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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: Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia

The West Coast style

The West Coast style

Oberlander Residence II, Vancouver. Peter Oberlander and Barry Downs, architects, 1969. Photograph by Selwyn Pullan, 1970. Courtesy of West Vancouver Museum.

New Ways of Living: Jewish Architects in Vancouver, 1955 to 1975, “focuses on two significant expressions of modernism in the practices of Jewish architects and landscape architects in Vancouver,” explained curator Chanel Blouin at the exhibit’s launch Jan. 28. “First, the integration of the West Coast Modern home into the natural landscape in a way that invites the outdoors in. And, second, in creating home designs that respond to the specific needs and living habits of the family within.”

For her research, Blouin interviewed architect Judah Shumiatcher; architects Kate and Erika Gerson, daughters of the late architect Wolfgang Gerson; University of British Columbia professors emeritus Andrew Gruft and Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe; Leslie van Duzer, head of UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) and author of House Shumiatcher; and landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, whose late husband, architect Peter Oberlander, is featured in the exhibit, as well.

In addition to the interviews, Blouin traveled to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal to consult their collections, in particular that on Hahn Oberlander. A highlight of the online exhibit, which can be found at jewishmuseum.ca, is the photography of the houses featured, including photos by Michael Perlmutter, Selwyn Pullan and Fred Schiffer.

“Architecture and the design of cities have always been interests of mine, and I’ve known for awhile that there are and have been members of our community who are or were innovators in these fields,” said Michael Schwartz, coordinator of programs and development at the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, about the exhibit’s origins. “As we move from theme to theme in each of our exhibits and in each issue of The Scribe, it seemed fitting to turn the lens on this group. Chanel has a footing in architectural history, so when we hired her, this was the topic she was most drawn to. As she progressed through her research, it became clear what era and which individuals to focus on.”

Blouin was hired by the JMABC for the summer of 2015 with support from the Canadian Heritage program Young Canada Works. An extension to the grant allowed her contract to continue through January 2016, said Schwartz, “giving her time to dig much deeper into the topic and produce a more comprehensive result.”

Blouin, a master’s student in art history at UBC, will begin her PhD at University College London in September. “My current research was influenced by my work on New Ways of Living and considers the complex genealogy of the mid-century modern residential designs conceived by the Oberlanders and Wolfgang Gerson,” she told the Independent. “I want to examine how these figures’ exposure to Central European modern art and architecture of the Bauhaus and Werkbund in the Weimar period, as well as their exile and studies at the Architectural Association and the Harvard School of Design with Walter Gropius, influenced their practices in Vancouver.”

About 200 people attended the launch of the exhibit at Inform Interiors. There was a panel discussion between Blouin, Shumiatcher and Windsor-Liscombe; and Hahn Oberlander, the Gersons and van Duzer were in attendance. “There were also representatives from the Jewish Federation, the City of Vancouver and Canadian Heritage, all strong supporters of the JMABC,” said Schwartz.

In his opening remarks, Schwartz noted, “Not only are we very pleased to launch this new exhibit, New Ways of Living, but this week marks the 45th anniversary of the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C.

“We have with us tonight our founder, Cyril Leonoff, who had the original vision of an organization that would preserve and celebrate the history of Jewish life in B.C…. With a small, dedicated corps of volunteers, Cyril collected documents and carried out oral history interviews with some of our community’s earliest pioneers – people who, in the 1960s, were already in their 80s and 90s.

“From this founding collection, our archives have since grown to comprise over 300,000 photographs, 750 oral history interviews and 300 metres of documents recounting all aspects of the rich 150-year history of our community.”

In the panel discussion, Blouin spoke about the process of developing and curating the exhibit. “I also provided an introduction to the major themes in the exhibit, such as the features of the West Coast style of architecture, site specificity and the important events that introduced Vancouverites to the modernist ethos in the postwar period,” she said. “Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe elaborated further on Jewish involvement in the development of the West Coast Modern home and considered questions of Jewish identity. Judah Shumiatcher shared the story of House Shumiatcher. He described the experience of designing his home and the challenges that the steep slope of the landscape posed as well as the property’s incredible views. We also had a lively Q&A period with many interesting questions from the audience.”

This interaction and excitement is why the JMABC does a launch event. While online exhibits are more cost-efficient and “have no expiry date,” said Schwartz, meaning that researchers around the world will be able to access this material years from now, “there is still value in creating an occasion for people to come together to learn about and celebrate our past. This is why events like the exhibit launch are so important; they give us the chance to dig deeper into the topic and share with our audience a glimpse into the exhibit creation process. This shared experience so essential to museums is generally missing from an online exhibit, hence the need to supplement the exhibit with public programs.”

