[Chant Torah?] at Beth Israel Synagogue, 1979. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.09865)
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] or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.
Belle Jarniewski (fifth from the left) is one of the co-founders, with Sumera Sahar (fourth from the left), Perry Kimelman and Dr. Rory Dickson of the Muslim-Jewish Dialogue Group of Winnipeg. (photo from Belle Jarniewski)
Started in Winnipeg last year after a visit from Rabbi Shaul Osadchey of Calgary’s Beth Tzedec, Belle Jarniewski and Perry Kimelman believe that a local dialogue group with Muslims and Jews will do a lot of good for both communities.
Jarniewski is chair of the Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre, a position she has held since 2008. And, just recently, she began a two-year term as president of the Manitoba Multifaith Council, the first woman and the first Jewish person to hold that position.
“The Manitoba Multifaith Council had brought in Rabbi Shaul Osadchey of Calgary for its Multifaith Leadership Breakfast in 2015 and I was intrigued to hear how successful he had been in his own interfaith dialogue work and to hear how well he had reached out to the Muslim community there,” she told the Independent.
Jarniewski approached her synagogue with the idea of seeing if she could work with them to hold the kinds of events with which Osadchey had seen success, but received little interest. So, she decided to start a group independently of an institution.
“Perry and I are also members of the Arab-Jewish Dialogue Group, which discusses (primarily) the Arab-Israeli conflict, but seems to eschew any real discussion of religion,” she explained. “Both of us have been active in interfaith work for quite some time and have many connections to wonderful people. We felt that was something that was missing. Once we realized that both of us had long been interested in starting just such a group, we put our heads together to see what would be the best way forward.”
Of course, to get the idea off the ground, they needed a Muslim partner or two. They found a perfect match in Sumera Sahar, a member of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW). The second Muslim co-convener they found was Dr. Rory Dickson of the University of Winnipeg’s department of religion and culture. And, with that, the four set out to build membership, which is now a balanced mix of almost 40 Jews and Muslims (by invitation only). Members have been proposed by other members, as well as by the conveners.
“It is important that those who join are interested in dialogue with each other, are interested in religion and culture – our own and each other’s – and accept the very few rules we have imposed upon ourselves,” said Jarniewski.
These rules, she said, include “no discussion of politics – there is already another group established for that very reason – and, as well, both groups decided early on that we preferred not to involve clergy. If someone wishes to join, they must be referred through a member.
“We also have a closed group discussion through our private Facebook page, which seems to work very well. The ages of our members are from university through … well, I don’t ask … I would say in the 60s.
“The diversity of religion streams and origins of both Jewish and Muslim members contributes to some wonderfully rich discussions,” she continued. “The group is all about learning about each other’s religion and culture and each other, and getting to know one another. For far too long, Muslims and Jews have had, at best, a polite relationship with each other, but haven’t really gotten to know one another and learned just how much our two religions have in common.”
The group has held a number of evening get-togethers, learning about Sharia and halachah side by side. “The word Sharia evokes, for most Westerners, the most extreme form of Islamic law,” said Jarniewski, “but we learned that Sharia is far more complex than this simplistic interpretation.
“One night, we had Dr. Ruth Ashrafi talk about the role of women in Jewish law and Drs. Rory Dickson and Ahmet Seyhun lecturing on family law in Islam. On another night, we had a great discussion about halal and kashrut.
“At our very first meeting, one of our Jewish members, who hails from Iran, recited a Muslim prayer in flawless Arabic. What an icebreaker that was!”
Sahar told the Independent this group “is an important initiative and much needed, given the popular and often-unchallenged notion that somehow Jews and Muslims are historical and natural adversaries.”
Sahar is an executive member of CCMW’s Winnipeg chapter, the co-coordinator of a community food bank serving Arabic-speaking refugees and has recently been invited to sit on the board of the Manitoba Multifaith Council.
The core objective of the Muslim-Jewish dialogue group is that Muslims and Jews get to know one another directly without the filter of religious or political organizations. Sahar contends that most, if not all, group members believe that the group is a crucial step toward countering antisemitism and Islamophobia and, most importantly, to bridging communities.
Like Jarniewski, Sahar has made good friends and formed a much better understanding of the similarities both religions share, not just religiously, but also as minority religious communities.
“Being a minority community has its challenges, and both Jews and Muslims share similar anxieties and concerns,” said Sahar. “We share the struggle of gaining acceptance and inclusion without losing our religious values and identity. We are also subject to the question of representation – who speaks for us?
“Both communities are pluralistic and diverse but, as is the case with most minority groups, we are often represented in the media and popular discourse as a single voice. I was struck to learn that this issue is as much a source of frustration for the Jewish members of the group as it is for the Muslim members.”
The dialogue group has provided a platform to discuss such issues and suggest some strategies to overcome them. The convenors are pleased to see the sincerity with which group members have engaged with one another and are hopeful in their potential to build understanding.
“I feel that it is more important than ever to speak up when unfortunate statements are made in these rather difficult times that attack Muslims and Islam,” said Jarniewski. “These statements are generally mired in stereotypes and ignorance. It is important that our community realize they are received in the Muslim community in the very same way that the Jewish community is hurt by antisemitic comments.”
