Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas “visit” the Jericho Arts Centre to tell of their 40-year relationship, of friendships with iconic artists, of Alice’s overwhelming devotion to Gertrude’s genius and how, as two Jewish lesbians, they survived in Paris in the Second World War. They want to find out how their lives are – or are not – remembered.
Lois Anderson directs the United Players production at Jericho Arts Centre Jan. 19-Feb. 11. For tickets, visit unitedplayers.com/gertrude-alice.
Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler at the JQT Vancouver artisan market last fall at Or Shalom for Sukkot. (photo by Carmel Tanaka)
When you enter Massy Books in Chinatown, one of the main Indigenous authors featured in the centre book aisle is Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler. I smile every time I pop in because I see signed copies of his award-winning young-adult horror fiction for sale – Wrist and Ghost Lake, both published by Kegedonce Press. Of course, Nathan would take the time to sign each book! He’s a total mensch, and we met in the best of ways.
I was having brunch with my dear friend Evelyn Tauben of Fentster Gallery at Toronto’s Pow Wow Café, owned and operated by Nathan’s brother, Shawn, an Indigenous Jewish chef. We bonded over being “Jewish&” and he mentioned that he had a sibling out west and that we should connect. So, I reached out over Facebook and we met up at the Fountainhead Pub in Davie Street Village, Vancouver’s “gaybourhood,” a few months later. Since then, Nathan has become a good friend, and you’ll also see him around JQT events, sometimes tabling as a JQT artist or just showing up to enjoy the festivities and the food.
I caught up with Nathan when he was guest curating Centring Indigenous Joy: A Celebration of Literature, Arts and Creativity with Word Vancouver for Indigenous Peoples’ Day last month. The Jewish Independent asked me to attend the event and interview Nathan for the paper.
CT: In your opening remarks, you state that you are Jewish, Anishinaabe, Two-Spirit and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation. You go on to say that your father is a Holocaust survivor and that your mother is a residential school survivor. What has the journey been like for you? How has the way you introduce yourself evolved over time?
NA: Part of my idea behind the Centring Indigenous Joy event was related to the number of emotional film programs I’ve attended that are about processing historical trauma – really important work, but also kind of a downer. Sometimes a late-night shorts program full of zombies and gore is more cathartic somehow? I wanted people to come away feeling uplifted and happy rather than heavier, you know? Especially since it was an event for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted it to be celebratory. We’re more than our trauma.
Me and two of my siblings recently traveled to Europe to work on a documentary about our great-uncle who didn’t survive the Holocaust and, after visiting so many museums, memorials, internment camps and historical sites, all I wanted to do was … party!? I insisted my brother quit his delivery job so we could spend an extra two weeks outside our work on the documentary to just have fun, do touristy stuff, go to clubs and the beach. I think balance is needed.
I don’t usually include stuff about my parents being survivors in my introductions, but I felt it was part of my thought process behind the theme for the event (Indigenous joy), and I wanted people to know it wasn’t some kind of toxic positivity in the face of harsh realities, but something that I’d deeply considered. It was more about a shift in focus.
CT: How did your parents meet? And what was their families’ reaction to their union?
NA: They met in French class at the University of Guelph in 1967. My mom missed a class and asked my dad what she missed. That’s how they started talking to each other. My mom mentioned the ballet was in town (“a leading question,” she says) and he asked her out. There were very few Native people in university at that time, so it’s pretty unlikely they [would even meet], but that’s how it happened.
My Jewish grandparents were not happy about the fact he was dating a non-Jew, at least until the babies started coming – then all was forgiven!
All my mom’s family said about it was: “Oh, he’s too old for you” [a five-year age difference], but she also probably looked much younger than him at 19 years old.
CT: Where do Jewish and Indigenous cultures meet?
NT: Food and community and tradition, though the types of foods and traditions are different. Also, the inheritance of historical trauma, and overcoming oppression. You know, just a few minor things.
CT: When did you realize that you were Jewish and Indigenous? Was there a moment?
NA: I don’t remember a specific moment. I think I always just knew? We spent most weekends either going to visit our Ojibwe grandmother or our Jewish grandparents. We did the Jewish High Holidays, Passover, Hanukkah, Purim, etc., and we went to Sunday school for awhile, and in the summer our mom took us up to the reserve or out on the powwow trail and to Native community events in Guelph, where our aunt lives; there were always feasts and ceremonies. So, we always had that grounding in our cultures, where we come from. It wasn’t always a full picture though, it was also marked by absence of knowledge, language and people – relatives who didn’t survive, the knowledge that didn’t get passed down, a lot of unknowns and absences that also becomes part of who we are. Those gaps also become markers of identity.
CT: What has been your experience of being Indigenous and Two-Spirit in the Jewish community (here in Vancouver and elsewhere)? And vice versa?
NA: Well, I think it’s been pretty great here in Vancouver, thanks to the work of JQT, which really helps build community and creates space. When I lived in Peterborough, Ont., there was also a pretty cool alternative Jewish and queer scene. I went to a memorable queer Passover there once, which is one of the few gay and Jewish events I’ve been to; a gay-Jewish-boy networking I stumbled on in Toronto once; and then the JQT events I’ve attended or participated here in Vancouver, like the arts markets and the Shabbos Queen event. And I’ve been to many Two-Spirit-specific events – my twin brother helps organize the 2-Spirit Ball in Ottawa as part of the Asinabka Festival – and, recently, I went to the 2-Spirit Powwow at Downsview Park in Toronto. It’s actually pretty great being part of these communities. Queers are everywhere, so are Jews and NDNs – add in the arts scene and social networks, and it makes it easier to find community in a new place.
CT: Your jam is horror fiction and documentary filmmaking. What draws you to these genres?
