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New book is first Jacob Dinezon work in English

Jacob Dinezon (1856-1919) was a Yiddish novelist and short-story writer, as famous during his lifetime as were his contemporaries, the three pillars of late-19th- and early-20th-century Yiddish literature, Mendele Mocher Sforim, Y.L. Peretz and Sholem Aleichem. All of these masters knew and were impressed with Dinezon’s work.

During his period of literary activity in the latter half of the 19th century, Dinezon at times even outshadowed the three founding fathers because his books touched thousands of readers and were more widely sold. In fact, one of his novels sold more than 200,000 copies, an unheard of success in Yiddish literature. Dinezon achieved fame at the age of 20 with the publication of his first novel and remained famous until the day he died. He was so well known and beloved that every major figure of Yiddish literature came to his funeral in 1919.

Even encyclopedias in English recognized him. The early 20th-century Jewish Encyclopedia lists Dinezon as an important Yiddish writer (like other classical Yiddish writers, he also established a reputation as a Hebrew author), praise that is echoed in the contemporary Encyclopedia Judaica.

Sometimes mazel plays a role in literary fame but, in Dinezon’s case, it seemed to express itself in income and not in posthumous regard. And now that the worldwide Yiddish-reading community is vanishing, a writer’s lot can be determined by translation, which can bring fame, and to discovery, which in turn can prompt translation. If a writer doesn’t find his translator/editor in another language, he suffers the misfortune of neglect, which is what happened with Dinezon. If you ask any knowledgeable reader familiar with Aleichem and other famous Yiddish writers if he has ever heard of Dinezon, the answer would probably be no.

Until now, we have not had any work by Dinezon in English. But this lacuna has been successfully filled with the wonderful book of 11 Dinezon stories, beautifully translated by Tina Lunson and edited by Scott Davis, who has also provided an illuminating introduction: Memories and Scenes: Shtetl, Childhood, Writers (Jewish Storyteller Press, 2014).

Dinezon was a social realist, accurately depicting small-town (shtetl) Jewish life. With a cinematic eye, he zeroes in on his characters, deftly telling fascinating stories while at the same time giving an accurate portrait of the mores, attitudes, speech and foibles of the men, women and children whom he depicts.

Like Dickens, Denizon wrote about the downtrodden and about poorly treated students in Hebrew schools with such realism that he actually brought about reforms. A cross section of Jewish society in Poland lives in his pages: the young and old, Chassidim and enlightened Jews, simple workingmen and rich householders. Every single one of his stories breathes with life and verisimilitude.

In this book of 11 stories, a collection published after Dinezon’s death in 1919, we have finely crafted tales – so in keeping with Jewish short-story writing at the turn of the 20th century – that recall vividly portrayed shtetl characters from Dinezon’s childhood years and memories of such literary figures as Mendele Mocher Sforim (Mendele the Bookseller, aka Sholem Abramovich), Peretz, and the playwright Avrom Goldfaden.

Dinezon also played an important historical role in the development of Yiddish as a literary language. In fact, he mentored, advised and befriended almost every major Jewish writer of his day. The list reads like a who’s who of late-19th- and early-20th-century modern Yiddish literature, including the writers mentioned above, as well as S. Ansky, David Frishman, Shimon Frug, Sholem Asch, David Pinski and Abraham Reisen.

In one of the superb stories, Mayer Yeke, we see how a boy’s great fear of the shtetl’s most righteous Jew, Mayer Yeke, turns to love and respect after he witnesses Mayer’s mitzvah assisting the town drunk. Sholem Yoyne Flask depicts a mild-mannered tailor transformed by the liquor in his flask into a fiery defender of the town’s poor folk – then something happens when a surprising discovery is made about his flask. With Motl Farber, Purimshpieler, we are introduced to a housepainter who languishes during the winter when he cannot work, but at Purim, he becomes the leader of a band of Purim players. When the troupe is arrested by the new Russian police chief, an unlikely “Esther” comes to their rescue.

A story that achieves the psychological depth of a Dostoevsky tale is Yosl Algebrenik and His Student. It tells the story of Yosl, an outstanding Talmud scholar, a genius some said, destined to become a great rabbi, who has a passion for mathematics. At age 30, for reasons no one remembers, he tosses away the Talmud and its commentaries for the study of algebra and algebraic logic. From then on, he spends all his time studying algebra, except for the few hours a week he devotes to tutoring children to eke out a living.

Another moving and profound story is called Borekh, after the name of the hero, a poor orphan living in the yeshivah. He doesn’t do well in talmudic studies but he has a talent for woodcarving, making dreidls, Purim groggers and toy animals for the children of the town. One day, he decides to leave the yeshivah and start anew, with hopes of making a great holy ark, “one that people have never seen before.” When he achieves that, he will send it to his friend in the yeshivah, who he knows will become a great scholar. He leaves without saying goodbye.

