family

A family of storytellers

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

photo - Ben Shneiderman — Ben Shneiderman (photo from Ben Shneiderman)

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

“My mother Halina studied at the Warsaw university before she met my father,” Shneiderman said in an interview with the Independent. “After they married, in 1933, they moved to Paris.”

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

Ben Shneiderman remembered that his parents both decided early on that only his father would get a byline. “The times were different,” he said with a smile. “But they worked as a team. Mother did a lot of research. She typed the texts Father dictated, and then she edited and re-typed and fact-checked, until they were both satisfied. When Father went to Spain in 1937 to report on the Civil War, Mother went with him – she had her trusted typewriter with her.”

In 1938, Samuel Shneiderman compiled his reportages from Spain into the book War in Spain, which was published in Yiddish.

“The book included photographs taken by my uncle, Mother’s brother David, the legendary photographer Chim,” said Shneiderman. “Chim was also in Spain at the time, reporting on the war.”

In the past few years, the book has experienced an unexpected revival. “I had nothing to do with it, but I was glad,” said Shneiderman. “The book was published in Polish in 2021. Then, in 2023, it was translated into Spanish. In 2024, the English translation came from the Yiddish Book Centre.”

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

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

Growing up in a family steeped in writing and journalism, and with his uncle being a famous photographer, it might have been expected that Shneiderman would follow in their footsteps. His older sister did, in a way. “She moved to Israel in 1963 and taught English there,” he said. But he chose a different path.

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

He kept taking photos as a hobby, and that interest persists to this day. “I photographed many of my colleagues – pioneers of computer sciences. My pictures of them were published by a number of magazines,” he said. “Overall, I have over 40,000 photos. I also published them in my book Encounters with HCI Pioneers: A Personal History and Photo Journal, in 2019.”

HCI stands for human-computer interaction, which is Shneiderman’s primary field of research. “In 1973, I got the first PhD in computer sciences at my college,” he said.

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

Shneiderman recalls fondly his visit to a synagogue in Moscow: “Several of us went. I was concerned about our safety, but nothing bad happened. It was fun,” he said.

On the professional front, Shneiderman has always maintained that the current trend of developing artificial intelligence (AI) as autonomous machines wasn’t the way to go. In 1980 – 45 years ago – he even wrote a book on the subject, called Software Psychology: Human Factors in Computer and Information Systems.

“AI should be a tool, not a creator,” he said. “I don’t think a software should write books or paint pictures or drive cars autonomously. I think it should make people’s jobs easier, assist humans, not replace them. After all, a camera doesn’t take photos – I do. But my smart camera helps me manage the focus, the lighting and other parameters. Apple agrees with me. I worked for them as a consultant for five years.”

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

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

From Warsaw at the beginning of the 20th century to Vancouver 100 years later, this family continues to share stories.

“Grandfather told them in Yiddish,” Shneiderman said. “My uncle told them in pictures. My parents told their stories in words. And I told them in data, using computers as my medium. We are a family of storytellers.”

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

Leaving something behind

I am human. I share many elements of my nature with other beings on this planet. I laugh, I cry, I aspire to things, hope for things, wish for things, work for things. No different than it is for others, I am the amalgam of what I brought into this world interacting with all the stuff that has been incorporated into me through all the years since I got here.

We don’t get through life without having things stirring around inside our heads. In my head, there have always been issues struggling to get out. I long to express them, if only to myself. Gabby to a fault, I have no trouble vomiting it all out.

But getting it right inside my head before I spit it out is the wise thing to do. I must understand what it is that’s itching, burning, stuck in my craw, before I bring it into the light of day. This process can take some time, even years, even a lifetime.

Part of the issue for me is that I am driven to share my thoughts with others. I have illusions of grandeur. I really believe it matters if my ideas are shared. I believe the ideas can change people’s lives, as they have changed mine. Ultimately, though, it is up to others to make that judgment.

We have the daily issues that are urgent, demanding our focused attention in the now. These things come back to the surface when we have the luxury of time for contemplation. Are we on the right track? The decisions we are making about our careers, our partners, our children – are they the right ones for the people concerned? Such questions rise to the surface like a bad penny. We mostly shove them away again and again, not prepared to confront them. Sometimes, they are just too challenging, disturbing the bases on which we live.

If we are fortunate, we get to enjoy our share of the wonderful things in life that give us pleasure. Something as mundane as a good meal, or even a crust of bread when we are very hungry, a glass of cold, clear water when we are very thirsty. How about realizing the achievement of a goal that we have dreamed of for a long time? How about when something that is very painful stops hurting? Isn’t that a joy and a relief?

Holding a newborn in your arms, sensing the potential of new life, how about that? How about when you feel communion with another creature, human or animal, that takes you out of yourself to a union with them? That can alleviate, at least for a while, the essential loneliness that is our fate as human beings.

So, with all the pleasures and pain we are heir to, with all the wonders and horrors arrayed before our eyes and flooding into our minds, is our function only existential, is that why we are here, simply to live? Can we find some comfort and purpose in the belief in a deity that has concern for us personally? Or are we simply another life form improbably trial-and-errored successfully on this one planet out of countless more in the cosmos. The mind reels with the possibilities if we abandon our human-centred hypothesis of a caring life-force paying attention to our minuscule spot in our galaxy.

I had such simple goals when I was younger. I was going to sacrifice myself to achieve something much larger, greater, than myself. Martyrdom was my method, blood and sweat cast upon the dry soil, watering it so that flowers would bloom. So many die for no purpose. My sacrifice would have a purpose, I thought. Wasn’t that a worthy price to pay for the gift of life? Thankfully, I grew up!