NA: I love all things horror and urban fantasy. I went through a Goth phase, and I’m still a Goth at heart. So, when it comes to making my own work, it just makes sense to work in those genres. I also picked up a lot of film and video post-production skills when I attended OCAD [Ontario College of Art & Design] University in the 2000s. But I feel like fiction isn’t for everyone. A lot of people are turned off by anything that isn’t steeped in the conventions of the here and now. They see anything with an element of fantasy, and it’s too far removed from reality – though I think the opposite is true, the fantastic can make a great metaphor for exploring the realities of this world. But some stories feel like they need to be told as they are, they don’t need any dramatization or embellishment. So, it just depends on the story. The story should dictate how it gets told.
CT: You teach post-secondary creative writing, and your work is showcased in numerous art and film festivals. What are you currently working on? What is coming up next? What’s your dream project?
NA: I’m working on a short story for a horror anthology that Kegedonce Press is planning on putting out – though the story isn’t very scary so far, so I may need to write something else. I’m curating a few panels for Word Vancouver in September as part of their Literary Arts Festival, and I’ll be pretty busy with teaching again in September, which takes up a lot of time.
There is the documentary I mentioned about our Uncle Emanuel that we need to sit down and edit (many, many hours of footage to sift through to put the story together). I also have a graphic novel project that’s been on the back burner that needs to be done asap.
I’d love to write those Y/A [young adult] novels I’ve had in the back of my head for awhile, plus the next novel that’s in an unfinished state. Too many unfinished projects! Dream project: finish these ones first before I tackle anything new.
CT: Have you or your family come up with any fusion Indigenous Jewish recipes?
NA: That might be a question for my brother Shawn – he’s the chef! Though, a lot of my knowledge of Jewish cooking comes from my mom, who learned how to do a lot of cooking from her mother-in-law. I think that’s a type of fusion. Learning how to cook Jewish food by way of my Anishinaabekwe mom – even my Jewish food is Indigenous.
Carmel Tanaka, JQT Vancouver executive director, speaks at the May 28 launch of the B.C. Jewish Queer &Trans Oral History Project online exhibit. (photo by Brianne Nord-Stewart)
The B.C. Jewish Queer &Trans Oral History Project online exhibit went live amid the cheers of those gathered in the standing-room-only Zack Gallery May 28.
With a total of 38 interviews, the project is “one of, if not the, largest Jewish LGBTQ archives in the world,” said Carmel Tanaka, JQT Vancouver executive director, after she guided attendees – both online and in-person – through the website, jqtvancouver.ca/jqt-oral-history-bc.
The project had its beginning in 2019, when Tanaka approached the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia (JMABC) asking if there was any queer and trans content in the archives. When the answer was no, JMABC and JQT Vancouver joined as partners to train volunteers in interview procedures, identify and connect with interviewees and record the stories of Jewish queer and trans elders throughout the province.
Alysa Routtenberg, archivist at JMABC, shared with the Independent how the collection of oral histories, proceeded. “We approached our funding partners, to fund the training of 13 volunteer interviewers in best practices and how to ensure consent from the interviewees, as the information would be archived and accessible to all, with each contributor identified and ‘out’ as Jewish and LGBTQ. The energy of Carmel Tanaka positively influenced the framing of the interview questions and our understanding of the Jewish queer community and ensured the inclusion of all willing community members in the oral history archives,” she said, welcoming the volunteers who were trained to participate in other oral history projects with the JMABC.
The target group for the B.C. Jewish Queer & Trans Oral History Project was identified as Jewish, trans and queer and age 65 years and older. The intention was to gather interviewees’ lived experiences in community as Jewish and LGBTQ. It was an intergenerational effort, with many of the interviewers being younger than the storytellers. When the pandemic hit, the interviews moved onto Zoom accounts already in place with the museum, and everyone learned new technical skills and continued collecting the stories. Funding for the project was provided by the Jewish Community Foundation, Isaac and Sophie Waldman Endowment Fund, Live Educate Transform Society, and the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Yosef Wosk Publication Fund, along with private donors.
The B.C. Jewish Queer &Trans Oral History Project was a catalyst for two other JQT initiatives: Twice Blessed 2.0 and The B.C. Jewish Queer and Trans Seniors Resource Guide.
When Tanaka interviewed Jacqueline Walters for the oral history project, Walters shared that she had conducted a community needs assessment in 2004 while working in the counseling department of what was then called the Jewish Family Services Agency (and is now just Jewish Family Services). Walters had kept a copy of the full report and offered it to Tanaka. Thus, the Twice Blessed 2.0 project took flight. A new needs assessment took place and data points were compared to get a sense of what has and hasn’t changed in the past two decades. Twice Blessed 2.0 – with its 13 calls for community action – is available on JQT’s website. Walters flew in from Salt Spring Island to be at the launch.
“Also, during these interviews,” said Tanaka at the event, “we began to hear firsthand the fears of our community members when it comes to aging, particularly homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism upon entering assisted living and long-term care. This led to the creation of the JQT Seniors Initiative, a community response network, and this initiative just released a seniors resource guide, basically a report card on what you can and cannot prepare for as you get older in the Jewish community, in the LGBTQ community, and in the healthcare system in B.C. in 2023.” The guide is also available on JQT’s website.
With the formal JMABC interviews completed, the online exhibit was the next step undertaken by JQT, with Tanaka as project coordinator, and a team of volunteers. “I am thankful for the wisdom and resilience of everyone involved with this project,” Tanaka told the Independent.
The online exhibit features an interactive timeline of B.C. Jewish queer and trans activity from the 1920s to 2020s; an essay weaving together the stories that emerged from the interviews; an article on the Klezbians music group; video excerpts from the oral history interviews; interviewee statistics; and more. Three of the interviewees spoke with the Independent.
Syd Lapan lives in Comox and was “absolutely” enthusiastic about being included. Lapan said she has been out since 1971. Living in the United States at the time, she said she was, as a lesbian, considered illegal and insane. She was active in the women’s liberation movement, then in the gay rights movement in Colorado. Excited about JQT’s oral history project from the beginning, she was glad to share her story, to have it noted, and she joined the launch via the Facebook livestream. When she saw the video on the oral history site of herself being interviewed, she confessed that she cried a bit, finding it emotionally striking. She was thankful for the care Tanaka displayed while interviewing her.