Some of Dinezon’s autobiographical sketches are as engaging as his fiction. In My First Work, he relates the childhood experience of reading his first Yiddish novel, a Jewish version of Robinson Crusoe. He is so taken by the book, he writes his own adventure story. In Sholem Yankev Abramovich, Dinezon tells how his debut novel, The Dark Young Man, was published and how he acquired his first copy in Moscow. At the same time, he learns that the Yiddish writer Mendele Mocher Sforim and the Hebrew author Sholem Abramovich are actually the same person.

It is not often that we are privileged to make a literary discovery of our own. With this book by Dinezon, the first in English, we happily encounter a master writer who deserves to be ranked with the great Yiddish writers whom he befriended and who admired him.

Curt Leviant’s most recent book is the short story collection Zix Zexy Ztories.

According to halachah, women’s role can be broad

While I have a very good Jewish background, enhanced by the hundreds of books I have reviewed over the years, I am, by no means, a scholar. However, when I heard about The Status of Women in Jewish Law: Responsa by Rabbi David Golinkin (Centre for Women in Jewish Law at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2012), I wanted to read and review it because there are a number of issues – that appear both in the news and in other books I’ve read – that are expounded and discussed by Golinkin.

When I read Rashi’s Daughters, for example, I was intrigued by the author, Maggie Anton, writing that the daughters laid tefillin, studied Talmud and commented on their father’s responsa. The violent, aggressive behavior of certain Orthodox men and women toward the Women of the Wall, who have tried for more than 25 years to have a respectful minyan on Rosh Chodesh each month, observing their personal traditions, further motivated my reading of this book.

Rabbi Reuven Hammer, former president of the International Rabbinical Assembly, in one of his columns last year in the Jerusalem Post, wrote: “I cannot help but wonder what the problem is with the desire of some women to wear tallitot, tefillin and read from the Torah at the Western Wall. I am further amazed at the extreme statements made by the rabbi in charge of the site and by other leaders of the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) community calling on their followers to come out and protest, as well as by the silence of moderate Orthodox authorities on this issue. I cannot believe that they really think that what these women are doing is in violation of Jewish law.

“Surely they know as well as anyone else that all of this is permitted.

“Women may not be required to do these things within traditional halachah [Jewish law], but nowhere are they prohibited from doing them, any more than they are prohibited from sitting in a sukkah!”

Hammer continued: “My only conclusion is that this … has nothing to do with Jewish law and nothing to do with the sanctity of the Wall and nothing to do with offending others, and everything to do with protecting an insular way of life…. These groups have every right to want to live that way…. But they have absolutely no right to force their practices upon others and to make the totally false claim that what they say represents the official position of traditional Judaism. It simply does not.”

He noted, “The sages in the second century CE exempted [women] from certain mitzvot, but did not prohibit them from performing them. There is no excuse for us, nearly 2,000 years later, forbidding what neither the Torah nor the sages forbade. Let us put an end to all this fuss and support the right of women to perform these mitzvot within the framework of traditional Judaism.”

In Golinkin’s book, we learn that, while there are Orthodox rabbis who have made innovations for women, many Orthodox rabbis ignore not only non-Orthodox rulings on women in Judaism but also Orthodox rulings. We also learn that change isn’t a linear process between or within denominations.

In the book’s introduction, “The Participation of Jewish Women in Public Rituals and Torah Study,” Golinkin surveys 41 events between 1845 and 2010, regarding women in Judaism. He finds that changes did not necessarily move from Reform to Conservative to Orthodox. For example, the bat mitzvah ceremony, credited to Conservative Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan in 1922, was preceded by rabbis in Italy, France and Baghdad and by Reform Rabbi Yechezkel Karo in 1902. Women have been ordained by the Reform movement in the United States since 1972, but Regina Jonas, who could not be called Reform, was ordained as a rabbi in Germany in 1935. Women have had aliyot since 1893, including Henrietta Szold in 1922, but it was not until 1995 that 88 percent of Conservative synagogues allowed aliyot for women. Orthodox rabbis began to allow separate women’s prayer groups in the 1970s but some Conservative rabbis had done so since 1949. In broad strokes, main efforts to change women’s roles in Reform Judaism lasted from 1846 to 1972; Conservative, from 1874 to 2001; and Orthodox, from 1978 to 2010.

Golinkin writes, “The tension between halachah and modernity has caused, is causing and will continue to cause division and disagreement within the Jewish people.”

He also notes, “The status of women in halachah has begun to cause division between Modern Orthodox and the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) camp in Israel and abroad.”