Jarniewski is well aware that, across Canada, there are Jewish-Muslim groups such as the one in Winnipeg who are coming together to engage in dialogue. “Little by little, groups such as ours will have a very positive effect,” she said.
Jarniewski quoted Catholic priest and Swiss theologian Hans Küng: “No peace among the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundation of the religions.”
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
For Donniel Hartman, putting God second is a way of maintaining a religious life and faith in God, but without God undermining our responsibility to our fellow human beings. (photo from Donniel Hartman)
Donniel Hartman, an Orthodox rabbi and president of Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute, an educational powerhouse dedicated to invigorating Judaism, has recently published his second book. It is called Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself (Beacon Press, 2016).
“Religious people very often argue that religion is fine and that the only problem is that religious people are flawed and are distorting our religious life,” Hartman told the Independent. “Yet, the people who harm, maim and hurt in the name of religion come armed with chapter and verse. They seem to be quite accurate about their religious life. And atheists make similar arguments. The only problem with atheists is they seem to get something wrong as well; they argue that there’s nothing valuable in religion.”
Hartman thinks there is something missing in this discourse, which he explores in this book: queries like, what about religion can be powerful, profound and constructive, and might the issue simply be that people are getting it wrong?
“The idea that I was testing for 10 years – that was researched, taught about and thought about – was that religion suffers from an internal autoimmune disease wherein it attacks its own goals,” said Hartman.
“Religion has noble goals,” he contends, and is not only a source for evil, as some atheists say. “I think religion is, in fact, trying to produce kind individuals. There’s something inherent within the system, which can cause it to underachieve and fail to meet its aspiration. In short, the cause of that autoimmune disease is God – in particular, when God is put first.
“The idea is that monotheism creates a being of such transcendence and scope that when God enters the room, it shifts the human consciousness away from their moral responsibility for other people.”
For Hartman, putting God second is a way of maintaining a religious life and faith in God, but without God undermining our responsibility to our fellow human beings.
“This one transcendent God is something that I feel human beings have great difficulty assimilating into their system, into their lives, and that God has a potential to warp our consciousness,” said Hartman. “I call it ‘God intoxication,’ wherein everything else becomes unimportant.
“It’s the encounter with God that can create this distortion. Who is more important, a human being or God? Human beings will again distort that message because, when it gets instilled into their minds, what can possibly be more important?
“We see religious people, in the name of faith, harming, judging and insulting people, showing a lack of tolerance, pluralism – the same people who could, in their everyday lives, act decently, kindly. The minute religion is in the equation, there’s potential for it to get distorted,” he said.
“God intoxication is not a flaw within religion, it’s embedded in the idea of monotheism. Some people argue we should get rid of God. My book tries to reestablish a life of faith. It doesn’t say to get rid of God or to put God 14th or 15th. At the end of the book is when you put God second, but you put God’s will first toward developing a religious life with God that immunizes us from this autoimmune disease.
“One of the essential concepts in the book,” he continued, “is how you treat other human beings – this being the core of how we assess the value of our lives. I think there is a very profound spreading of faithlessness precisely because of the consequences of what God seems to bring to humankind. My goal in putting God second is to help more people establish a deeper relationship with God, one with a God they can respect…. If God needs to be first, people feel it’s a God they don’t want to believe in. I believe that the language of putting God second is what will enable a language of faith to be far more pervasive within our modern community and the modern world.”
Hartman hopes that Putting God Second will reach a diverse readership. “The target audience,” he said, “is thoughtful people searching for a decent world and a meaningful religious life, and I hope this book will be conducive to moving us in the right direction. Most importantly, I like to help people and, if this book is too upsetting for you, just put this book second, it’s not meant for you…. I hope there’s a broad range of people that, through this book and this religious language, can try connecting with it, both with God and with their tradition.”
Hartman, who was born in the United States and spent 11 years in Montreal, is currently working on a Hebrew translation of the book.
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
As an alternative or addition to synagogue services, you could find a nice place outside in which to pray or reflect. (photo by Jan Lieberman via Wikimedia Commons)
There is a lot of beauty to the traditional synagogue experience. However, a traditional High Holidays service just does not speak to some, especially many young adults.
“Buying seats for the High Holidays is super-expensive,” said Rachel Moses, a marketer for a Jewish nonprofit from Mt. Washington, Md. “It also just doesn’t feel like it’s my place.”
If you think like Moses, consider skipping the tickets, and celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur outside the traditional four walls of your family synagogue. Here are nine alternative ways to connect to the High Holidays without stepping foot in a shul.
Thomas Arnold, who works in Homeland Security and is from Pikesville, Md., says people often interpret Yom Kippur as a heavy day of repentance. In contrast, the day’s prohibitions – things like fasting, not wearing leather footwear, not making love to your partner, refraining from taking a bath – are intended to help us think less about our own needs and more about those of others.
