JCC

Artists rise to challenge

“Sometimes Being Human … Can Be Hard” by August Bramhoff.

The Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s inclusion services’ third annual art exhibit at the Zack Gallery is on display this month. And people can meet the artists at a March 23 virtual reception.

“For the last two years, the JCC has celebrated Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month through an art exhibit that interrogated and explored themes of community longing and belonging,” Leamore Cohen, inclusion services coordinator, told the Independent. “We asked artists of mixed ability: How do we make meaning of the concept of community, the real and the imagined spaces we inhabit? What does community longing look like and what are the possibilities for belonging in an ever-changing world?”

This past year, the world has changed almost beyond recognition. “In Vancouver, we are nearing a year since the COVID pandemic shut down our city and transformed all aspects of our social world,” acknowledged Cohen. “However, while we were isolated, we also saw our creativity flourish.”

In the two previous exhibits, artists responded enthusiastically to inclusion services’ challenge, unfolding a fascinating slice of society through their art, and both shows were successful, well-attended cultural events. Unfortunately, the pandemic has moved most of our interactions online, and so it is with this new show, though it is also available to view in-person by appointment.

The participating artists are of differing abilities and artistic levels, so the artforms vary. There are paintings and multimedia collages, figurative and abstract imagery, landscapes and still life. Some pictures are disturbing in their naked emotional pain. Others are quietly sad, or funny, or absurd. One thing is universal: the artists’ willingness to express their feelings, both in their art and in words, as each piece is accompanied by its creator’s short writeup.

It is impossible to mention all 57 pieces on display, but here are a select few to represent this multifaceted show.

August Bramhoff’s painting “Sometimes Being Human … Can Be Hard” depicts a woman sitting, alone. She is sewing or knitting. The painting’s muted colours permit no joy. There is obviously no one there with her, even beyond the edges of the painting. The woman’s isolation and loneliness are palpable despite the spare simplicity of the image.

The artist wrote about his painting: “My main practice is analogue photography, with a focus on street photography…. This is the first painting I’ve created in over 10 years. The inspiration for this work is from a feature film. It captures the sense of longing and displacement we all seem to be juggling during the COVID shutdown.”

In contrast, Tracy-Lynn Chernaske’s “Whispers” is a dreamy landscape. The moon shines over the night forest and a trail of shiny fog weaves its way between earth and sky. Maybe it is just the weather. Or maybe the fog illustrates our mutual desire to connect with one another. Maybe it is a whisper of our souls.

The artist explained: “Community is … a place and a way to tell stories and journeys so they can be witnessed, heard and held. They are a way of bonding together … and the need to push away and seek out new and more fitting spaces.” According to Chernaske, we all nourish “the invisible threads of relationships that cross borders, land, sea and time.”

In Evelyn Finchman’s “Roots” – an abstract composition in the earthy colours of brown and beige – interconnected spirals, lines and shapes allow the viewer’s imagination to stir. Is it food? Is it a surreal terrain? A carpenter’s schematics?

“Belonging to a community is much more than interacting with our societies and being accepted by our peers,” mused Finchman. “This year, I realized how important it is to coexist within the nature that surrounds us…. There is no human life if we don’t respect all living beings on our planet and understand that we are part of the whole environment.”

image - “Roots” by Evelyn Finchmann — “Roots” by Evelyn Finchmann.

Another artist who touched on the theme of nature and its connection with humanity is Peggy Logan. Her painting “Flowers Adrift” shows single blooms, all different – a tulip, an orchid, a daffodil, a daisy – but all similarly pale and faded, bobbing on the blue background. The image seems dejected and symbolic.

“The piece of work I have created,” said Logan, “is about that sense of disconnection that exists now with friends and family with restrictions on travel, social distancing, and isolating inside. This image is about the lack of roots the flowers have as they float over the water via the internet.”

Symbolism is also the main approach of Theresa Moleski in her painting “Life In and Beyond our Bubble.” The painting is dark, almost black and white. A tree is imprisoned inside a sharply delineated bubble, striving to get free. But there is something vaguely optimistic outside the bubble, too. And the artist expressed herself in no uncertain terms in her writeup: “COVID or not, I will continue my journey as an artist!”

While most of the images in this show are serious in tone, a few offer a humorous slant on our very human follies. Danielle Haslip’s painting “First Date Red Flags” is a tongue-in-cheek exploration of dating. Its style – childlike and undeniably funny – includes a figure with lots of teeth. You see it and you know: something is gonna bite.

“Reflecting on my own personal growth, as I wait for conditions to be safer for meeting people, I thought I’d be cheeky and depict an exaggerated vision of dating, in which we can either fall prey to manipulative people, who mean us harm, or attempt to force a connection with someone who is not a good fit for us,” wrote Haslip.

Another smile-inspiring work is Paul Leighton’s “Not Over the Moon Yet.” On the painting, a sad cow is floating on a cloud. Or is it an island? The style is two-dimensional, but the meaning is much deeper. Is the poor cow attempting to fly away from stupid humans? The artist thinks so: “My approach to the theme of longing and belonging is to use oblique humour to ponder unfathomable human global problems through the lens of the preposterous…. An individual, no matter how earnest, can’t solve all the interrelated problems of the Anthropocene or rescue a cow fleeing into the clouds,” said Leighton. “However, social pressure and citizens’ assembly can help.”

image - “Not Over the Moon Yet” by Paul Leighton — “Not Over the Moon Yet” by Paul Leighton.

And then there are paintings like Gail Rudin’s “Home is Where the Heart Is.” Folk art in style, it is heart-warming in its essence. It reminds all of us of the importance of home.

The show is on display at the gallery until April 2. To view the exhibit anytime or attend the March 23, 5 p.m., reception, visit jccgv.com/community-longing-and-belonging.