Still, surely life must have a purpose beyond just breathing in and out, shouldn’t it? Is it just to be a matter of surviving? Should it be? Don’t we have a responsibility to do something about improving the world around us? These were the thoughts in my head as a young man. So many other men and women have left something behind – invention, industry, music, art, literature, leadership. We read about them. Surely, we ourselves can make a mark upon the wall of time like they did, can’t we?

I went off, like Don Quixote, to do battle, trying to subdue all the windmills I came across for the betterment of my fellow man, and to make my mark, of course. I am looking back now, very much closer to the end of my journey than to my beginning. It is not too soon to assess the results of my crusade. I did all the ordinary things, worked at several jobs I believe contained value, got married, had children. All of these were important in their way. But have they built an immortal edifice to my passage on this earth?

I face my life partner and my children and tell them that my aspirations were elsewhere and essentially were for naught. How much of the attention that I owed to them was spent on pursuing my ego-driven drive to find the building blocks of the Giza-like edifice I was determined to construct? And how ironic! My only long-term claims to fame and immortality reside in the lives I was privileged to be a part of. All my vaunted achievements with which I had consoled myself, labeling them as being worthy of merit, have vanished like dust scattered by the wind.

I retain my nostalgia for those breathless instants at the barricades. I am one of the lucky ones. I believe I have left something worthwhile behind.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Welcoming guests again

There may not be magic at hand to prepare dinner or clean up afterwards, but the Weasleys’ home in the Harry Potter series, the Burrow, is a good model for how to welcome guests, with Mrs. Weasley’s always sharing her love, food, home, and even her motherly reprimands with others. (photo by Karen Roe / flickr)

This winter, I felt our household was in hibernation. Between endless viruses brought home from middle school and -30˚C temperatures in Winnipeg, I doubted we’d ever emerge. Then, our household caught a break. We’ve had a few weeks now where all four of us seem mostly healthy. Also, there has been a rare moment of “early spring,” where temperatures are around freezing, the sun is out and everyone seems cheerful about the deep, goopy slush.

We have started to dig ourselves out. Not from the snow, but from all the activities we piled up during the coldest time of year. One kid removed his slot car racers and a 3D printer project from the dining room. Another kid tidied up a huge set he’s building for his video production class. There are still too many books and knitting projects on the coffee table (my fault). My husband even cleaned up his piles of paper. Why all the hurry? Well, suddenly people are coming over again to visit. We’re hopefully emerging from our long retreat.

During our hibernation, we stayed home, went to work and school, and to synagogue. That was mostly it. But then I got an email out of the blue. When I walk my setter-mix dog, we often encounter a tiny dog, Lulu, and her human, and we chat. Deep into our winter sojourn, we weren’t seeing Lulu or her people much, it was just too cold. Yet Lulu’s people, thoughtful neighbours, invited us over for cheese fondue, wine and a warm chat. After a great night out a block from home, I realized how small our world had become. I decided we owed them a dinner invitation. They’re coming (probably without Lulu) for Shabbat dinner this week.

I’ve always enjoyed cooking big Shabbat and holiday dinners for friends and having great conversations at the table. I was raised with this kind of hospitality. My parents’ home was always open to my friends, who timed their visits to enjoy their favourite foods or discuss things with my parents or siblings, and their friends, too. However, over the years, I’d really cut back on these dinners. First, because my twins still go to bed early. Then, because of the pandemic. After Oct. 7, I felt wary about the outside world and wanted to feel safe at home. About a year ago, I stopped inviting people. I could say it was because I was concentrating on my twins’ b’nai mitzvah preparations or the event itself, with friends and family visiting, but that was last June. This winter, we’ve been sick and it’s been so cold.

On one Shabbat at synagogue, I heard an impromptu talk from a young adult visiting home. He was serving in the Israel Defence Forces as a lone soldier and spent part of his time at home talking to groups about what was happening in Israel, and we discussed how to combat antisemitism in Canada. At this event, a community member suggested that inviting friends and allies over, perhaps to Shabbat dinner, could help others learn about who we are and gather more support.

What happened afterwards, along with the warmer, slushy weather, is that some of our friends began to seek us out.

Last week, an amazing acquaintance, who used to run a gallery we loved, asked me to sign one of my books for her friend’s birthday. Of course, I said, come on over. I showed her our “new” historic house and she brought me tulips.

Then, a longtime artist friend in her 80s contacted me and decided she was coming over the next morning for muffins and coffee, so she could show off her newest marbled paper experiments.

Last week, a retired newspaper columnist that I really respect happened to spot my husband outdoors with the dog. He started to text with my husband and asked to come see how we’d renovated things. My husband said yes. Our neighbourhood’s full of old houses with interesting quirks, so visiting each other’s homes is always fun. They’re coming for coffee and cake on Sunday. It seemed like high time to pick up the dog toys from the living room carpet.

All of these encounters with warm people who sought us out and wanted to get back in touch? None of them is Jewish. All of them are people who want us to know they are safe, they care about us, and they value our company. This was an important realization, well worth the effort it takes to clean up the messy paw prints and kid fingerprints for a visit.

When I imagine how I want my home to appear to friends, or even strangers, I think of the Burrow, the Weasleys’ home in the Harry Potter series. Well, that’s not quite right. Our house doesn’t use magic to knit sweaters or stir pots of soup. Those are my hands, my knitting and my cooking, instead. However, whenever I think of the Burrow, I think of a warm, welcoming place where Mrs. Weasley feeds everybody and makes everyone feel welcome and loved, despite the normal clutter and chaos of family life.

My notion of hachnasat orchim (welcoming guests) comes from Jewish tradition, a much older playbook than the Harry Potter series. However, the meaning feels the same, even if my household menu includes hamantashen and chicken soup. Mrs. Weasley’s always sharing her love, food, home, and even her motherly reprimands with others, and it goes beyond her family. Her home, the Burrow, sounds like a retreat, but it’s not a hibernation. It’s an enthusiastic embrace.

