Tag: culture

Growth and change is Torah

In middle school, we studied the 1920s in English and social studies. It was a period ripe with new slang. I remember the long list of phrases we had to learn and interpret. The surprise was that I knew some of the expressions because my family still used them! Phrases like, “Aren’t you just the bee’s knees?” or “He thinks he’s the cat’s pajamas!” This weird phenomenon came to mind when I happened upon an ancient rabbinic discussion in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 62a. 

Rabbi Zakkai taught a Baraita (an early teaching that was left out of the Mishnah, codified around 200 CE) in Rabbi Yohanan’s presence. It said that, when one did, in a lapse of awareness, a whole series of inappropriate things deemed idol worship, one was only obligated to bring one sin-offering sacrifice to wipe the slate clean.

Rabbi Yohanan responded with “Go out and teach outside.” It was the ancient equivalent of “Get out of town!” or “Get out!” This is the laughing or indignant response somebody makes when you say something unbelievable or surprising.

One can read this text in many ways. It’s possible that Yohanan earnestly thought Zakkai was teaching nonsense and that he shouldn’t teach that inside the house of study, because every action deserved its own separate offering to repent for these mistakes. 

However, as the page continues, the importance of context reveals itself. Imagine a time when idol worship was everywhere. A person could inadvertently look like they were worshipping an idol or a person when they were just bowing respectfully as a custom or doing what they had to do to get along. If surrounded by idol worship, a person may do things that everyone else does, automatically and without reflection.

We still do this. Think about the phrases “knock on wood” or “crossing one’s fingers and toes.” These aren’t Jewish concepts, but many say them anyhow, just as we might use phrases from other religions in conversation. They’re part of the culture around us.

I was thinking about these cultural shifts recently because we had our own big moment a few weeks ago. We were driving home after middle school. I remarked that I’d taken the dog on the river trail for an amazing walk at lunch time. (In Winnipeg, our rivers freeze, allowing several kilometres of walking, skiing and skating trails, along with art installations and events on the ice. It’s like a pop-up provincial park in winter.) One of my kids complained that he hadn’t gotten enough skating in yet. The weather that day was perfect  but a cold snap was coming. I suggested that they head out right away onto the ice on their own.

My kids seemed astounded by the offer, but they took me up on it. We live a block from the river and there’s a convenient ramp down the riverbank. Before we could reconsider, they were off with skates, helmets, snowpants and the loan of my cellphone so they could reach me. I told them to be back in an hour. This bought me more time to make Shabbat dinner, too.

Just before 5:30 p.m., the phone rang. My responsible kids called from the ice, saying, “We got a little too far away, we’re getting tired, but we’re coming back now. We’ll be a little late.” When they got inside, both kids were wobbly, legs rubbery from exhaustion. I had to help them get off their parkas and snowpants, but they were full of triumph. They had taken off on their own and had an adventure. At dinner, they described bumping into a classmate who was out with his mom and younger siblings. While the classmate was a better skater than them, my 13-year-olds seemed puffed up with pride that they were allowed out by themselves.

Times change. As a Gen Xer, when I was 13, I babysat for two siblings on my own. I took the Washington, DC, metro by myself. I was a latchkey kid of longstanding. As the oldest child in my family and “mature,” I had a lot of leeway, as well as responsibility. Was it always good for me? I don’t think so, but it’s just the way things were.

My kids have had a longer stretch of childhood, with more supervision. While they have always had household chores and other responsibilities, these maiden voyages of independence now happen one after the next. Since the skating experience, they’ve been on their own for a Saturday night while we went out to a neighbour’s house. They take the dog walk on their own. This week, they’re headed off to a winter camp sleepaway experience with their school.

Generational shifts often lead us to believe that things are altogether different than they used to be. Yet, when I realized that I used 1920s slang as a kid, it reminded me that, while things change, some things stay the same. We no longer do sin offerings when we’ve made a mistake as part of Jewish practice. We don’t live in a culture surrounded by physical idols and their worship. However, we still make mistakes and seek absolution. Our kids still learn and grow through graduated steps towards independence, complete with worry and insecurity. One rabbi’s “Go and teach outside” becomes “Get out of town!” – after 2,000 years, the inference isn’t that different.

For each generation, something old becomes new again, or seems new, at least. For every parent, those amazing first moments of change in their kids are important. I burst with pride, telling others about the skating adventure. I revel in being able to go out socially (down the street), while my kids put themselves to bed. These ages and stages happen for everyone, but, each time, we’re still ecstatic with the individual circumstance.

My kids told me later that they had read until 8:40 or 9 o’clock when we were out, but, when we got back, their room was silent, lights were off, with the dog on guard. It was a moment of success. I nodded, feeling impressed. Inside, I was thinking, “Get out of town! Look what we accomplished here!” “Rabbi,” I wanted to say, “check these big bar mitzvah boys out! Look at this growth! That, too, is Torah.” 

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Learning from her ancestors

Tasha Faye Evans shares a work in progress at Dance in Vancouver. (photo courtesy Scotiabank Dance Centre)

“With everything I do, I always ask myself, what is the medicine of this work? How is this dance, this play, this project, contributing to the greater health and well-being of my community? Who is this character speaking for? Who am I dedicating this work to? Then, when it comes time to perform,” said Tasha Faye Evans, “I am rarely nervous, because it’s not about me and my skills, its more about the work I am doing and who I am doing it for.”

Evans was speaking to the Independent in advance of Dance in Vancouver, which runs Nov. 20-24 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. The dance and theatre artist, who has Coast Salish, Welsh and European-Jewish grandparents, is presenting t’emək’ʷqən-seed, a work in progress, in a free-to-attend double bill with Starr Muranko/Raven Spirit Dance on Nov. 22, 2 p.m. A moderated conversation with the artists will follow the performances.

“There is not a word in Coast Salish culture for art,” writes Evans on her website. “Our art is functional. Our dances, prayers. Our songs, blessings. I am an artist because I love fiercely and creating work is my way of having hope, preserving the sacred and imagining a better future for all our relations.”

“My own body of work has always been because I am not a blockader, I don’t write the letters to the people in charge, I am weary of shaking my fist in the air,” she told the Independent. “My dance, theatre and community work are my way of addressing a helplessness I feel in the face of the misused powers in the world. My community work is mostly about redress and recalibrating values to align with the original caregivers of these Coast Salish lands and waters. We all share in a sacred responsibility to ensure a future of health and well-being for all our relations, and my work is in service of this sacred responsibility.”