Blouin said, “One of the most interesting ideas that I hope people will take away from this exhibit is the fact that Vancouver is home to an extraordinary regional style. Many iconic West Coast Modern homes are located in Point Grey and West Vancouver and it’s possible to visit some of them – the West Vancouver Museum provides annual tours. The West Coast style is complex and the Jewish architects who arrived to the city in the postwar period played a prominent role in its development. It’s a fascinating history!”

photo - Interior of House Shumiatcher, 2013. Judah Shumiatcher, architect, 1974
Interior of House Shumiatcher, 2013. Judah Shumiatcher, architect, 1974. Photo by Michael Perlmutter.

The exhibit online, the content of which Blouin wrote, explains that Vancouver “underwent a period of momentous transformation and modernization” after the Second World War. “Returning veterans and new immigrants alike prompted a need for more affordable housing, transportation systems, civic spaces and infrastructure. Between 1940 and 1970, Vancouver required 45,000 new housing units to accommodate the city’s growing population. The city’s expansion was informed by new thinking on improved civic living.”

Blouin explained, “The vibrant art and architecture community that converged around the newly founded School of Architecture at UBC introduced the modernist ethos in Vancouver through various means, including a series of Richard Neutra lectures. The first director of the school, Frederic Lasserre, and B.C. Binning promoted modern architecture in response to the shifting needs of the city.”

The regional domestic architecture of this period “was the post-and-beam house built of locally sourced cedar with wide overhangs and large horizontal windows. Regional West Coast innovations included an exposed timber frame, which allowed for open fluid spaces and immense freestanding ribbon windows oriented toward the picturesque views of the Pacific Northwest landscape.”

While parts of the modernist project will not carry into the future – Marine Gardens, for example, 70 family-sized units designed by Hahn Oberlander and Michael Katz in the 1970s, will be replaced by large residential towers comprising more than 500 units – it will leave a legacy, believes Blouin.

“I think the modernist project has and will continue to inform our thinking about sensitive architecture that responds to both the landscape and the people who inhabit their interiors,” she said. “I hope that New Ways of Living and similar projects, such as the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) West Coast Modern homes book series, will raise awareness about the significance of the West Coast-style homes and the importance of preserving them as they become endangered by escalating land values.”

 

Format ImagePosted on February 26, 2016February 25, 2016Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags architecture, Chanel Blouin, Gerson, Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, JMABC, Michael Schwartz, Oberlander, Shumiatcher, West Coast Modern
Glimpse into Schiffer’s work

Glimpse into Schiffer’s work

Jennifer Levine, Fred Schiffer’s daughter, speaks at the opening of the exhibit of her father’s work. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

On April 16, with the help of volunteers from King David High School and others, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia welcomed more than 250 visitors to the opening night of Fred Schiffer Lives in Photos. At the Make Gallery until May 31, the exhibit is part of the Capture Photography Festival.

Michael Schwartz, coordinator of programs and development at the JMABC and curator of the exhibit, gave the crowd a brief overview of what the JMABC does, and how the Schiffer photos fit into the museum’s holdings.

Of the 300,000 photographs housed by the JMABC, said Schwartz, “The Schiffer collection comprises over 10,000 photos. The JMABC has been working on this collection – organizing it, processing it – since it was donated by Schiffer’s family in 2001. To date, we’ve digitized 2,000 photographs, which are available to researchers online. The 45 photos that you see in this exhibit are selected from those 2,000, and an additional six photos are on display at the atrium of the Langara library through May 4th in a satellite exhibit.”

Schwartz explained that Schiffer fled Vienna, seeking refuge in England, where he stayed for 10 years before heading to Argentina, where he also lived for 10 years. “He arrived here in Vancouver in 1958 with his wife Olive and their two young children, Jennifer and Roger.”

The Schiffers operated a small studio under the Hudson’s Bay Co. building, on Seymour Street. “Schiffer was respected by his peers, not only for his skill but for being a kind and generous man, a true mensch, as we say,” said Schwartz. “He was president of the local photographic association, wrote frequently for the association newsletter and shared his knowledge of the trade with his colleagues.” He was one of the people who “led the charge to develop a professional photography program at Langara.”

After thanking the partners and funders of the exhibit, as well as his colleagues, Schwartz introduced Jennifer Levine, Schiffer’s daughter, who attended the opening from Toronto.