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

Arts enhance inclusion

Matthew Tom-Wing, right, dressed as Elvis, was one of the participants in the 2019 Chutzpah! Festival finale. His mother, Elizabeth Tom-Wing, recalled it as a “standout moment for our community and for our son!” (photo from JCC)

February is Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM). It offers a wonderful time to look back at some of our community achievements in fostering inclusion at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver; in particular, the 2019 Chutzpah! Festival’s Inclusion Project.

Mary-Louise Albert was artistic and managing director of Chutzpah! and the Rothstein Theatre for 15 years. Before she retired, she and I had many spirited conversations about the importance of creating access for local community members in all areas of Jewish communal life and at the JCC, which is the home of the festival and the theatre, and where I am the coordinator of inclusion services.

We believed that the arts are an important avenue for personal growth and skills development, and that they also bolster visibility and foster true belonging. We hoped that the JCC’s inclusion services and Chutzpah! could collaborate in some way and, through our conversations and Mary-Louise’s vision and expertise, the Chutzpah Inclusion Project crystalized.

After months of planning, in November 2019, members of the local community took to the Rothstein stage to participate in a first-ever Inclusion Project performance – an evening of dance and comedy with international inclusion advocate Pamela Schuller and professional dancers Troy Ogilvie and Rebecca Margolick. The event was the finale of the 2019 Chutzpah! Festival and a highlight of Albert’s final year with Chutzpah!

In preparation to take to the stage, participants had a yearlong introduction to theatre, including low-barrier and free classes with a specialist through the JCC’s Theatre Lab program. Participants attended many local productions through the JCC’s social club, and spent hours rehearsing and co-creating with Ogilvie, Margolick and Schuller over a series of workshops that would not have been possible without community partners and friends.

The 2019 performance received a standing ovation from the audience. The feeling of solidarity and acceptance between the audience and the performers was palpable. What was most amazing, Elizabeth Tom-Wing recalled, is that her son had the opportunity to “train and perform on stage with the professional dancers, along with his friends, and close off the three-week-long 2019 Chutzpah! Festival.” She recalled it as a “standout moment for our community and for our son!”

This project demonstrated that artists of mixed ability and skill can create a powerful and moving performance. Moreover, it reminds us that it is only through equity and action that belonging can be fostered. As diversity, equity and inclusion strategist Arthur Chan explains: “Diversity is a fact. Equity is a choice. Inclusion is an action. Belonging is the outcome.”

Leamore Cohen is inclusion services coordinator at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Community milestones … Order of Canada, Indspire, SFU Gerontology, JCC Jewish Book Awards

Rabbi Dr. Yosef Wosk speaks at a Vancouver Public Library event in 2017. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

The Order of Canada is one of our country’s highest civilian honours. Its companions, officers and members take to heart the motto of the order: “Desiderantes meliorem patriam” (“They desire a better country”).

Created in 1967, the Order of Canada recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation. Appointments are made by the governor general on the recommendation of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada. This year, among the 114 new appointees, are Vancouver Jewish community members Dr. Carol Herbert and Rabbi Dr. Yosef Wosk. Each recipient will be invited to accept their insignia at a ceremony to be held at a later date.

photo - Dr. Carol Herbert — Dr. Carol Herbert *(photo from schulich.uwo.ca)*

Herbert was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada for her contributions to the fields of clinical and academic medicine, as a family physician, medical educator, researcher and administrator. She and three colleagues were appointed.

“The appointment of Drs. B. Lynn Beattie, Joseph Connors, Carol Herbert and Roger Wong to the Order of Canada is a demonstration of their incredible commitment to the health and well-being of all Canadians,” said Dr. Dermot Kelleher, dean of the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine and vice-president, health, at UBC, said in a press release. “We are very proud of each of their contributions, and deeply moved by their passion for improving the lives of patients and families here in B.C., and across the nation.”

Herbert, an adjunct professor in the School of Population and Public Health, “is internationally known for her leadership in primary care research, and for her work in clinical health promotion, patient-physician decision-making, and participatory action research with Indigenous communities, focused on diabetes and on environmental effects on human health,” notes the UBC release. “She was formerly head of the department of family practice, founding head of the division of behavioural medicine and a founder of the UBC Institute of Health Promotion Research.”

This only touches on Herbert’s extensive experience. She also was dean of medicine and dentistry at Western University in London, Ont., from 1999 to 2010, was a practising family physician from 1970 to 2013, and has been involved in medical education since 1971.

Yosef Wosk, PhD, was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada for his far-reaching contributions to his community as a scholar, educator and writer, and for his generous philanthropy. BC Booklook (bcbooklook.com/2020/11/27/41941) cites the governor general: “Yosef Wosk is a Renaissance man of the 21st century. A rabbi, scholar, businessman and art collector, he is a revered educator and community activist who inspired many to become engaged in global issues and local challenges. Former director of interdisciplinary programs in continuing studies at Simon Fraser University, he founded the Philosophers’ Café and the Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars. A poet, explorer and dedicated philanthropist involved with museums, the arts, social services, publishing, nature and heritage conservation, he has endowed hundreds of libraries worldwide.”

Wosk has established more than 400 libraries, including 20 libraries in remote Himalayan villages and 37 in Jewish communities throughout the world. (See jewishindependent.ca/many-milestones-for-wosk-in-2019.) He has supported a range of local building preservation, public garden and other civic enhancement projects. He has helped fund the production of more than 250 books and videos, and has written numerous works, most recently Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal and the forthcoming GIDAL: The Letters of Tim Gidal and Yosef Wosk (Douglas & McIntyre, 2021). He supports several literature, writing, poetry, art and design initiatives, and is founding benefactor of the Dance Centre.

