Jewish Heritage Month

Join Jewish culture festival

This year’s Festival of Jewish Culture takes place May 25. (photo from JCCGV)

Throughout May, there are numerous events being held at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver in celebration of Jewish Heritage Month. They culminate in the Festival of Jewish Culture on May 25, which features music, food, dance, art, a market, workshops and more at the centre, from noon to 4:30 p.m.

While some of the events leading up to May 25 have happened, there are still many activities coming up. Tied into the festival are the Western Canada Jewish Book Awards May 13 (for the list of finalists, visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival); an Israeli-style vegetarian potluck Kabbalat Shabbat dinner – Shishi Yisraeli – on May 16; a Jewish Street Art workshop for youth on May 22; a joint presentation on May 22 with the JCC Jewish Book Festival, with Ben Shneiderman talking about Journey Through the Spanish Civil War, an English translation of his father’s book; and a Shabbat picnic breakfast and tiyul (walk) on May 24.

photo - The Festival of Jewish Culture features live music — The Festival of Jewish Culture features live music. *(photo from JCCGV)*

“The main event and pre-event activities have evolved from previous years and successful ideas that people looked forward to, as well as years of the festival being harikud [about Israeli dance], and many traditions have stayed from then,” said Nomi Zysblat, coordinator of Jewish and Israeli cultural programming at the JCC, about how this year’s events were chosen. She credited Hila Olya, director of programs, for being supportive and encouraging.

“She really is someone who both leads and shines but also gives you freedom for whatever comes to mind,” said Zysblat. “I really have the pleasure of working with some great people here at the J.”

photo - Like last year's festival, this year will have a cooking workshop — Like last year’s festival, this year will have a cooking workshop. *(photo from JCCGV)*

There will be four workshops offered on May 25: krav maga, where youth, adults and families are invited to train together; Liat Pakes teaches how to make falafel, pita and different styles of tahini; Zohar Hagbi leads an intuitive art session, in which participants will be able to express their inner creativity; and people will have the chance to create their own Havdalah spice bags.

“One of the four blessings of Havdalah is for besamim (fragrant spices),” explained Zysblat. “Creating our own spice bags is fun for children, too, as they get to touch and breathe in a variety of aromatic spices, and then create their favourite combination.”

There will also be live performances. Award-winning musicians Yonatan Dror and Itamar Erez will play in different Jewish styles with guitar, piano and several types of woodwinds and brass instruments. The JCC choir, led by Shir Barzel, will sing several Hebrew melodies, and Perry Ehrlich’s ShowStoppers will perform. HaOpziot, a band of local Israeli Vancouverites, will entertain with Israeli rock classics.

Food trucks will include Planted and Meet2Eat, and there will be around 12 different stalls of local jewelry, textiles, Judaica and sweets.

Keeping the event safe will be a combination of JCC security, extra paid security, Vancouver Police Department involvement, as well as a team of Bitachon volunteers.

“It’s seriously going to be an amazing day, and I’ll be selling my popsicles, too!” said Zysblat.

For more information on any part of the festival, visit jccgv.com/program-category/israeli-festival.

Prince George proclaims Jewish Heritage Month

Members of the Prince George Jewish community with Mayor Simon Yu. (photo from Eli Klasner)

Members of the local Jewish community were invited to attend the official reading and proclamation of May 2023 as Jewish Heritage Month in Prince George. Mayor Simon Yu made the proclamation at the May 8 city council meeting. It read:

“Whereas: the Canadian Parliament adopted Bill S232, which designates May as Jewish Heritage Month and recognizes the significant contributions of Jews to Canadian society; and

“Whereas: Jewish Heritage Month will celebrate inspirational Jewish Canadians and educate Canadians about Canada’s Jewish community; and

“Whereas: the diverse ethno-cultural heritage of British Columbia contributes greatly to life in this province, and the Jewish population of British Columbia is approximately 30,000 people, making it the third-largest Jewish community in Canada; and Jewish Heritage Month is an opportunity to celebrate the richness of Jewish culture and traditions, and the government of British Columbia encourages all British Columbians to learn more about the history of Jewish-Canadians and to reflect on the many contributions they have made to the province.

“Now, therefore, as mayor of the City of Prince George, I proclaim that May 2023 be observed as ‘Jewish Heritage Month’ in the City of Prince George.”