I am hoping to get back to that safe and cheerful place, where our home is full again with fascinating friends, good food, stimulating conversation and an open heart. Our gardens are still under dirty snow here. It sometimes takes a heroic effort to rise above winter weather and the residual sadness of the war, but good things await. Things are warming up at my house in Manitoba. I’m hoping for happier days ahead.

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.

Light as a metaphor for life

Itai Erdal, with his mom, Mery Erdal, z”l, on screen, in How to Disappear Completely, which opens at the Historic Theatre in Vancouver March 15. (photo from The Chop Theatre)

Itai Erdal’s award-winning How to Disappear Completely, which has toured the globe, will be at the Historic Theatre in Vancouver March 15-22.

Created by Erdal, with James Long, Anita Rochon and Emelia Symington Fedy, How to Disappear Completely premiered at the 2011 Chutzpah! Festival. The one-man show then toured internationally, being performed in more than two dozen cities around the world before COVID hit. The March run marks its first remount since the pandemic.

“It’s been a dream come true,” said Erdal about traveling with the production. “Performing this show is the closest thing I have to hanging out with my mom, so being able to introduce my mom to so many people around the world has been wonderful. I also got to do it in Hebrew – I performed the show in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and many of the people in the audience knew my mom so that was really special.”

Erdal immigrated to Canada from Israel in 1999. The following year, he found out his mother had been diagnosed with lung cancer and only had months to live. He returned to Israel to be with her as much as possible and, during that time, encouraged by his mother to do so, he shot hours of film and took hundreds of photos.

“We laughed a lot, and you can see it in the show,” Erdal told the Independent in 2012, when How to Disappear Completely had its first remount. “It’s a tragedy turned to joyful memories,” he said about the piece, which also focuses on his approach to theatrical lighting. Erdal is a multiple-award-winning expert in lighting design.

“This was the first show I wrote and the first time I performed, so we had to come up with a theatrical device to explain why a lighting designer is standing on stage and telling this story,” Erdal told the Independent in an email interview earlier this month. “So, the premise was that this was a lecture about lighting design, and I ran all the lights from the stage. The connection between my mother’s story and lighting design wasn’t obvious at first, but when we started doing workshops, the audience loved all the lighting stuff and responded very strongly to it. I wanted to show how a PAR [parabolic aluminized reflector] can get warmer as it dims, so I took it down one percent at a time, and people got emotional because they thought about the life leaving my mom’s body. The show is full of these accidental metaphors, and the lighting became the emotional heartbeat of the show.”

Over the 14 years since he first wrote and performed How to Disappear Completely, Erdal – who founded the Elbow Theatre – has co-written and performed several other works: Soldiers of Tomorrow, Hyperlink, This is Not a Conversation and A Very Narrow Bridge. So, while How to Disappear Completely hasn’t changed much since it was written, Erdal said, “I am much more relaxed as a performer, so the show got better.”

He added, “The main thing that’s changed in the past 14 years is that I have become a father and I understand better why my mother said it was so important to be a parent. I often think about what a great grandmother my mom would’ve been and I wonder how she would’ve handled some tough parenting moments.”

Erdal doesn’t tire of performing How to Disappear Completely, and he sees how affected audiences continue to be.

“Creating this show has been the most exciting and rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “You would think that reliving the hardest moment of your life on stage every night would be a daunting task, but it’s a joyful experience. My mother was smart and funny and her personality really shines through. Every time I perform the show, there is a lineup of people waiting to talk to me after, wanting to tell me their stories about finding love and about losing their parents, and I love connecting with them and feeling that my show might help them a bit with their grief.”

And that’s what makes this very personal show widely popular.

“Unfortunately, almost everyone in the world knows someone who died from cancer, and the grief of losing a parent is something almost everyone can relate to, so the show has many universal themes,” said Erdal. “It also deals with loneliness and the search for love, which are also very relatable themes.”

For tickets to How to Disappear Completely, visit thecultch.com/event/how-to-disappear-completely or call 604-251-1363.

Moving into our new condo

Living in a condominium steps away from the Seawall and the marina is surreal. (photo from flickr.com/photos/nuntz)

Nobody would deny that the concept of a new home is exhilarating. It’s the packing up a lifetime of belongings, and having to sell and give away a plethora of things that plunges you into ice-cold reality. And let’s not forget the joys of the actual move.

A therapist once advised me to “get comfortable with uncertainty.” Hmmm. That’s like saying, “Learn to enjoy having hot oil poured down your back.” I think not. Much as I strive to embrace that pithy advice (and, on occasion, even succeed), I am just not cut out for it. You can only imagine how well I did with our recent move to a new condo.

It’s been almost a month and I still can’t find my passport or oven mitts. Not that I’m planning to travel anytime soon. But I would like to cook.

Without exaggeration, I packed at least 75 boxes and countless bags of belongings to shlep from our two-bedroom apartment to our new place. And lest you assume that we did what most retirees do and downsized – our collective wisdom ushered us into a bigger space. It is a condo with a kitchen large enough to land an aircraft carrier – which has always been a dream of mine (the size, not the aircraft carrier part). But the dream turned into a miniature nightmare when we moved in and I realized that I had next to no general storage space. Hall closet? Big enough to house a miniature turtle. Bathroom cupboards? Spacious enough for an extra roll of toilet paper and some air freshener. But I do have my humongous kitchen, and you can bet that I plan to cook and bake till the cows come home.

If I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned that you can’t have it all. You prioritize and maybe get 80% of what you originally wanted. Then, you just have to swallow the 20% and move forward. And get creative. Despite my apparent whining, I am truly feeling blessed and in awe of where we live now. We are mere steps from the Seawall and the marina, flanked by gorgeous condos. We are forced to peer daily at the spectacular mountains and sparkling lights of downtown. I keep asking myself, “Is this really my new neighbourhood?” When I come home and walk down the hall to our place, I feel like I’m in a hotel. Surreal, to say the least.