He then lists nine approaches to changing halachah: 1) those who oppose any change in Judaism; 2) opposition specifically to changes in the synagogue; 3) acknowledging equal status between men and women, expressing it through different roles and mitzvot; 4) willingness to accept certain changes so as to not drive women from Judaism; 5) change within the framework of traditional halachah; 6) adjusting discriminatory halachot according to contemporary times; 7) changing halachah with equality for women; 8) feeling halachah is not binding, and men and women are equal in Judaism; and 9) suggesting a halachic revolution.

The remaining 15 chapters of The Status of Women in Jewish Law consist of responsa to critical questions. In each case, Golinkin surveys the rabbis who wrote responsa on a particular issue – for and against – and then concludes with what he terms “practical halachah.” There is a complete bibliography after each responsa’s conclusion. In brief, they are:

Responsa 1: women and tefillin. In Golinkin’s view, the responsa show “ample halachic justification” for allowing women to wear tefillin, as long as they are worn with “the same devotion and halachic requirements which apply to men.”

Responsa 2: women and singing. Golinkin writes, “… there is no general prohibition against women singing in classic Jewish law based on the Talmud and subsequent codes and commentaries until the early 19th century.” And there is “no halachic justification for anyone walking out when women sing … it is forbidden to walk out, in order not to insult the female performers.”

Responsa 3: women in the minyan and as shlichot tzibbur (prayer leaders). Golinkin concludes that women may be counted in the minyan for shacharit, minchah, ma’ariv, musaf and ne’ilah, and may serve as shlichot tzibbur in all of these services.

Responsa 4: adding the Imahot (Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, Leah) to the Amidah (central prayer of the prayer book). Golinkin writes that the correct and traditional way is to compose a short piyyut (liturgical poem) recited in the middle of the Amidah blessings.

Responsa 5: reciting Baruch Sheptarani (the Parents’ Blessing) at a bat mitzvah. Golinkin writes that this blessing, traditionally said by the father to mark his son’s turning 13, can be recited by both parents for their daughter.

Responsa 6: aliyot for women and hearing Torah read in public. Golinkin determines that women are obligated to hear the Torah read in public and can be called for an aliyah.

Responsa 7: women reading the Megillah. Golinkin believes that women are obligated to read the Megillah in public and be counted in the minyan for the reading.

Responsa 8: reciting verses honoring Esther during the Megillah reading. Golinkin writes that this is permissible.

Responsa 9: women as mohalot (circumcisers). Golinkin believes that this is permissible.

Responsa 10: participation of women in funerals. Golinkin writes that there is no need for the separation of men and women during a eulogy, and that women should be encouraged to participate in the eulogy, funeral procession and burial, as well as the escort to the cemetery.

Responsa 11: women reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish. Golinkin finds no halachic reason to prohibit women from reciting this prayer.

Responsa 12: women participating in a marriage ceremony and the Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings). Golinkin says that women may hold the chuppah poles, sing, read the ketubah (marriage contract), give a drash (explanation or sermon), recite the betrothal blessing and Sheva Brachot, and be counted as a “new face,” according to wishes of those involved.

Responsa 13: women on a law committee, rendering halachic decisions and writing responsa. Golinkin concludes that women may render halachic decisions, they may study halachah, teach and discuss halachah and write responsa.

Responsa 14: having a mechitza (partition dividing men and women in synagogue). Golinkin writes that it is permissible to abolish this custom.

Responsa 15: ordination of women as rabbis, holding public office, studying Torah, serving as witness. Golinkin writes that women may be ordained as rabbis “on condition that … they undertake upon themselves all PTBC (positive time-bound commandments) and to refrain from participating in batei din [rabbinical courts] for conversion or to serve as witnesses at marriages and divorces.” According to Golinkin, women are permitted “to study and teach Torah and all subjects related to the Torah” and “it is permissible for a woman to serve in public office.”

For anyone interested in the sources and issues regarding the role of women in Judaism, this book is an informative, absorbing and remarkable read. It concludes with a collection of eulogies delivered by Golinkin and a glossary.

Sybil Kaplan is a foreign correspondent, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She has compiled nine kosher cookbooks. She leads weekly walks in English in the Jewish produce market, Machaneh Yehudah, and writes the restaurant features for Janglo, the oldest, largest website in Israel for English-speakers.

This week’s cartoon … July 18/14

For more cartoons, visit thedailysnooze.com.

Israel faces rising jihadist threats

Smoke rises in Gaza after an Israeli airstrike on the second day of Operation Protective Edge, July 9, 2014. (photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

With the launch of the Israeli army’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, much of the public’s attention has focused on Hamas, which has escalated its rocket fire on Israel. But the threats the Jewish state faces from Gaza may not be as clear-cut as they seem.