“The point is to understand there are people that don’t have food, that don’t have water, that don’t have shoes to wear,” said Arnold, citing the 18th-century ethical Jewish book Mesillat Yesharim: The Path of the Upright by Italian rabbi and philosopher Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto. “We don’t have sex because there are people in the world who don’t have partners and cannot connect in that way.”
Arnold looks for people who are in need, lacking something or are lonely, and makes a point of giving to them during the High Holiday season. Sometimes, he invites them over for a meal, and other times he just lends them a helping hand.
“On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, make it about other people,” he said.
Rabbi Jessy Gross, named by the Forward as one of the most inspiring rabbis of 2016, said some of her best holiday memories are not from the synagogue, but from places where people came together, like at her holiday table.
“Having meals with other people, especially if the person hosting can serve traditional Jewish foods, creates an opportunity … to celebrate Jewish food and culture,” said Gross.
Shari Seidman Klein of Beit Shemesh in Israel agrees. She cooks a holiday meal for her family, as well as for her children, a few of whom choose not to attend traditional activities. Apples and honey, round raisin challah and other sweet things bring the kids and their friends back to her dining room each year.
Klein said she often instructs her Hebrew school students, many of whom are products of intermarriage, to use the High Holidays as a time to better themselves. She tells them, “Take on one thing for one day.”
For example, rather than fasting on Yom Kippur, she recommended giving up candy, soda or something else they like to eat. Older individuals might decide to give up the personal comfort of watching TV, or they might make the higher commitment of refraining from talking badly about others.
“It’s the idea of tikkun olam, bettering the world,” said Klein. “That one thing on that one day can take you back to the basics of being – and thinking.”
One of Gross’ favorite rituals is Tashlich, for which all a person needs is access to a body of natural water such as a creek, pond or river. She recommends taking some bread or crackers and spending some time by the water meditating or journaling.
“I like to think about where I have missed the mark or haven’t reached my potential and cast this out,” she said. “It is great opportunity to … think about what you want as we evolve into the coming year. It’s a process of spiritual cleansing and preparedness.”
The Israeli organization Tzohar has been working to bring together the religious and secular Jewish communities in the Jewish state. In the central city of Lod, Tzohar’s executive vice-president, Yakov Gaon, said his organization found that many secular Israelis refrain from going to synagogue, not because they don’t want to pray, but because the service is too fast, politicized, costly or uncomfortable.
“They don’t know how to dress, when to stand up or sit down,” Gaon said.
About 15 years ago, Tzohar began creating alternative minyans in community centres, schools and gyms. The services bring like-minded people together. Each service is assigned a leader who announces the prayer page numbers to read, and explains what’s happening in the prayers. Today, more than 56,000 people take part in these Yom Kippur services at 300 locations across Israel. An additional 1,500 people attend one of Tzohar’s 60 Rosh Hashanah services.
While it may be too late now to book a trip, in general, traveling to Israel on or around the High Holidays is a more special experience than traveling there during nearly any other time of year, said Arnold, whose daughter is studying in Israel for the year.
Arnold said Israelis have a reputation for being rude or pushy, but during the Hebrew month of Elul – this month, which leads up to Rosh Hashanah – Israelis tend to mellow out.
“It’s like they know it instinctively,” Arnold said with a laugh. “Their Jewish souls come out and they know it is the Yamim Noraim (High Holy Days) and they better get themselves together.”
The whole country prepares with holiday festivals, music, delicious holidays foods and smells, he said.
Skipping the rabbi’s sermon? Write your own, and invite others to hear it. Klein has tapped into several online resources, such as myjewishlearning.com, to provide fodder for discussion at the table, or for her son and his friends to discuss in an intimate setting. Gross, too, said that using online content and hosting a discussion group can help you learn about the holiday, and then share those insights with others.
There is still time to make an Elul reflection calendar. Create a pie chart divided by the Hebrew months, said Gross. Break each pie down by the number of days in that month. On each slice, record a guided meditation question or something you want to work on. Then, every morning or before bed, read it and reflect.
Here, too, Gross added, there are plenty of online trigger questions if you need guidance.
Mt. Washington’s Moses said hosting or attending a holiday picnic brings people together, offering a venue to eat traditional foods and also spend time in nature. While the children are playing, the adults can host the aforementioned discussion group, or meditate under the open sky.
In general, being outside is a good way to infuse spirituality into your holiday. Transform your backyard, a park or a forest into a synagogue and pray.
Most years, Moses attends Baltimore Hebrew Congregation’s Rosh Hashanah Under the Stars program, which offers an alternative Jewish New Year get-together for members and non-members.
“There are thousands of people there, right under the stars, with no ceiling above you,” said Moses. “You feel like you are one with nature, with each other and with God – whatever sense of God there is.”
On years she cannot make the service, she and her family might travel to Ocean City, Md., instead. “We’ll just sit there and listen to the ocean,” she said.
To read more from JNS.org, click here.
Women of the Wall was founded as a minyan of women from different movements coming together on common ground for Rosh Chodesh. (photo by Michal Patelle via Wikimedia Commons)
In April 2015 – in the aftermath of the death of 25-year-old African-American Freddie Gray inside a police van after being arrested by the Baltimore Police Department, followed by days of riots in Baltimore, Md. – African-American street gangs, the Bloods and Crips, stood side-by-side against police brutality. The Baltimore Sun, and several national papers and social media outlets, carried photographs of the members of the typically warring gangs posing together, with captions about the gangs being determined to “unite for a common good.”