Ira Rogers attended the launch, but, unlike Lapan, he was not initially keen about being included in the project – Tanaka’s enthusiasm won him over, he remarked. Rogers said he felt good sharing his story, he liked going back to earlier chapters of his life. He grew up in New York and moved to Nashville, Tenn., to pursue a career in songwriting – among other things, he contributed to a Grammy-nominated Reba McEntire album, helping create the songs “All Dressed Up (With Nowhere To Go)” and “For My Broken Heart.” Even with such successes, living in Tennessee became too much, though, and Rogers set out to find a gay-friendly city, eventually relocating to Vancouver. Rogers currently is associated with the Vancouver Men’s Chorus.
Finally, Marc Gelmon, who transitioned at age 19, discovered JQT while searching online for information related to his work at TransCareBC. He made a note to himself and got on with life. When contacted to participate in the oral history, he was interested right from the start. “I’m a Vancouverite, I’ve lived my adult life as a trans person. I love telling my story, as it is always cathartic for me,” he said. “I hope it is also cathartic for others.” At the time of his interview with the Independent, Gelmon had not seen his oral history interview online, as he was traveling in the United Kingdom.
In addition to Tanaka and Routtenberg, also speaking at the May 8 launch were emcees Aviva Rathbone, chair of JQT, and Sophie Macdonald, JQT vice-chair. Mack Paul of Musqueam First Nation gave the land acknowledgement. Alison Cristall, assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, shared a few words, as did Allison Dunne, co-executive director of Vancouver Pride Society. Carol Herbert, past chair of the JMABC, spoke and Raegan Swanson, archivist and executive director or the ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2S+ Archives, joined the proceedings virtually, from Toronto. JQT ethnographer Maxa Sawyer, speaking from Winnipeg, closed out the proceedings.
To view the JMABC oral history collection catalogue, including all the interviews conducted for this project, go to archives.jewishmuseum.ca and enter JQT or the name of the interviewee. To access any of the full interviews, contact the museum at [email protected] or 604-257-5199. Go to jqtvancouver.ca to view the online exhibit, a video of the launch event and learn more about JQT.
Trude LaBossiere Huebner is a Vancouver freelance writer.
A screenshot of Jeff Kushner’s July 2, 2020, interview with Carmel Tanaka for the B.C. Jewish Queer & Trans Oral History Project, which can be found on YouTube.
JQT (Jewish Queer and Trans) Vancouver has compiled a resource guide in an effort to address the needs and concerns of older LGBTQ+ Jews.
With the financial support of the B.C. Community Response Network, the Province of British Columbia and Jeff Kushner of Victoria, JQT produced the B.C. Jewish Queer and Trans Seniors Resource Guide, which was launched in April. The guide can be accessed at jqtvancouver.ca, along with a series of eight videos that cover the main points in each of its chapters. The guide is conceived as a “living document based on info collected in 2023,” and visitors to the website are asked to “help keep it relevant by completing the short 4-min survey at the end of this resource guide.”
“This resource guide is meant for older Jewish queer and/or trans people over the age of 55, as well as for those who are caring for them,” it states in the introduction. “We recognize the stigma associated with the term ‘senior’ and define it as ‘persons over the age of 55.’ We do not want to isolate anyone, as a lot of content collected in this resource guide may be relevant for Jewish queer and/or trans people of all ages.”
In explaining why the guide was created, the introduction says: “You may be worried or trying to figure out how to manage changing care needs, now or in the future, for yourself or for someone else. Many of you will likely choose to stay in your home well after you require healthcare support. In addition to what you don’t know, you may have come across misinformation that can get in your way. This guide has been developed to reduce fears by providing reliable, useful and current knowledge that can help to protect you from potential discrimination and abuse, allowing you to live out your days with dignity.”
The publication and videos are part of the JQT Seniors Initiative, which is described on the website as “a community response network of Jewish, LGBTQ+ and seniors healthcare organizations,” and many people contributed to the resource guide.
The story of the JQT Seniors Initiative can be traced to the early days of the pandemic, when JQT began conducting the B.C. Jewish Queer & Trans Oral History Project, which primarily interviewed older adults across the province. Elders in the community discussed their fears of having to go back into the closet and/or hide their identity upon becoming more dependent on the healthcare system, such as through assisted living and long-term care.
“This feedback from interviewees birthed the JQT Seniors Initiative,” said Carmel Tanaka, the founder and executive director of JQT Vancouver.
According to Tanaka, the oral history project further revealed that Jewish Family Services (Jewish Family Services Agency at the time) had directed a Jewish LGBT community needs assessment, called Twice Blessed, in 2004. The report, which had been in the possession of former JFSA counselor Jacqueline Walters on Salt Spring Island, had not been released.
“Following her interview for the project, Jacqueline mailed me the envelope, which thankfully arrived, and this birthed Twice Blessed 2.0: The Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ Initiative in partnership with JFS – a 2022 community needs assessment that compared needs to the 2004 assessment,” said Tanaka.
Included in the recent survey were questions on seniors care, which continues to help identify needs. While the assessment was intended to focus on Metro Vancouver residents, JFS’s geographical mandate, people from across the province participated.
After its homepage, the seniors initiative page is the next most visited page on the JQT website, and its resource guide has the highest views across JQT’s social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
“This was definitely, without a doubt, exactly what our community needed, for people of all ages, because dying can happen at any age,” Tanaka said. “Navigating friction between civic and Jewish law is also at the forefront of this resource guide, particularly around intermarriage, MAiD [medical assistance in dying] and LGBTQ+ inclusion of trans and non-binary bodies in Jewish burial practices.”
An example of the preparations that should be made in advance is appointing a trusted person to ensure that final wishes, such as not being “misgendered” by healthcare professionals or the chevra kadisha (Jewish burial society), take place.
“This resource guide is also helping to build a stronger JQT community, connecting pockets of folx on the periphery who are working on elements touched on in this guide, such as ‘queering’ chevra kadisha, so that we are not doing the work in silos,” Tanaka said.