While Hamas is still extremely deadly, it has seen a weakening of its grip on the coastal enclave over the past few years, due to challenges from other Islamic terror groups and isolation from its former patrons in the Muslim world.

“Hamas has been on the brink of collapse,” explained Jonathan Schanzer, vice-president for research at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. “It has become very isolated politically and economically.

“It is very difficult to figure out what Hamas’ calculus is [in its current escalation with Israel],” Schanzer added. “Hamas may have nothing to lose but, on the other hand, they could have really overplayed their hand, which could lead to complete devastation of their assets.”

Since taking control of Gaza in 2007, Hamas has seen a steady decline in its support from the

Palestinian people and the rise of other Islamic terrorist groups there, including its main Palestinian rival, Islamic Jihad, as well as al-Qaeda-inspired Salafi global jihadist groups.

In February, leaders of the Salafist factions known as the Al-Quds Mujahideen Shura Council in Gaza issued a statement pledging allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), which has made global headlines for its brutality and swift victories in the Syrian civil war and in Iraq. These Gaza-based Salafi jihadist groups have often been at odds with Hamas and have been targeted by Hamas’ internal security forces. At the same time, these groups have been responsible for rocket fire on Israel, both from Gaza and Salafi groups operating in the Sinai Peninsula. This includes rockets fired on the southern Israeli city of Eilat in January 2014.

Meanwhile, recent reports indicate that jihadists from ISIS – now also known simply as “Isamic State” – have attempted to infiltrate Gaza from Egypt, the Gatestone Institute reported.

Sderot residents hope Tel Aviv finally understands them

Motorists in Tel Aviv take cover from an incoming terrorist rocket. (photo from IDF Spokesperson’s Unit via Ashernet)

In Sderot, Simone Mizrachi wearily follows her two-year-old grandson as he happily jumps on the bouncy castle in a large indoor playground. A balloon pops and she jumps. The playground has four large underground bomb shelters in case of rocket attacks.

“Enough already,” said Mizrachi about the dozens of rockets fired at this small town in recent days. “My grandson is the second generation already living through these rockets. When we see smoke from the rockets, I try to tell him, ‘Look at the clouds up there,’ but he knows it’s not clouds. At age 2, he already knows what’s going on.”

Mizrachi has lived in this lower-middle-class town of 24,000 for 32 years and has raised her four children here. For the past 13 years, she said, Sderot has been under constant rocket fire. Because it is less than a mile to the border with the Gaza Strip, there are only 15 seconds to get to a shelter after the siren sounds. The Israeli government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build bomb shelters here – at bus stops, schools and in private homes.

Now, for the first time, rockets are hitting Tel Aviv. Mizrachi said she hopes Israel can end the rocket fire all over the country. But, she added, there is a certain satisfaction in the idea that Israelis in bourgeois Tel Aviv now understand what Sderot has been living with all this time.

“Where have they been for the past 13 years?” she asks angrily. “Now, they are finally getting a taste of what it is like to live here. There are times that we get 60 rockets a day. Maybe now that they feel it, the government will finally do something.”

Haaretz conference provides platform for renewing peace push

To some, it was a (peace) camp reunion. To others, it served notice that peace with the Palestinians has returned to its place atop the agenda of Israel’s political left following its dalliance with socioeconomic issues. To the more than 2,000 participants in Haaretz newspaper’s Israel Peace Conference held last week at Tel Aviv’s David InterContinental Hotel, it was an elegant opportunity to mingle with the iconic stewardship of days past – topped by Shimon Peres – while honing the movement’s agenda among those poised to embrace the next wave of leadership, such as opposition head and Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog and activist-turned-politician Stav Shaffir, who personifies the bridge from social activism to the politics of peace.

The history of the Israeli Peace Conference was itself microcosmic of the fortunes of the movement it supports. The idea began amid optimism born of word of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace mission, according to conference chief executive officer, journalist Akiva Eldar. “The original idea was to push [Israeli] Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to say ‘yes’ to Kerry but, around April, everything came to a halt,” he told this reporter.

“We kept pushing it off, finally setting it for July,” said Eldar, senior columnist for Al-Monitor. But, by the time the date rolled around, a new set of obstacles had presented themselves in the form of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens followed by the killing of a Palestinian youth. The atmosphere became more toxic to the point where key Palestinian participants, chief negotiator Sa’ib Erakat and businessman Munib Al-Masri, pulled out of the conference. Yet, the decision was made to continue as planned. According to Eldar, “We decided we don’t give veto power to terrorists on both sides.”