In addition to other honours, Wosk has received the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals and a Mayor’s Arts Award, as well as the Order of British Columbia.

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As part of its belief in and commitment to supporting emerging architecture practitioners, the Arthur Erickson Foundation and the Yosef Wosk Family Foundation recently announced a $110,000 donation to Indspire – Canada’s national, award-winning Indigenous registered charity – in support of Indigenous youth in Canada. The donation will fund an awards program focused on increasing Indigenous student success by growing the number of Indigenous architects and landscape architects in Canada.

Central to Arthur Erickson’s work as an architect and theorist was his belief in and commitment to education and research. Having served on the faculties of architecture at the University of Oregon and the University of British Columbia, Erickson understood the need of each generation to contribute to the training of the next. One of the ways the foundation honours Erickson’s belief is by working with donors to develop prizes and scholarships intended to reward and assist students studying architecture and landscape architecture.

“The Arthur Erickson Foundation and Yosef Wosk Family Foundation, along with Indspire, are pleased to announce the establishment of an awards program supporting Indigenous education in architecture and landscape architecture,” said Michael Prokopow, vice-president (East) Arthur Erickson Foundation. “The organizations recognize the profound importance of the shared work of decolonization and reconciliation in Canada for the transformation of society. These awards recognize the deep power of Indigenous thinking and wisdom around the making of habitation and space for well-being across generations and the vitally important stewardship of the natural world.”

Mike DeGagné, president and chief executive officer of Indspire, stated, “This new investment is a significant step in supporting First Nations, Inuit and Métis architecture and landscape architecture students to achieve their potential through education and training. They can in turn enrich their communities and create positive change in Canada. We are grateful for the support of the Arthur Erickson Foundation and the Yosef Wosk Family Foundation for investing in Indigenous achievement and education.”

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photo - Dr. Gloria Gutman — Dr. Gloria Gutman *(photo from sfu.ca)*

Simon Fraser University Gerontology Research Centre (GRC) founder Dr. Gloria Gutman and her team – Avantika Vashisht, Taranjot Kaur, Mojgan Karbakhsh, Ryan Churchill and Amir Moztarzadeh – received the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Gerontechnology, held Nov. 25-27. SFUGero tweeted the news Dec. 1, noting that the paper was a “[f]easibility study of a digital screen-based calming device for managing BPSD [behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia] during bathing in a long-term care setting.”

A brief biography for Gutman, PhD, appears on the conference website. She is president of the North American chapter of the International Society for Gerontechnology, vice-president of the International Longevity Centre-Canada, past-president of the Canadian Association on Gerontology and the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics. She is co-editor (with Andrew Sixsmith) of Technologies for Active Aging (Springer, 2013) and has published widely on seniors housing, long-term care, health promotion, prevention of elder abuse, and seniors and disasters. She is on the advisory of MindfulGarden Digital Health and is the principal investigator on the first feasibility clinical studies for MindfulGarden, which is a digital treatment of hyperactive dementia in long-term care setting. She established the GRC and department of gerontology at SFU and is recipient of many awards and honours, including the Order of Canada.

***

The third edition of the Western Canada Jewish Book Awards, presented by the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival in Vancouver, took place Dec. 6. Daniella Givon, chair of the awards committee, opened the evening on Zoom and the five honours were awarded by five different presenters.

Winning the Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction was Rhea Tregebov for Rue des Rosiers, in which a young Canadian woman’s search for her own identity brings her to Paris in 1982, and face-to-face with the terror of an age-old enemy. Tregebov (Vancouver) is the author of fiction, poetry and children’s picture books. She is associate professor emerita in the University of British Columbia creative writing program.

The Pinsky Givon Family Prize for nonfiction went to Naomi K. Lewis for Tiny Lights for Travellers. When her marriage suddenly ends, and a diary documenting her beloved Opa’s escape from Nazi-occupied Netherlands in the summer of 1942 is discovered, Lewis decides to retrace his journey to freedom. Lewis (Calgary) is the author of the novel Cricket in a Fist and the short story collection I Know Who You Remind Me Of.

Ellen Schwartz was awarded the Diamond Foundation Prize for children’s and youth literature for The Princess Dolls, a story about friendship between a Jewish girl and a Japanese girl, set against the backdrop of 1942 Vancouver. Schwartz (Burnaby) is the author of 17 children’s books, including Abby’s Birds and Mr. Belinsky’s Bagels.

The Lohn Foundation Prize for poetry was given to Alex Leslie for Vancouver for Beginners. In this collection, the nostalgia of place is dissected through the mapping of a city, where readers are led past surrealist development proposals, post-apocalyptic postcards and childhood landmarks long gone. Leslie (Vancouver) is the author of two short story collections and the winner of the 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers.

The Kahn Family Foundation Prize for writing about the Holocaust was given to Olga Campbell for A Whisper Across Time, a personal and moving story of her family’s experience of the Holocaust through prose, art and poetry, creating a multi-dimensional snapshot of losses and intergenerational trauma. Campbell is a visual artist whose media include photography, sculpture, mixed media painting and digital photo collage.

The jury for the 2020 Western Canada Jewish Book Awards comprised Shula Banchik, arts and culture manager of the Calgary JCC; Judy Kornfeld, former librarian at Langara College; Els Kushner, author and librarian; Norman Ravvin, writer, critic and Concordia University professor; and Laurie Ricou, professor emeritus of English at UBC.

After short acceptance speeches and readings from the authors, Dana Camil Hewitt, director of the JCC Jewish Book Festival, concluded the evening thanking the sponsors, the judges, the awards committee and the extended virtual audience, and inviting everyone to purchase and enjoy the books.