Tzippi Shaked, author of Three Ladies, Three Lattes: Percolating Discussions in the Holy Land, believes that the case of the Bloods and Crips unifying together is a valuable lesson for the Jewish community, in which there are frequent divisions along religious lines. This was echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his annual Rosh Hashanah greeting last year, in which he urged Jewish unity by working “together … [to] build our Jewish state – because we’re united, proud of our past and committed to our future.”
Can Jewish people of different religious denominations truly unite and work together for a common good?
The concept of Jewish unity is one that comes up around the High Holidays due to the Torah portions read before the holidays: Nitzavim and Vayelech. In Nitzavim, we read, “Today, you are all standing before God your Lord; your leaders, your tribal chiefs … even your woodcutters and water drawers.” (Deuteronomy 29:9) Eighteenth-century Rabbi Schneur Zalman explained this in his famous work Likkutei Torah as all Jews standing equally and united before God despite their differences.
Vayelech also concludes when Moses addresses “the entire assembly of Israel” (Deuteronomy 29:1) in a unified manner. Such a colorful image is harder to picture today, when headlines and op-eds tend to stress divisiveness, and the parts over the whole.
“I come from a family with a Charedi brother. I am Modern Orthodox. I have a sister who is secular. Growing up, my father was secular and my mom religious. If we can pull it off under one roof, I believe so can society in general,” said Shaked.
Shaked, together with one Charedi and one secular woman, spent two and a half years discussing the topics that divide and unite Jewish women, and then embarked on a mission to teach others that, while Jews might not always agree ideologically, politically or religiously, they can be united. This is the topic of her book.
Rabbi Joel Oseran, vice-president emeritus for international development at the World Union for Progressive Judaism, said that, in his experience, it is “rare to see the common good having the highest value,” especially in Israel, where “the playing field among denominations is not level at all.”
“When I am right and you are wrong, how can there be diversity?” Oseran asked. “You have to allow for more than one way to be right in order to respect diversity.”
Shaked disagreed, saying that unity and friendship have little to do with accepting others’ opinions or hoping to change them.
“It’s naive to think that anyone will change his or her mind,” she said, and it has more to do with a belief that people can become friends in spite of differences in levels of religious observance.
“It is very easy to rip apart the other. It is very difficult to look for the positive,” she said. “Irrespective of which religious background you come from, you have to ask yourself, do I look to build bridges or do I look to inflame?”
This has been Marne Rochester’s modus operandi. An active Conservative Jew, Rochester moved to Israel 26 years ago. In the Jewish state, she maintains her Conservative identity, while sending her daughter to a religious school and praying at a variety of different synagogues. She is most active in a Jerusalem Masorti (Conservative) congregation, but she also attends a Sephardi, egalitarian minyan.
“I think Conservative and Orthodox, and Conservative and Reform, have a lot in common,” said Rochester. “Both the Orthodox and Conservative movements are halachic movements. We just see the interpretation more liberally than the Orthodox.”
When it comes to daily life, she said it’s easy to get along, especially in Israel, where Conservative congregants tend to follow more of the movement’s code of conduct, as opposed to the United States, where “a lot of people who belong to Conservative shuls don’t necessarily go by what the movement says.”
Rochester has Orthodox friends willing to eat in her home and share Shabbat together with her.
But, Rochester, who takes part in monthly Women of the Wall ceremonies at the Kotel, said the biggest differentiator between the Orthodox and the Conservative is the role of women in public Judaism and the synagogue. While in Orthodox Judaism women take a back step to men in religious life, “since my bat mitzvah, I read from the Torah, lead services, put on a tallit and tefillin,” she noted. “But, I feel like in my neighborhood, we all get along. We all respect each other and don’t check each other’s tzitzit.”
Rochester added that Women of the Wall was founded as a minyan of women from different movements coming together on common ground for Rosh Chodesh. While it has become a major media focus, and a point of divisiveness between Jews in the Diaspora, in Israel, at its core, “You have Orthodox, Reform and Conservative women all together – that is such a powerful, beautiful thing.”
Oseran said he wishes he would see more leaders taking a stance in the direction of unity.
“I am not optimistic from the top down,” he said, but admitted positive steps are percolating on a grassroots level.
“There are many Orthodox Jews who understand there is more than one way to be Jewish and are prepared to bridge some of the differences in order to be stronger together,” he said, noting that Israelis could learn a lot from the Jewish Federations of North America movement, which is built on a sense of a collective Jewish community in which any Jewish people can fit and find their place.
“How do you create a building bridges mindset?” Shaked asked. “Take the time to make yourself available to talk to others. Be open to meeting people.… We all have to take the plunge.”
She also recommends celebrating the successes of others and volunteering in communities different than your own.
