance for Israel’s fallen soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in war and terror attacks. In Vancouver, the community’s memorial service will take place on April 20, 7:30 p.m., both in person and online. To attend or watch, register at jewishvancouver.com/zikaron.

For tickets ($36/adult, $12/youth, $75/family pack) to the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21, go to jewishvancouver.com/yh2026.

Reclaiming Jewish stories

Alix West Lefler plays Frida in The Fast Runner. (photo from thefastrunnerfilm.com)

The Fast Runner, a 15-minute short from director David Bercovici-Artieda is about a young girl’s courage during the Holocaust. (See jewishindependent.ca/balancing-education-and-art.) The film screens April 19, 7 p.m., at the Rothstein Theatre, as part of the event Out of the Shadows: Reclaiming Jewish Stories.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Bercovici-Artieda, playwright Mark Leiren-Young and Simon Fraser University professor Dr. Lilach Marom; author and Globe & Mail columnist Marsha Lederman is moderator. The event is co-presented by Chutzpah! Plus and Pacific Legal Education & Outreach Society, with partial proceeds supporting the Antisemitism Legal Hotline (antisemitismlegalhelp.org). For tickets ($18/$36/$54), go to chutzpahfestival.com/out-of-shadows.

– Courtesy Chutzpah! Plus

Bema presents Perseverance

Co-stars Evan Roberts, left, Jerry Callaghan, centre, and Carl Powell in rehearsal for Bema Productions’ presentation of Perseverance, April 22 to May 3. (photo by Becca Elliot)

photo - Jerry Callaghan and Andrea Eggenberger — Jerry Callaghan and Andrea Eggenberger *(photo by Becca Elliot)*

Bema Productions in Victoria presents Perseverance, by L.E. McCullough, from April 22 to May 3. The play is adapted from the 2019 memoir One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America, written by Melvin Goldman and his daughter, Lee Goldman Kikel. It brings to the stage a timely story of healing and renewal.

Few visitors to the G&S Jewelry Store in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighbourhood during the 1960s and 1970s were aware that the cheerful proprietor, Melvin (né Mieczyslaw) Goldman, had spent his teens enduring the horrors of Auschwitz before arriving in postwar America as a penniless refugee intent on reclaiming his life and reshaping his family’s destiny. The play depicts Goldman’s irrepressible spirituality and unflagging love for humanity as he worked to replace darkness with light, one piece of handcrafted jewelry at a time.

photo - Angela Henry and Jerry Callaghan (photo by Becca Elliot) — Angela Henry and Jerry Callaghan *(photo by Becca Elliot)*

Bema Productions’ mounting of Perseverance stars Jerry Callaghan, Andrea Eggenberger, Carl Powell, Angela Henry and Evan Roberts. All performances take place in Bema’s Black Box Theatre at Congregation Emanu-El. For tickets ($25), go to ticketowl.io/bemaproductions.

– Courtesy Bema Productions

Art chosen for new museum

From a specific vantage point, the dispersed lines of Nicolas Baier’s Candelabra – winner of the Montreal Holocaust Museum’s public art competition for its new building – create the shape of a sphere. (photo from MHM)

The Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM) has selected Montreal-based artist Nicolas Baier as the winner of its public art competition for its new museum opening in 2027.

Baier’s artwork, Candelabra, will be installed on the museum’s rooftop terraces. The sculpture is a luminous, constellation-like network of polished stainless-steel lines and points of light set against the Montreal sky. The work is reminiscent of countless survivor stories about imprisonment in ghettos and concentration camps, where the only form of escape was looking to the night sky. Inspired by the human impulse to connect stars into meaningful patterns, the piece reflects bonds built between individuals, communities and generations.

Rather than reproducing traditional constellations, Baier has created a new network based on astronomical data from the sky above Montreal. From a specific vantage point on the terrace, the dispersed lines create the shape of a sphere, evoking our shared planet and humanity.

photo - Nicolas Baier’s Candelabra — Nicolas Baier’s Candelabra. *(photo from MHM)*

In a museum dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, Candelabra speaks to the fragility and resilience of human connection. The Holocaust was marked by the systematic destruction of Jewish life, the devastation of whole communities and the severing of social bonds. At a time when antisemitism and other forms of hate are on the rise, the sculpture serves as a reminder that societies are shaped by the networks we build and protect, and that, even in darkness, light endures.

The competition was held in accordance with Quebec’s Politique d’intégration des arts à l’architecture et à l’environnement des bâtiments et des sites gouvernementaux et publics, which mandates that approximately one percent of the construction budget of public buildings be dedicated to the commissioning of a work of art.

The selection committee was composed of Marie-Blanche Fourcade (head of collections and exhibitions at the MHM); Adrian Sheppard (user representative); Renée Daoust (architect); Suzelle Levasseur (visual arts specialist); Stéphanie L’Heureux (ministry representative); Martha Townsend (visual arts specialist); and Helen Malkin (observer, chair and consultant for the new MHM).