Tanaka lauded the positive response from numerous organizations and community groups. “Older Jewish queer and trans folx are feeling seen and grateful that such a guide has been resourced and put together,” she said.
As for her personal involvement in the initiative, Tanaka explained, “My mom is a gerontologist and, from a young age, I knew the limitations of seniors homes. So, in a way, it’s not surprising that I would end up working towards more inclusion. Also, my background is in public health, emergency and disaster management, and the lack of support for older queer and trans seniors is an emergency.”
JQT Vancouver was started in 2018, becoming a nonprofit – incorporated as the Jewish Queer Trans Folx of Vancouver Society (dba “JQT Vancouver”) – in 2023. A current objective for JQT is to obtain charitable status to secure core funding for its operations. Since it began, it has been an all-volunteer organization that operates solely on donations and grants.
JQT offers inclusion training to local Jewish community organizations, as well as partners with organizations on various projects. “We’re already in partnership with JFS, and will be offering a staff training session to the JCC [Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver] later this month,” said Tanaka by way of example.
JQT will unveil the B.C. Jewish Queer & Trans Oral History Project in a hybrid celebration at the Zack Gallery on May 28, 1 p.m. The following day, the exhibit will be available online.
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC. Jewish Independenteditor and publisher Cynthia Ramsay is on the JQT Vancouver board.
Israeli journalist Yair Cherki (photo from Facebook)
Bravo Yair Cherki, the popular, ultra-Orthodox TV news reporter. He recently came out as gay in a wonderful social media post. In part, he said: “I write these words shaking, postponing to tomorrow. For next week. For after the holidays. Maybe it’s been 10 years since I’ve been writing and erasing…. And I write not because I have the strength to write but because I have no power to stay silent. I love men. I love G-d. It is not contradictory….”
His confession continues, “I live the conflict between my secular preference and my faith all the time. Some have solved the conflict for themselves by saying that there is no G-d, while others explain that there is no homosexuality. I know both exist. And I try to reconcile this contradiction within myself in various ways. These are things between G-d and me…. This is neither a fashion nor a trend nor a political statement. It is simply me….”
An intimate and intelligent statement.
* * *
Now, if this doesn’t take “blaming the Jews” to new extremes. In my previous article in the JI (jewishindependent.ca/land-of-milk-honey) I praised the historic maritime natural gas agreement between Israel and Lebanon, enabling both countries to drill for natural gas within their own territory. I truly wished Lebanon much success in hitting a gusher and creating their own Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah sees it a bit differently, warning that any delay in Lebanon’s extracting gas from its own waters will be met by a punishing attack on Israel’s adjacent gas fields. Maybe Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” will assuage Nasrallah: “I let my neighbour know beyond the hill…. And set the wall between us once again…. To each the boulders that have fallen to each…. He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbours.’”
Nasrallah went on to threaten that if the United States continues spreading chaos within Lebanon – some conspiracy theory or other – that Israel will pay. Reminiscent of the Three Stooges slapstick routine when Curly slaps Larry for Moe slapping him.
Peace and prosperity for all, on both sides of the Fatima Gate. Otherwise known as the Good Fence!
* * *
Going once. Going twice. Do I hear $50 million? According to its website, “Sotheby’s is proud to offer … the earliest, most complete Hebrew Bible during this year’s marquee New York sales auction.”
The Codex Sassoon is more than 1,000 years old. According to Sharon Mintz, Sotheby’s senior Judaica specialist, in an interview with CNN, “this is the most important document to come to auction ever.” It’s expected to generate huge interest across the world from the wealthiest of bidders, with offers expected to reach as high as $50 million.
Other treasured documents fetching such modest amounts at auction include the Codex Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci (ostensibly his science diary) sold to Bill Gates in 1994 for about $31 million. And the first printing of the U.S. Constitution, bought by American hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin in 2021 for about $43 million.
May 16 … save the date. And your shekels!
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A few weekends ago, my wife and I drove south for the day to enjoy the year’s winter festival, Darom Adom, when the bright red poppies – a protected flower in Israel – come out in full bloom along the Gaza periphery. It’s another reason to celebrate with local handicrafts, seasonal fruit, local cheeses and wine, homemade Israeli cuisine.
Taking place not too far from Sderot, within the opened gates of local kibbutzim and moshavim (agricultural communities) and less than a kilometre from another good fence delineating the border between Israel and Gaza, the festival a testament to Israeli’s resilience – and longing for a peaceful coexistence.
Somewhat poetically, we purchased a beautifully handcrafted hamsa made by a young, local artist. This hand-shaped amulet is used for protection by both Jews and Muslims. In the Jewish faith, the five fingers of the hamsa represent the Five Books of Moses, or the Torah. The Muslim faith sees a hamsa as representing the Five Pillars of Islam (declaration of faith, prayer, alms, fasting, pilgrimage). In popular culture, the charm represents the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste).
* * *
Judicial reform. Judicial reform. Judicial reform. Sounds like Jan Brady whining about her sister getting all the attention, “Marcia. Marcia. Marcia,” from the 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch. Judicial reform certainly has been getting all the attention lately.
Issues aside, we’ve had 10 weeks and counting of protests, with several hundred thousand Israelis protesting around the country every Saturday night against judicial reform. The protests are also aimed at the extreme, right-wing – even theocratic – makeup of the current coalition that is driving headstrong into judicial reform. And yet, the primarily secular, centre-left who comprise these thousands, waving Israeli flags and ending every protest with the singing of Hatikvah, respectfully wait until after Shabbat to begin their protests. How’s that for deep-bred regard for this Jewish tradition that crosses sociopolitical lines?
* * *
Bravo again to Yair Cherki. To come out in these turbulent, sociopolitical times for the Israeli LGBTQ+ community. With our far-right, xenophobic, theocratic and anti-LGBTQ+ government, Cherki’s post and testament to himself is nothing short of brave, beautiful and brilliant.
