{"id":47040,"date":"2025-06-27T01:38:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T08:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=47040"},"modified":"2025-06-26T16:05:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T23:05:51","slug":"a-family-of-storytellers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/06\/27\/a-family-of-storytellers\/","title":{"rendered":"A family of storytellers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Shneiderman, a retired computer scientist who lives in Vancouver, is a member of an extraordinary family. Recently, he promoted his Uncle Chim\u2019s photography exhibition at the Zack Gallery, as well as the new English translation of his father\u2019s book about the Spanish Civil War (1937-1939).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Ben Shneiderman\u00a0(photo from Ben Shneiderman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It all started with Shneiderman\u2019s grandfather, Benjamin Szymin, a respected publisher of Yiddish and Hebrew books in Warsaw before the Second World War. His daughter Halina (later Eileen) and son David (Chim) grew up surrounded by culture and tradition, inspired by the conversations of the best Polish-Jewish writers, artists and scientists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother Halina studied at the Warsaw university before she met my father,\u201d Shneiderman said in an interview with the Independent<\/i>. \u201cAfter they married, in 1933, they moved to Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shneiderman\u2019s father, Samuel, was cut from the same cloth. He is considered one of the first Jewish war correspondents in Europe and America. In the 1930s, he published multiple articles and books in Polish and Yiddish on Jewish issues and social developments in Europe.<\/p>\n

Ben Shneiderman remembered that his parents both decided early on that only his father would get a byline. \u201cThe times were different,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cBut they worked as a team. Mother did a lot of research. She typed the texts Father dictated, and then she edited and re-typed and fact-checked, until they were both satisfied. When Father went to Spain in 1937 to report on the Civil War, Mother went with him \u2013 she had her trusted typewriter with her.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1938, Samuel Shneiderman compiled his reportages from Spain into the book War in Spain<\/i>, which was published in Yiddish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book included photographs taken by my uncle, Mother\u2019s brother David, the legendary photographer Chim,\u201d said Shneiderman. \u201cChim was also in Spain at the time, reporting on the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past few years, the book has experienced an unexpected revival. \u201cI had nothing to do with it, but I was glad,\u201d said Shneiderman. \u201cThe book was published in Polish in 2021. Then, in 2023, it was translated into Spanish. In 2024, the English translation came from the Yiddish Book Centre.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The English translation\u2019s title is Journey Through the Spanish Civil Wa<\/i>r (translator Deborah A. Green), and Shneiderman gave a slide presentation on it and his family last month at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, under the aegis of the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival. He explained that his parents left Europe just before the Second World War, but they couldn\u2019t get his grandparents out of Poland. The older generation of his family did not survive the Holocaust.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as his parents arrived in New York, they became immersed in the Yiddish writing and journalism milieu, and they both started publishing in English, as well. Together and separately, they covered the themes of postwar Europe,\u00a0<\/span>Israel, and Jewish life in the United States. Shneiderman\u2019s father, in addition to writing articles for such publications as The National Jewish Monthly<\/i>, the New York Times<\/i>, Hadassah Magazine<\/i> and The Reporter<\/i>, also wrote non-fiction books, poetry and movie reviews. Plus, he edited several books by prominent Yiddish writers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up in a family steeped in writing and journalism, and with his uncle being a famous photographer, it might have been expected that Shneiderman would follow in their footsteps. His older sister did, in a way. \u201cShe moved to Israel in 1963 and taught English there,\u201d he said. But he chose a different path.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was always interested in photography, like Chim,\u201d he said. \u201cI even won a photography contest in high school.\u201d But, in college, he studied physics and math. \u201cI had a cousin who was a physicist. He influenced me, but I was never much into physics. Mostly, I was entranced with math and with computers. I worked as a programmer for a couple physicists while still in college. I also took psychology classes, and philosophy. I wanted to know everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

He kept taking photos as a hobby, and that interest persists to this day. \u201cI photographed many of my colleagues \u2013 pioneers of computer sciences. My pictures of them were published by a number of magazines,\u201d he said. \u201cOverall, I have over 40,000 photos. I also published them in my book Encounters with HCI Pioneers: A Personal History and Photo Journal<\/i>, in 2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

HCI stands for human-computer interaction, which is Shneiderman\u2019s primary field of research. \u201cIn 1973, I got the first PhD in computer sciences at my college,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1977, as part of an American delegation, he went to Russia on an exchange program. \u201cWe visited Moscow and Novosibirsk,\u201d he said. \u201cI met many interesting people there. One of them, a local computer scientist, Simon Berkovich, told me in confidence that he wanted to emigrate to the US and asked me if I could help. I said I would try. When he left Russia some time later, he had a stopover in Rome, like many other Soviet immigrants. Some of them went on to Israel, but Berkovich contacted me, and I wrote him a letter that I needed him for my work. He was able to come to the US with this letter. We even wrote a paper together. He is a professor now at George Washington University.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shneiderman recalls fondly his visit to a synagogue in Moscow: \u201cSeveral of us went. I was concerned about our safety, but nothing bad happened. It was fun,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the professional front, Shneiderman has always maintained that the current trend of developing artificial intelligence (AI) as autonomous machines wasn\u2019t the way to go. In 1980 \u2013 45 years ago \u2013 he even wrote a book on the subject, called Software Psychology: Human Factors in Computer and Information Systems<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI should be a tool, not a creator,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think a software should write books or paint pictures or drive cars autonomously. I think it should make people\u2019s jobs easier, assist humans, not replace them. After all, a camera doesn\u2019t take photos \u2013 I do. But my smart camera helps me manage the focus, the lighting and other parameters. Apple agrees with me. I worked for them as a consultant for five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shneiderman has been a firm proponent of this point of view for decades. He has expressed it in his publications and at industry conferences. In 1982, he co-founded what is now known as the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. He also coined the term \u201cdirect manipulation,\u201d which is the way we move objects on a screen with a mouse or a finger. He thinks humans should be an integral part of computer interactions, because only humans can make ethical decisions. No AI can ever know what it feels like to be a person. \u201cThere is no \u2018I\u2019 in AI,\u201d he joked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shneiderman and his wife have been living in Vancouver since 2020, when they moved here from Bethesda, Md. \u201cMy daughter teaches anthropology at UBC,\u201d he said. \u201cWe visited her often for years and even bought an apartment here. We liked it here. Then, COVID happened, while we were visiting, so we stayed in Vancouver. My wife was born in Canada and always had a Canadian passport, and I became a citizen last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Warsaw at the beginning of the 20th century to Vancouver 100 years later, this family continues to share stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrandfather told them in Yiddish,\u201d Shneiderman said. \u201cMy uncle told them in pictures. My parents told their stories in words. And I told them in data, using computers as my medium. We are a family of storytellers.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Olga Livshin<\/b> is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Shneiderman, a retired computer scientist who lives in Vancouver, is a member of an extraordinary family. Recently, he promoted his Uncle Chim\u2019s photography exhibition at the Zack Gallery, as well as the new English translation of his father\u2019s book about the Spanish Civil War (1937-1939).\u00a0 It all started with Shneiderman\u2019s grandfather, Benjamin Szymin, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9093,23298,23297,3429,4242,2747,4838],"class_list":["post-47040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-ben-shneiderman","tag-computer-sciences","tag-family","tag-history","tag-photography","tag-storytelling"],"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\/47040","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=47040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}