Painting survivors, life

A portrait of Robbie Waisman, by artist Carol Wylie. Part of the exhibit They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds, at the Zack Gallery to Jan. 4.

Even via a wobbly Zoom-led tour, the impact of Saskatoon artist Carol Wylie’s portraits – nine of Holocaust suvivors and nine of residential school survivors – can be felt.

The title of the solo exhibit at the Zack Gallery until Jan. 4 is They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds. It is taken from the proverb: “They buried us … they didn’t know we were seeds.” And the choice of 18 portraits was deliberate.

“It was quite quick and early in the process I decided that 18 had to be the number,” said Wylie at the exhibit’s virtual opening Nov. 19, “because there’s so much darkness in the stories but there’s so much light and life in the survival… [T]here’s three of the Holocaust survivors who are involved with the March of the Living and to actually go back to the camps, to Auschwitz, and to make that walk when you were there; I can’t imagine the courage it takes. And they do it so that others are educated. That’s the rising above it and making something really powerful out of a black, dark experience.

“And I see the same thing with residential school survivors, like Gilbert [Kewistep] and like Eugene [Arcand], who spend so much of their time going around to schools and speaking in public about their experiences to make sure people are educated about that. And, again, reliving what they went through every time they tell it, I’m sure.

“So, the 18 and the connection to chai, to life, came really early in the process. It had to be 18, because that validation of life that these people represent … had to be present.”

The scale of the paintings was also chosen purposefully. “I want these portraits to take up space and to be very present and, for when you’re standing in front of them, to have them fill up your field of vision, so that you can’t wander past, uninterested and unengaged,” said Wylie.

The project started several years ago, she explained. “I saw Nate Leipciger speak at the Holocaust memorial service in Saskatoon and, it’s ridiculous, I’ve been [attending] for lots of years but, for some reason, that year, it hit me for the first time how elderly all these people are getting.”

The firsthand experience that is so powerful is soon to be lost, she said, and “I felt there was something that I had to do to help to preserve that.” And she would do it with the best tool she had, her passion and ability to create portraits.

“What I have learned over the years,” she said, “is that, when you capture the nuances of a person’s face, you really reflect who they are and much of their history and how they’re made up of that history. Even though it’s not like hearing a verbal story, it’s seeing a story in a different form.

“I started this idea to do a series of portraits of Holocaust survivors. And then, as I entered into it, little things started to pop up that were connecting the Jewish survival to the residential school experience. It started with a community seder at our local synagogue, where our rabbi, who is very forward-thinking, always has elements on the tables that recognize other groups … and, that particular year, he had made special mention of making sure that we understand – especially in Saskatchewan, where we have a really dark history of residential schools – the experience of the Indigenous people that we live with.

“And I started thinking, it’s not a parallel experience, but it’s an experience that is shared in terms of pain and suffering and then survival and rising above it…. And, because I live in Saskatchewan, this is part of the history of the land that I call home, that I’m a settler in, that this is a time of truth and reconciliation, it’s a time of trying to address these issues, so, as a personal step towards reconciliation, I can sit down, listen to the stories of some of these residential school survivors and bear witness to them and bring them in to be part of this project, so that they can converse through their portraits, as a group of survivors.”

It was only after making this decision that Wylie discovered that people like Vancouver’s Robbie Waisman – who is among those featured in the exhibit – were already meeting with residential school survivors to share ideas and experiences.

The project took about three-and-a-half years to complete. Waisman is the only Vancouver-based subject. “All the other Holocaust survivors were from Toronto, Edmonton and Saskatoon, and all the residential school survivors are from Saskatchewan,” said Wylie in an email interview with the Independent.

“I had to be really careful,” she noted at the exhibit opening. “There’s a very, very fraught history of non-Indigenous artists and non-Indigenous photographers representing Indigenous peoples and I knew I was stepping into this murky ground. All the way along, I had to keep asking myself questions about my own integrity around this, what are the reasons for why you’re doing this and does every single survivor that you talk to understand fully what this project is about and [are they] fully on board with it. At the end, I thought, if there are people who are criticizing it, that’s fine, but, I feel, after conversations I’ve had with many residential school survivors, that it’s more important that we raise this issue and more important that I make this step towards reconciliation than be fearful of doing something that maybe I shouldn’t be doing or that the art world might perceive that I shouldn’t be doing.”

When the work was completed, Arcand and Kewistep “smudged the work before it went off on its first exhibition. Then they gave me a smudge kit that I could use myself, if I wanted to, in the future. It was extremely meaningful to me; it was almost like they’d given it their stamp of approval, as well as imbuing it with these good graces and these good thoughts and this positive energy before the work went anywhere and anyone had a chance to see it.”

The exhibit has been shown in various places and will travel elsewhere after its time at the Zack.

Wylie’s general process in doing portraits is to speak with her subjects first.

“I think that, in order for the mask that we all wear in the world to protect ourselves, in order for that to drop, there needs to be time spent talking,” she said. “There’s this very strange artificial intimacy that happens when you’re sitting two feet – before COVID times – away from somebody that you’re drawing, and you’re talking and you’re looking intently at them…. So, I always wait until that couple of hours of conversation and visiting is over and then I pull out my camera.

“I need to work from photographs because I like to get a strong resemblance and I can’t have people coming back endlessly to sit for me…. But that’s when I take them, is after that time has been spent, that conversation has happened, and their mask has come down and they are open.”

The openness that is seen in the subject’s faces, stressed Wylie, “is not something that I put there, it’s something that they had. Seriously, I paint what I see… And that captures what they have, what they are, because it’s all within there, it’s all in their face.”