Bruce Brownis a Canadian and an Israeli. He made aliyah … a long time ago. He works in Israel’s high-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Brown is the winner of the 2019 AJPA Rockower Award for excellence in writing, and wrote the 1998 satire An Israeli is…. Brown reflects on life in Israel – political, social, economic and personal.
Carmel Tanaka in front of the house on Jackson Street from which National Council of Jewish Women once offered social services. (photo by Ari Fremder)
A series of Vancouver walking tours with a Jewish connection took a queer twist recently. Cross Cultural Walking Tours, which held its first tours in 2019, recently invited participants to explore the multicultural history of the city through an LGBTQ+ lens.
Two Sunday tours took place during June, international Pride Month. These included the exploration of aspects of the city’s ethnic heritages with an added layer of queer and trans history.
Carmel Tanaka is the founder and program coordinator of Cross Cultural Walking Tours (CCWT), as well as founder and executive director of JQT Vancouver, a volunteer-run Jewish queer and trans nonprofit. She is the prime mover behind the walking tours, though she has mobilized more than 40 individuals and organizations to make the series happen, including the Vancouver Heritage Foundation and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.
“Sharing our history and stories together in one tour in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside offers participants a tangible understanding of the importance of neighbourhood, of diversity, of our similarities and our differences, and how we live together,” Tanaka said. “The tours celebrate our cultures, but do not shy away from difficult social justice issues, and the impact of discriminatory laws at city, provincial and federal levels on our communities.”
For instance, she said, the tours address the ongoing genocide of Indigenous communities by noting the collaboration between government and churches in the residential school system, specifically the eradication of culture and language, which is one of the historical factors affecting the housing crisis in the DTES today and the opioid crisis.
At the beginning of the tour, Tanaka discussed how the Second World War brought more women into the workforce, including as cab drivers, shipbuilders and fireboat workers. A lesbian bar, called the Vanport, popped up at Main and Prior streets and lasted until 1979.
Nearby was Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver’s traditionally Black neighbourhood, which was destroyed to create the Georgia Viaduct in the 1970s. Many of the Black residents were farm labourers who came from Oklahoma via Alberta, while others were railroad porters whose jobs were tied to the nearby railway stations. The community was vibrant for six decades, producing world-class athletes, musicians, entertainers, restaurant and nightclub owners, entrepreneurs, community builders and political activists, Tanaka said.
The tour continued through the Strathcona neighbourhood, the traditional immigrant reception area for the city, and where Black, Jewish and almost every other cultural group at one point was centred. The legendary musician Jimmy Hendrix lived with his grandmother here. In the same area, the National Council of Jewish Women had a house, where they provided English literacy courses and the Well-Baby Clinic.
In the 1920s, Tanaka said, a Jewish gay man known as Uncle Max opened a shoe store on Main at Broadway before moving to South Granville. This was one of the only places in town for drag queens to purchase large-fitting shoes.
Harmony Bongat, a Filipino-Canadian, spoke of a building that housed a group of Filipino women in the early 2000s.
“It was a safe haven, a place where Filipino migrant workers (mostly working as nannies) could come if they were mistreated by their employers,” she said. “It was also a place where us Filipino queers could gather, share stories and enjoy each other’s company. Some of the people I met here would go on to create Pinoy Pride Vancouver.” Pinoy is slang for Filipino. She also discussed the history of LGBTQ+ organizing in the broader Asian-Canadian communities.
The tour included the Vancouver Japanese Language School and Japanese Hall, on Alexander Street.
“The school first opened in 1906 in a wooden building to the left of what is here now,” Tanaka explained. “Initially, the schoolchildren attended school fulltime here, in a Japanese immersion environment. After 1919, this school became an afterschool learning program for Japanese children after they came back from a day at Lord Strathcona elementary. In 1928, funds were raised from Japanese-Canadians from all over British Columbia to build the Japanese Hall, a place for the community and to celebrate Japanese culture.”
In the spring of 1942, the Canadian government forcibly relocated Japanese Canadians at least 100 miles from the coast by enacting the War Measures Act.
“This act uprooted, displaced and dispossessed approximately 22,000 Japanese-Canadians,” said Tanaka. “My great-grandmother and her two sons were interned in Minto, and my great-grandfather, grandmother and grandfather were interned at New Denver, in the Slocan Valley. They all lived in Port Essington, near Prince Rupert, across from Haida Gwaii. Before going to the camps, they were detained in the animal livestock building of Hastings Park, aka the PNE/Playland.”
The Japanese community was able to keep the Powell Street building because it was owned by the Japanese-Canadian community, rather than an individual. The building was leased during the war and the school reopened in 1952. It has been designated heritage status, said Tanaka. “Today, the school operates a childcare centre, continues with language courses, offers rental spaces, and holds Japanese-related programs and events.”
The tour moved on to the Aoki Rooms, which was a tenement house for Japanese workers and is now known as Ross House, a residence for trans and gender-diverse people.
In Gastown, the tour touched upon the history of the Europe Hotel, with presenter Glenn Tkach of Forbidden Vancouver and creator of the Really Gay History Tour.
Tkach explained how the neighbourhood was a magnet for men from all over who were seeking work. But, while Gastown was the hub for employment, the actual work was often far away.
“Men moved from job to job and trade to trade, as fishermen, lumberjacks, sailors, rail workers,” he said. “Thousands of men, living on the road, following the work. Without a lady in sight.”
Men often paired up, in part for safety and in part for companionship, he said.
“Outside the limits of the city, and outside the limits of normal Canadian society, a unique subculture evolved around these pairings,” said Tkach. “It was unlike anything we would recognize as queer culture today.”
The jobs lasted from spring through fall, then places like Gastown’s Europe Hotel would fill with men returning to the city with money to spend and leisure time. A bathhouse in the hotel’s basement was popular.
“City officials did not consider it a priority to police the private habits of these working-class men,” Tkach said. “There was a huge demand for their labour. So it was best for everyone, if their activities just went unnoticed. And, for the most part, they did.”
