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"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

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Tag: Gratz College

Gratz, Carleton partner

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Gratz College in Melrose Park, Pa., and Carleton University in Ottawa, promises to enhance the academic reach of both institutions. Signed by Gratz president Paul Finkelman and Carleton president Benoit-Antoine Bacon, the MOU forges a collaboration between the two schools, with a focus on Holocaust studies and international engagement. Possible ventures include the exchange of faculty and staff, student exchange programs, and joint research projects.

“We are honoured and excited to develop a partnership with one the great universities in Canada,” Finkelman said. “The collaboration will make Gratz and Carleton stronger institutions by complementing each other’s programs and strengthening international cooperation in higher education.”

Finkelman noted that “this year, 2020, Gratz is 125 years old, and signing this agreement is a wonderful way to conclude our anniversary year.”

“This international partnership focused on Holocaust studies will greatly benefit students and researchers at both Carleton University and Gratz College,” Bacon said. “This important work will advance the priorities of Carleton’s new Strategic Integrated Plan, International Strategic Plan and brand new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan. As the world awaits the return of international travel and cross-border cooperation, we look forward to further engaging with the remarkable team at Gratz College.”

Under the MOU, Gratz will work directly with Carleton’s Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies. Gratz faculty and students will have access to Carleton’s libraries and archives, as well as opportunities to join the Zelikovitz Centre as research affiliates.

“These opportunities for Gratz faculty and graduate students will enhance our vibrant masters and doctoral programs by offering additional scholarly opportunities,” said Honour Moore, dean of the college.

In exchange, Carleton faculty and students will have access to Gratz’s Holocaust Oral History Archive, which houses one of the largest collections of audiotaped testimony in the United States and is a contributing organization to both the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem.

“As a small institution, Gratz values academic partnerships that can enrich our students’ learning opportunities in significant ways,” said Ruth Sandberg, director of Gratz’s Jewish-Christian Studies Program. “We are eager to take advantage of what Carleton has to offer us, including ways in which our students can interact with each other, ways in which our faculty members could partner with each other, and ways in which Gratz can become regular participants in the many notable lectures and discussions offered through the Zelikovitz Centre.”

Bacon and Finkelman signed the MOU during a virtual ceremony Dec. 8. The agenda also included remarks from Sandberg and Deidre Butler, director of the Zelikovitz Centre.

“From our first conversations with Gratz leadership, we found true colleagues,” Butler said. “We look forward to strengthening this community by engaging with Gratz faculty and students through a variety of venues.”

The virtual signing ceremony set the tone for the partnership, said Karen Schwartz, associate vice-president of research at Carleton and the university’s international liaison officer. Ahead of the ceremony, faculty members and administrators from both institutions began collaborating by joining each other’s online lectures and discussions.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become even more important – regardless of how challenging – to not only keep in touch with our preexisting international partners, but to continue establishing new ones as well,” Schwartz said. “Holding a virtual MOU signing is certainly not the same as an in-person event on campus, but it is the next best thing. And so, in this spirit, we are excited to make official our partnership with Gratz College. It will allow students and faculty from both institutions to share academic resources and conduct joint research to advance Holocaust education.”

Gratz College, a private nonprofit institution, is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Founded in 1895, it is the oldest independent college for Jewish studies in North America. Today, Gratz enrols a diverse population of students from around the world, with many programs that reflect its historic focus on Jewish studies and education.

Located in Canada’s capital city, Carleton University provides more than 30,000 students from every province and more than 100 countries with academic opportunities in more than 65 programs of study, including public affairs, journalism, engineering, high technology and international studies.

Posted on December 18, 2020December 16, 2020Author Carleton UniversityCategories WorldTags Carleton University, education, Gratz College, Jewish studies, MOU

Looking for nominees … the nominated and the winners

The Centre for Judaism of the Lower Fraser Valley is looking for nominations for its annual Lamplighter Award, which honours a young person who has performed an outstanding act of community service.

Candidates must be between the ages of 6 and 18 and submission of potential recipients must include two references describing the child’s community service. The chosen lamplighter will receive the award during Chanukah at an evening ceremony at Semiahmoo Shopping Centre.

“Chanukah celebrates the victory of light over darkness and goodness over evil,” said Simie Schtroks. “This is a most appropriate opportunity to motivate and inspire young people to make this world a brighter and better place. By filling the world with goodness and kindness, that light can dispel all sorts of darkness.”

To nominate a candidate for the award, contact Schtroks as soon as possible at [email protected].