Ventanas to play at Folk Fest

Tamar Ilana, centre right, and the Ventanas will perform at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, which takes place July 18-20. (photo from the Ventanas)

It is no wonder that the music of Tamar Ilana and the Ventanas is eclectic, with influences from around the world. Ilana has not only traveled the world, studying in both Canada and Spain, but performs with a group of talented musicians whose expertise and interests are as wide-ranging as her own. When she and the Ventanas play at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival next weekend, July 18-20, they will offer, as their name suggests, “windows into other lands and cultures.” And, they will have you up dancing.

Born in Toronto, Ilana lived in the heart of the city with her mother, Dr. Judith R. Cohen, an ethnomusicologist and performer specializing in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) songs. She studied French and graduated high school with a bilingual diploma. “However,” she told the Independent, “I also feel like I grew up in Spain.”

Explained Ilana, “I began accompanying my mother on her field trips when I was 4 (my first trip was to Israel), and then Spain when I was 5. I have had a few homes in Spain over the years. First, Ribadavia, Galicia, where I would roam the castle grounds (now closed to the public) and contemplate the small length of the old graves there, and how short people must have been. Then Hervás, Cáceres, which will forever be ‘mi pueblo.’ When I was 12, I met a family there who took me in as their own and, when my mom would romp all over the peninsula, studying, researching and traveling, I would often stay in Hervás with my ‘family’ there, and join up with my mom for shows. It is in Hervás that I really feel I learned Spanish, grew up a lot, and became a lot of who I am today.”

At 14, Ilana went to Ibiza with her mother, who “was retracing Alan Lomax’s footsteps from 50 years previous.” Since then, Ilana has spent many summers there, she did her third year of university in Barcelona, and studied flamenco in Seville for a year. “So, really, Spain is my other home,” she said.

“My father is part Native Canadian (Cree-Saulteaux), part Romanian and part Scottish. I have not lived with him since I was a baby, but we are close and he has always been a big part of my life. He came to visit me in Barcelona and Seville both times I lived there. He is not a musician but he is a huge supporter of the arts and my life. He says he is my No. 2 fan (my mother being No. 1, hahaha). Both my parents definitely support me as a performer.”

“Science, although I do love it as well, was almost just a form of rebellion from music! But I have now accepted music as who I am.”

Despite being surrounded by music, and performing from a young age, Ilana graduated from University of Toronto with a B.Sc. in biology and worked in the field briefly. “Science, although I do love it as well, was almost just a form of rebellion from music!” she said. “But I have now accepted music as who I am.”

The list of countries to which Ilana has traveled is long. “I used to complain a lot about traveling and performing … and I said that, when I grew up, I wanted to be ‘normal,’ with a house, a car, a 9-5 job. But, I guess, deep down, I always enjoyed the actual singing part. Now, singing, performing and traveling are just so much a part of me that even when I tried to change myself with my biology degree and then working 9-5 for two years in renewable energy, I felt like an imposter. Now, I feel like myself.”

Ilana began her study of flamenco when she was 8, captivated by a performance by Esmeralda Enrique (in Toronto): “I said to my mom, ‘I want to do that,’ and she said, ‘So go talk to her.’ I did, and I began studying dance with her that same year. I have been immersed in the flamenco world ever since.”

When studying in Barcelona in 2007, Ilana did a workshop with Montse Cortés, and “fell in love with flamenco singing.” She said she felt like all the parts of her life were being pulled together.

“Flamenco is everything,” said Ilana. “It is sorrow, it is happiness, it is love, it is death. It is every emotion you could possibly feel all together. It is also technically difficult, which is a good challenge. Flamenco is amazing in that if you speak ‘flamenco,’ you can get on stage with anyone else who speaks ‘flamenco’ and do a whole show without ever speaking to each other in any common tongue.”

Ilana continues to study with Enrique, and sings with her company. She also teaches dancing and singing out of Enrique’s studio, the Academy of Spanish Dance in Toronto.

Though she was working with fantastic people, her mind and soul were on her music and dancing, “what I was going to sing, what I was going to wear, who would be doing the show with me, how to promote it.” So, she left her job, sold her car, left everything she had dreamed of having as a child, and went to Seville.

The path has required courage on more than one occasion. After graduating U of T, she worked as co-campaign coordinator of the Green Energy Act Alliance. Once the act was passed, she was offered a promotion by the nonprofit with which she was working, “but it did not feel right,” said Ilana. Though she was working with fantastic people, her mind and soul were on her music and dancing, “what I was going to sing, what I was going to wear, who would be doing the show with me, how to promote it.” So, she left her job, sold her car, left everything she had dreamed of having as a child, and went to Seville.