– Courtesy Eli Klasner

City honours Cornelia Hahn Oberlander

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, z”l, at her house in Vancouver. (© Chanel Blouin)

Vancouver City Council has bestowed the Freedom of the City Award on Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, CC, OBC, a pioneer in landscape architecture and a beloved member of Vancouver’s Jewish community. Council approved the award on May 18, 2021, days before Oberlander passed away on May 22 at the age of 99.

“Cornelia Oberlander was one of Vancouver’s most renowned Jewish residents and, during Jewish Heritage Month this May, we honour her outstanding accomplishments in bringing world-class landscape design to Canada, and to Vancouver in particular,” said Mayor Kennedy Stewart. “On behalf of council, I extend my deepest sympathies to her family and friends. May her memory be a blessing.”

After escaping Nazi persecution in Germany at the age of 18, Oberlander immigrated to the United States via England, and graduated among the first class of women from Harvard University with a degree in landscape architecture. She later settled in Vancouver and founded her own landscape architecture firm, bringing with her a vision of urban environments with pockets of nature that continues to shape our cityscape.

“Cornelia Oberlander was a true icon of our Jewish community. The Freedom of the City Award honours Cornelia’s lifetime of accomplishments in a month that celebrates the impact that Jewish Canadians have had on society as a whole,” said Ezra S. Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Vancouver.

Vancouver residents and visitors continue to benefit from Oberlander’s dream of “green cities” that infuse rural and urban harmony. Her contributions to Vancouver’s public spaces include logs as seating on our public beaches (1963), Robson Square (1983), the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch rooftop garden (1995) and the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre (2011). She designed landscapes for the Vancouver General Hospital burn unit garden, and the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology and the C.K. Choi Building.

Oberlander also made her mark nationally and internationally. She designed landscapes for non-market housing and playgrounds across the country, helped draft national guidelines for the creation of play spaces in Canada, and worked on major projects like the National Gallery of Canada, and the Canadian Chancery in Washington, D.C.

The Freedom of the City is an honour reserved for individuals who have gained national or international acclaim in their field and brought recognition to Vancouver through their work. The City began granting the Freedom of the City Award in 1936. Recipients have their names inscribed in the Book of Freedoms.

Nominations are submitted by City Council members and must be approved by a unanimous vote of Council. Oberlander’s nomination was supported by the Jewish Federation of Vancouver, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia in honour of Jewish Heritage Month.

Learn more about the award and previous recipients at vancouver.ca/your-government/freedom-of-the-city.aspx.

Call for digital art

(photo by Alex Dworkin/Canadian Jewish Archives)

During the Second World War, 17,000 Jews were enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces, serving their country despite Canada’s “none is too many” Jewish immigration policy. Of these 17,000, at least 279 were women. To highlight the contributions of these Jewish servicewomen and to combat the lack of public awareness of their participation in the war, original artworks are being sought.

Canadian artists who self-identify as Jewish and as women are invited to submit proposals for 2D digital artwork, inspired by the stories of the 36 Jewish service women featured on the website She Also Serves, live-ucalgary.ucalgary.ca/she-also-serves.

Submissions should include a maximum 500-word idea for an original 2D digital artwork (created, for example, using Photoshop, digital photography, digital collages, etc.) for a vertical banner measuring 75 by 165 centimetres. A link to your website, or a pdf including 10 examples of previous work and a curriculum vitae, must accompany the submission. Digital copies of drawings, paintings or other non-digitally generated works will not be considered.

In the end, 10 artists will be invited to create works based on the proposals submitted. Criteria for evaluation include clarity of theme, quality of research supporting the proposal, creativity, visual presentation, and quality of supporting documents. The jurors are Dr. Jennifer Eiserman, associate professor, department of art, University of Calgary; Saundra Lipton, adjunct librarian, U of C; Dick Averns, Canadian Forces artist; and David Bercuson, U of C department of history.

Selected artists will receive a contract indicating that each artist retains copyright and will be paid a CARFAC group exhibition fee of $395. These works will be printed on banners that will be hung throughout the existing exhibitions and galleries at the Military Museums in Calgary during Jewish Heritage Month, May 2021. In addition to the physical exhibition, artworks will be virtually circulated on the project website.

Submissions are due by Dec. 31, 2020 and artists will be notified by Jan. 22, 2021, regarding the jury’s decision. Artists invited to participate will be asked to send TIFF files of completed pieces by April 1, 2021. Send submissions and any questions to Eiserman at [email protected].