Given the caveat that there is something intangible about what makes a good portrait, Wylie said in an email, “I believe a portrait should bear resemblance to the subject. But, in addition, it should feel like the portrait is inhabited; like it contains the spirit of an individual. You often hear people comment about the eyes in a portrait following them. I think that’s the sensation of some element of the person, and not just their resemblance, being present. I also like to see evidence of the artist in the work in the form of brushstroke, colour choices, etc. This trace of the artist distinguishes a painted portrait from a photo.”

She described her need to create portraits as “a compulsion I’ve had since I was a child. Even then,” she said, “I drew people, made my own paper dolls. In my grad school investigations I discovered, I believe, that it’s because of a fascination I have with the mystery of consciousness, and the fact that we can never share another’s consciousness. We learn about ourselves through our interactions with others and these connections enrich our being.

“The face is a major part of how we communicate and is strongly connected to our identity,” she said. “Yet, we cannot see ourselves the way others see us, so there’s this mystery around faces. What do they hide? What do they reveal? How do you feel as ‘you’ wearing your face? How do I communicate as ‘me’ wearing my face? I am just never tired of painting a portrait, but am always excited when I begin a new one.”

The exhibit opening was hosted by gallery director Hope Forstenzer, who credited her predecessor, Linda Lando, for bringing this show in. The exhibit is open by appointment and via onlyatthej.com. A commemorative book, being prepared with Wylie’s help, is in the works, as well, said Forstenzer.

On Dec. 9, 6-8 p.m., the gallery is having a Zoom event with Waisman and Wylie, as well as Lise Kirchner from the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and Shelley Joseph from Reconciliation Canada. Readers interested in attending should email Forstenzer at [email protected].

Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! deadline April 1

(photo from Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!)

The deadline to apply for Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver July 7-30 and Aug. 4-27 is April 1. With participants ages 9 to 19 from various parts of Canada and elsewhere in the world, director and creator of the program Perry Ehrlich will be joined this year by faculty including musical directors Wendy Bross Stuart and Diane Speirs; director Chris McGregor; choreographers Jason Franco, Keri Minty and Meghan Anderssen; acting coach Amanda Testini; and Mariana Munoz, set construction and costume co-ordination. The final production of each session will be Wild Wild West Side Story, featuring an original script and a repertoire from Broadway and movie musicals. Also being offered is the finishing school, for serious musical theatre students attending Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!, and a boot camp dance program. Scholarships are available.

Artistic visions on belonging

“We are Family” by Cat L’Hirondelle is now on exhibit at the Zack Gallery, as part of he group show Community Longing and Belonging, which runs to March 29.

The new group show at the Zack Gallery, Community Longing and Belonging, is the second annual exhibit in celebration of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month. Organized by Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s inclusion services and its coordinator, Leamore Cohen, the show is a silent auction. Half of the proceeds will go to the artists, and the other half will be divided between inclusion services and the gallery.

The show consists of 50 paintings by different artists. The size and shape of all the paintings are the same – small rectangles – but the contents and media used are vastly different, indicative of the artists’ various styles and training levels. Some are highly professional. Some are figurative; others abstract. But all reflect their creators’ need to belong, to be part of a community. Each painting tells a story.

One of the prevalent themes of the show is flight. Wings appear on several paintings, emphasizing the yearning for the freedom flight entails, but also for the brotherhood of other fliers. The white ornamental wings on Mikaela Zitron’s multimedia piece are bigger than the background board. They take the artist into the sky, into a joyful aerial dance, while Jamie Drie’s feathers, drifting in a sad emptiness, invoke the feeling of disconnection.

The murder of crows in Cat L’Hirondelle’s painting relates yet a different story. “I am a feminist,” said L’Hirondelle. “I was thinking about the importance of being part of a community of like-minded women. My group of longtime women friends is my family, my tribe and, like the crows, I know that they will always be there for me. Since I became disabled, I have felt more and more disassociated with the able-bodied-centric society in general. Just look at the history of people with disabilities in different societies – genocide, forced sterilizations, segregation, isolation, etc. I would love to feel that people with disabilities belong in the world. My piece is trying to impart that sense of longing to be included in general community and how crow communities seem to include everyone: the old, the disabled, the young. I have lived in the crow flight path for many years and have been watching crows’ behaviour; sometimes, I wished people were more like crows.”

image - “Leaving for Awhile” by Daniel Malenica — “Leaving for Awhile” by Daniel Malenica

The second recurring motif in the show is loneliness, the sense of separation. Daniel Malenica’s image is distinctive among such pictures. The woman in the painting stands behind closed garden gates. She gazes at us from the painting, and the naked longing in her eyes is painful to behold. She desperately wants to open that gate and step through, to join us, but she lacks the courage. What if the people inside reject her? So, she just lingers outside, desolate and alone, waiting for an invitation.

Another outstanding piece on the same theme is Estelle Liebenberg’s black and white painting “Solitude Standing.” She told the Independent, “I work primarily as a potter and a metalsmith, but I accepted the challenge to paint something for the exhibition because I’ve had wonderful times working as a substitute art instructor at the JCC. I chose the monochromatic colour palette because, at the moment, I am quite fascinated by shadows, specifically how they change the shape of objects but still remain recognizable.”

image - Estelle Liebenberg’s “Solitude Standing” — Estelle Liebenberg’s “Solitude Standing.”

Her focus for the piece was the idea of a community in general. “I’ve spent my life dealing with different communities and, I guess, for me, the lines have softened over time,” she said. “We spend so much time in our lives working on belonging, or longing to belong somewhere, to someone or something. It’s an integral part of the beauty, the joy, the frustration and the heartbreak of life. For me, this was longing and belonging as an immigrant, as an introvert, as a mother of grown children, as a single person living in a city.”