I had always been fiercely protective of our rental apartment and South Granville – we had great neighbours, little coffee shops where I was a regular, we were walking distance to grocery stores, drugstores, restaurants and the beach. Having lived in that apartment building for 37 years, I was their longest tenant. It was really all I knew. I had not lived in a house since I left home in 1974 to go away to university. Owning a home was always something I aspired to do. Until it became an unreachable reality. Being a single librarian until I was 53, owning a home was a pipe dream.

Then, I married, and we enjoyed our little love nest until October 2023, when we learned that our building (along with half the neighbourhood) was going to be torn down so high-rises could be built. Thank you, Broadway Plan! At first, I freaked out. And then, I started packing. I knew not where we would end up, but the writing was on the wall. Actually, the first indicator was in the summer of 2023, when men started hammering little metal plaques on the trees in our area and spray-painting the sidewalks. It was cryptic, for sure, but the mystery didn’t last long.

In February 2024, the company hired to “transition” renters into new homes held a Zoom meeting with all the tenants in our building. No promises were made, but the starkness of the facts hit us like ice water in the face. Right of first refusal. Financial compensation. Rent top-up. Blah, blah, blah. The one phrase that stuck with me though was TRPP – Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy. Luckily, tenants do have some protection, but it doesn’t solve the fundamental issue of unaffordable housing that plagues this city.

Time passed, we considered our options, I fretted over everything. It was a maelstrom of emotions. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the possibility that buying something could actually be within reach. But, events collaborated, luck joined the party, I took my head out of my nether regions, and, voilà, the unimaginable happened! We bought a condo!

Now, I am trying to “get comfortable with uncertainty” and change (as though change is a dirty word). I got my first test when I figured out that my lovely oak desk, which my beloved father, alav ha-shalom, bought me, wouldn’t fit in our condo. Our second bedroom has a Murphy bed and, well, let’s just say that my oak desk is the size of a blue whale. Living in that big river in Egypt (denial), I hoped against hope that something would happen and either the desk or the bed would miraculously shrink overnight. Not a chance. So, I paid movers to move the desk into the condo and, two weeks later, I paid them to move it to the SPCA Thrift Store. And, while I tried to heed my late father’s advice to “cry over people, not things,” I failed miserably. I had a full-on, deep-dish cry-fest after dropping off the desk. All I could do on my drive home was to talk to my father’s spirit and tell him I love him, and tell him how much I miss him, and how much it meant to me that he got that desk for me specially.

I had to do something to honour my father. So, I decided to toast him. Knowing he liked Cutty Sark Scotch, I spent the next hour driving to three different liquor stores to find it, and was finally successful. It was only then that a sense of calm came over me. Maybe it was the Scotch. Maybe it was my dad telling me it was OK to cry over him. Whatever it was, the desk is now in its new home. And so am I. And both of us are very happy.

And I finally have a big kitchen, in-suite laundry, hardwood floors and I don’t face south.

Shelley Civkin, aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.

Running in the human race

I am still running in this race. For those of us who are older, it seems to take much of our strength to show up every morning and run the course. It seemed easier when we were younger, full of the energy of youth. We have forgotten what it was like when we were discovering who we were, who we were going to be. Surely, that was a struggle, even if it was a different one than we face today as older people.

There are mysterious things about this race. Who are the winners? What does winning mean? The rewards don’t necessarily go to those who arrive soonest at the finish line. Maybe it is more like a relay race, in a family sense. Lots to think about.

I have a grandson, more than one, in fact. All of them are fully engaged in finding their way in the foot race in which all of us living on this planet are engaged. As are my granddaughters. Seeing the challenges they face, the stories they tell me about what they are doing and what they are planning, bring memories of my own beginnings. I see how competitive the world they are inhabiting is. I see how some of them are so conscious that their every move, every decision they make, everything they do, right or wrong, is recorded, and will affect their future possibilities. These children, in their mid-teens and early 20s, are struggling with perspectives we did not awake to until we were 10 or 15 years older. How about that kind of pressure!

I think of the path I have followed, growing up in Winnipeg, moving away to make my fortune, seeking to put my own personal mark on the journey I was taking. I was so determined that I had to be the only architect of the life I was building. Was I foolish not to be a seeker of advice? I threw myself recklessly into that life, confident that, come what may, I could overcome any obstacle to my desires that might appear in my path.

I never worried about missteps. I never worried about making wrong decisions. My life was a tabula rasa, a blank slate to be shaped as I wished. Of course, my grandchildren probably think that whatever they are doing is right, too. Many of the decisions we make in the days of our beginnings have a dramatic impact on our future.

I am not complaining. I have had a glorious life. I may not have realized all the potentialities – I have not conquered like an Alexander, created language like a Shakespeare, envisaged shapes like a Moore, painted visions like a Picasso. But, like most of us, I have delivered some blessings for my fellow human beings, and I am content.

I have seen the mountains of America, Europe and Africa, and their valleys. The waters of Canada and Brazil have roared before my eyes, and in my ears. I have had a good share of the delightful places and times the world has to offer. And I had the chance to spend some of my life with the woman of my dreams.

On my travels, during the race I have run, I have learned how fortunate we are, and what real misery is. I know what the view from Dublin is like, and have witnessed the views from New York, Washington, London, Paris, Rome, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Khartoum, Cairo, Vientiane, Bangkok, Dakar, Ougadougou, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. These were some of the places I lived in and visited.