Nearby, on the Burrard Inlet waterfront, was where a shameful part of Canadian history took place.
Karn Singh Sahota and Viplav Bhaskar from Sher Vancouver, a nonprofit society for LGBTQ+ South Asians, shared the story of the Komagata Maru. In 1914, this ship, carrying 376 passengers from India, was denied disembarkation due to racist immigration policies. After holding the passengers effectively hostage in the inlet for two months, all but 24 were forced to return to India, where 22 of them were killed.
They also shared a story of a case in which two Indo-Canadian men were entrapped by Vancouver police and beaten for alleged “sodomy,” one of many such charges of the time, especially targeting racialized working men.
The tour continued past 63 East Hastings, site of the city’s first real gay bar, the Montreal Club, which ran from the 1950s to 1969.
There is a great deal of hidden history in the city, much of which was unearthed and shared for this tour. Tanaka noted the challenges in telling the stories of marginalized communities, including Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC).
“It’s hard enough as it is to amplify the voices of marginalized BIPOC/minority communities, let alone queer and trans voices who also belong to marginalized BIPOC/minority communities,” she said. “Due to the compounded marginalization, it’s not like there are 2SLGBTQIA+ groups for every racial/ethnic/religious minority in town. That requires resources, capacity and support from their respective communities, which not everyone has.”
As a self-described “Jewpanese” person, Tanaka has a unique perspective.
“I often see antisemitism forgotten in the discussion on racism, as it’s not considered a BIPOC issue,” she said. “Not too long ago, Jews were not considered white and, as a Jew of Colour, I’m living proof that not all Jews are white. So, whether it be on the walking tours or on panels, I weave in my family’s lived experiences of antisemitism and anti-Asian racism to raise awareness.”
CCWT is looking for energetic voices from the Jewish community to cover the Jewish portion of their tours. To discuss that or for more information, Tanaka can be reached at [email protected]. The group is on Facebook and Instagram.
Participants in the Jan. 19 event Rainbow Maccabees: The LGBTQ+ Jews Leading the Fight Against Jew-Hate, included, clockwise from top left, Blake Flayton, moderator David Sachs, Eve Barlow and Ben M. Freeman. (screenshot)
Blake Flayton arrived at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., four years ago, from a progressive home where ideas were fodder for passionate debate and disagreement. He anticipated vibrant engagement and free- flowing discussion on campus. Instead, he came head-on with a progressive culture that viewed free thinking as apostasy.
It took Flayton some time to assimilate the cognitive dissonance he experienced when he realized his political cohort had an ideology that rejected dissent – and an almost universal antipathy to Israel.
“I believed them, because how could I not?” he recalled. “I figured to myself, if I agree with these people on A through Y, I must also agree with them on Z. They plant these pervasive lies into the heads of young Jews that your community lied to you, your community betrayed you, your community brainwashed you into believing something horrible and we are here to save you from it. Sounds awfully like Christianity, right? We are here to redeem you from that so that we can all walk into a more blessed future. It has such ancient themes.”
Flayton was one of three young Jews, all members of the LGBTQ+ community, who participated virtually in a Canada-wide panel discussion on Jan. 19 called Rainbow Maccabees: The LGBTQ+ Jews Leading the Fight Against Jew-Hate. They speculated on why an apparently disproportionate number of the rising young stars in the pro-Israel movement come from the queer community.
Flayton, co-founder of the New Zionist Congress and recently appointed director of new media for the Jewish Journal, was joined by Eve Barlow, a Scottish-born, Los Angeles-based music journalist, and Ben M. Freeman, an educator and the author of Jewish Pride, who is also Scottish and is now based in Hong Kong. They met in conversation with Ottawa-area writer David Sachs, in an event funded by Congregation Beth Shalom of Ottawa Legacy Fund and a Jewish Federation of Ottawa micro-grant. It was supported by 11 national, regional and local Jewish organizations across Canada.
Left-leaning social and political spaces are where gays and lesbians first found widespread social acceptance. For queer Jews, this longtime safe harbour has become less welcoming – and this might account for why a seemingly disproportionate number of the new, young activists standing up to anti-Jewish hatred come from the LGBTQ+ community, Flayton speculates.
“I think it might be because we are naturally more likely to be exposed to progressive spaces and, therefore, we are more likely to find fault and to see the flaws of said progressive spaces,” he explained.
Freeman said being an openly gay man may give him an advantage in standing up to Jew-hate. LGBTQ+ people have been forced to advocate for themselves, he said, while the prevailing tendency, in some Jewish circles, is to keep one’s head down and not make trouble.
The hypocrisy progressive activists often display in their treatment of Jewish people versus LGBTQ+ or other minority communities is something Freeman has faced.
“When I tell people that I’m gay, the first thing they say to me is, what are your pronouns? Are you gay, are you queer, are you LGBTQ+? They want me to define my own identity,” he said. “But when I tell people that, as a Jew, I don’t identify as white, although I understand that I benefit from the advantage of being perceived as white, I am immediately told, no that’s incorrect. That hypocrisy you just can’t ignore.”
Barlow became politically engaged based on her own experiences in progressive British spaces – particularly seeing non-Jewish friends enthusiastically embrace the antisemitic Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“I saw the hypocrisy with people who claim to be about morally righteous causes and liberalism and who have this screaming a blind spot when it comes to anti-Jewish bias,” Barlow said.
As Jews and as queer individuals, Barlow and her co-panelists embody characteristics that are not always welcome in today’s progressive environment, she said.
“Intellectualism and individual thought is discouraged,” said Barlow. “We are doing what so many people in social justice spaces have been actively discouraged from doing, which is having our own ideas about what we think is right and wrong.”
Barlow stressed that she has had to pick her battles, in part because she realizes that tormenting Jews online, rather than good-faith debate or actual persuasion, is the goal for many.
“The more that you are on the other side of antisemitism, the more you understand the love that people who hate Jews have for picking on the Jew and tripping the Jew up and making the Jew feel small and bad,” she said. “It’s this pleasure that they get out of their antisemitic rhetoric.”