She explained the title of her painting: “It is a hat tip to a song by Suzanne Vega. For me, her words truly encapsulate the feeling of longing to belong somewhere: ‘Solitude stands in the doorway / And I’m struck once again by her black silhouette / By her long cool stare and her silence / I suddenly remember each time we’ve met.’”

Different artists explore different aspects of community and belonging, and not all the communities are small or local. For Marcie Levitt-Cooper, the community in her painting is the universe, the earth and stars encompassed by love. Esther Tennenhouse, on the other hand, contemplates the darker side of belonging.

“My piece is a photocopy from a pre-World War Two Jewish encyclopedia, Allgemeine Ensiklopedya,” Tennenhouse explained. “It was labeled in Yiddish and issued in New York in 1940, the year Germany occupied France. On first seeing this old map, I found it very poignant. The map had to fit the 16-by-16 canvas given to all participants. The format left space, and I filled it with the music of two nigguns and lyrics of six Yiddish songs.”

That colourful map with Hebrew lettering, published just before the Nazis unleashed the full horrors of the Holocaust on European Jews, made for a tragic, frightening image, despite its bright and cheery appearance.

While the exhibit includes other figurative paintings, the majority of the pictures are abstract, either simple swirls of paint or complex geometric patterns, like Daniel Wajsman’s piece – two irregular overlapping rectangles.

“I wanted to emphasize that we should bring everyone in, not leave anyone out,” he said.

Community Longing and Belonging runs to March 29.

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

The comics rise again on Feb. 20

Kyle Berger, left, and Scotty Aceman, co-producers of Rise of the Comics. (photo from Rise of the Comics)

The outer limits of the laugh-o-meter will be tested on Feb. 20 at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Rothstein Theatre, when a group of Canada’s top funny people step on stage for A Night of Shticks & Giggles, presented by local comedy producer Rise of the Comics. This will be the third Shticks and Giggles show to raise money for the JCC Maccabi Games.

Headlining the event is Julie Kim, a two-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee for stand-up, who has performed at comedy festivals around the continent and appeared on CBC’s The Debaters and Laugh Out Loud. Her YouTube videos have amassed millions of views and, in 2018, she released her debut comedy album, Outside Voice.

Among other topics, Kim’s routine delves into modern parenting and various cultural issues, sometimes involving life seen from an Asian perspective. Yuk Yuk’s comedy club co-founder Mark Breslin called her “smart, funny, with enough self-awareness to deconstruct her life in a very sophisticated way.”

Other acts in the show, which Rise of the Comics describes as its “best line-up to date,” include Robert Peng, who bills himself as “an unemployed engineer who turned to stand-up comedy out of desperation”; New Zealander Sophia Johnson, “the one who keyed your car but probably shouldn’t have told you that”; Sean McDonnell, who Canadian comedy star Norm MacDonald has praised as “a fantastic talent”; and Brett Nikolic, a maven on Mountain Dew-flavoured weed.

Rise of the Comics is the brainchild of Vancouver stand-up comedian Scotty Aceman, who will also be on stage at Shticks & Giggles. Starting off as a weekly 30-minute program on Shaw Cable with the same name in 2015, the show has highlighted the work of many stand-up comedians who got their start on the local scene, such as Dino Archie and Ivan Decker, who has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Aceman, a University of British Columbia and B.C. Institute of Technology graduate, switched to comedy five years ago, after a 20-year stint in a sales job with Rogers in the corporate wireless phone department.

“Leaving the cellphone business after 20 years was a tough call,” he said. “But you have to chase your dreams. People would ask me, ‘What about my dignity and respect?’ I’d say dignity and respect went out the window the minute I had a Thursday morning bar mitzvah!”

In 2019, Aceman brought in Kyle Berger as co-producer of Rise of the Comics. Berger, sports coordinator at the JCCGV, will be the master of ceremonies for the Feb. 20 Shticks & Giggles.

Before joining the crew, Berger, in his role as JCC Maccabi Games delegation head, had hired Rise of the Comics for a fundraiser. He credits Aceman for allowing him to get his stand-up feet wet, with a debut performance at the Charqui Grill in Kitsilano in 2018.

“Stand-up was one of those things on my bucket list to do by the time I turned 40,” Berger told the Independent. “Scotty (and my then-girlfriend, now fiancée) were both big helpers in getting me up there on stage for a five-minute routine. My fiancée had had enough of me saying I was going to do it.”

Berger said, “Scotty’s reputation within the local comic community is a great asset. Nowadays, Rise of the Comics does all sorts of things, including parties in people’s living rooms. And, last year, we were hired by the Chutzpah! Festival to put on a show.”

Rise of the Comics currently works with a roster of more than 50 stand-up performers of all styles and experiences, and tailors its shows to any situation. They have created performances at such diverse venues as Hy’s Steak House, the Jericho Arts Centre and Ronald McDonald House, among others. Their gigs can cover everything from clean to dirty, social commentary to observational, but always, they say, with an emphasis on the funny.

Berger promises that he and fellow Shticks & Giggles comedians are likely to make mention, in one way or another, that their show is backed by the foundation created by Dr. Neil Pollock, a leading Vancouver male sexual health and circumcision expert, and his wife Michelle.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at m.bpt.me/event/4499277. For more information about Rise of the Comics, visit riseofthecomics.com.

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

Magnifying emotions

Gila Green will talk about her two latest books at the Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 9. (photo from JCC Jewish Book Festival)

From the first page, White Zion reads like a memoir. Through 16 short stories, we get to know Miriam and her family, from her great-grandparents to her own children, as well as the places they are from, including Yemen, Israel at various points in its history and Canada. It is easy to wonder how much of Miriam is her creator, Israeli-based writer Gila Green, who will be at the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival Feb. 9.