Like many of us, I did not make the most of my potentialities as a consequence of my decisions. One day, I heard Neil Young say, in a television interview with Charlie Rose, that our pasts are like an overcoat. When we put the coat on, it tells the world who we are. Or the world chooses to see us as we appear wearing the overcoat of our past.

Sometimes, we wish we could shed our past and take a new direction. I’ll tell you a secret. We don’t need to do that. We can be new people any day we choose. The past we wear like an overcoat, that we have the choice of shedding, can inform the choices we want to make, but it doesn’t have to limit who we are today, and will be tomorrow.

I am not the economist that I was, the manager of people that I was, the public relations speaker and writer that I was, the researcher and marketing consultant that I was, the real estate broker, the financial advisor, the whatever I had to be. Now, in beautiful Vancouver, I write stories and poetry. I have played with clay until the faces jumped out at me. I meddle in the stock market. I try to talk to my kids often. I try to be present for my Bride. We try to make our home a friendly place.

Today, I try to be a better husband, a better friend, a better parent; some things, perhaps, that were lacking quality in my past. I am still running the race. It is sometimes a little tiring, and I have to exercise to build my stamina – but I hope to run it well, right to the end.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Love is… being together

There is something somewhat intimate about being woken up in the middle of the night by rocket sirens. Feet and arms lightly intertwined with my wife’s, feeling a slight tug of the cover to her side in the never-ending battle-of-the-blankets, I am startled by the sound. I am slow to make sense of the sirens, which are coming both from outside and my cellphone, the latter also providing a strobe-light effect. I look to my wife, nudge her and say in a most loving but rushed tone, “Let’s go! Missiles!”

Remember those Love is… comic strips of the 1970s by New Zealand cartoonist and love culturalist Kim Casall? Well, how about Love Is… waking up snuggled together to a missile alert? Not the free love and innocence of the hippie generation, but for sure love!

And what about Love is… ensuring your wife enters the safe room first. How’s that for being a gentleman? As the sirens go off and we rush to our safe room, my wife goes in first, then I rush in after her, slamming shut the heavy iron door behind us. Actually, if our kids are home or we have guests, I will make sure everyone is inside – including our dog – before entering. Just seems like the right thing to do, danger be damned. How’s that for bravado?

***

Speaking of love. Returned from Tel Aviv with my wife the other day. Incoming missiles and a known routine. Pull over. Exit car. Move away from the vehicle. Crouch down on roadside. Cover your head with your hands (though I don’t know how that helps if a missile strikes you). So, there was my wife, huddled next to me, while the Iron Dome chased and intercepted its overhead target. In a chivalrous act of protection, I hovered over my wife, giving her a second layer of armour. I hugged her. Amazing how adrenalin works. Love is… shielding your wife from incoming missiles.

In a similar spirit. Love is… being alone with your wife in the safe room during missile alerts. It’s not for no reason that births spike during wartime.

***

Then there’s our morning routine. Prewar, it was pillow talk about the chores ahead. Now, the first thing we cross-check is Code Red missile alerts received on our cellphones overnight. Where were the sirens? Where did the missiles land? Or almost land? Other carnage or near-carnage? Other military developments? Not the most romantic of topics but that’s where our minds are these days – from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. Love is… lying in bed together comparing missile alerts and military actions.

***

The other week, during Iran’s second cruise missile attack on Israel, where more than 180 missiles were fired at our little shtetl with the intent to exact maximum, indiscriminate death and destruction, there was significant news chatter about the attack. Under the fog of war, not fully clear what to expect.

My wife, who works in Tel Aviv, just completed her shift and was taking a bus home. She called to advise me that her bus was late and that her cellphone battery was running low, so I shouldn’t worry if she’s delayed and doesn’t answer. Shortly after our conversation came the news flash about a mega-casualty terrorist attack in nearby Jaffa and another attempted attack in Tel Aviv. I tried calling my wife back. No answer. Wishfully and optimistically, I attributed it to no battery.

Then the news flash that Iran had fired several hundred cruise missiles at Israel. Expected to arrive in our airspace within the next … 12 minutes. Not 10 minutes, not 15, but 12. This was for real! Where was my wife?! There was no way to call her, to learn of her whereabouts.

If she were on the bus during a missile barrage, what would happen? Would the driver follow Homefront commands? Would the bus pull over? Would the passengers get off the bus? Would they crouch down away from the bus with their hands covering their heads? Would someone hover over my wife … protect her?

Time is ticking – three minutes from the expected cruise missile impact. Anxiously pacing the living room, I keep looking to the news for some insight about something. Then, I hear the elevator. I run into the hallway, watching the red digits slowing climbing to my floor. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. The door opens. There she is. In all her beauty. Somewhat frazzled-looking. I give her a giant, protective bear hug. Immediately, sirens go off throughout the city and our cellphones buzz and flash with missile alerts. My wife arrived literally in the nick of time.

We quickly make our way to the safe room. My wife enters first. I slam the door shut behind us. With her tension unravelling, my wife begins to cry – from exhaustion, from stress, from survival. Again, we embrace.

Love is… holding your wife near in the safety of your safe room during a missile attack.

***

Please continue donating to the Israeli war and revival efforts, or buy Israel Bonds. Twelve months after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, the war is still raging, and on several active fronts. Sderot and Metula – and even Tel Aviv and Haifa – are Israel’s front lines. And Israel is the diaspora’s front line.

Bring them home now.

Bruce Brown, a Canadian-Israeli, made aliyah more than 25 years ago. He works in high-tech and is happily married, with two kids. He is the winner of a 2019 American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Award for excellence in Jewish writing.

Haiku signs in the bathroom

This summer, our main event was a road trip. My husband had a conference at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Since we met at Cornell as undergrads 30 years ago, we thought it might be worthwhile to make this a family trip. We hadn’t been back in 20 years.