Harkening back to the unity established by the Bloods and Crips in the wake of the Baltimore riots in 2015, Shaked said she read a study published more than 20 years ago by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre that found that gang members cannot unify by simply learning about one another through movies, being told positive messages about one another, or even through dialogue. Rather, they need to work together on a common project. By working for a common goal, the Bloods and Crips found unity.
“I ask this Rosh Hashanah to join with all Israelis, with friends of Israel, with the Jewish people everywhere in wishing for a better future,” said Netanyahu is his previous Rosh Hashanah address.
“I believe these friendships can be struck. I have seen it and I live it,” Shaked said.
To read more from JNS.org, click here.
Soon after he discovered he was Jewish, Csánad Szegedi reached out to Rabbi Boruch Oberlander. Szegedi’s transformation from virulent antisemite to Orthodox Jew is the topic of the documentary Keep Quiet. (photo from Gábor Máté/AJH Films & Passion Pictures)
While this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival holds much that will be of interest to Jewish Independent readers, the list is short when it comes to specifically Israeli or Jewish-related films that will appeal.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Israeli films are harsh critiques of Israel. Beyond the Mountains and Hills (Israel/Germany) is about a dysfunctional family (a metaphor for the country), Junction 48 (Israel/Germany/United States) is about an Arab-Israeli rapper who faces racism, among other Israeli-inflicted ills; Between Fences (Israel/France) is a documentary about Israel’s internment of African refugees at the Holot Detention Centre and Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt (Israel/Canada) is about Hannah Arendt, who, among other things, was critical of Jewish leadership during the Holocaust and did not approve of the state of Israel as it was founded.
Among the other film offerings is Keep Quiet (United Kingdom/Hungary), a documentary about Csánad Szegedi, the staunch antisemite who helped found Hungary’s far-right party Jobbik and its Hungarian Guard, which has since been banned. As a member of the European Parliament, he continued to foment hatred until a fellow nationalist and racist outed him as being Jewish – his grandmother had not been the adopted daughter of the Klein family, as she told him, but their daughter. The documentary includes interviews Szegedi did with his grandmother (about her imprisonment in Auschwitz, and other matters) and a conversation with his mother, who also found out later in life that she was Jewish. He asks both women about his increasing embrace of antisemitism over the years, why didn’t you stop me? Their responses are thought-provoking and sad.
Keep Quiet does not accept Szegedi’s transformation unquestioningly and gives speaking time to the doubters, as well as the cautious believers, such as Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, head of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council in Budapest. Oberlander has supported and taught Szegedi since the former antisemite contacted the rabbi for help. The event that ends the film is Szegedi’s attempt in 2013 to speak in Montreal about his Jewish journey – he wasn’t allowed to stay in the country. Before being put on the next plane home, however, Szegedi recorded a lecture, which was played at the event, with Oberlander fielding the hostility it wrought in some attendees. In Oberlander’s view, we must love every Jew, no matter how wicked. Of his choice to help Szegedi, he says, “I pray that I shouldn’t be disappointed.” Even Szegedi is unsure as to whether he would ever turn his back on Judaism – maybe, he admits, but not likely.
The way in which the filmmakers present Szegedi’s story is informative and balanced, and viewers get a sense of the man and his deeds, as well as about Hungary and how a political party as racist as Jobbik can find success there.
Vita Activa also does a good job of including both fans and critics of Arendt’s work, but mainly uses Arendt’s own words to explain her thoughts and analyses. The film uses as its foundation the Adolph Eichmann trial, about which Arendt wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), describing Eichmann as “a typical functionary,” and thus an example of the “banality of evil.” (Viewers should be warned that there are many disturbing Holocaust-related images in this film.)
“Eichmann was quite intelligent but he had that dumbness,” she tells an interviewer in one of the clips included in the documentary. “It was that dumbness that was so infuriating, and that was what I meant by ‘banality.’ It has no depth; it isn’t demonic. It’s simply the unwillingness to ever imagine what others are going through.”
Another of Arendt’s theories – about refugees – remains relevant. With no rights, refugees are considered “superfluous” by a regime, she argued, and denationalization and xenophobia become a powerful weapon of totalitarian politics.
In Keep Quiet, a political journalist describes Hungary as a “part of the world where history has been manipulated” and the effects that such manipulation has upon generations. Arendt broadens that view beyond Europe, saying, “It has been characteristic of our history of consciousness that its worst crimes have been committed in the name of some kind of necessity or in the name of a mythological future.”
In addition to her early work, Vita Activa touches upon Arendt’s personal life, which offers some further understanding of the philosopher, who was seen by many to lack empathy. In one interview, she talks about how Auschwitz shouldn’t have happened, how she could handle everything else but that. Yet, she criticized the Jewish leadership who cooperated with the Nazis – the councils and kapos – and hypothesized that, if there had been no such leadership, there would have been chaos and suffering and deaths but not six million. One professor interviewed for the documentary calls Arendt’s comments “irresponsible,” another says they showed her complete ignorance of history, yet another says she regretted her remarks later in life.