“I felt like I was singing flamenco but, really, I felt like I did not know what I was doing, and the only way to know what I was doing would be to go immerse myself in that culture for an extended period of time,” she explained. “It was difficult. The first day at the Fundación Cristina Heeren Escuela de Arte Flamenco was hard – the other singers were so good! Up until then, I had felt like I was a good singer, but that day I felt like I had never sung before in my life! I came home crying. I cried many times at that school – sometimes I was even told I would never be able to sing flamenco because I was not from there! But those hard words actually contributed to the power of flamenco singing, and I began to sing stronger and with more confidence and more knowledge.

“My singing and my understanding of flamenco changed drastically that year (2010-2011), and I returned in 2013 with a Chalmer’s Professional Development Grant to study for another three months. My goal when I first went to Seville was to learn a cante libre (form with no rhythm) and I learned many, which I still sing today, such as ‘Granaína.’”

Although Ashkenazi, Ilana grew up surrounded by Sephardi music and culture, it being her mother’s specialty. “She is a preserver of many old songs that almost no one sings anymore,” said Ilana. “To her, these precious songs are treasures to be guarded dearly.

“I did not grow up religious,” she added, “but we always celebrated the High Holidays with my extended family, and sometimes went to shul. My mother likes going to the synagogue of the Indian Jews here in Toronto sometimes because she is ever interested in different musical cultures and how different communities celebrate, sing and dance according to their customs.

“We often lit candles and sang the prayers on Shabbat, and we traveled to Israel many times as I was growing up…. I recently returned to Israel after many years, this time with Taglit Birthright, and I stayed to visit my cousin and also to play some flamenco in Tel Aviv with friends I had met in Seville.

“Although I am not religious, I feel like the Jewish people are my family, and that there is a common understanding somehow between us all, no matter where we are from in the world. I find this feeling difficult to explain to non-Jews sometimes, but it is a deep feeling I have.”

“Although I am not religious, I feel like the Jewish people are my family, and that there is a common understanding somehow between us all, no matter where we are from in the world. I find this feeling difficult to explain to non-Jews sometimes, but it is a deep feeling I have.”

Before she went to Seville, Ilana was performing with various groups in different projects – a glimpse of her website shows that she still has a host of projects on the go – and, while she was away, these musicians “formed a collective dubbed Fedora Upside-Down (based on the fact that many are buskers, and the idea was to bring folk and world music to the streets to make it more accessible to the general public). It truly felt as though all my worlds had collided, and everyone was just waiting for me to come home and fit right in. And I did!”

From a flamenco rehearsal with Dennis Duffin, Ilana was connected with Mark Marzcyk, leader of Lemon Bucket Orkestra (LBO). The trio was joined by LBO percussionist Jaash Singh and, said Ilana, “We jammed all of summer 2011, in the heart of Fedora Upside-Down, our community and best friends and colleagues. By the time the fall came around, we started being invited to play shows and we called ourselves Ventanas, which means ‘Windows’ in Spanish, after the idea that we are a series of windows into other lands and cultures.”

The only part missing, she said, was an oud player. Singh suggested his friend Demetrios Petsalakis. “He appeared in my kitchen and it was as though he had been there all along!” said Ilana. “We invited him out to our weekend gig … and he showed up and played all the tunes with no charts and barely a rehearsal, just picking them up on the fly. And so, our original quintet was formed.”

Though Ilana dances on some of the pieces, the transition between dancing and singing can be hard, so Ilana invited Ilse Gudiño to join the group, and LBO dancer Stephania Woloshyn also was a guest performer many times. “These are the seven members on our debut self-titled EP,” noted Ilana.

Alexandra Talbot joined when Gudiño had a baby, and now tours with them, and “violinist, composer, friend and Fedora Upside-Down colleague Jessica Hana Deutsch” is also on this tour, as is percussionist Derek Gray.

“Our creative process is always changing,” explained Ilana. “Basically, I am the leader and can make the final call on things. But, since I play with such talented musicians and each one of them knows their styles and cultures so incredibly well, I really just trust their judgment on most things. Mark has a gifted ear for arranging, so especially at the beginning, we would follow his suggestions. Demetrios has a certain ability to compose music that sounds as if it is an old, traditional song, and

Dennis always adds a flamenco feel to it with his voicings and rhythmic changes. Everyone really brings their musical lives to the table and we take it from there. Anyone can suggest a song, teach it, and everyone’s input is heavily taken into consideration before anything is set in stone. Basically, everything is a group decision, and it works surprisingly smoothly.”

The Ventanas’ appearance at the Vancouver Folk Fest is part of a cross-Canada tour and, said Ilana, “Right now, I am planning on going to WOMEX in October to make some important connections and also meet with a few friends there to plan our first European tour. We plan on performing in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Germany in the next year. We might even make it to Greece. WOMEX is in Galicia this year, which will bring me right back to when I was 10 years old and traveling there a lot.”