When you go back to old haunts, they might not be what you expect. There were so many new campus buildings. I took our twins on a campus tour where a 19-year-old guide talked about economics (her major), business and start-ups. When she asked the alumni in the group about their majors, I told her I was a double major: comparative literature and Near Eastern studies. She said, “So interesting!” in a tone that made it clear she thought I was ancient and bizarre.

I didn’t feel at home in Ithaca, which I used to feel was “my place.” My kids found holes in Cornell’s sustainability mantras that I used to deeply respect. While trying to dry clothing by draping it in the back of the car, for example, they pointed out there were no clothes lines in the dorms where we stayed or outdoors. When we went to buy the obligatory university sweatshirts, they couldn’t believe the campus store stocked tons of branded items made entirely of synthetics – manufactured from petroleum and likely made in poor working conditions.

When we visited a renovated cafeteria, where I had eaten with my husband when we first met, we had to go to the washroom. Each stall had a short message posted. It explained what not to throw down the toilet. It also explained what had happened to require the message to be posted. It was the soul of brevity, a haiku of sorts, but it answered every question that a smart-mouthed adolescent student might ask.

With a smirk, I commented that this was still my kind of place – it offers the full explanation. As an adult, I’ve lived in places without the full explanation. Here’s an example: when an event is announced in Winnipeg, there is a start time, usually with a vague location, and the announcement just assumes everyone knows where it is. There’s also an assumption that you’ll know that, if food will be served, what kind of food, and what else is likely to happen. If there is a contact number at the end, it’s a postscript that reads, “If you are dumb enough to not understand this, call this person – but, guess what, they won’t know either.” Admittedly, I’m paraphrasing a little here, but, inevitably, if I call that number, the person is completely stymied by my questions. They wonder about why anyone would need to know what I am asking. They aren’t used to newcomers who might not know what to expect or who need all the details.

Maybe I’m just that annoying person who likes to know what I’m getting into, but when I hang out with relatives from bigger cities, their event schedule is full of the pertinent details. When I look at my sister-in-law’s fridge, in the DC suburbs, every single school event flyer or invitation has all the information. Maybe it’s a Type A thing? Even if they’re uptight, those are my people.

Recently, we had a visit with a local teacher here in Winnipeg and she mentioned a place run by two nice Jewish guys, called Friend Bakery and Pizzeria, which has delicious cinnamon buns. The bakery’s not near our usual activities. Out on an errand, we stopped in. We were greeted by the owners. They were welcoming, and open to our family deliberations. While we eyed the big $11 challahs, I said it was too bad that we’d already started ours in the bread machine – because it’s summer and I’m so not turning on the oven. The man nodded with understanding. We wished each other Shabbat Shalom. I got a little teary driving home. I had found more of my people.

Finding one’s “people” isn’t easy or without contention. Wandering around Ithaca on our trip, I encountered a Gaza war propaganda sticker with real venom to it. I was upset. For the first time ever, I unpeeled that sticker and threw it away. They might be free to spread misinformation, but I was just as free to see its harmful hate and throw it out.

Summer is for rest, reflection and productivity. I felt physically rested after spending many days in the car. Yet summer is also a time for growing things, embracing learning out of school and in the world. My kids saw lakes, gorges and waterfalls, ate lots of ice cream and watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for the first time. (The movie is still funny.) The grandeur of steep craggy landscapes and huge lakes is still awe-inspiring.

My world has narrowed some since Oct. 7. I actively avoid encounters where I suspect my household might face hate or harassment. A friend and ally suggested that it must be even more upsetting when it happens in a place where I’m relaxed and least suspect it. The places where I used to feel safe are painful to be in.

Even so, I’ve felt love, support and outreach from unexpected places. Two close non-Jewish mom friends, who consistently wish me Shabbat Shalom, encourage me to vent and they listen with love. A few of my husband’s colleagues and friends’ parents just contacted us out of the blue to say they care and are thinking of us.

I don’t know “where we go from here” in the middle of a war, and the hate it’s stirred up. I think about the bathroom sign haiku with a weird fondness. It said everything that needed saying. I wish bigger, scarier times allowed for that kind of precise explanation and brevity, but I know it isn’t possible. Smart people disagree, struggle and work to find meaning. This is what Torah and Jewish rabbinic tradition models for us. The key is to keep it up, not lose hope, and to avoid the paralysis that comes with irrational fear.

When we find “our people,” they don’t always agree with us, and things are always changing. A long road trip can remind us that we’ve been stuck in ruts. But, sometimes, the GPS directions are wrong. We need our brains, a hard copy map and common sense to get out of tricky situations; autopilot doesn’t always suffice. However, our personal and historic experiences offer a roadmap of what has gone before and what might lie ahead. With that context, we can go forward: towards a new school year, a new Jewish year, new learning and better times.

A picture is worth a thousand words

In the first few years of 1900, my paternal grandparents – who had been married since 1886 – came to a decision. Economic life in Pinsk was too challenging and a drastic lifestyle change was required. So, in 1905, my grandfather, Yehiel Rubachka, age 34, journeyed alone from Pinsk (then under control of czarist Russia) to find work in Toronto. He knew Yiddish and a bit of Russian, having served in the Russian army for three years. He left behind my 27-year-old grandmother, Liba, and their four young children, Bessie (born in 1899), David (1902), Minnie (1903) and Herschel (1905), in Pinsk Karlin. Today, Karlin might be called a suburb of Pinsk.

On the one hand, Pinsk, with its sizeable and well-organized Jewish population (according to Yad Vashem, 21,819 or 77.3% of the city’s population, in 1896) offered the comfort of the familiar. On the other hand, living conditions were not good. By the time my grandfather left Pinsk, he and my grandmother had buried five children. There were also political and social issues, such as the fact that, in czarist Russia, Jews by and large lived under restrictions: forbidden to settle or acquire land outside the cities and towns, legally limited in attendance at secondary school and higher schools, virtually barred from legal professions, denied the right to vote for municipal councilors, and excluded from serving in the navy or the guards. Not to mention the repercussions of the failed 1905 Russian revolution, and the deaths and damage done by periodic Cossack attacks.