“Nicolas Baier’s proposal moved us because it expresses the importance of human connection,” said Rachel Gropper, Holocaust survivor and co-president of the museum. “In a place devoted to memory and education, this work reminds us that each individual life matters, and that together we have the responsibility to uphold compassion and hope.”

To contribute to the MHM’s building campaign, Give Voice, go to museeholocauste.ca/en/give-voice.

– Courtesy Montreal Holocaust Museum

Story of Israel’s north

Kiryat Shmona musician Ben Golan will perform at the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations in Vancouver April 21. (photo from Ben Golan)

“Music for me is a way to say: we are still here, still alive, still building a future. It gives people a place to feel, and also the strength to keep going,” said Ben Golan, who will headline our local celebration of Israel’s 78th Independence Day, on April 21.

Golan is a musician and producer from Kiryat Shmona, a city in our community’s partnership region, the Upper Galilee, in Israel. He is the founder of the initiative Patifon.

“For 17 years,” he said, “I’ve been producing music and running a recording studio in the city. Over time, I realized that my work isn’t just about producing songs. It’s about building something that can sustain a real musical community in the north, giving a stage to local creators and creating a movement that feels connected to this place.”

Patifon, which means record player or turntable in Hebrew, serves as a hub for local artists.

“It all started simply, with jam sessions in the studio,” explained Golan. “People began coming to play, sing, meet and connect. Slowly, it grew, until the gatherings were too big for the studio to handle. There wasn’t enough space, but there was a hunger for music. Then, thanks to the youth centre and the amazing Elad Kozikaro, who gave us a budget and the perfect space, we got a shelter, which, in times like these, is a valuable commodity in the north. We moved in, completely renovated it and turned it into the most beautiful music lounge; a place where you can come and feel at home, even if it’s your first time there.”

The lounge morphed into Patifon.

“We started filming live sessions of artists and bands there, with proper sound and respect for the music,” Golan said. “All the sessions were uploaded to YouTube under Patifon and, over time, it started to catch on and reach more and more people. Suddenly, what began as a small local gathering became a stage watched by people outside the north.

“As the audience grew and we realized this needed more breathing room, we opened a community pub. Students from Tel-Hai College volunteer there as part of a scholarship program and help keep the place alive and running.”

For Golan, Kiryat Shmona is not just where he was born and grew up. He calls the city and the Upper Galilee his “inner language.”

“In this city, I learned what the rhythm of a community really is: people who know each other, who will always help you when you need something. There’s a different kind of air here,” he said.

“I have a stream right by my house. It seeped into my music without me even intending it to – a mix of rough and tender, of truth and esthetics, of wanting to shout and needing a moment of quiet to breathe,” he explained. “The nature here, the open space and the distance from the centre taught me how to really listen – not to the noise, but to what lies underneath it.

“Continuing to create in the north, especially after Oct. 7, is not a romantic choice for me – it’s a stance,” he said. “The region went through a real upheaval: fear, evacuation, uncertainty and, also, a kind of pain that people who don’t live here sometimes don’t fully understand. Out of all of that, creativity becomes a tool for connection and healing.”

Golan chose to stay in Kiryat Shmona out of a sense of mission.

“I believe the periphery holds immense talent, real hunger and stories you can’t fake – it just needs infrastructure, a home and support,” he said. “I want the young people and artists here to feel that they don’t have to leave in order to become something. On the contrary – that this place itself can become a source of inspiration, an opportunity and a creative centre that generates culture rather than just consumes it.”

Coming to Vancouver for Yom Ha’atzmaut, Golan said he brings messages of resilience and hope – and he takes those words seriously.

“Independence, for me, is also the ability to choose to create despite the difficulty, to choose community, to choose light,” he said. “I want to bring the story of the north: people who continue to build, to organize events, to create music and to hold each other up even when reality is complicated. In my music, there is room for both joy and pain, because both are part of our lives – especially in this time.”

On April 21, Vancouver band HaOptziot will also take the stage at the community celebrations, playing covers of various Israeli hits.

For tickets ($36/adult, $12/youth, $75/family pack) to the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations, go to jewishvancouver.com/yh2026.

Art dismantles systems

“I Betrayed Him and the Fate of Becoming Him” by Yongzhen Li is part of Li’s solo exhibit – Structures of the Unsaid – at the Zack Gallery. (photo from Yongzhen Li)

On March 5, the Zack Gallery opened its first solo exhibition by a non-Jewish artist in years. Called Structures of the Unsaid, it presents the work of Yongzhen Li, a recent immigrant from China. By coincidence, it is also Li’s first solo show, and the show’s name reflects the artist’s feelings about his native China’s patriarchal culture and collectivist society.