The film also notes Arendt’s change from supporting Zionism to condemning elements within it. Among other things, she said, “A home that my neighbor does not recognize is not a home. A Jewish national home that is not recognized by and not respected by its neighboring people is not a home, but an illusion, until it becomes a battlefield.” And she pointed to tendencies within Zionism that she considered “plain racist chauvinism” that do “not differ from other master race theories.”
The documentary also covers Arendt’s 1951 Book of Thoughts, in which she contemplates the nature of forgiveness, revenge, reconciliation. For her, the latter doesn’t forgive or accept, but judges. When you take on the burden of what someone else did, she believed, you don’t accept the blame or absolve the other of the blame, but take upon yourself the injustice that occurred in reality. “It’s a decision,” she said, “to be a partner in the accountability, not at all a partner to the guilt.”
Reconciliation and forgiveness don’t enter the picture in either the documentary Between Fences or the fictional (but based on a real person) Junction 48. They each highlight important, even vital, issues in Israeli society, but do so in such a condemnatory, predictable way that anyone but the choir won’t be able to sit through these films.
Without much context, Between Fences looks at the poor situation in which asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan find themselves when they reach the safety of Israel. In many countries, these asylum seekers face problems, but viewers wouldn’t know that from this documentary, nor would they begin to understand the atrocities being committed in their homelands. However, they will learn how Israel doesn’t recognize their refugee status and makes every effort to send them back, how racist Israelis are towards these newcomers and a host of other problems with Israel and its people. Not one government official or Israeli is interviewed, although some Israelis participate in the “theatre of the oppressed” workshops in Holot on which the film focuses. In addition to leaving many questions unanswered, the film also begins and ends confusingly and is slow-paced.
Bias also makes Junction 48 almost unwatchable for anyone who would like to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved, so that both peoples’ rights and safety are ensured. From the second sentence of the opening, the perspective is made clear: “The Israeli city of Lod is the Palestinian city of Lyd, which once sat on the main railway junction. In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinians were exiled from Lyd in order to resettle the town with Jews….”
We then meet Kareem, an aspiring young rapper, whose parents are worried about his involvement with drug dealers and his future in general. His friends not only deal and take drugs, but visit prostitutes and dabble in other criminal activity. Nonetheless, every Israeli they encounter is the real bad guy, from the police to other rappers to the government, which is knocking down one of their homes to build a coexistence museum. Oh, the irony.
The only entertaining and thought-provoking aspect of this film is the music by lead actor and film co-writer Tamer Nafar, which is available online.
In the end, the Jewish Independent chose to sponsor what a VIFF programmer called a “classic Jewish comedy,” though, having seen a screener of the film, the Jewish aspect is hard to discern. While much lighter (and non-political) fare than the other offerings, it has much to say – or show, really, as the dialogue is minimal – about social awkwardness and a lack of direction in life. The protagonist, Mike, works at a pizza place in New Jersey and has the energy level of a slug and the magnetism of zinc. Yet, somehow, he has friends, albeit not great ones.
Short Stay is one of those films that moves apace with its main character, so slowly and in all different directions, as Mike both physically wanders the streets and mentally wanders to destinations unknown. Viewers don’t gain insight into what motivates Mike, who seems unperturbed by his lack of career, social skills, direction and future, but they root for him, empathize with what must be his loneliness.
Short Stay director Ted Fendt best describes the acting of the nonprofessional cast, many (all?) of whom are his friends. “The film contains a range of performance styles from the fairly natural (Marta and Meg), to Mark and Dan’s B movie ‘villains,’ who might have stepped out of an Ulmer or Moullet film, to the quasi-Bressonian, unaffected manner Mike delivers his lines.” And therein is a Jewish link, Edgar G. Ulmer.
Another Jewish filmmaker – Vancouver’s Ben Ratner – will be premièring his short film, Ganjy, at this year’s festival. About a former boxer suffering from dementia pugilistica, who is in desperate need of help when three friends visit, Ganjy was inspired in part by Muhammad Ali. Its creators are looking to fundraise enough to take the film to other festivals, as well as contribute to the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Centre. For more information, visit indiegogo.com/projects/ganjy-film#.
For more information about and the full schedule of films playing at VIFF, visit viff.org.
Note: This article has been edited so that it is clear Hannah Arendt was speaking of tendencies within Zionism that she considered “plain racist chauvinism” that do “not differ from other master race theories,” and not condemning Zionism as a whole.
A longtime advocate for Jewish education, Leon Glassman has established the Leon Glassman Fund for Jewish Continuity through Education with a $1 million endowment at the Jewish Community Foundation. (photo by Don MacGregor)
Learning of new challenges in accessibility to Jewish education in Greater Vancouver, Leon Glassman did exactly what he has always done: he stepped up.
A longtime advocate for Jewish education, Glassman established the Leon Glassman Fund for Jewish Continuity through Education with a $1 million endowment at the Jewish Community Foundation. This endowment fund will support tuition assistance at Jewish day schools and ensure that every family that wants to send their children to a Jewish day school on the Lower Mainland can do so, regardless of their financial means.
As a young father, Glassman made the decision to move his family from Regina to Vancouver because, at the time, the Saskatchewan capital did not have a Jewish school. Looking back, he recalled that, as a child, he had a very limited Jewish education, “so it was always important to me that my children would know their background and have a Jewish identity.”