It is not clear what my grandfather’s relocation ultimately meant. For all intents and purposes, entering Canada was fairly easy; he did not need a passport or a visa to enter the country. But did he go to Toronto to test the waters so to speak – perhaps Canada would turn out to be no better than eastern Europe? Or was his plan, from the start, to make enough money to bring over the rest of the family? Or was it all left open-ended? On the birth certificate of one of my aunts, his occupation in Canada was listed as a (humble) rag collector.

In any case, around 1906, my grandparents decided a family portrait was needed. (Since my Uncle Herschel still looks like an infant, this photo was probably produced earlier than the 1910 date my father held to.) The problem, of course, was that the family was based in two distant locations, Toronto and Pinsk. So how was such a picture taken?

photo - Deborah Rubin Fields' grandfather and family — A family living on separate continents in the early 1900s has a photo with everyone in it. *(photo from Deborah Rubin Fields)*

According to Rita Margolin, a Yad Vashem historian, glass plate negatives were in use from the 1850s through the 1920s. They were popular with both amateur and professional photographers. In these years before courier and other delivery services, it would have been tricky to safely send glass negatives, they might have shattered in mailing. This suggests that some other method was used for putting together the two photos that became the family portrait.

Margolin further elaborated that a Pinsk photographer named Rendall might have made the composite image, as he was active in Pinsk in 1910. She pointed out, however, that photographers generally displayed their name on the photos they took, and my family’s photo is lacking a signature both on the front and the back side. (It is probably not a good idea with my unskilled hands to search for a signature by separating this very old photo from the cardboard to which it is pasted.) The lack of signature might mean that the photo I have is a copy and not the original.

Early 20th-century photo studios preferred photomontage – the production of images by physically cutting and joining combined photos – to create, for instance, tall-tale postcards. Tall-tale postcards are also known as “exaggerations.” Examples of these kinds of postcards include hilarious old farming photos in which farmers are seen pushing a wheelbarrow or a wagon containing giant harvested onions or enormous potatoes.

According to my father, the late Sidney (also known by his Yiddish name, Sheya) Rubin, z’l, my grandfather was added to the picture. One photographer with whom I consulted agreed that this is a likely scenario, as normally the head of the family would be prominently featured in the front, rather than the back, row of a photo.

In my family’s photograph, my grandmother is standing, facing the camera, straight on and straight-faced. My Aunt Bessie is sitting on a wooden chair while my Aunt Minnie is sitting on what might be a tree stump. My Uncle Dave is sitting on a suitcase. The baby, my Uncle Herschel, dressed in some sort of baby’s gown, sits atop a stack of cases. My grandfather, with a somewhat wistful look on his face, is cleverly placed behind a trunk, with only his upper torso visible.

My grandfather’s family left Pinsk and joined him in Canada in 1911. Sadly, all the relatives who remained in Pinsk were killed in the Shoah. My father’s family settled at Toronto’s 13 Leonard Ave. Between 1880 and 1928, 70,000 Jews left Russian-held territory for Canada.

Four more children were born in Toronto. These included two more aunts, one uncle and my father. Rachel or Rae was born in 1911, Birdie (often called by her Yiddish name Faigel) was born in 1913, Harvey (often called Mo) was born in 1915 and my father was born in 1917. My father’s family, however, did not remain in Toronto. In 1920, they moved to the United States, settling in Chicago. Along the way, the family name was changed to Rubin. My grandfather’s first name was anglicized to Joseph and my grandmother’s first name was anglicized to Elizabeth (or Lizzie). My grandfather became a naturalized American citizen in 1953. By that time, he had been living in the United States for more than 30 years but, still, he signed his naturalization papers in Yiddish.

As a child, I remember visiting the street where my father had lived as a young child. Perhaps surprisingly, the missionaries still had a close-by storefront. According to reports, missionaries had been “working” in the area since the time my grandfather was living in Toronto. Although they apparently succeeded in converting very few Jews, it did not stop them from trying for years on end.

Photoshop and other digital photo editing tools are a great help to today’s photographers. In the early 1900s, of course, computers and such programs did not exist. Yet, in the early 1900s, photographers on two continents managed to make a composite image nonetheless.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Keeping Jewish history alive

Janice Masur and her daughter, Liora Freedman, on March 3, after unveiling the memorial plaque in Nagoya village near Mbale, Uganda. (photo from Janice Masur)

I have just come back from Uganda, where my family used to live, in the Jewish community that existed from 1949 to 1961. My daughter, Liora, had returned 10 days earlier, as planned. I had to stay longer because my passport had been stolen two weeks previously, off my lap while sitting in a slow-moving car. Thankfully, after Liora involved my local member of Parliament, my temporary Canadian passport, processed in Nairobi, Kenya, finally arrived in Kampala, and I was able to leave.

Although still essentially an agricultural economy, Uganda is touted to visitors as the most entrepreneurial country in Africa. Most people in the countryside have a small plot to grow their own food and sell the surplus. Large-scale plantations of sugar cane, tea, coffee and bananas are grown for export. The Pearl of Africa is rich in mineral deposits and China is beginning to drill for oil on the edge of Murchison Falls National Park.

I could not find my way around Kampala anymore. It used to be a self-contained town situated over seven hills. Now it sprawls and spreads in all directions with Ugandan street names I can barely pronounce. My old house has a high fence and a guard at the gate, with a gun slung across his shoulder, who wouldn’t let us enter. I was charmed to find the same small five-petaled purple flowers floating down like tiny propellers, strewn on the driveway just as they had done in my childhood. Across the rutted road, there was a new modern hotel instead of modest houses.