“The art committee and I asked Li to be part of the Zack Gallery exhibitions over a year ago,” said Sarah Dobbs, the gallery’s curator.

“His talent, the way he handles the surface of the paper and the themes that we felt resonate with the Jewish community were the primary reasons for selecting him for a solo show,” she said. “The way he works – using ink, rice paper and mugwort water, which stains the surface before the image appears – reflects his deep skills as an artist. This was the primary pull for us to exhibit him. In addition, the water residue acts as a form of embodied memory, recalling the imperative to remember – the surface carries what cannot be seen.

“His practice emerges from absence, where the creation of each piece is a gesture of repair within fracture, like a quiet form of tikkun, a concept found in the Zohar,” she explained. “Painting is how he wrestles, remembers and remakes meaning. So, the conceptual nature of his work, combined with his skills, was a no-brainer. The committee and I just immediately voted him yes!”

Li and his wife, Jiamin, came to Canada in 2024, settling in Oshawa, Ont.

“I like the food here – so many Asian groceries,” he said with a smile. “But language is hard for me. It’s always been so, even before we came here. Language has always felt too thin. The words seem to flatten what I feel, while images allow it to remain alive.” That’s why he asked his wife to act as his interpreter during his interview with the Independent.

Li’s road to the arts was not simple.

“My father is a petroleum worker,” he said. “And so was his father before him. It is traditional in China that a son follows his father’s work. It is a good job, with a decent pay, and it was already arranged for me after I graduated, but I didn’t want to do it. I always felt like an outsider in my family. I didn’t want to know my future for the next 50 years. I knew it wouldn’t make me happy. I wanted to do art. I wanted to be free in my choices.”

That was his first rebellion, his first step against the established routine, but not his last.

“I was about 13 at the time…. By Chinese tradition, children of artists who follow their fathers into art start their artistic training at 6. I was already too old, but I needed to do it. Otherwise, I felt that I had nothing of my own. Fortunately, I had a good art teacher at school,” said Li, adding with a grin: “And I became popular with my classmates.”

photo - “Underground World” by Yongzhen Li, whose solo exhibit at Zack Gallery runs to April 13 — “Underground World” by Yongzhen Li, whose solo exhibit at Zack Gallery runs to April 13. *(image from Yongzhen Li)*

His next step upon graduation was the Academy of Fine Art in Xi’an, one of the largest cities in China, with an ancient history and a long artistic tradition. The famous Terracotta Army, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is located just outside the city. The Xi’an academy is considered one of the best art schools in China, but Li didn’t like his time there.

“There was no creative freedom,” he said. “The professors were rigid, wanted me to copy them, to follow their instructions without thinking. It didn’t work for me.”

Once more, Li went against the established mode. He quit the academy and found a job to support himself and his wife. He worked with social media while teaching himself to be an artist.

“People thought I was crazy to quit,” he said. “My parents wouldn’t help financially – they didn’t approve of my actions. Besides, they were getting a divorce. And I was already married – we met at the academy. Jiamin was also a student there.”

When COVID struck, the young couple experienced the restrictions that were placed on people worldwide.

“We became all isolated, had to stay at home,” Li recalled. “But we watched lots on the internet, especially YouTube videos. In China, the world internet is not available – it is illegal there to access YouTube or Google or Facebook. Chinese people have their own limited internet version, allowed by the government, but many young people ignore those restrictions and download apps to watch the real internet. We did too and we learned a lot. We could finally see for ourselves how the world worked. We decided to emigrate to Canada.”

Canada was a revelation to Li. “I’m free here,” he said.

To make ends meet, Li works for a delivery company, but, in his spare time, he continues to paint and learn, and his art evolves. When he lived in China, his themes tended to be narrow, tied to certain events or ideas, but his latest imagery explores more complex issues of identity, memory and resistance.

“Art has become my emotional refuge as well as a method of self-liberation,” he said.

It also allows him to process his inner tension and vulnerability, as he struggles for personal and creative autonomy. His large painting “Underground World,” finished in the past month, is symbolic of his current trend of using traditional Chinese motifs and media to address contemporary and universal topics.

The painting looks like a collage, denoting the artist’s inner journey; many aspects intertwine and contradict one another. Family history versus personal fragility. Government direction versus private uncertainty.

“I am not searching for villains. I am dismantling systems,” Li says in his artist statement. “I refer to structures that appear normal: family control, humiliation disguised as education, and forms of care that carry hidden violence. Tragedy most often happens not through cruelty, but through what is socially justified, well-intentioned and unquestioned.”

As for his life in Canada, Li said, “I’m thinking of taking some art classes here. There is so much choice, so much freedom for an artist.”

Structures of the Unsaid is on display until April 13. To learn more about Li, visit his website, yongzhenli.com.