Glassman’s son-in-law, Jonathan Berkowitz, said that his father-in-law also embraces “the principle that all Jewish children should have access to a Jewish education.”
Over the decades, Glassman has invested untold amounts of time, energy and resources in improving the quality of, and access to, Jewish education. But, he recently discovered that local day schools have been facing the daunting dual challenges of the impact on families of the Lower Mainland’s high cost of living and the schools’ accompanying difficulty in keeping pace with subsidy requests. Families continue to grapple with Metro Vancouver’s housing costs: being reasonably close to a Jewish day school, for many young families, means they spend so much on housing, they cannot afford tuition. The schools, in turn, have faced significant challenges meeting the demand for increased subsidies.
In response, Glassman established the education fund. It will be a legacy that reflects his passion, generosity, lifetime commitment to community and, most importantly, to the continuity of Jewish life and Jewish identity through education.
When asked why Jewish education is important, Glassman said, “Antisemitism is, sadly, once again on the rise, in part through anti-Israel sentiment. Israel is a big part of who we are. Most criticism of her is unfounded and the younger generation must be able to counter the falsehoods. That’s the negative side. On the positive side, the younger generation should know their background, take pride in where they came from and, above all, take pride in who they are.”
While Glassman’s million-dollar gift has started his namesake fund, it is his hope that the community will increase the capital of the fund by making contributions to mark the significant life events of friends and family. In that way, the entire community will both participate in and benefit from the growth of this fund.
For more information or to make a donation to the Glassman fund, visit jewishcommunityfoundation.com.
For the Love of Spock explores Spock actor Leonard Nimoy’s legacy and his relationship with his son, Adam. (photo from For the Love of Spock via space.com)
When Leonard Nimoy announced in 1949 that he wanted to be an actor, and was leaving Boston for Hollywood, his Russian-Jewish parents were stunned.
“My grandfather said that he should take up the accordion,” said Adam Nimoy, Leonard’s son and the director of the new documentary For the Love of Spock. “You could always make money with the accordion. Those were Max Nimoy’s words of wisdom to my dad, if the actor thing didn’t work out.”
He needn’t have worried. Not because Leonard Nimoy eventually made it after 15 years of bit parts in movies and TV shows, thanks to Star Trek. Or because his talent and curiosity propelled him into singing, photography, poetry and film directing. Nimoy had a deeply ingrained work ethic, independent of the arts, that perpetually drove him. From folding chairs at the Boston Pops and selling vacuum cleaners in his hometown to installing aquariums in Los Angeles, Nimoy was determined to support himself and his family. But his ambitions assuredly lay elsewhere.
“He had a tremendous hunger to achieve, which was the dream of his parents coming over here, to achieve something in American society,” explained his son. “This is why he was so able to relate to Spock. My dad felt like an outsider, of a minority, of an immigrant background in a very defined neighborhood of Boston with other immigrants, and with a desire to assimilate himself into the greater culture.”
Nimoy, who died last year at the age of 83, is front and centre in For the Love of Spock.
The public often conflates an actor with a role. The documentary is wilfully guilty of that, too, delving into Nimoy’s personal life only so far as it relates to Spock or to Adam’s relationship with his dad. But it does include the story of how Nimoy took a childhood memory of seeing elders in synagogue making the “shin” gesture and adopted it as a Vulcan greeting.
“He was very connected to his Jewish roots and very proud of his Jewish roots,” Adam Nimoy said during a recent interview. “He repeated the story of the Spock salute hundreds of times, literally, with great pride about where he got it – that Spock is an embodiment of some of Judaism.”
He added, “It’s become a universal symbol. My dad, through Spock, has spread this tradition of Judaism to the world. The magnitude of that fact alone, that so many people all over the planet salute my father with a ‘shin,’ is just mind-boggling to me.”
Of course, not everything Leonard Nimoy did endeared him to his son. Driven to make the most of what might be a short-lived gig on Star Trek – NBC canceled the show after three seasons, in fact, although it found greater success in syndication – Nimoy accepted every personal appearance he was offered.
“It took a toll on us, we had challenges we had to deal with, without him around, without his involvement in the family,” said his son. “His career was number one. This is what caused a lot of friction between the two of us because I just didn’t feel like I had that much of his attention early on. He had a great love and respect for the fans, but trying to get him to look at me was very challenging for me.”
Alas, that experience continued beyond Adam’s adolescence. He was at University of California Berkeley in the late 1970s, on his own path to getting a law degree, when his father made a stop at Wheeler Hall on a college speaking tour.
“I waited for him to finish,” Adam recalled with a painful clarity. “I thought we were going to go to dinner together. He came up the aisle, signed some autographs and came up to me and said, ‘I have to catch a plane. I got another commitment I got to make tomorrow in Los Angeles, and I’m leaving.’
“I was devastated. ‘What am I, borsht?’ It wasn’t until later in his life that it was less about Leonard and his career and more about ‘what’s going on with my kids and my grandchildren.’”