Evans’s choreography has been presented by various companies and she has participated in performances and festivals around the world. She has many projects on the go, in dance and more broadly. One initiative is In the Presence of Ancestors, an exhibition of five Coast Salish House posts being carved and raised in Port Moody along its Shoreline Trail. She was recognized for the 

exhibit with a 2023 Edge Prize, which is given to leaders, or “Edgewalkers,” in the Salmon Nation, described on the prize’s website as “a bioregion defined by the historic range of wild Pacific salmon, from the Salinas River in California, north to the Yukon River in Alaska.”

seed was inspired by a sculpture created by Coast Salish artist James Harry.

“The sculpture was part of KWÍKWI – The Seventh, an exhibit James Harry and his partner Lauren Brevner dedicated to their daughter, the seventh generation born in James’s family since colonization,” said Evans. “seed draws upon what master carver Xwalacktun [James Harry] refers to as the Ancestor’s Eye or the Salish Eye, and the fundamental shapes and teachings of Coast Salish art and design, the sphere, crescent and trigon. The Salish Eye can be found carved into the oldest Coast Salish tools and, for that matter, I refer to these shapes as sxwōxwiyám, part of our original stories, written into the land and shared generation to generation, teaching us how to be human.”

Having collaborated with master carvers for more than a decade now, Evans said her “choreography experiments with how Coast Salish art and design can be expressed in movement, gesture and architecture of the space. I am developing a methodology that is based in the shapes and cultural teachings of the Ancestor’s Eye, the sphere, trigon, crescents, and the space in between. I am passionate about showcasing Coast Salish art form and culture and I am driven to share sxwōxwiyám and invoke a sacred responsibility in my audiences for all our relations.”

photo - Tasha Faye Evans
Tasha Faye Evans (photo by Yasuhiro Okada)

What people will see at Dance in Vancouver is “the tap root of t’emək’ʷqən-seed,” said Evans, “the first part of the work to grow, unfolding itself first towards the earth. I’ll be sharing that vulnerable moment of the creative process where the story is newly manifesting, taking root in the body and just beginning to grow.”

seed was commissioned by Odd Meridian Arts, whose artistic director is Ziyian Kwan. While in residence there, Evans created another work, Song.

“My connection with Odd Meridian Arts began decades ago when I was a shaved-head theatre kid and Ziyian was one of those dancers I’d see on posters and just stare at in awe,” shared Evans. “She’s always represented ambition for me and what a successful career as an artist looks like. (I don’t think I’ve told her this.) Ziyian has always been one of those artists whom I could only aspire to be.”

It was during COVID that Evans said she “got over” herself and responded to a message Kwan had posted on Facebook.

“Song was also a seed,” said Evans. “It was a section of a larger piece I am still creating called Cedar Woman. It was a landing piece in my creative process, when I was exploring how to re-member myself to a legacy of Coast Salish women. I follow the song I hear calling me in my heart. The dance is a journey through the song, all the way back in time to my first grandmother, singing the song as prayer for her grandchildren during the great flood. I don’t dance Song the same in Cedar Woman any longer, but the core of Song, is finding itself in seed.”

For Evans, being part of such diverse ancestry, holding space for her Coast Salish, Welsh and Jewish heritage, is challenging. 

“For much of my adult life, it has been learning how to sit in the circle within my Indigenous community,” she said.

“I didn’t grow up in Jewish culture more than our comfort foods like chicken soup, matzah, and lox and cream cheese. We did not practise being Jewish and I learned very little about this part of me other than the trauma we all carry. For years, I wore a Star of David, mostly because it was a gift from my Nana. Sometimes, I feel my Jewish great-grandmother Faye nudging me disgruntledly until I mention her name, too, when I introduce myself. I’m not sure how to hold being Jewish in this body while living here in these Coast Salish lands and waters.

“There is a piece I’d like to create for my GG Faye, actually. I have a long mink coat that reminds me of one of the photos I have of her, taken just before World War II. I know she’d really appreciate that and I welcome the parts of me I would discover dancing for her.”

Her Welsh heritage has also been less explored, but, said Evans, “I have always longed to go to Wales. To dance on those lands and waters and listen to the language calls me for sure.

“While it’s these Coast Salish lands and stories that dance in me the loudest, I do honour that I am the dream of all my ancestors.”

Dance in Vancouver also features a work by Action at a Distance/Vanessa Goodman on Nov. 23 and DIV Unstructured on Nov. 24 includes Idan Cohen/Ne.Sans Opera & Dance. For more information and tickets, visit thedancecentre.ca.

Unique in style, rich in culture

Kommuna Lux (photo by Maria Dmytrenko)

[Editor’s Note: Due to unforeseen circumstances related to flight restrictions, the Chutzpah! Festival must postpone Yamma Ensemble’s performances to March. However, the festival has found a vibrant alternative for Nov. 5: Itamar Erez Trio and special guests. Click here for more.]

Original music that honours the culture and traditions of its creators. Unique songs that you’d have to travel thousands of kilometres to see and hear live. Or, you could buy tickets to Chutzpah! The Lisa Nemetz Festival of International Jewish Performing Arts, which runs Nov. 1-10.

Kommuna Lux from Ukraine brings its unique “Odesa Gangsta Folk” – which they describe as “thrilling klezmer music and common gangster folk songs from their hometown, all with a dose of rocket fuel” – to Vancouver to open the festival Nov. 2, 7 p.m., at the Pearl. The event is presented in partnership with Caravan World Rhythms. The group will also travel to Victoria, for a Nov. 1 show at the Edelweiss Club.

Kommuna Lux’s music is specific to their part of the world, Volodymyr Gitin (clarinet) told the Independent. 

“What I like most about this style is the special energy that charges both us and our listeners,” he said. “But I also really like how diverse our music is, because it includes almost everything related to the cultural heritage of Odesa.”

Similarly, Yamma Ensemble from Israel brings its unique heritage-rich music to Chutzpah! – on Nov. 5, 7 p.m., at Rothstein Theatre. They also give an intergenerational matinee performance Nov. 4, geared to school and seniors groups, in which they will “include as many explanations as possible about the ancient musical instruments, about the Jewish communities around the world, about the songs,” lead vocalist Talya G.A Solan told the Independent.

“We wish to celebrate and enjoy the richness and the immense beauty of the Jewish culture and our origins,” she said. “We mainly bring out the mix of Jewish cultures, the mix of our different backgrounds and the fact that we came together into an organic and whole music ensemble…. So, in our music, you can hear the music of Spanish Jews from Thessaloniki and Spanish Jews from Turkey, the singing of psalms by the Jews in Iraq and the singing of religious poems from Yemen.”

photo - Yamma Ensemble
Yamma Ensemble (photo by Zohar Ron)

On the group’s website, they note that Yamma means “toward the sea” in Hebrew and “mother” in Arabic.