* * *

This summer, David Granirer received a Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada. The award recognizes a deed or activity that has been performed in a highly professional manner, or according to a very high standard: often innovative, this deed or activity sets an example for others to follow, improves the quality of life of a community and brings benefit or honour to Canada.

Granirer is a counselor, stand-up comic and mental health keynote speaker. Granirer, who himself has depression, has taught stand-up comedy to recovering addicts and cancer patients, and founded Stand Up for Mental Health, a program teaching comedy to people with mental health issues, in 2004. He has trained Stand Up for Mental Health groups in partnership with various mental health organizations in more than 50 cities in Canada, the United States and Australia. His work on mental health is featured by media worldwide and has garnered several awards.

Granirer also teaches Stand-Up Comedy Clinic at Langara College, and many of his students have gone on to become professional comics.

* * *

This year’s Mayor’s Arts Award for Community Engaged Arts went to Earle Peach. A singer, songwriter, composer, conductor, arranger, teacher and performer, Peach leads four choirs in the city and hosts a monthly community coffee house in Mount Pleasant. He teaches privately, and records musicians for demos and albums. He performs with Barbara Jackson as a duo called Songtree and also has a band called Illiteratty.

The emerging artist honour went to Ariel Martz-Oberlander, a theatre artist, writer and teacher. As a Jewish settler on Coast Salish territories with diasporic and refugee ancestry, her practice is rooted in a commitment to place-based accountability through decolonizing and solidarity work. She divides her time between theatre and community organizing, and specializing in creative protest tactics on land and water.

Martz-Oberlander is a facilitator with the True Voice Theatre Project, producing new shows by residents of the Downtown Eastside and vulnerably housed youth, in collaboration with the Gathering Place and Covenant House. Her most recent work, created with support from the LEAP program, won a research and development prize from the Arts Club. Martz-Oberlander is also the associate producer for Vines Festival, presenting accessible, free eco-art in Vancouver parks. Good art is accountable to the community, raises up voices rarely heard and is vital to repairing our world.

* * *

On Oct. 3, the Koffler Centre of the Arts announced the four winners of the 2017 Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature, all of whom were on hand at the award luncheon at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Toronto.

Winners in two of the categories are based in Vancouver. Miriam Libicki won the non-fiction award for Toward a Hot Jew (Fantagraphics Books Inc.), which the jury described as, “An admirably complicated response to being a woman and a Jew in our time, a thrilling combination of memoir, journalism and art.” And Irene N. Watts and Kathryn E. Shoemaker took the prize in the children’s/young adult category for Seeking Refuge (Tradewind Books), which the jury described as, “A superb graphic novel dramatizing the Kindertransport, a powerful story enhanced by firsthand experience and beautiful black-and-white illustrations.”

The other winners were Peter Behrens’ Carry Me (House of Anansi Press) for fiction and Matti Friedman’s Pumpkinflowers (McClelland & Stewart) for history.

The history shortlist included Max Eisen’s By Chance Alone (Harper Collins Publishers) and Ester Reiter’s A Future Without Hate or Need: The Promise of the Jewish Left in Canada (Between the Lines). Runners-up in the fiction category were Eric Beck Rubin’s School of Velocity (Doubleday Canada) and Danila Botha’s For All the Men (and Some of the Women) I’ve Known (Tightrope Books). In non-fiction, Sarah Barmak’s Closer: Notes from the Orgasmic Frontier of Female Sexuality (Coach House Books), Judy Batalion’s White Walls (Berkley/Penguin Random House) and David Leach’s Chasing Utopia (ECW Press) were runners-up, while Deborah Kerbel’s Feathered (Kids Can Press) and Tilar Mazzeo and Mary Farrell’s Irena’s Children (Margaret K. McElderry Books) were on the children’s/young adult short list.

* * *

In September 2017, local community member Dr. Arthur Wolak was elected for a three-year term to the board of governors of Gratz College, a private liberal arts college in suburban Philadelphia. Founded in 1895, Gratz is the oldest independent and pluralistic college for Jewish studies in North America. Accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Gratz is also recognized by Israel’s Ministry of Education and Culture. Through its undergraduate and graduate programs, Gratz educates students to become effective educators, administrators and community leaders.

Posted on October 27, 2017October 25, 2017Author Community members/organizationsCategories LocalTags activism, Ariel Martz-Oberlander, Arthur Wolak, books, Centre for Judaism, David Granirer, Earle Peach, Gratz College, Irene Watts, Kathryn Shoemaker, Lamplighter Award, Mayor’s Arts Award, mental health, Meritorious Service, Miriam Libicki, Simie Schtroks, tikkun olam, Vine Awards
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