While Ilana has never been a member of LBO, she has been their guest in various shows, and she has “shared many stages with them, traveled and performed with them.” As it happens, LBO will also be at the Vancouver Folk Fest and, said Ilana, “Ventanas and Lemon Bucket will join forces at VFMF. Come and see how!”

For more about the Ventanas, visit ventanasmusic.com. For the full lineup of Folk Fest performers and other information, visit thefestival.bc.ca.

The Normal Heart comes to Jericho Arts Centre

Daniel Meron co-stars in The Normal Heart, which runs July 18-Aug. 16. (photo by Javier R. Sotres)

Larry Kramer is an incendiary activist who was among the first – and most irate – to raise alarms about a new disease that began killing gay men three decades ago. Kramer was at the forefront of the movement to direct public – and, notably, government – attention to what would become known as AIDS.

Kramer’s play, The Normal Heart, is a polemical cri de coeur written at the North American height of an epidemic that has become the world’s leading infectious killer and the cause of 36 million deaths to date. That is a number almost equivalent to the number of people currently living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And, while extraordinary scientific advances have been made in controlling the symptoms of the disease, most of those treatments remain out of reach for the vast majority now fighting the virus, who are in the developing world.

While the severity of the health crisis has now become clear to most people, Kramer was writing in a time when almost no government resources were allocated to the virus and few in the power structure – from media and medicine to the president of the United States – seemed to care or even acknowledge that gay men were dying in exponentially increasing numbers.

A Jewish playwright, Kramer drew parallels to the world’s reaction to the first reports of the Holocaust. A later book by Kramer, in 1989, would be titled Reports from the Holocaust: The Story of an AIDS Activist.

The Normal Heart opened on Broadway in 1985. Its power remains, with an HBO drama broadcast in May of this year, starring Mark Ruffalo, indicating that social sensitivities to the issue have progressed perhaps as much as the retroviral medical advancements that have made the virus something closer to a manageable disease than the certain death sentence it meant as recently as a decade ago.

The play is now being staged in Vancouver. In it, Daniel Meron, who received a bachelor of fine arts degree in acting from the University of British Columbia, plays Felix Turner, the closeted lover of the main character, Ned Weeks, a stand-in for the playwright Kramer in this barely concealed autobiographical play.

It is a script trembling with rage and Meron sees the topic in a continuum of Jewish activism.

“There is definitely a strong sense of social justice in the Jewish tradition and, like Kramer, I find myself fighting for those who can’t stand up for themselves,” said Meron, who was active in Hillel and the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi during his time at UBC.

“The thing that stands out to me from doing this show was how the U.S. government, the gay community, and the entire world wanted to turn a blind eye to the entire situation,” he said. “As Ned [Kramer’s character] mentions numerous times in the play, the events that took place are eerily similar to the Holocaust.”

Meron, who was born in 1987, said he was struck by the impact The Normal Heart had among gay men who lived through that period.

“Before starting the journey of this play, I wasn’t aware how important The Normal Heart was to so many people,” he said. “It reminds me of speaking to Holocaust survivors. I feel so fortunate to play such an integral part of this story. The greatest thing for me would be to do justice to the story of all the men and women who fought and continue to fight for LGBTQ rights.”

The Normal Heart previews July 14, opens July 18 and runs in repertory until Aug. 16 at Jericho Arts Centre with two other plays as part of the Ensemble Theatre Company Summer Festival. Details and tickets are available at ensembletheatrecompany.ca.

Pat Johnson is a Vancouver writer and principal in PRsuasiveMedia.com.

Ignorance in violent protest at Palestine House

The tragedy of four murdered teenagers in Israel has had more than emotional repercussions here in Canada. But it is unfair to blame foreign events for the shameful actions that took place in a Toronto suburb last Thursday, July 3.

The previous Monday, June 30, Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, the three kidnapped Jewish teens, were found slain. Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Arab, was subsequently killed in what appears to have been a revenge murder by a group of Jewish assailants.

Into this moment of tragedy and tension, in an act with predictable repercussions, the Jewish Defence League announced it would hold a protest over the murders outside Palestine House, in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga.

The Palestine House Educational and Cultural Centre bills itself as a not-for-profit organization that “serves as the educational, cultural and social centre for the Palestinian community in the Greater Toronto Area (in particular) and in Canada (in general).”

The Jewish Defence League, which was founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, is viewed by many as a right-wing extremist group with vigilante tendencies. The respected Southern Poverty Law Centre has added the JDL to its hate group watch-list. The Anti-Defamation League has accused the JDL of harboring “thugs and hooligans.”