“The connection between Hebrew and Arabic is not only a connection between two very similar Semitic languages, but also a connection between the countries of origin of the Jews who lived in Arab countries and their descendants, who were born here and grew up in Israel,” explained Solan. “Our musical heritage, like our origins, is connected to the Jewish communities in the Middle East who immigrated to Israel with the language they spoke, the Arabic language in its many dialects (Yemeni, Iraqi, Moroccan, etc.). They came to Israel and had to speak the local language – Hebrew.”

Hebrew is a central element of the ensemble’s repertoire, directly tied to the members’ identity as Israeli musicians.

“Hebrew is our mother tongue, the language we were born into and the language in which we dream and communicate,” said Solan. “It is an ancient, gorgeous and special language that became extinct and was revived in the 20th century. We try to perform mostly in Hebrew. We mix between our own original creations (always Hebrew) and traditional music (Sephardic, Yemenite).

“There is no Israeli music group that performs out of Israel and has been active for a long time [mainly] performing Hebrew music,” she continued. “This fact is odd and crazy, since Hebrew is the spoken language in Israel, but none of the Israeli musicians active abroad focus on this magnetizing and beautiful ancient language.

“One of the reasons that Yamma Ensemble’s YouTube channel is the most viewed channel of Hebrew music for foreign audiences,” she said, is “the accessibility of Hebrew for foreign audiences who do not speak it. We translate all the songs, so people can watch them with English translation. We receive daily messages from all over the world from people who write us that they learn Hebrew with the songs, that they get closer to their Judaism through the songs. It feels like a serious task that we didn’t ask to take on, and it happened naturally.”

Yamma Ensemble has four albums – Yamma (2011), Basket Full of Stars (2017), Rose of the Winds (2020) and To Awaken Love (2023) – the last of which comprises entirely original music, inspired by traditional sounds, said Solan.

The group is working on an album of psalms. Their performance of Psalm 104 is “the most viewed Jewish chant on YouTube, [in the] category of live and traditional music,” she said. “It has already passed 10 million views! So, we need to record this psalms album.”

However, to produce a recording is an expensive undertaking, and that’s one thing when the music will have a relatively large market. For music “that is not commercial and does not carry profits or compensation, there must be a budgetary basis or significant support,” said Solan. People who are interested may support the psalms project via the ensemble’s website, yammaensemble.com.

Coincidentally, Kommuna Lux’s original name also has to do with the financial side of the music business. 

“Dengi Vpered means ‘Money Forward’ or ‘Cash in Advance,’” explained Gitin. “This name appeared before I was in the group. One day, the guys didn’t get paid for a performance and, since then, they started taking money in advance. At the same time, they named the group that way, with a bit of Odesa humour, and also so that it would be immediately clear how they do business.

“After six incredible years of being together, it so happened that our vocalist decided to go his own way and we needed to figure out how and with whom to continue our journey. Also, for various reasons, we felt that it was necessary to change the name…. So, first we found [singer] Bagrat [Tsurkan], who quickly became a valuable member of our team, and then the name itself came along, which resonated with us very much.

“Kommuna Lux has several meanings,” he said. “One of them is ‘the Commune,’ which is united by the common idea of bringing light and joy to people. But ‘Kommuna’ can also mean a communal apartment in which several families live. In such apartments, there is a shared kitchen and sometimes a bathroom, and people need to agree with each other to live in peace and harmony. And ‘Lux’ in this case has another meaning, as a sign of the quality of how we look and sound on stage, the quality of the luxury level.”

Gitin joined the band, which has one album to date (OdesaFM), in 2014.

“I was attracted by the idea of reviving Odesa songs and Jewish folklore in a new, modern way,” he said. “Everything was created and performed with great enthusiasm and a desire to share positive emotions with people. We felt that we were doing something special.”

And they do something extra special in some of their performances – they raise money for Ukrainians affected by the ongoing war with Russia. 

“Mostly, we collect money for 110 Brigade, they always need different vehicles for different goals,” said Gitin. “Also, during our last tour, we [participated in a] joint initiative of Rotary E-Club of Ukraine to buy beds for burn victims, for a hospital in the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk region.

“Our whole life is connected with our home and we feel that every Ukrainian joined to help our people,” he said. “So, our reasons are the same, we can’t just watch, we feel that we should do what we can.”

He added, “Music is very important, especially in such periods, because, through it, it is possible to express the whole spectrum of feelings. Music can raise the spirit, unite everyone around a common idea, and also help people experience deep feelings, especially when they lose loved ones.”

Rounding out the musical offerings at Chutzpah! this year is New Orleans multi-instrumentalist Mark Rubin, “offering Southern Americana from a Jewish, socially conscious point-of-view.” Jacob Samuel headlines a comedy night hosted by Kyle Berger, and Jeremy Goldstein’s Truth to Power Café includes stories from Vancouverites in response to the question, “Who has power over you and what do you want to say to them?” A dance double bill features Fortress (Rebecca Margolick and Livona Ellis) and About Time (Ne.Sans Opera & Dance, Idan Cohen). Canadian Yiddishist Michael Wex brings The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (di letste nakht baym yitesh) to the festival, and the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival and Chutzpah! co-present the screening of Gimpel the Fool Returns to Poland by Nephesh Theatre artistic director Howard Rypp, which “follows the show’s journey throughout different towns of Poland, while tracing [Gimpel writer Isaac Bashevis] Singer’s escape from the Holocaust, finally finding refuge in the USA.” 

For tickets to any of the festival events, visit chutzpahfestival.com or call 604-257-5145.

New this year for the Chutzpah! Festival: Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver members receive discounted ticket prices and concession purchases at the theatre. Select Student/Senior/JCC Member tickets and ChutzPacks and bring your membership card to the theatre.

Victoria film fest set to start

The Latin American and Spanish Film Week returns to Cinecenta, on the campus of the University of Victoria, Sept. 19-22. (photos courtesy Dan Russek)

The Latin American and Spanish Film Week returns to Cinecenta, on the campus of the University of Victoria, from Sept. 19 to 22. Now in its 14th season, this year’s event will offer movies from Argentina, Mexico and Spain, with all screenings taking place at 7 p.m. Each showing will have English subtitles.

The cinematic fiesta is put together by the Hispanic Film Society of Victoria. The society’s mandate is to promote Latin American and Spanish films in the city through the annual film festival. It also aims to further the knowledge and enjoyment of Spanish-language films through cultural and academic events to benefit the community.

Jewish community member Prof. Dan Russek, the organizer of the event, which began in 2010, said, “As part of the UVic faculty and a member of the Hispanic community, I am proud to bring this cultural event to Victoria again. It should interest folks not only from Latin America and Spain but also members of the community at large.