“The stories in White Zion are all about emotional truths,” Green told the Jewish Independent. “So, if that’s what’s coming across, that is some measure of success. I did not say this but Alice Munro did – I recall reading an interview with her in which she said: ‘If your audience thinks all you did was wake up and write down everything that happened to you yesterday, then you’ve succeeded.’ I would love to hear about how readers relate to these emotional truths, how they connect.”

Green will also bring her young adult novel No Entry to the festival, for which she will talk at both the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (12:30 p.m.) and the White Rock/South Surrey Jewish Community Centre (4 p.m.) that Sunday.

The heroine of No Entry is Yael Amar, a teenager from Ottawa, which was where Green was born and has lived. Yael has traveled to South Africa to intern for a spell at a private bush camp near Kruger National Park. (Green’s husband is South African, and Green has lived in the country.) There with the intent of helping protect elephants from poachers, Yael ends up in danger herself.

Despite the connections her books may, or may not, have with her own family, Green prefers to write fiction. She described nonfiction as “limiting” for her.

“As soon as someone tells me to write a true story, I’m suffocating,” she said. “I have to start questioning what is fact, what is memory, what lacks context, what is something I’ve just convinced myself is true and on and on. I spent four years at Carleton [University in Ottawa] studying for a journalism degree, so all of that kicks in. In the end, the short story is a wrung-out sock, more like a dozen tangled wrung-out socks. No one wants to read a sock. There is no connecting with it.”

Fiction allows for the expression of emotional truths that would be impossible to express otherwise, she said.

“Writing fiction allows me to hone in on a feeling – something I want my audience to feel, which is how I start every story I write. I ask myself, ‘How do I want this story to make the reader feel?’ and I start from there – and I can hold that emotion under a magnifying glass. I can distort it, blow it sky high, cut interference to ant height or delete. I can take one characteristic of one person on a single day about a single event and I can magnify it, so that the rest of the human being is rendered invisible. These were some of my goals with White Zion. The characters are all gross distortions of one human trait or another.”

But that doesn’t mean that facts don’t enter her work.

“I tried to be as faithful as possible to the historical period,” she said, referring to the stories in White Zion, “and I spent months researching everything, from what vegetables they could have been selling in the Jerusalem market post-1948 to how they could possibly have been heating their homes. I also used the same biographical details for two of the characters, Miriam and her father. It was important for me that Jewish fiction expand to include Yemenite voices, religious voices, gay voices, the more voices the better.”

Green also did much research for No Entry and, in addition to crafting an entertaining, at-times tense, thriller-like novel, she educates readers on the nature of elephants and the very real threat of their extinction.

“Yael is a Jewish eco-heroine,” said Green, who noted that the character’s boyfriend, David, is also Jewish. “She’s not religious but both of her parents are Jewish – she mentions in No Entry how the South African traditional dish she tastes for the first time reminds her of her mother’s chulnt on the Sabbath and, in No Fly Zone, she has an Israeli-themed dinner with her parents. None of the other characters are Jewish…. I do like exploring different kinds of Jews though. If readers want a more obvious Jewish heroine in the sequel[s], please write to me.”

Green has finished writing No Fly Zone, the next book in what might become a series. In it, she said, “Yael Amar is back with her best friend Nadine Kelly, this time protecting Kruger National Park from the skies. But she is about to learn a big lesson when it comes to moral relativity and friendship.”

Green added, “I set out to thread the senseless loss of human life with the equally nonsensical destruction of animals in No Entry and I continue this in the sequel. I did this not because I’m trying to make a point about the connection or status between humans and animals – that’s the wrong way to understand my motivation. Rather, I’m trying to weave together the criminals who commit these inhuman acts: they’re connected.

“Often,” she said, “the same people willing to sell illegal blood ivory are involved in terrorism, human slavery and other acts that bring nothing but grief to the planet. I wish to emphasize this linkage, to shout it from the rooftops. But, in real life, I figured an exciting, adventurous, teen novel was a more effective way to go.

“I purposely made the terrorist event [in No Entry] happen in Canada because I want to get the message across that fatal betrayal doesn’t just happen in Africa or the Middle East. That attitude might allow some of us to feel off the hook. It happens everywhere and we all have to make sure we are part of the solution or there won’t be one and that thought is too devastating to imagine. I refuse to go there and No Entry ends on a victorious note for a reason.”

Though the sequel has been written, its publication date will depend on what happens in Australia and the bushfires that continue to destroy the country. Green shared, “I am very sad to say that my publisher Stormbird Press was on Kangaroo Island and has burned to the ground. The staff was evacuated on Dec. 20th. We are all praying for their safety and that they fully recover but, for now, everything is at a standstill and there is terrible devastation.”

Green is already working on her next novel. In A Prayer Apart, her main character, for the first time, is male, she said. “He’s an Israeli-Jewish teenager living through the 2014 war with Hamas, knowing he’s next in line for the front line. By the same token, he’s had it with his parents and school and his rebellious behaviour lands him in lockdown, one step away from juvenile jail.”

She said she will let readers know on her website, gilagreenwrites.com, when the publication details are finalized.

An avid reader since childhood and now a prolific writer, with four books published since 2013 and two more on the way, Green said, “Mankind cannot live without stories. Period. We are our stories. When people are down, what they are really saying very often is they don’t feel connected. Stories connect us.”

For the Jewish Book Festival lineup and schedule, visit jewishbookfestival.ca.

Historic JCC-Fed agreement

A rendering of the development that is planned to replace the current Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. (image from JCCGV)

A recently signed agreement is a significant next step in the largest infrastructure project in the history of British Columbia’s Jewish community. The deal is expected to create a new Jewish community centre, as well as at least 300 rental housing units and larger, renewed facilities for many communal institutions, replacing the existing, almost 60-year-old community centre.