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

What is Jewish music?

On March 8, Joshua Jacobson, professor emeritus of music at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., spoke on the topic Jewish Music: What’s That?

photo - Prof. Joshua Jacobson was the latest speaker in Kolot Mayim’s Voices of Jewish Music series — Prof. Joshua Jacobson was the latest speaker in Kolot Mayim’s Voices of Jewish Music series. *(internet photo)*

The Zoom lecture was the fifth of six talks in Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025/26 Voices of Jewish Music series.

How can music even be Jewish? Jacobson asked. Does music keep kosher? Is music circumcised? Did music have a bat mitzvah? He played an excerpt of African-American clarinetist Don Byron performing the klezmer number “Der Nayer Doyne.”

“You don’t have to be Jewish to compose or perform Jewish music,” he said. “And that’s why I prefer the terminology, the music of the Jewish people. Although I will admit that, for the sake of convenience, I often do use the term Jewish music.”

But the question of what constitutes Jewishness remains. The word represents an ever-widening expanse, including an abundance of liturgical music, a vast array of music influenced by the cultures in which Jews have lived and the languages they have spoken, and the contributions of Jews who have entered the community by choice.

“There is no single Judaism, not anymore. It’s a big tent,” Jacobson said.

One school of thought Jacobson pointed to came from Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch, who said, “Racial consciousness is something that every great artist must have. A composer who says something is not only himself, he is his forefathers. He is his people.”

Leonard Bernstein wrote in his senior thesis at Harvard University in 1939: “It is easily understandable that a composer whose parents were immigrants still maintains a close contact with the old racial traditions. If their traditions are part of his childhood, they are inevitably part of his life.”

Jacobson played Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” to illustrate that any music composed by a Jew could be considered Jewish music.

The Nazis, however, defined Jewish in purely racial terms, Jacobson said. They would not allow any music written by a Jew to be heard or even studied in Germany and German-controlled countries. Nor would the Nazis allow Jewish-German conductor Bruno Walter to lead a concert of Ludwig van Beethoven’s works. Jews, the Nazis believed, would spoil the music with their “Jewish accent.”

Jacobson played excerpts of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, asking if members of the audience could distinguish between a performance led by Walter and one by conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.

“How many of you think that the first one was conducted by a Jew? How many of you think the second one was conducted by a Jew? How many of you think that it’s a ridiculous question? – which, of course, it is. Did one of these have a discernible ‘Jewish accent’? No,” Jacobson said.

image - In his March 8 talk, Prof. Joshua Jacobson gave Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” as an example of how any music composed by a Jew could be considered Jewish music — In his March 8 talk, Prof. Joshua Jacobson gave Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” as an example of how any music composed by a Jew could be considered Jewish music. *(internet image)*

Defining what constitutes Jewish music by what exists within borders or, as in much of Jewish history, in exile, can be an equally insurmountable task. As an example, Jacobson played part of a track from Arab-Israeli hip-hop group DAM, which is in Hebrew.

Many Israelis write music that doesn’t sound geographically constrained, he said.

Nonetheless, the professor did offer a definition of traditional Jewish music in his talk, saying it is music that has been used – whether sung, played or listened to – by Jews more than by other people, and, therefore, it has become associated with Jewish people.

Cantillation, the way the Torah and other biblical books are chanted, is the oldest form of Jewish music, Jacobson said. Demonstrating the cantillation styles of Babylonian, German and Yemenite Jews, he showed that the practice is similar, although not entirely the same, in Jewish communities throughout the world.

“Some scholars think that these are variations on an ancient theme, he said. “The variations are due to acculturation. German cantillation betrays the influence of German music. Yemenite cantillation betrays the influence of the culture in which they lived, the Yemenite culture.”

Jacobson said we find Jewish music in many styles and periods, and perhaps the problem in seeking a definition is that there are so many Jewish “musics.” He returned to Bloch, who once said that he could not say what Jewish music is, but one knows it when it is heard. According to Bloch, “It is something that both you and I can recognize and feel, even if we cannot analyze it.”

To Jacobson, the term Jewish music “is itself a wide tent in which all may not agree on a definition, but it’s something that we cherish, and something that fulfils us.”

An authority on Jewish music, Jacobson is also the founder and director of the Zamir Chorale of Boston. He has guest-conducted many ensembles, including the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Bulgarian National Symphony and Chorus, the New England Conservatory Orchestra and the Boston Lyric Opera Company. He has written articles on various aspects of choral music and has published more than 100 compositions and arrangements.

The final speaker in this year’s Voices of Jewish Music series is author Michael Posner on April 12 at 11 a.m. Posner will explore Leonard Cohen’s Jewish heritage, philosophy and musical legacy – and how Judaism influenced Cohen’s lyrics, philosophy and life. For more information, visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.