Daniel Shalinsky being interviewed and filmed as part of White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre\u2019s oral history project, which will form part of the community\u2019s Feb. 5 Tu b\u2019Shevat Gala, along with singer Tania Grinberg, speaker Karen James and more. (photo by Helen Thomas Mann)<\/i><\/p>\n
The White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre Tu b\u2019Shevat Gala will take place on the evening of Sunday, Feb. 5, the start of the holiday. With the theme \u201cStrengthen Our Roots,\u201d a main component of the event will be community members\u2019 oral histories.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea for the project came about in a very multidirectional way,\u201d Helen Thomas Mann, WRSSJCC president, told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cFirst, we wanted to host an annual fundraising event and, with our membership drive being around the High Holidays, Tu b\u2019Shevat seemed like a good time for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tu b\u2019Shevat<\/i>, the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shevat, is the New Year of Trees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNaturally,\u201d said Thomas Mann, \u201cthe theme for a Tu b\u2019Shevat event would be trees, so we began focusing on our \u2018tree of life\u2019 as a community. But we were coming back together after a three-year lull from the pandemic \u2013 we needed people to remember why this place is important, and why it should continue to exist. The idea\u00a0<\/span>became, let\u2019s honour our roots, our history as a community of nearly 30 years; remember the branches that connect us to our Jewishness and the WRSSJCC, and celebrate our leaves, the future of our community.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a new president and newer member of the community,\u201d she said, \u201cI felt sensitive to the fact that, although I was playing a leadership role in the organization, there were many people who had worked hard before me to create this warm Jewish space. Our new board didn\u2019t have to reinvent the wheel. I made it my mission to learn those stories.\u201d<\/p>\n A therapist by profession, Thomas Mann is naturally interested in people\u2019s stories, she said. \u201cI had a conversation with Alysa [Routtenberg] from the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, and that\u2019s where collecting life stories of people in our community came about. She provided me with a recording device. Then it occurred to me that these life stories and the stories of the JCC itself could be incorporated into our celebration.<\/p>\n \u201cI was scrolling the WRSSJCC Instagram account, and I saw a person we follow, and who follows our organization back, who had beautiful fine art photos. Their website said they were passionate about storytelling. I took a chance and reached out, and the person happened to be Yaacov Green, who participated in the JCC as a child and whose father was a president of the JCC for many years!\u00a0Yaacov generously offered to donate his time to record and edit these interviews to make a short presentation for the Tu b\u2019Shevat event, and a longer version to be submitted to the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C.\u201d<\/p>\n During the project, Thomas Mann said, \u201cMarcy Babins from the museum mentioned this may be the first representation of Jews from our outlying community in the archive, so I\u2019m thrilled we will be represented. There\u2019s such a rich history here of creative, scrappy and very grassroots Jewish community-building efforts. It\u2019s been very inspiring to learn about. We have interviewed\u00a023 people so far, plus we are having two make-up days\u2026. We are also completing a few Zoom interviews for those who are no longer local.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone in the community was invited to participate, whether new to the community or having been a part of it for a long time. One of the participants was Daniel Shalinsky, who was interviewed for the project by his grandmother, Helen Lynn Lutterman.<\/p>\n \u201cHe attended Hebrew school at the JCC and spent lots of time there as a child,\u201d said Thomas Mann. \u201cThere are pictures of him as a child with a hammer, literally building our WRSSJCC alongside his family. His parents are Hertha and Steve Shalinsky, who we are honouring at the Tu b\u2019Shevat event. Their family, including Steve\u2019s brother and his wife, Ken and Andrea Shalinsky, were integral in acquiring our physical space. Steve was a president for many years. For more on the fascinating story of how the space was acquired, you will have to attend the event to find out!\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the community histories, award-winning Yiddish singer Tania Grinberg will be featured at the celebration. And the night\u2019s keynote speaker will be Karen James, who will share the story of her experience at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. James was there with the Canadian Olympic swim team, and witnessed a group of people climbing over the wall of the Olympic village. Only later would she find out that those people held hostage and then murdered 11 Israeli athletes. \u201cShe will share how witnessing this event impacted her life, her connection to her Jewish identity, and her relationship with the WRSSJCC,\u201d said Thomas Mann of James\u2019 presentation.<\/p>\n The Tu b\u2019Shevat fundraiser is for specific programming, as well as operating expenses of the WRSSJCC.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are fundraising to generally pay our bills, and our hope is to be able to hire a part-time employee to support our admin needs and flourishing programming,\u201d Thomas Mann explained. \u201cWe also have a list of \u2018wishing tree\u2019 items that range in dollar amounts from new oven mitts to computer monitors, and open amounts for specific purposes such as donating towards a child in need\u2019s Hebrew school tuition. Long term, we would love to be able to find a new building space where we could have a stand-alone building, as opposed to being in a strip mall, with an outdoor area for a sukkah and community garden. That would be our pie-in-the-sky donation! We are a 100% volunteer-run organization, so every contribution counts.\u201d<\/p>\n The entire community is welcome to the Feb. 5 event, which will be held at the White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre, 32-3033 King George Blvd., in Surrey. \u201cWe considered the ease of hosting in a different location for space restrictions, but it seemed too important to centre the space,\u201d said Thomas Mann. \u201cPlus, our tree of life is on the wall, and we will be unveiling the new\u00a0<\/span>additions at the event.\u201d<\/p>\n Tickets will soon go on sale \u2013 keep an eye on Instagram (@wrssjcc<\/a>) and Facebook (White Rock South Surrey JCC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Daniel Shalinsky being interviewed and filmed as part of White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre\u2019s oral history project, which will form part of the community\u2019s Feb. 5 Tu b\u2019Shevat Gala, along with singer Tania Grinberg, speaker Karen James and more. (photo by Helen Thomas Mann) The White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre Tu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22012,3128,20440,22011,42,21112,22009,4764,8648,7933,22010,22013],"class_list":["post-40243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-community-centre","tag-fundraising","tag-gala","tag-helen-thomas-mann","tag-jcc","tag-oral-histories","tag-south-surrey","tag-synagogues","tag-tu-bshevat-2","tag-white-rock","tag-wrss","tag-wrssjcc"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}