We drove up Kibuli Hill to see Kibuli Mosque. In my day, the mosque was a friendly looking place of worship. I was shocked to see how fortress-like it had become, painted grey instead of white, with the words “None shall be worshipped but Allah. Muhammad is his prophet.”

I tried to find my bearings on Tank Hill – named for the three extremely large round water tanks in the neighbourhood – where we had once lived but couldn’t. Instead of being given help, I was told not to take photos, or I might be thought to be spying on an army unit. Important ministers travel in cars with armed guards seated outside of the cars facing sideways, guns at the ready.

photo - Kasubi Tombs on the Hoima Road, Kampala, Uganda — Kasubi Tombs on the Hoima Road, Kampala, Uganda. *(photo from Janice Masur)*

I visited the Kasubi Tombs, where the kabakas, or kings, have been buried since pre-Christian times. I had never known about this sacred UNESCO site when I lived in Uganda. A steep thatched roof, reaching almost to the ground covered intricate woven designs in the inner ceiling of one of the tombs. It was my absolute luck to have Prince Joseph as my tour guide. When I showed him a photograph, he told me proudly that he was the grandson of Edward, the brother of the kabaka, Mutesa II or Freddy, who was one of the two Ugandan men in the picture.

My purpose for traveling to Uganda was to unveil two memorial plaques for my Jewish community, which had been there from 1949 to 1961. None of the community infrastructure exists today, not even the cemetery, now submerged under real estate.

We placed a plaque in the Nagoya village near Mbale, where the Abayudaya, who converted to Judaism in 1921, live. Conservative Rabbi Gershom Sizomu and his wife, Tziporah, and others in the community were so welcoming and warm, helpful and supportive. We had a wonderful Shabbat evening, with lots of music and drumming, and Shabbat lunch under two large mango trees, with stunning views of Mount Elgon.

On Sunday, the whole community was invited to the unveiling of the plaque. We ambled down to a lower flat piece of land after morning minyan in the synagogue. There were speeches by Rabbi Sizomu and by Rabbi Netanel Kaszovitz, a young Orthodox rabbi visiting from Nairobi, who is responsible for administering to all the Orthodox Jewish communities in East and West Africa. The plaque glowed in the dappled sunlight. Two newly planted mango trees and two benches were nearby, offering enough room for a minyan, at Rabbi Sizomu’s request. The white lettering on the black granite looked impressive; beautifully supervised by Ariel Okiror Eyal.

photo - Rabbi Gershom Sizumo and Janice Masur with the Kampala plaque that will be held in storage — Rabbi Gershom Sizumo and Janice Masur with the Kampala plaque that will be held in storage. (photo from Janice Masur)

I experienced all sorts of conflicting emotions, as you might imagine. At long last a plaque to commemorate the help that my Uganda Jewish community had given the Abayudaya last century was installed. Nothing had marked the presence of the once-vibrant, secular, 23-family Jewish community, which functioned without a rabbi, a Torah or a synagogue. Who would have guessed that, in 2024, a Conservative and three Orthodox Black Jewish communities would exist, interspersed with Muslim villages?

As for the other plaque I hoped to place, it was for the Jews who were buried more than 60 years ago in the Jewish cemetery just off the Kampala-Jinja Expressway, abutting the Christian cemetery. It is not common knowledge that the Jewish cemetery here had been destroyed and Speke Apartments, built by Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia, lies on top of where it had been. After many months of trying to contact Ruparelia I finally succeeded while in Kampala. In reply to my request to place a plaque somewhere in the vicinity of the apartments, in a discreet corner or on a less important wall, he said “No! None.”

photo - Speke Apartments in Kampala, which is built alongside an unkempt Christian cemetery and on top of the Jewish cemetery — Speke Apartments in Kampala, which is built alongside an unkempt Christian cemetery and on top of the Jewish cemetery. (photo from Janice Masur)

Perhaps I could mount the plaque at the edge of the unkempt Christian cemetery? It requires a Ugandan minister’s permission to approve a location near the 1972 Entebbe Raid plaque at the difficult-to-access old Entebbe Airport. Maybe at the Uganda Museum? The garden of the Chabad compound was also considered. Unfortunately, none of these placements have materialized.

I traveled to Uganda to place two memorial plaques, but my mission was not fully accomplished, and the second plaque lies in storage with Rabbi Sizomu. The Chabad Rabbi in Kampala, Moshe Raskin, said he would try to place it somewhere, perhaps in the future grounds of the new plot of land they will buy for Chabad, because Rabbi Moshe says Chabad is in Kampala to stay.

That I couldn’t find a place to mount the second plaque greatly saddened me. In many parts of the world, history is important and physical spaces or buildings are repurposed and feature plaques to show that a mikvah is buried here or a synagogue was once there. Today, few Ugandans know their local history, including that former governor (1952-1957) Sir Andrew Cohen was a British Jew. He was the first governor not to plunder Uganda’s wealth and he encouraged education and self-rule.

Now it is my task to contact my East African friends and perhaps schools and associations because Albert Kasozi, executive director of Buganda Heritage and Tourism – to whom Prince Joseph introduced me while we drank African tea at my hotel – would like as much 19th-century Bugandan history collected as possible for a new museum that has just been built in Kampala and will be formally opened soon. The banner exhibit I created, Shalom Uganda, will find a home in this new museum and I am very happy about the prospect. And the Kampala memorial plaque? To be determined….

Janice Masur is a Vancouver author and speaker. Her book, Shalom Uganda: A Jewish Community on the Equator, tells her story of growing up in the bygone Ashkenazi Jewish community of Kampala from 1949 to 1961.