“There is no need to speak Spanish to understand the movies,” Russek added. “They all feature contemporary, relatable stories, and they function as windows to the diverse societies, cultures, histories and politics of the Spanish world. Our mission is to expand the horizons of our audience, and we believe, at the society, that we have achieved this goal again.”

The week will actually start on Sept. 18 at Caffe Fantastico (965 Kings Rd.) at 6 p.m. with a presentation from the society that will feature five local artists, all of whom hail from Latin America. They will discuss their experiences as migrants to Canada, their process of adaptation and their artistic practices.

Cuban pianist Pablo Cardenas, Mexican classical violinist Pablo Diemecke and Mercedes Batiz-Benet, a Mexican writer, theatre director and producer, will start the evening. They will be followed by Cuban trumpeter Miguelito Valdes and Chilean actress and theatre producer Lina de Guevara. The event is free, though audience members are encouraged to purchase food and drinks. 

The first film offering, on Sept. 19, is Totem, a Mexican movie from director Lila Aviles. The family drama focuses on 7-year-old Sol, who bears witness to the preparations of a party in honour of her cancer-stricken father, Tona. 

Totem was Mexico’s entry for best foreign feature for the 2023 Academy Awards. It picked up the Ecumenical Award for Best Film at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, and Aviles received an award for best director at the 2023 Jerusalem Film Festival.

Puán, an Argentine-Italian-French-German-Brazilian international co-production, will hit the screen on Sept.20. The 2023 comedy-drama from Maria Alché and Benjamin Naishtat tells the tale of Marcelo, a philosophy professor in Buenos Aires who sees his plans upended upon the arrival of his former colleague, who is based in Germany – the charismatic Rafael. Their conflict is set amid the crisis in Argentina’s education sector.

“The hapless but deeply lovable and tragically self-aware Marcelo needs and deserves a psychological makeover, and Naishtat and Alché are too fond of him to deny him one. How and where it happens is a treat,” Jessica Kiang wrote in Variety.

Lillian Torres’s Mamifera will represent Spain on Sept. 21. The 2024 film tells the story of Lola, who, along with her partner, Bruno, enjoys a happy life until an unexpected pregnancy turns everything upside down. Her previous determination not to be a mother is challenged by social expectations and the inner fears she faces. In a review for the Austin Chronicle, Jessi Cape wrote that the film “tackles an endlessly complicated, often excruciating, sometimes beautiful topic with grace, humour and easily relatable characters.”

The festival concludes Sept. 22 with Bernardo Arsuaga’s 2023 documentary The Michoacán File, which traces the history of Mexican food and the efforts of a group of diplomats, chefs and intellectuals to make the country’s cuisine an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, an acknowledgement granted by UNESCO. After the film, the public is invited to stay for a conversation and Q&A about Mexican food with Israel Alverez Molina, owner and chef of Victoria’s MaiiZ Nixtamal Eatery and Tortilleria, and Maria Elena Cuervo-Lorens, the author of two cookbooks on Mexican cuisine.

For more information about the Latin American and Spanish Film Week, visit the Hispanic Film Society of Victoria website, hispfilmvic.ca.

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

Enjoy weekend in Montreal

A bike tour with Fitz Montreal. (photo © Fitz and Follwell Co)

There’s nothing like a weekend in Montreal, whether you’re in the mood for a classic bagel, a mouthwatering babka dripping with chocolate, or a heaping smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz’s Deli. Now that Porter Airlines has launched direct daily flights between Vancouver and Montreal, it’s a great time to explore this fabulous city, which oozes with personality, culture, history and great food. 

We joined a fast-paced bike tour to see the city’s highlights, pedaling 15 kilometres through green alleyways, busy boulevards and along the Lachine Canal to get a broad overview of Montreal’s history. We rode through the Old Quarter, with its ancient stone buildings, following the canal past factories and warehouses reincarnated into swanky apartments. We puffed up the hill to the base of Mount Royal and zipped back down past the austere buildings of McGill University. 

At Place d’Armes, we stopped to gaze at a pair of statues called “The Two Snobs.” On one side, a Francophone woman holds her poodle, looking with contempt at the head office of the Bank of Montreal, a symbol of English power. On the other, an Anglophone holds his pug, looking with similar disdain at the Notre-Dame Basilica, a symbol of the Catholic Church in Quebec. The statues hint loudly at the enduring, simmering tensions between English and French in Montreal.

photo - The Old Quarter of Montreal
The Old Quarter of Montreal. (photo © Freddy Arciniegas – Arcpixel – Tourisme Montréal)

We escaped the tourist crowds in the Old Quarter by heading to Mile End to join a food and history tour offered by the Museum of Jewish Montreal. Our guide, Avery Monette, a 23-year-old master’s student at Concordia, led us on a gastronomic feast as she described the city’s Jewish origins in 1760. That’s when Jews first arrived in Montreal to work as fur trade merchants. The community stayed small until the 1880s, when pogroms drove Eastern European Jews to the safety of Montreal’s Mile End. Over the next 90 years, it would become the largest Jewish community in Canada.

We bit into a sweet, rich cheese crown from Boulangerie Cheskie, a small kosher bakery in the neighbourhood, and then braved the cold wind to line up outside St-Viateur Bagel, one of Montreal’s two most famous bagel shops. Established in 1957 by Hyman Zeligman and Myer Lewkowicz, the store never closes. Ever. “In April 2023, there was an ice and snowstorm that knocked out all the electricity in the area,” Monette recalled. “Even then, this place was open!” 

We strolled along rue Jeanne-Mance in Mile End, where frum families pushed strollers alongside us and a man wearing a shtreimel strode by, headed for the synagogue with his tallit tucked under his arm. The Jewish influence was easily spotted, with most houses having mezuzot on their doors and many with the skeleton of a sukkah in their front yard. 

By the 1950s, Jews in Montreal had migrated to the middle class, and many left Mile End for larger homes in Côte Saint-Luc, Hampstead and Côte-des-Neiges. We passed the College Français, once the home of the B’nai Jacob Synagogue, which was known as the Carnegie Hall of cantorial singing in its heyday. 

Our Vancouver jackets were feeling pretty inadequate in Montreal weather by the time we arrived at Fairmount Bagel, where the line out the door was even longer than at St-Viateur. Once inside, we were surrounded by garlic, pumpernickel, cranberry and muesli bagels, as well as matzah with sesame, onion and poppy seeds. While none of it is kosher, the store is still owned by the same Shlafman family that first opened it in 1949. 

A few doors away is Wilensky’s, a small restaurant with origins in 1932 and family members still at the helm. With its Formica counters, bar stools and what could easily be the world’s tiniest washroom, the store feels like a 1930s time capsule. Monette orders the Wilensky Special, an original family recipe featuring beef salami, beef bologna and mustard on a grilled roll. No special requests or modifications are allowed, not for us or for Anthony Bourdain and Mordecai Richler, both of whom were customers. 