In the antisemitic mind, “the Jew” takes the shape of whatever the perpetrator fears most, said Freeman.
“It’s not about us as Jews, it’s about the ideas of Jews,” he said. “If you are a society which is positioning itself as capitalist, the Jew can represent communism. If you are a society that is communist, you can frame the Jew as the capitalist. If you’re a society which views white people as the apex predators, then Jews are white. If you’re a society that views non-white people as conspiring to bring down Western society, white society, then the Jew is not white.… All these different forms share a common core. They are saying basically the same things about us, expressed in a slightly different language.”
As a people who have maintained a particular identity across millennia and continents, Jews exemplify a stubbornness that resists assimilation, which can enflame some people. Similarly, because Jewish security and social flourishing has been most assured in liberal, democratic societies, Jews have a vested interest in perpetuating stable societies, so are often targeted by those who seek to subvert them.
“There is a very strong association between antisemitism and illiberal ideologies, ideologies that hold contempt and disdain for institutions of liberal democracy and that hold contempt for the ideas that come from liberal democracy, like meritocracy, like freedom of speech, like academic freedom, like gender equality, etc., etc.,” said Flayton. “Jews have often been portrayed, or at least been treated, as a proxy for these institutions.… Today, there is illiberalism bursting out of every corner, from the farthest you can go left on the spectrum to the farthest you can go right and everywhere in between. There is a rise in populism, there is a rise in anti-intellectualism, there is a rise in anti-establishmentism and it’s been replaced with conspiracy thinking and grievance politics.”
Throughout Jewish history, Flayton continued, there have been repeated attempts by various ideologies to convince Jews that they will be better off if they abandon their uniqueness and assimilate into the new orthodoxy – or, conversely, that the Jews’ refusal to do so is the primary inhibitor of progress or the impediment to utopia.
“Of course, that’s never the case,” he said, citing instances from the Hellenizing ancient Greeks in the Hanukkah story, to the Christians who are convinced that Jews are holding humanity back from salvation by refusing to accept Jesus, to the Soviets, who camouflaged antisemitism in the guise of anti-Zionism.
Today, said Flayton, this takes the form of Jews being told that, if they only reject Israel or check their Zionism at the door, they will “be granted a seat at this table of diversity, equity and inclusion and that everything will be grand and the Jews will be protected, if only they give up their birthright to the land of Israel.”
He concluded: “It never works and, in fact, the Jews who were so vehement are not spared from antisemitism at all, because once the ideology has succeeded there is no longer any use for them.”
The event opened with greetings from Idan Roll, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, who is himself a young, gay Jew.
Carmel Tanaka has many diverse community projects on the go. (photo by Heather McCain)
Community engagement professional Carmel Tanaka gave a talk entitled A Day in the Life of a Queer, Neurodivergent, Jewpanese Millennial to a Zoom audience on Dec. 5. The lecture was part of Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2021-22 speaker series Building Bridges: Celebrating Diversity in Jewish Life.
Tanaka, who founded and helms Vancouver’s JQT (pronounced J-Cutie), a nonprofit that advocates for the Jewish queer and trans community through dialogue and education, began her presentation by discussing her Jewish and Japanese heritage and the generational impact of both the Holocaust and the Japanese internment camps in Canada.
She introduced her family through numerous photographs going back two generations; her mother is a first-generation Ashkenazi Jewish Israeli from Haifa and her father is a third-generation Japanese Canadian.
Though she had an opportunity to meet three of her grandparents, they all passed away when she was relatively young. “I was definitely at an age when I was not nearly old enough to ask them the questions that I would desperately want to ask them now, particularly what they went through in the Holocaust, and Japanese Canadian internment,” Tanaka said. “The traumas of those two periods have greatly affected my family and informed the social justice work that I do.”
Fast-forwarding to December 2020, the screen shifted to the scene around the table during her father’s 75th birthday party. On what she described as a “completely normal to me” dining room table were doriyaki (Japanese steamed, sweet-filled pancakes), Jewish coffee cake, Japanese tea and Chanukah candles.
“Perhaps many of the tables in the local community have a similar melding of traditions as well,” she mused.
The offspring of two gifted cooks, Tanaka became a foodie in her own right. Many of her recipes – these include miso maple steelhead trout for Rosh Hashanah and matcha cheesecake for Shavuot – can be found on the internet, on such sites as My Jewish Learning.
With her recipes available online, many people of mixed Jewish and Japanese descent from around the world have reached out to Tanaka, making her realize that the global Jewpanese community is larger than she first thought it was.
Tanaka segued to the importance of names, and how her name differs depending on which group she may be addressing. For example, she uses Carmel in Jewish settings and Aya in Japanese setting because the name Carmel can be difficult to pronounce for Japanese speakers.
She then discussed JQT, which dedicates itself to creating connections and seeking space to celebrate the intersectional identities of Jews of all ages, diverse sexual orientations, as well as gender and sex identities, by “queering” Jewish space and “Jewifying” queer space.
One of the ways she queers Jewish space is through food. A pre-pandemic photo featured her selling community-donated rainbow challot glazed with apricot jam and rainbow sprinkled hamantashen at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.
JQT is also a partner organization of a project called Prism, a North American initiative that brings together Jewish artists of colour and is a place where, Tanaka said, she can celebrate all of her identities.
Another JQT venture is the B.C. Jewish Queer and Trans Oral Project, a collection of oral histories conducted in partnership with the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, and the first project of its kind in the province. Its objective is to make the archives more complete by providing the stories of older queer and trans members of the community. The first phase of the project was to conduct the interviews from May 2020 to July 2021. The second phase, now underway, is to use the material for a public online exhibit to give a voice to “a marginalized community within a marginalized community.”