A memorandum of understanding between the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver was signed last month. The agreement will likely see the land owned by the JCC transferred to a new community-wide agency. According to a joint statement by the two organizations, the proposed new 200,000-square-foot “recreational, cultural and community centre [will include] new childcare spaces, more services for seniors, an expanded space for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, a new theatre and more.” At least 15 not-for-profit community organizations are anticipated to be housed there, as well as updated and enlarged facilities for arts and culture, aquatics, and fitness programs. Mixed-use rental housing units included in the plan are expected to be offered at or below market value and be open to everyone.

The project will advance based on a collaborative fundraising initiative. A campaign goal has not been announced.

“This agreement is an important initial step toward acting upon the community’s vision for a revitalized JCC that would become a legacy for the Jewish community and the city,” Salomon Casseres, president of the JCC board, said in the statement. “Our board is excited to partner with Jewish Federation. We believe that this collaboration puts the project on a strong foundation for success, from a community, financial and governance perspective.”

“An opportunity like this comes along perhaps once in a generation, so we are very proud to be working closely with the JCC on this historic project,” Alex Cristall, Jewish Federation’s board chair, said in the statement. “Jewish Federation takes a broad, long-term view of the sustainability, growth and evolution of the local Jewish community, and we believe that this project will create a strong core that will ultimately allow us to increase our reach and our impact.”

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation, told the Independent that the collaboration is a “big win” for the community.

“Federation has always been a proponent for the concept of working together on projects that have an impact that’s beyond the reach of one agency and we are thrilled that the JCC agrees with us that this is one of those projects,” he said. “It absolutely should be common in all cities.… For me, it’s best practice.”

The new JCC will strengthen the entire community, he said, adding that the impacts will reach far beyond the Oakridge neighbourhood.

“We are not just creating a strong future for that 41st and Oak corridor, the Vancouver Jewish community, but I believe we’re creating a strong future for the community across the Lower Mainland as a whole,” Shanken said, expressing his gratitude to the JCC and its leadership.

“I think the JCC has shown immense foresight and courage in coming together with us, to have the openness to work through the challenges and opportunities that exist in partnership, and I believe that this partnership will glean really great results for the Jewish community as a whole,” he said.

Eldad Goldfarb, executive director of the JCC, said working together hand in hand is the best way forward and the partnership is a natural one. The collaboration between the JCC and Federation is the largest partnership, but is part of a broader engagement process, he added.

“The master planning process of this legacy community project has involved an extensive engagement effort by the JCC, reaching out and having conversations with more than 30 Jewish community organizations, many stakeholders, donors and community members,” said Goldfarb. “The JCC, as we know it today, is home to 15 different Jewish community organizations and the new redevelopment might increase these collaborations opportunities.”

Discussions about the partnership between the two organizations have always been very collaborative, open and in good faith, Goldfarb said.

“This project is about creating a JCC for the future of the community, with more and better childcare, seniors, wellness, arts, culture and education state-of-the-art spaces, but is not limited to only that,” he said. “Our vision is to create an innovative community site which will include a brand new J, as well as a welcoming and collaborative home for many other community organizations and, of course, the much-needed large rental affordable housing towers.”

Vancouver City Council unanimously approved the JCC site redevelopment plan in September 2018. Several major steps remain in the design and planning process, as well as the raising of the millions of dollars required to complete it.

Choosing love not hate

On Sunday, vigils were held in many cities to commemorate the 11 worshippers killed at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018. The shooting was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history.

As we have mourned and taken greater measures toward protecting ourselves, we have, mainly, not let fear paralyze us or isolate us from our neighbours and the larger world. We have continued to live Jewishly, whatever that means to each one of us; whether it’s helping those less fortunate, lobbying for sound government policies, going to synagogue or simply being kind to the people we encounter in our day.

In Vancouver, community members and others could join two collective moments of remembrance on Sunday: the Jewish Federations of North America’s Pause with Pittsburgh, which included the livestreaming of a public memorial service, and a service at Congregation Beth Israel, organized by the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, Hillel BC and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

Over the weekend, Jews were also encouraged – as they were in the wake of the tragedy last year – to #ShowUpForShabbat, an initiative of the American Jewish Committee, calling for us “to honour the victims and raise our collective voice for a world free of antisemitism, hate and bigotry.”

Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, who grew up in Pittsburgh, told News 1130, “There are still many people who are frightened and worried about what took place a year ago…. There are people who are concerned about coming to synagogue and people who are concerned about antisemitism. Especially on holidays, one of the messages I deliver is that, unfortunately, antisemitism is on the rise in the world. But we have to remain strong, to have the courage to come to synagogue, and to not allow attacks like this to prevent us from being who we are and to deprive us of the benefits that come from being in a sacred space.”

Infeld also noted, “One of the aftermaths of the attack is that people in Pittsburgh didn’t feel this was an attack just on a synagogue, they felt it was an attack on Pittsburgh…. We have to understand an attack on any sacred space is an attack on an entire community, so we need to stand together as one community with the message that love is stronger than hate.”

While the situation is not as bad as elsewhere in the world, the number of hate crimes and the incidences of antisemitism in Canada, including in British Columbia, have increased worrisomely. Love has a long row to hoe. Not only to give us the courage to speak up in the face of prejudice, but also to confront and temper our own. Not only to make us self-assured enough to make space for those with whom we agree and for whom we care, but also for those with whom we disagree and whom we dislike. Not only to inspire us to dream of a better world, but to give us the imagination and resourcefulness to bring those aspirations into being.

Love can only be stronger than hate if we choose to make it so.