On Boulevard Saint-Laurent, new stories mingle with the old. We picked up a babka at Hof Kelsten, where Jeffrey Finkelstein is turning heads with his challah, rugelach and rye. We passed Leonard Cohen’s grey-stoned triplex, a house he lived in from 1968 and that’s still owned by his family. “He was well known for padding around the streets in the slippers he bought right here,” Monette says, gesturing at J. Schreter, a shoe shop on the corner.

photo - Lunch at Schwartz’s Deli
Lunch at Schwartz’s Deli. (photo © Eva Blue)

Between the bagels, the babkas and the Wilensky Special, it’s hard to make room for more food, but the length of the line outside Schwartz’s Deli tells us this one is not skippable, so on we go. Famous for its smoked meat sandwiches since its inception in 1928, the deli is now owned by Celine Dion and her partners, who have kept things much the same, adding a smoked meat poutine to the menu. Take a bite of one of Schwartz’s sandwiches, which literally bulge with hefty portions of meat, and you understand precisely why the little deli is such a cultural icon in the city. Quite simply, it’s unforgettable. It’s a fitting symbol for the city of Montreal, which is bursting with flavour.

Whether you come for the food, the history, the arts scene or the culture, Montreal is charmingly seductive, and so vastly different from Vancouver that it feels like an entirely different country. Now just four-and-a-half hours away, it’s an easy decision to put this sophisticated French city on the itinerary. 

If you go …

• In April, Porter Airlines launched its daily round trip service between Vancouver and Montreal (flyporter.com)

• A bike tour with Fitz Montreal is a great way to explore Montreal’s highlights, with many sights packed into an exhilarating, fast-paced ride (fitzmontreal.com)

• Museum of Jewish Montreal offers regular Beyond the Bagel Tours in the spring, summer and fall. The three-hour tours include food and range from $79-$95 per person (museemontrealjuif.ca/beyond-the-bagel)

• Humaniti Hotel offers sophisticated accommodation in the heart of the city, steps from Old Montreal, the Palais des congrès and the Quartier des Spectacles (humanitihotel.com)

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. 

Festival unites sparks of light

The Options Israeli music cover band closes the Festival of Israeli Culture on May 26. (photo from the JCC)

This year’s Festival of Israeli Culture takes place May 21-26, with the main event at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver the afternoon of Lag b’Omer, May 26.

Falling on the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, between the second night of Passover and Shavuot 49 days later, Lag b’Omer is a celebration amid tragedy. It commemorates the end of a plague that is said to have killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef’s students during the Bar Kochba rebellion against the Roman Empire in the second century. Only five students survived, one of whom was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the sage who wrote the Zohar, among other things. Jewish tradition states that, after Rabbi Shimon offered his last kabbalist teaching, he died, on Lag b’Omer, having requested that his death not be mourned. For Rabbi Shimon, death means a soul has taken its place with God.

Among the traditions of Lag b’Omer are bonfires (perhaps in remembrance of fires the Bar Kochba rebels lit to relay messages), weddings, a boy’s first haircut, singing and dancing.

“I felt that it is so sensitive to be celebrating when there is such a complex and sad situation going on in Israel,” Nomi Zysblat, organizer of the annual JCC festival this year, told the Independent. “But, after researching the meaning of Lag b’Omer, I really see it as our community coming together with our individual sparks of light, a way of staying together, of communicating, a collective medura [bonfire or campfire] of strength and warmth.”

This year’s festival will be on the quieter side.

“We thought about this a lot,” said Zysblat. “Is it OK to ‘celebrate’? Is it safe? After many conversations, we decided that we need a gathering, we need to feel safe, we need to remember and we also need to be proud. We aren’t having a huge event, it’s going to be slightly more intimate … more gatherings and community enjoyment rather than huge events, both for the general feeling and also for security reasons. We aren’t flaunting but are also still wanting to enjoy being together.”

On May 21, there will be a dance party, kibbutz-style, at the Anza Club (tickets, $15). The night will be hosted by DJ Guy Hajaj, who will showcase modern and alternative Israeli music.

“He’s had a show for 10 years on Israeli radio and also a popular music blog, among other things,” explained Zysblat. “He DJs at events in Israel throughout the year but has been based in Vancouver for six years.”

photo - On May 23, Moshe Bonen performs a sing-along-style show with festival organizer Nomi Zysblat
On May 23, Moshe Bonen performs a sing-along-style show with festival organizer Nomi Zysblat. (photo from the JCC)

On the afternoon of May 22, the JCC parking lot will become an arts space where kids/teens can participate in a collaborative mural project led by Zohar Hagbi, a local Israeli artist. And, on the evening of May 23, the JCC atrium will come alive with music in a sing-along-style show led by musician and former Israeli radio broadcaster Moshe Bonen with Zysblat (tickets, $10, include a glass of wine).

“I have a music degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston and used to write and perform my own folk/rock music back in the day,” said Zysblat. “But, my favourite thing in the world to do when I was living in New York was to go up to the Bronx to Moshe’s loft and sing while he played his grand piano. He is an amazing player and accompanist.”

Zysblat’s professional background is both in music management and in the food industry. She started her own company 12 years ago – Paletas, which makes and sells natural popsicles. She got the idea while living in New York, discovering the icy Mexican treat at a grocery store. 

“After she brought the idea to the restaurant where she worked as a cook in Brooklyn and created unique desserts for the restaurant’s menu, she realized that it could be a lot of fun to make them in Israel,” it says on the company’s website. “Naomi went on a trip to Mexico to learn from local paleteros, their method and tradition, and get inspiration for special and different flavours, then came back and opened her small business here in Tel Aviv.”

“I was born in Jerusalem to Canadian-born parents – my dad was from Calgary and my mom is from Vancouver,” Zysblat told the Independent. “We grew up visiting our grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins every summer in Canada so it’s like a second home to me. I even spent a few sabbatical years my parents took here in Vancouver, and attended school here. I knew this was an experience I wanted for my kids as well and, after Oct. 7, realized there’s no better time to come here. My husband Adi always loved BC because he was a mountain biker and beer brewer, so it was a win-win.”

It’s not surprising then that a nature walk is also part of this year’s festival. On the morning of May 25 at Central Park in Burnaby, there will be a walk led by young community madrichim (leaders). The terrain is suitable for all ages and abilities. There will be songs, stories, snacks.