Predictably – the JDL having given advance notice – they arrived at Palestine House (backed up by some members of the motorcycle club Yidden on Wheels) to greet a large throng of Palestinian Canadians and their supporters already chanting anti-Israel slogans and waving anti-Israel placards and Palestinian (and Canadian) flags. What ensued was caught, as almost everything seems to be these days, on video. It leaves both sides looking like jackasses. Three people were injured as police struggled and failed to separate the mobs of competing thugs, most of the minor injuries seemingly from whacking with flagpoles as both sides paraded their respective ensigns and used them as weapons.

To say the scene was juvenile is an understatement. Jewish extremists show up, knowing their mere presence, let alone their antagonistic actions, will provoke another group at a time of understandable international tension. Not surprisingly, some of the Palestinian supporters took the bait. Mayhem ensued. Chauvinistic slogans and provocative gestures ruled the day. A couple of people were mildly hurt, but it could have been much worse.

By Canadian standards, though, this was a particularly nasty scene. And, while the fact that it happened during the week of Canada Day does not make it worse, it certainly doesn’t make it better.

The JDL and some similar groups view themselves as the embodiment of a “new Jew” that learned the tragic lessons of passivity. But if the JDL represents the future, we reject it entirely.

If the concept of a “new Jew” is at all legitimate, it is most reflected in the state of Israel. This type of “muscular Judaism” is about more than brute force. It is about attempting to defend and exemplify the values upon which Israel is based, and that it continues to strive to represent: rule of law, justice, fairness, humanitarianism, intercultural collaboration and mutual respect regardless of immutable characteristic. These are the same values that have made Canada among the safest, most secure, successful and welcoming nations for Jews, Palestinians and so many other people.

Events outside Palestine House last week suggest that both the JDL and those who engaged with them – pretty much all men, it might be worth noting – have something to learn about Canadian values.

Israel is my home, heart

I was caught completely off-guard by the question: “Don’t you sometimes long to run away from all this war and violence and madness and terrorism? You could always go back to Australia.”

This was when, like every other Israeli, and probably Jews around the world, I was listening to the news every hour, hoping that the three kidnapped boys would have been found, safe and unharmed. At that time, there was no news yet.

I looked at my friend, a tourist from my birthplace. I didn’t know how to answer her. Once I would have known. I would simply have said “yes,” and my eyes would have filled with tears of nostalgia for the comfortable lifestyle, the ordinariness of everyday living, of only bothering to listen to the news if I wanted a sporting result or the weather forecast; all the security – emotional, financial, physical – that I’d left behind when I made aliyah.

She was looking at me strangely and, I suppose, a lot of time must have passed since she asked me the question. To me, the answer had become extraordinarily complex. A simple “yes” or “no” would not suffice.

We were sitting on a park bench in Beit Hakerem, in Jerusalem, where I live. It was Sunday afternoon, and I’d looked at the scene before us hundreds of times without truly registering it. A little boy was walking his dog on a leash. A pretty girl was jogging, music from an electronic device giving her the beat and rhythm. A grandfather wheeled a baby carriage. A young couple sat near us sharing a falafel and looking into each other’s eyes. Nothing special. Nothing dramatic.

All the drama had been played out in the weeks and months and years before her visit. Down south in Gaza. Up north in Lebanon. Rockets from Syria. Weeks of needing to hear the news every hour. Years of watching funerals on TV of beautiful young soldiers and ordinary people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Making phone calls to ensure that grandsons in the army, involved in searching for the missing boys in Hebron, were safe.

How could you “run away” from all the things that had shaped your life for decades? Of course, you could leave, but you’d take all that caring and commitment with you. It would feel like an amputation, and you’d never be a whole person again.

Over the years, I’ve been back to Australia for holidays, but they were never successful visits for long. For a few days, I’d bask in the warmth of seeing family and friends, enjoying their attention and the luxury of their lives. But then, someone would make a thoughtless remark about Israel, and I would bristle at their lack of understanding and feel that I had to defend the country. I’d long to be back home in Jerusalem, where I could talk about, even criticize, the government and corrupt politicians, the lack of good manners and the insane Israeli drivers, because I’d be talking to people on the same wavelength. It was different, very different.

The familiar scene in the park suddenly became very dear to me. I didn’t know any of these people, but I loved them. They were my family. I hoped the young lovers would marry; that the grandfather would live to see the baby’s bar or bat mitzvah; that the little boy with the dog would never have to fight in a war.

Finally, I had my answer. “No, I don’t long to run away. It’s not easy, but we understand what all the sacrifice is about. And it’s home,” I added as an afterthought. And, after all, home is where the heart is.

Dvora Waysman is the author of 13 books. She has lived in Jerusalem for 43 years.