While her father was the person behind the photographs, she said, “he had two quite remarkable women who loved him and worked with him”: her mother, “who was the person you would always meet in the studio and who was also the organizer and the bookkeeper,” and her aunt, Irene, “who was not only a master retoucher but, also, I think she did some of the printing … together they discussed how things should be, and collaborated to make the prints happen.”

The family came to Vancouver from Buenos Aires, which had a “very lively photographic culture and my father was part of a group of photographers who met together, collaborated, discussed their work … they were sophisticated, they had annual photo shows in art galleries,” said Levine. When he came here, he thought he could interest the Vancouver Art Gallery in his work. “The response was, ‘Oh no, that’s photography, that’s not art.’ And it’s interesting that Vancouver has become such … an international centre for exciting work in photography, but let me tell you that, in the ’50s and ’60s, that was not happening.”

For her father, she said, “coming to Vancouver, which he chose to do, I think, largely for his children … because he had a sense of what was happening in Argentina, meant that the exploratory and experimental nature of his work would have to be held in because people in Vancouver were not interested…. I see how he had to shape his work for the marketplace and I know he did it for us and I honor him for that…. Artists have to make compromises sometimes for the people they love, and my dad did. I’m really proud of him as a photographer but I’m proud of him as a dad, too.”

– With the video file of Wendy Fouks

Format ImagePosted on May 1, 2015April 29, 2015Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Visual ArtsTags Capture Festival, Fred Schiffer, Jennifer Levine, Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, JMABC, Make Gallery, Michael Schwartz
More Than Just Mrs. exhibit online

More Than Just Mrs. exhibit online

NCJW members unload boxes of toys headed for Israel as part of the Ship a Box to Israel program launched by NCJW Tikvah branch, Vancouver Harbor, 1947. (photo from JMABC L.11998)

Much of the work of Jewish women in Vancouver has occurred, both historically and still today, behind the scenes. The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia is trying to change that with its online exhibit, More Than Just Mrs. Accessible at morethanjustmrs.wordpress.com, the exhibit discusses the history of the National Council of Jewish Women, Hadassah-WIZO (CHW) and Na’amat, the three predominant Jewish women’s organizations mid-century. It includes audio clips from local women who worked for these organizations and focuses exclusively on the work of the B.C. chapters.

“We’re trying to raise awareness of the Jewish community in B.C. and its history,” said Michael Schwartz, coordinator of development and public programs at JMABC, located in the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture in Vancouver. “When it came to these chapters of the organizations, I knew a few of the stories but wanted to fill in the gaps and learn more. I thought we should look at the organizations in greater detail, at the differences in their philosophies and the influential women who worked for them.”

The website has an introduction and then individual sections on each of NCJW, Hadassah and Na’amat, each one containing letters, certificates and other historical material relevant to the work the organizations performed. There are a total of six audio clips online but those who want to hear entire interviews may visit the Jewish museum offices to listen to them.

The exhibit offers a fascinating glimpse into Jewish life in Vancouver in the 1940s and ’50s: its fashions, the organizations’ priorities and their fundraising strategies. These women were professional volunteers, individuals who were not content to be “just Mrs.,” and insisted on devoting their time and talents to improving and meeting the needs of their local communities and communities in Israel and elsewhere. The name for the exhibit was drawn from an interview with one of the volunteers some 20 to 30 years ago, wherein she mentioned the phrase, “More than just Mrs.,” adding that, for her, doing this volunteer work was an opportunity to step out of her husband’s shadow.

NCJW supported an orphanage in Holland, for example, sending regular shipments of food and clothing to the aid of the 220 destitute war orphans being cared for in Bergstichting. The exhibit includes a letter from the orphanage dated April 1947, describing the difficult conditions at the orphanage. “The physical condition of our pupils being still rather week [sic], we had to fight with a scarlatina [scarlet fever] epidemic during five months,” wrote the director. “Sixty of our people were taken with this illness. But fortunately, your valuable gifts reached us just in those distressful months.”

The online exhibit was launched in September 2013 and some 2,500 people have visited the site since it was launched. Schwartz estimates it takes 60 to 90 minutes to read the material, which was produced by Annika Friedman last summer with the aid of Young Canada Works, a granting program subsidized by the federal government. Schwartz said another online exhibit is being produced this summer under the same program. Called Oakridge: The Final Frontier, it will chart the rise and decline of the Jewish community in the neighborhood. Elana Wenner, a master’s candidate in Jewish studies at Concordia University, will be interviewing community members and gathering photographs, videos and other relevant materials for the new exhibit. To contribute and for more information, Wenner can be reached at [email protected].