At the festival’s main event at the JCC on May 26, there will be food trucks (Planted and Meet2Eat), a marketplace (jewelry, glass work, flower arrangements, photography, home decor, Israeli popsicles and jachnun, a Yemenite Jewish pastry), DJ’ed Israeli music, Israeli dance shows (troops from across Metro Vancouver, including Or Atid youth dancers), a drum circle, wine-tasting, arts and crafts, a gaga pit, face-painting, and dance, art and hummus workshops. In the Zack Gallery, the Tikun Olam Community Art Installation is already on display. The day closes with a performance by the Options, a group of local Israelis who cover Israeli rock and other songs. 

For more information, visit jccgv.com/ event/festival-of-israeli-culture. 

Klezcadia a June highlight

Veretski Pass – Joshua Horowitz, left, Cookie Segelstein and Stuart Brotman – will be joined by clarinetist Joel Rubin to present the world première of music from their new album, Makonovetsky’s Scion. (photo from Klezcadia)

Victoria will host Klezcadia, a hybrid klezmer and Yiddish culture festival showcasing a West Coast lineup of musical mastery and mavenry. Running June 4-9 in-person and online, there is no charge to attend.

According to festival director Laura Rosenberg, Klezcadia intends to position Victoria as a focal point for klezmer and Yiddish cultural tourism. In conjunction with the music, the six-day event will present classes, workshops, lectures, demonstrations and open rehearsals conducted by artists, language faculty and other guests.

“Klezcadia’s audiences can expect cutting-edge performances – including three world premières – by some of the world’s leading klezmer artists. Additionally, participants at any level of experience will have opportunities to attend classes, workshops and presentations by these same artists and their Yiddish-language colleagues,” Rosenberg told the Independent.

“Our guiding principle is to make the safe in-person attendance experience and the virtual attendance experience as equivalent and rich as current technology allows, as well as to give the same level of respect to all attendees,” she said.

Some of the featured artists will be Veretski Pass, a Bay Area trio that will perform with clarinetist Joel Rubin; Vancouver musician Geoff Berner; and Jeanette Lewicki in her new show as Pepi Litman, an early 20th-century Yiddish theatre drag star.

Comprised of Cookie Segelstein (violin), Joshua Horowitz (19th-century button accordion) and Stuart Brotman (bass), Veretski Pass offers a wide mix of East European influences. Reuniting with Rubin, they will present the world première of music from Makonovetsky’s Scion, their new album for the Borscht Beat label. 

Berner, a singer, songwriter, accordionist, novelist and political activist, will stage the première of Second Fleet, the Yiddish song cycle he recently co-wrote with Canadian writer Michael Wex, author of the bestseller Born to Kvetch, a humorous and scholarly look at the Yiddish language.

Lewicki will transmit the spirit of Litman, the original “drag king” of Yiddish theatre, in another première. The Pepi Litman Project will examine the time when a groundbreaking performer literally “wore the pants,” led her own touring troupe, turned taverns into theatres, and tested societal boundaries with her satire. Litman toured Europe and reportedly North America, too, singing, in male garb, at spas, inns and private homes in small towns and large cities alike. 

Some of the talks and workshops on offer at the festival are The Barry Sisters: America’s Yiddish Swingsters, with Andy Muchin, the host of the Sounds Jewish radio show on PRX; Yiddish Through Song Lyrics, with Seattle-based Marianne Tatom, a Yiddish teacher and klezmer musician; and Yiddish Through Conversation, with Sasha Berenstein, a multi-instrument musician and fellow with the Yiddish Book Centre’s Yiddish Pedagogy Program. 

On June 5, Christina Crowder of the Klezmer Institute will speak about the Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project, an international endeavour connecting participants with the work of important klezmer musicians from the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

The festival will take a walk on the vilde side on June 8 with what organizers describe as “musical mash-ups, klezmer-adjacent adventures, song parodies, unusual instruments” and offering the forecast “you never know what will pop up in this clearing in the klezmer/Yiddish jungle.” The evening will feature Seattle neo-vaudevillian Mai Li Pittard, as well as local klezmer bands Kvells Angels and the Klezbians. A new klezmer ensemble, Kvells Angels, gave a concert last fall at the University of Victoria in which they performed works previously unavailable to musicians. The Klezbians, meanwhile, are a well-known band of “chutzpah-licious” musicians, and the group goes back many a year.

Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El, under whose auspices Klezcadia is being produced, will host the finale concert at the Cameron Bandshell, located in Beacon Hill Park. The closing concert will be a gift to the city in celebration of the congregation’s 160th anniversary. 

Festival organizers have made a concentrated effort to ensure that all participants enjoy a safe experience. The hybrid environment, they stress, will prioritize the well-being of immunocompromised and high-risk participants, for both those onstage and in the audience. Indoor activities will include protective protocols, such as supplemental air purification, required masking and daily onsite COVID testing. 

“Klezcadia was inspired by deep listening to an online meeting of immunocompromised and high-risk musicians and Yiddish-language enthusiasts in early 2023,” Rosenberg said. “During the first two years of the pandemic, they had finally felt included in the klezmer/Yiddish community, since everyone’s only option was to gather online.”

The same groups felt marginalized again when most festivals returned to unmasked, in-person formats. Through dialogue with these groups, Rosenberg realized, Victoria had a chance “to become a host community for an inclusive form of cultural tourism.”

Rosenberg said her 45-year arts administration career came in handy when building a music festival from the ground up; she had already done so with two other festivals. It has been a year’s worth of full-time work to plan the format, bring in the artists and teachers, scout venues, initiate community engagement and, importantly, raise the money.

Locals seem eager for the festival to start. “I am optimistic based on expressions of pride I have heard from Victoria residents, on how quickly Klezcadia’s in-person registration reached capacity and on the eagerness of local tourism-sector businesses to be included in our visitors’ guide,” Rosenberg said.

People from more than a dozen countries have signed up to view events streamed online.

For more information, visit klezcadia.org. 

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

Egypt faces many struggles

Twenty years in the making, Egypt’s Grand Egyptian Museum is in a soft-opening period, with a section of the 81,000-square-metre site open for limited guided tours. (photo from Grand Egyptian Museum)

In biblical times, the Patriarch Jacob led his family to Egypt, the granary of the ancient Near East, to escape famine in Canaan. By the Roman era, the Nile River Valley and Delta – enriched by the Nile’s annual flooding with alluvial mud – had become the breadbasket of Rome. King Herod built an artificial harbour at Caesarea to facilitate the crucial maritime shipment of wheat to the imperial capital. Today, the once fabulously wealthy country is an economic basket case.

President Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his military-industrial kleptocracy blame the country’s high birth rate for the inability to feed Egypt’s burgeoning population of 110 million people. Taking a page from Keynesian economic theory, the regime – which toppled Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi in a 2013 coup d’état – has triggered a free fall of hyperinflation and devaluations while building mega-projects to stimulate the country’s broken finances.