Jewish Heritage Month

York Centre Liberal MP Michael Levitt and Sen. Linda Frum hold copies of Bill S-232, the Canadian Jewish Heritage Month Act. (photo from CJN)

From now on, May will be Canadian Jewish Heritage Month across the country. The bill proclaiming the annual event passed its third and final reading in the House of Commons on March 28. The vote was unanimous.

The Canadian Jewish Heritage Month Act, known as Bill S-232, passed in the Senate before heading to the House. It received royal assent and became law on March 29, making this month the inaugural Jewish Heritage Month.

Sponsored by Conservative Sen. Linda Frum and Liberal MP Michael Levitt, the bill was introduced in December 2016, though the groundwork for it was laid in 2015, when former Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler introduced the substance of the bill.

Canadian Jewish Heritage Month “will provide an opportunity for all Canadians to reflect on and celebrate the incredible contributions that Jewish Canadians have made to our country, in communities across Canada,” said Levitt in a statement.

“I am delighted that Canadian Jewish Heritage Month will be enacted into law in time to celebrate in May,” Frum said in a statement to the CJN prior to the royal assent being given. Jewish Heritage Month “will provide many opportunities for all Canadians to learn about the significant contributions of the Jewish community in Canada.”

The evening before the bill’s passage, several MPs spoke warmly of the Canadian Jewish community’s history and contributions to the country.

Referring to Toronto’s Jews, Toronto Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin said, “We have made our mark in the city, showing all the things we can contribute in so many ways through our cultural centres, art and food.”

She noted Toronto’s many Jewish cultural offerings, including the Ashkenaz Festival, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival and classes at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre. Jewish Heritage Month “is going to be a chance to celebrate so much of what we have,” Dabrusin said.

British Columbia Conservative MP Dan Albas said, “in virtually every Canadian endeavour, in virtually every decade since the 1930s, Jewish Canadians have made significant and important contributions to virtually every area of Canadian life.”

It was a “proud moment” in February 2016 when 229 MPs passed a motion condemning the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, Albas stated. He made special mention of those running the Okanagan Jewish Community Centre in his riding.

London, Ont., NDP MP Irene Mathyssen mentioned Canada’s “none is too many” policy in regards to the admission of European Jews between 1933 and 1945, and of the ship MS St. Louis, which carried 907 German Jews and was refused entry to Canada in 1939, sending 254 passengers to their deaths in the Holocaust.

In the years following the Second World War, nearly 100 Holocaust survivors found their way to the southern Ontario city. Many “became active in the life of London as business leaders, doctors, academics, retailers, developers and political activists. They also developed religious organizations, corporations and charities,” Mathyssen said.

She noted the launch, in 2006, of the Shoah Project at London’s Jewish community centre to record survivors’ testimonies, and she quoted from them.

Luc Berthold, a Quebec Conservative, noted that Canada is not the first country to create a Jewish heritage month. In 2006, former U.S. president George W. Bush signed a resolution proclaiming the month of May as the time to celebrate the contributions of the American Jewish community.

Berthold praised Quebec’s Jewish community and listed many household names from the province: poet and singer Leonard Cohen; television host Sonia Benezra; Alan B. Gold, who, in 1970, became the first Jew appointed chief justice of the Provincial Court of Quebec (now the Court of Quebec), and then the chief justice of the Quebec Superior Court in 1983; Dr. Victor Goldbloom, the first Jew appointed to a provincial cabinet; Maurice Pollack of Quebec City department store fame; real estate tycoon Marcel Adams; grocery magnate Sam Steinberg; and the Reitman family, owners of the women’s clothing chain.

In his remarks, Levitt paid lengthy tribute to Cotler, his “dear friend and mentor” and “one of the world’s preeminent international legal minds and human rights advocates.”

This type of initiative “helps Canadians understand one another by allowing different communities and cultures to be showcased and celebrated,” stated Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “Understanding and appreciating the contribution different communities make to Canada brings us close together as Canadians.”

To mark passage of the bill, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre released a 72-page resource guidebook, available to community groups and school boards across the country, to enhance participation in Jewish Heritage Month.

Ontario passed the Jewish Heritage Month Act in 2012. It, too, sets aside each May to mark various events on the Jewish calendar, including the UJA Walk for Israel, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Jewish Music Week and Israel’s Independence Day.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com