Lastly, and fitting for the time of year, Tanaka spoke about JQT’s Hanukkah Hotties initiative, a daily set of Facebook livestreams throughout the holiday, in which a different guest lights their chanukiyah or shares another tradition. Guests chat about their life, art, activism and intersecting Jewish, queer, trans identities for the duration of the candles’ burning. This year’s lineup included, among others, Karen Newmoon, an Indigenous Jew-ish farmer; the Klezbians, “a band of unruly, chutzpah-licious musicians from the Isle of Klezbos”; and the Empress Mizrahi, a nonbinary/queer Persian Jewish Instagram content creator and activist in Los Angeles.
The pandemic has clearly not slowed Tanaka down by any means. She continues to be involved in another group she founded, Genocide Prevention BC, a cross-cultural collective of provincial representatives committed to the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity.
She also works on her initiative, the Cross Cultural Walking Tours, a grassroots endeavour celebrating the multicultural history of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. These tours build awareness of the contributions of early immigrant communities and take place in May, which, in Canada, is both Asian Heritage Month and Jewish Heritage Month.
Tanaka, who once served as Hillel director at the University of Victoria, was recently named one of seven LGBTQ+ Jews of Colour You Should Know by Be’chol Lashon, a group that gives voice to cultural diversity in the Jewish community. She was also one of four local leaders featured in the article “The Push for Progress,” which was in the Fall/Winter 2021 issue of BCAA magazine.
Tanaka sees herself as well positioned to bring communities together. “As a mixed-race person, I have felt what it’s like to not be fully accepted by my own community. The art of bridging communities and bringing people together is my humble craft,” she said.
On Dec. 19, 6 p.m., Tanaka will take part in a discussion with Sara Yacobi-Harris from the Toronto-based group No Silence On Race, hosted by Victoria’s Temple Emanu-El, called Let’s Talk About Diversity, Equity and Belonging in the Victoria Jewish Community. For more information, visit congregationemanuelnews.wordpress.com/2021/11.
As for Kolot Mayim’s Building Bridges series, Rivka Campbell, co-founder of the organization Jews of Colour Canada, is the next speaker. On Jan. 9, Campbell will talk on the topic Harmony in a Divided Identity: A Minority within a Minority. To register, visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com.
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Actor Catherine O’Hara in a still from the four-minute video All of Us Shine by Jewish community member Hart Snider. (See jewishindependent.ca/revisiting-shop-class-misery.) For the 12th year, the NFB brought together acclaimed filmmakers to create short cinematic tributes to Canadian performing arts legends, as the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards honoured laureates with two televised specials last month, one on CBC and one on Radio-Canada. All the short films are now available to watch (for free) at nfb.ca.
Also released early last month, marking Transgender Awareness Week, was the feature-length documentary Beauty by Christina Willings (jewishindependent.ca/liked-beauty-not-wall). It and more than 40 other related short and feature-length documentary and animated films can be accessed at nfb.ca/channels/lgbtq2.
Kolot Mayim Reform Temple in Victoria welcomes back Rabbi Gila Caine, spiritual leader of Temple Beth Ora in Edmonton, to speak on the topic Toratah/Her Torah: Women Rabbis Revealing the Goddess in Torah.
The Nov. 7, 11 a.m., lecture on Zoom kicks off a six-part series of talks called Building Bridges: Celebrating Diversity in Jewish Life. The community is invited to listen and learn from Indigenous, Black, Asian, feminist and differently-gendered and differently-abled advocates who are working to make our world a better place.
As a people who have experienced the devastating impact of antisemitism and hatred, Judaism commits us to the responsibility of tikkun olam (repairing our world). In that spirit, Kolot Mayim’s series of speakers will lead attendees on a journey to deepen their understanding of these contemporary issues and how they can support those who do not feel included.
Kolot Mayim’s Rabbi Lynn Greenough describes the series as “an opportunity to build bridges – bridges that enable us to link to what is and what can be, to step beyond our own particular experiences.” The Hebrew word for bridge is gesher, she explained, pointing to the song, “Kol Ha’Olam Kulo,” “the whole world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid.”
In the series opener, Caine will explore how, throughout the millennia, rabbinic tradition, and especially written tradition, was composed from within a man-focused and -experienced perspective. Now, after around half a century of ordaining women, there is a growing corpus of documented writing flowing from within woman’s experiences and interpretations of Torah and life. In her talk, Caine will read a few Torah commentaries written by (women) rabbis from North America and Israel, as examples of weaving together rabbinic and women’s experience into something new.
Born and raised in Jerusalem, Caine graduated Hebrew University with a master’s in contemporary Judaism and received her rabbinic ordination at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Israeli program in 2011. Her rabbinic thesis explored liturgical, spiritual and ceremonial aspects of birth in Jewish tradition and contemporary practice.
Stemming from that, as well as her years as a volunteer at a rape crisis centre, Caine is one of the founders of the Israeli rabbinic women’s group B’not Dinah, creating a female and feminist rabbinic tradition of healing after sexual trauma. She now serves as rabbi at Temple Beth Ora and her Building Bridges talk is co-sponsored with her shul.
Other speakers in the 2021/22 series are:
Carmel Tanaka, founder and executive director of JQT Vancouver (Jewish Queer and Trans Vancouver) on A Day in the Life of a Queer, Neurodivergent, Jewpanese Millennial (Dec. 5);
Rivka Campbell, executive director of Jews of Colour Canada, on Harmony in a Divided Identity: A Minority Within a Minority (Jan. 9);
Joy Ladin, poet, author and first openly transgender professor at a Jewish institution, on Jonah, God and Other Strangers: Reading the Torah from a Trans Perspective (Feb. 6);
Reverend Hazan Daniel Benlolo, director of the Shira Choir, Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, Montreal, on The Power of Music: In Honour of Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (Feb. 13); and
Patricia June Vickers, Indigenous artist and independent consultant, and Rabbi Adam Cutler, senior rabbi of Adath Israel Congregation in Toronto, on An Indigenous and Jewish Dialogue on Truth and Reconciliation (March 20).
Kolot Mayim has been active for 20 years and this is the fourth year that the synagogue is offering this speaker series. Talks are free and held on the scheduled Sundays from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. PST. To register, visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com.