The country’s annual rate of inflation soared to 36% in February, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said on March 31. The Egyptian pound, called the guinea, traded at 20 to the American dollar as recently as 2020. Now, one needs 52 to buy a greenback in the flourishing parallel market. In the past 24 months, a crippling shortage of foreign currency has caused prices of goods and commodities to more than triple, forcing low- and middle-income Egyptians to further tighten their belts.

The result? Strained services, a bloated bureaucracy, a huge government budget and a staggering deficit.

Compounding the economic misery, Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the resulting Israel-Hamas war in Gaza have driven away tourists from the land of Pharaonic wonders and spectacular coral reefs. Houthi rockets targeting shipping in the Red Sea have shrunk revenue from the Suez Canal, which is down 40% this year versus the same period in 2023. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago has driven up wheat prices and made subsidized bread – a staple for most Egyptians – more costly.

Notwithstanding Egypt’s inability to repay its current foreign debt of about $165 billion, el-Sisi’s immediate financial problems were eased in recent weeks thanks to a bailout, more than $23 billion provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the European Union.

At the same time, the United Arab Emirates launched a rescue plan to prop up its ally through the Ras el-Hekma deal announced last month. The vast real estate project envisions a new city on the barren shores of the Mediterranean Sea near the site of the pivotal Second World War battle of El Alamein. It was concluded in exchange for $24 billion in cash liquidity and $11 billion in UAE deposits with the Central Bank of Egypt, which will be converted into Egyptian pounds and used to implement the project, reported Reuters.

Where then has Egypt invested, or perhaps squandered, its largesse?

One expensive pet project has been to expand the quasi-governmental Egyptian Railway Authority’s network of standard-gauge train tracks. The system, the oldest in the Middle East, dating back to the 1854 line between Alexandria and Kafr el-Zayyat on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, now extends across 10,500 kilometres. A further 5,500 kilometres are currently in construction, including high-speed lines from Alexandria west to Mersa Matruh, Cairo south to Aswan, and Luxor east to Safaga via Hurghada.

Equally ambitious are plans to expand the country’s clogged highways. Transportation Minister Kamel al-Wazir, who took over the accident-plagued portfolio from Hisham Arafat following the 2019 Ramses Station train disaster, in which 25 Cairenes were killed and 40 injured, plans to complete 1,000 bridges, tunnels and flyovers this year.

Key to the plan to clear Cairo’s traffic woes is to complete an ambitious, shimmering new capital 50 kilometres east of the megalopolis, whose population is estimated to be more than 22 million people. The so-far-unnamed New Administrative Capital, under construction for nearly a decade, is located just east of the Second Greater Cairo Ring Road. It includes more than 30 skyscrapers, the most striking of which is the 77-floor Iconic Tower – the tallest building in Africa. Equally noteworthy are the 93,000-seat soccer stadium, the Fattah el-Aleem Mosque, accommodating 107,000 worshippers, and the Nativity of Christ Cathedral, which has room for 8,000 Copts.

To date, 14 ministries and government entities have relocated to the New Administrative Capital, but the city remains a largely lifeless white elephant with few residents.

Apart from these vast infrastructure projects, Egypt has been burnishing its cultural heritage. In 2022, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity launched the Holy Family Trail, stringing together some 25 stops along the celebrated route that Jesus, Mary and Joseph took to escape King Herod’s wrath. Last year, the government restored the medieval Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fostat (Old Cairo), the home of the Cairo Geniza. The long-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza near the Pyramids is scheduled to officially open this summer – though no date has been announced.

photo - The top part of the Merneptah Stele, inscribed by the New Kingdom pharaoh, dated around 1208 BCE. Line 28 reads: “Israel is laid waste – its seed is no more”
The top part of the Merneptah Stele, inscribed by the New Kingdom pharaoh, dated around 1208 BCE. Line 28 reads: “Israel is laid waste – its seed is no more.” (photo from Grand Egyptian Museum)

Twenty years in the making, the GEM is currently in a soft-opening period, with a section of the 81,000-square-metre site open for limited guided tours.

Touted as the largest archeological museum complex in the world, the GEM will house more than 100,000 artifacts. It will showcase the treasures discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. Other highlights will include a restoration centre, an interactive gallery for children and the Khufu Boat Museum.

King Tut’s funerary possessions had been on display at downtown Cairo’s Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, a hopelessly inadequate leftover from Britain’s colonial rule. There, a decade ago, I wandered in sensory overload gawping at the Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders. As if guided by divine providence, or perhaps Ra or Isis, I stumbled upon the Merneptah Stele – a three-metre-high piece of black granite inscribed by the New Kingdom pharaoh, dated around 1208 BCE, which was discovered in Thebes in 1896 by archeologist Flinders Petrie. Line 28 reads: “Israel is laid waste – its seed is no more.”

For me, it symbolizes the cold peace Israel and Egypt have enjoyed since 1979. Though few Israelis would wish to repudiate that historic agreement, many share the sentiment of Eitan Haber, the confidant of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said: “The Egyptians don’t like us and – why deny it? – we don’t like them.” 

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.

Cultural constellations

Lindsey Tyne Johnson has a new show at the Zack Gallery: The Irish Mazzaroth & Hebrew Spelled Backwards. It comprises two separate parts.

Hebrew Spelled Backwards debuted at the Kamloops Art Gallery in 2023. It is a series of illustrations in which the artist explores her Jewish heritage.

“When the show finished in Kamloops, the Zack Gallery director contacted me,” Johnson told the Independent. “But the show had only seven pieces, and the Zack Gallery is large. It needed more art.”

At about the same time, Johnson decided to delve deeper into her ethnic roots. “My mother’s family were Irish Jews,” she said. “Not a usual combination. I went to Ireland in February 2024 to find out more.”     

She was fascinated by what she discovered. “Jews appeared in Ireland in the 1500s,” she shared. “Later, antisemitism forced many of them to leave, but they came back again. Then, there was a wave of Jews who came to Ireland and Northern Ireland from Russia in the beginning of the 20th century – they were escaping pogroms. Someone tricked them, sold them tickets to New York, but delivered them to Ireland instead and kicked them off the ship there. Some persisted in traveling to America, but others settled in Ireland. And then, there were the Jewish children escaping the Holocaust in Europe, Ireland took them in.”        

When Johnson visited the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin, she found a number of her ancestors. “Their names were all written up in the Book of Irish Jewry there,” she explained. “The museum staff asked me if I wanted my name to be added to the new edition of the book. Of course, I said yes.”