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond, B.C. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

Format ImagePosted on July 25, 2014July 23, 2014Author Lauren KramerCategories LocalTags CHW, Hadassah-WIZO, Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, JMABC, Michael Schwartz, More Than Just Mrs., Na'amat, National Council of Jewish Women, NCJW
About this year’s Summer Celebration cover

About this year’s Summer Celebration cover

This year’s Summer Celebration cover is a collaborative effort between Jewish Independent production manager Josie Tonio McCarthy, JI publisher Cynthia Ramsay and archivist Jennifer Yuhasz of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, which granted the JI permission to use the circa 1950 Leonard Frank photo that appears on the left of the cover and blends into the current-day photo taken on the Granville Street Bridge of False Creek, with the Burrard Bridge and North Shore mountains in background.

Frank was a well-known professional photographer in British Columbia, active between 1910-1944. He was born in Germany and first moved to San Francisco, before traveling to Port Alberni, B.C., to work in the mining industry. He began his photography interest there. In 1916, he moved to Vancouver and began to work as a photographer. He traveled throughout the province, taking a wide array of photographs, thereby preserving a detailed record of life here. Frank was interested in photographing city scenes (buildings, bridges, waterfront), industry (logging, construction, shipping) as well as scenic views (mountains, lakes, woods). In 1946, two years after Frank died, Otto F. Landauer purchased the Leonard Frank Photos Studio, which he owned and operated until his death in 1980.

The JMABC has approximately 39,000 photographs in the Leonard Frank-Otto Landauer Photos Studio collection – the largest collection of Frank photos in existence. Of these, the JMABC has digitized almost 7,000 photographs and made them available for viewing on its website. You can search them using the JMABC’s Yosef Wosk Online Photo Library: jewishmuseum.ca/archives.

To learn how to fade one photo into another in a minute, click here for a video.

Format ImagePosted on June 13, 2014February 24, 2016Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Celebrating the HolidaysTags Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, JMABC, Leonard Frank, Otto F. Landauer
Mystery photo … May 30/14

Mystery photo … May 30/14

Branch #1, Jewish war veterans, Vancouver, B.C., 1976. (JWB fonds, JMABC L.146244)

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected].

Format ImagePosted on May 30, 2014July 23, 2014Author JI and JMABCCategories Mystery PhotoTags Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, Jewish war veterans, Jewish Western Bulletin, JMABC, JWB
Mystery photo … April 25/14

Mystery photo … April 25/14

Group of men with documents, State of Israel Bonds, Vancouver, B.C., 1970. (JWB fonds, JMABC L.14607)

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected].

Format ImagePosted on April 25, 2014July 23, 2014Author JI and JMABCCategories Mystery PhotoTags Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, Jewish Western Bulletin, JMABC, JWB, State of Israel Bonds
Mystery photo … March 28/14

Mystery photo … March 28/14

Cantor Herskovits and Schara Tzedeck Choir, Vancouver, 1955. (JWB fonds, JMABC L.14274)

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected].

Format ImagePosted on March 28, 2014July 23, 2014Author JI and JMABCCategories Mystery PhotoTags Herskovits, Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, Jewish Western Bulletin, JMABC, JWB, Schara Tzedeck Choir
Mystery photo … Feb. 28/14

Mystery photo … Feb. 28/14

National Council of Jewish Women Israeli brunch, Vancouver, B.C., 1965. (JWB fonds, JMABC L.13972)

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected].

Format ImagePosted on February 28, 2014July 23, 2014Author JI and JMABCCategories Mystery PhotoTags Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, Jewish Western Bulletin, JMABC, JWB, National Council of Jewish Women
Mystery photo … Feb. 7/14

Mystery photo … Feb. 7/14

Pioneer Women group, Vancouver, B.C., 1960. (JWB fonds, JMABC L12600)

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected].

Format ImagePosted on February 7, 2014July 23, 2014Author JI and JMABCCategories Mystery PhotoTags Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, Jewish Western Bulletin, JMABC, JWB, Pioneer Women
Mystery photo … Jan. 10/14

Mystery photo … Jan. 10/14

State of Israel Bonds parlor meeting, men’s group, Vancouver, B.C., 1964. (JWB fonds, JMABC L.14507 )

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected].

Format ImagePosted on January 10, 2014July 23, 2014Author JI and JMABCCategories Mystery PhotoTags Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, Jewish Western Bulletin, JMABC, JWB, State of Israel Bonds
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