Collection of legacies

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Each story is a glimpse into the writer’s life, a personal account that reinforces the universality of the human endeavor. We all have had people who have impacted our lives, we all have had at least one life-altering moment, we all have hope that the next generations will create a better world – and we all feel comforted in knowing that we are not alone in what challenges or inspires us.

In the introduction to the third volume of Living Legacies: A Collection of Writing by Contemporary Canadian Jewish Women (PK Press, 2011), editor Liz Pearl – a Toronto-based educator and therapist specializing in psychogeriatrics and expressive arts therapy – writes: “At previous book launches and readings, I have said that, among the rewards of producing this collection has been the expansion of my sisterhood. As volumes are added to the collection and the sisterhood grows, I have enjoyed the ripple effect. I am always amazed when I discover new connections and experiences emanating from Living Legacies. Some dividends include invitations to readings, book launches, community gatherings and special events hosted by contributing authors. Several women have been motivated to publish their memoirs; others have pursued legacy writing and preservation beyond this collection. Some women have invited me to share their milestones inspired by Living Legacies. Many women include me in their lives and we continue our exchange of blessings and wisdom.”

In the third volume of the series, which Pearl began in 2007, her sisterhood expands by more than 30 contributors, including four women with connections to the B.C. Jewish community: Dr. Shelley Halpern Evans, Shoshana Litman, Dale Adams Segal and Helen Waldstein Wilkes.

In “Food and Family,” Halpern Evans begins with memories of her grandmother’s cooking and baking – and the Israeli candies she always carried in her housedress pockets – moves to related recollections of her parents and her husband, before concluding with a hope for their three children: “Food is what sustains us, the hands that prepare it caress us, the colors and fragrances seduce us, and the warmth and tastes comfort us. And so, daughters and sons of the future: choose wisely. Savor the tastes on your tongues, they are fleeting – the hands holding yours, the fingers chopping and cutting and tenderly stewing the food, are the gentle hands that hold you for life. For dear life.”

Litman shares the story of an especially moving and holy Shabbat in Brooklyn with Aliza and Shlomo Teichman, a result of which, she writes, is that “heaven becomes easier to see wherever I am.” Aliza Teichman was previously married to Rabbi Pinchus (Pinky) Bak, and they lived in Vancouver for four years, writes Litman, before they and their children moved to New Jersey. Soon afterward, during a Purim celebration, the rabbi had a massive heart attack and died: “The following year, on Pinky’s Yahrzeit, Aliza donned a clown nose and took her family [five children] to a Purim party, determined that her children would grow up with more joy than sorrow.”

Adams Segal starts her contribution with the fact that she has been creating prayers her whole life: “At a very young age, perhaps eight or nine years old, I would wake each morning and simply say from my heart what words were there.” This practice of gratitude would serve her well in a family whose members were less clear about their faith and throughout the many ups and down of life. The act of writing prayers, she says, “has brought to me its own goodness, that is, the gift of being deeply alive right here, right now, and the knowing that we are not alone, not ever alone.”

Waldstein Wilkes, on the other hand, growing up in Ontario, had only ever experienced her Jewishness as a negative: “I progressed from a childhood where playmates taunted me as a ‘Christ-killer’ to a high school where classmates identified me as ‘the heartless Shylock’ to a young adult who knew that her presence at ‘restricted’ resorts and clubs across the country was unwelcome.” However, “[a]bout 15 years ago, quite by accident, I found myself seated across a lunch table from a rabbi who invited me to check out a Shabbat service.... The largely Hebrew service struck me as quite foreign until the congregants began to chant that ancient but to me unfamiliar call to prayer known as the Barchu.... I began to weep. Something deep inside me had been touched, and I knew that I had indeed come home.” She then goes on to share how that moment changed her outlook and her life, ending with the hope that the wisdom she has gained will allow her to be a role model for her children and grandchildren.

Living Legacies, the third, as well as previous, volumes, can be purchased online (at.yorku.ca/pk/ll-order.htm) for $22/book, plus postage and handling.

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