The second part of the show, Irish Mazzaroth, started taking shape in her mind while she was in Ireland. The 12 black and white illustrations on the gallery walls reflect Johnson’s take on the zodiac’s traditional imagery. Mazzaroth means constellations in Hebrew.

Both Jewish and Irish lore have a long record of zodiac interpretations, from Greco-Roman mythology to the Zodiac Wheel, the centrepiece of the sixth-century mosaic at Beit Alpha in Israel. 

image - “Virgo” by Lindsey Tyne Johnson, part of Johnson’s solo exhibit at the Zack Gallery until May 9
“Virgo” by Lindsey Tyne Johnson, part of Johnson’s solo exhibit at the Zack Gallery until May 9.

Johnson, a young Canadian artist, has succeeded in meshing seamlessly Celtic symbolism and Jewish mysticism into a series of computer illustrations that are uniquely hers. 

“I started the first one in January. I finished the last one just before the show,” she said. “Each one is a well-known astrological sign, and each involves some aspects of both Jewish and Irish culture.” 

Every illustration is a whimsical little story, a playful tale that connects all earth cultures to one another. The images are clean and austere, uncluttered by unnecessary details. The twin girls in Gemini smile at the viewer. In front of them are Shabbat candles and a challah. Behind them, a leafy tree rises in the Irish countryside. Their quiet joy is unmistakable. 

On the other hand, the lone girl in Scorpio is solemnly considering the riches of ancient books in the famous Old Library in Trinity College in Dublin. She seems breathless with excitement at the abundance of choices in front of her, her braid curling up defiantly like a scorpion’s tail. The Jewish thirst for knowledge is given form in the context of the historical Irish library.

In another famous location in Dublin, the Temple Bar pub, Johnson features, in Virgo, an Irish Jewish woman playing a fiddle, merging lively Jewish klezmer and Celtic tunes.

image - “Leo” by Lindsey Tyne Johnson
“Leo” by Lindsey Tyne Johnson.

In Leo, the backdrop is grimmer. It depicts the Crumlin Road Gaol, hinting at the political strife in Ireland, while the man in front reminds us of the story of Daniel and the lions. “One of my distant relatives worked as a prison guard there,” Johnson said. 

The frames of every illustration are identical: a rounded rectangle of Celtic knots, tied together at the top by a Magen David, which also emphasizes the affinity of two cultures.

The Irish Mazzaroth & Hebrew Spelled Backwards is on display at the Zack Gallery until May 9. To read more about Johnson and Hebrew Spelled Backwards, go to jewishindependent.ca/artfully-exploring-heritage. 

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

Immersed in animation

Alex Greenberg’s family experience drove his work for the Dallas Holocaust Museum. (photo from Alex Greenberg)

It was a winding road for Alex Greenberg to become head of animation at a leading creative technology firm in Vancouver. 

Born in Moldova, Greenberg and his family made aliyah in 1990, when he was 11 years old. After a “pretty regular childhood” in Israel, high school graduation, military service and a bit of travel around the world, Greenberg settled down to study animation.

“Unfortunately, two months into school, the director of the school took the money and split,” he said. “My luck. All the money was gone, the money I got from my [military] service.”

He started looking for schools in Canada and the United States where he could continue his studies. He discovered the Art Institute of Vancouver and moved here, by himself, in 2003.

Fast-forward … Greenberg is immersed in immersive technology. As head of animation for ngx Interactive, he has his finger in many projects – including one that shares the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and which, of everything he has worked on, is closest to his heart.

Founded more than two decades ago in Vancouver, ngx’s 80 or so employees, according to the company’s website, help clients “reimagine what’s possible in physical and digital spaces.”

“We work with four main sectors,” said Greenberg. 

The museum sector is a big one. The company took part in a major re-envisioning of the National Portrait Gallery in London, UK. It reopened last year featuring 41 multimedia exhibits, including an artificial intelligence-powered portrait experience, an animated projection wall featuring some of the gallery’s most stunning portraits, interactive touch screens, and documentary films produced by ngx.

The medical sector is another area and, if you have ever taken your kids or grandkids to BC Children’s Hospital, you may have seen the interactive aquarium ngx developed for the emergency room so that young patients and their families have something to take their minds off the stressful reasons for their visit.

A third area is themed attractions, which have engaged audiences in such diverse spaces as Vancouver’s Science World, SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, Jurassic World in Beijing and the Canada Pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai.

Their corporate and institutional work, another core area for ngx, includes an interpretive exhibition in the pharmaceutical sciences building at the University of British Columbia, where visitors explore the world of health, and a project for Roche Canada, in the Toronto area, where the global pharmaceutical company has an interactive space for employees to engage with the Roche brand story.

Other projects help visitors explore cultural institutions like the Citadel Heritage Centre in Halifax, Indigenous cultural storytelling at Wanuskewin Heritage Park in Saskatoon, and interpretive exhibits about nature at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.

Greenberg’s specific role in ngx projects is lighting and look development.

“When you are working on a project, there’s a certain style to it, lighting, a certain mood, something that will convey the story,” he said. “We don’t just create these experiences to make them look cool. There’s a lot of thought that is being put behind them, thinking about the colours and thinking about the movement and [in the case of the BC Children’s Hospital virtual aquarium] how kids are going to interact with it to help them relax.” 

In his seven years with the company, one project stands out among the rest for Greenberg.

Visitors to the Dallas Holocaust Museum, in Texas, enter a room that transforms into a home in eastern Europe at the start of the Holocaust. Survivors share their testimonies as the home becomes no longer a refuge but a backdrop for the projection of scenes of atrocities. Then the screen rises and a holographic version of a survivor engages with the audience.

Hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors using 360-degree cameras allow for the realistic perspective of meeting these individuals in person. The project, called Dimensions in Testimony and developed in partnership with Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation, introduces school groups and other museum visitors to a different survivor and their experiences each week of the year.

“This was one of the most impactful projects that I ever worked on,” Greenberg said. “You feel like you’re sitting in their living room. As you hear the story, the room begins to change. Lights going off, you hear marching of the boots outside, the rooms become slowly, almost unnoticeably dilapidated, just to show that the people were driven out of their homes and these homes are left with nothing but memories and a few photographs.

“After that introduction, the screen goes up and there’s a hologram production of that survivor. That’s the technology that the USC [Shoah] Foundation has developed. You can ask a question – for example, ‘What was your favourite sport when you were little?’ – and that would trigger a story where the survivor will be talking about where he used to play soccer with his friends when they were little.”

The project was close to home for Greenberg, whose grandfather lost his entire family in the Shoah.

“There was a big part of me in that experience,” said Greenberg. “I can tell and I can educate other people, people that are coming to this museum and people around the world that still don’t know what the Holocaust is, don’t know what a genocide is. It’s almost like I was telling my story.”