Adam and Leonard were estranged for a stretch, exacerbated by the actor’s drinking and his son’s drug use. When asked if it was difficult to forgive his father, though, he doesn’t hesitate: “No, because I’m in 12-Step, and that’s a huge part of what 12-Step’s all about.”
Resentments and setbacks play only a passing role in For the Love of Spock, which is an unabashed tribute to Leonard Nimoy’s contributions as an actor and a man to a character who was and is widely embraced for embodying intelligence, science, fairness and integrity. (And for being different, of course, and living on the margins of mainstream society.)
The film omits the elder Nimoy’s record as a major benefactor of Jewish causes: the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, a childhood centre at Temple Israel of Hollywood and the career counseling centre at Beit T’Shuvah, a Jewish recovery house.
It also leaves out the degree to which the actor passed down his pride and love of being Jewish.
“I would say that I am more religious than my father was,” said Adam. “I like to study Torah, I like to go to services on a regular basis on Friday night. Particularly the weekly Torah study has been very meaningful to me over the past couple of years. It’s just mind-boggling to me about the divine inspiration of the written word and how it always applies to something going on in my life. This is what enriches my life, and brings new meaning to my life.”
For the Love of Spock has two remaining screenings at Park Theatre in Vancouver: Sept. 18, 9:45 pm., and Sept. 20, 6:45 p.m.
Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.
The Peretz Centre is moving towards a renewed commitment to social justice, Yiddishkeit, the arts and building community. (photo from peretz-centre.org)
If you walk into Vancouver’s Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture on a Sunday afternoon between September and June, you are likely to find a group of families singing Yiddish songs such as “Shabbes Zol Zayn” and “Az der Rebbe Tanz,” making latkes or doing arts and crafts, while learning new and unique approaches to being Jewish. Some of the children are “officially,” i.e. halachically, fully Jewish by birth, with a Jewish mom and dad, but many are “half-Jewish” (with the Jewish parent being either mom or dad) or “double half-Jewish,” with parents who themselves were raised in half-Jewish families.
This is the Peretz Family Education program, where adults and kids learn together. Bubbies and zaydies often come to visit, and there is song, story and food that is shared in a community of families eager for a connection to their roots (or half-roots, as the case may be) that is not dogmatic or religious. This program, now entering its third year, is a remarkable success, attracting inter-cultural as well as LGBT families and others who feel at home at Peretz.
“We had families coming to us for years, asking us to create a place for their children to feel connected to Jewish culture, as well as progressive humanistic values, that was not focused on religion,” said Donna Becker, Peretz coordinator.
Vancouver Jews may know of the Peretz Centre from its 70-year legacy as the home for Yiddish-speaking, secular Jewish education. Loosely affiliated with sister organizations in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, Peretz was founded by non-religious Jews who loved the Yiddish language, culture and traditions. These founding members were more focused on humanism, social justice and activism than on ritual, prayers and liturgy.
For decades, the Peretz community boasted a school with hundreds of students learning Jewish cultural identity and progressive values. The hub of Yiddish culture in Vancouver, it hosted (and still does) the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir, theatre groups, classes and study groups, and artistic events celebrating Judaism from a cultural perspective. However, as the only organization in the Vancouver Jewish community that spearheaded a secular humanist and progressive perspective on the Jewish experience, it was for a long time somewhat on the margins of the community.
Then came a period of contraction. With many of the founders gone, and with Yiddish increasingly becoming a boutique, intellectual study rather than a living language and tradition, Peretzniks were not able to sustain the school-age programs. Apart from a thriving secular b’nai mitzvah program, the focus has been on strengthening the Peretz community through adult discussion groups, seniors programming, lectures, concerts, the choir, plus alternative non-religious celebrations and observances to mark Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur, Chanukah, Passover and other important Jewish holidays.
But, once again, the Peretz Centre is going through changes. Increasingly, young families in Vancouver and the surrounding area have been seeking a place where they can raise their children with a secular Jewish identity resonant with modern concerns of environmentalism and reconciliation and healing from the trauma so prevalent in many Jewish communities.
The new family education program is the brainchild of Dr. Danny Bakan, a PhD in education with more than 20 years experience facilitating Jewish Renewal and secular Jewish education.
“When we started, I insisted that this be a family education program; everyone is here to learn together,” said Bakan. “We focus on creating a joyous way to be connected, staying away from the common narrative of being victimized as Jews.”
In the last two years, Bakan has been helping Peretz reboot. And, it seems to be working.
“There is nothing like it, to my mind, in the city: secular, progressive and filled with an incredible range of activities that appeal to all of us, ranging in age, I suspect, from 5 to 75!” said family education parent Greg Buium.
Now, with new young families flocking to join via the program, the Peretz Centre is moving towards a renewed commitment to social justice, Yiddishkeit, the arts and building community. New offerings for the fall 2016 session will include secular Hebrew for children and adults, a b’nai mitzvah boot camp for teens and adults, art exhibits and a youth open stage and coffeehouse.
For more information about Peretz Centre programs, events and activities, visit peretz-centre.org or contact Becker at [email protected] or 604-325-1812.
