Russia

Supporting Jews worldwide

Michelle Pollock, chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Israel and global engagement committee. (photo from JFGV)

For Montreal native Michelle Pollock, chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Israel and global engagement committee (IGEC), love and loyalty to world Jewry were firmly established early in life – at home, school and in the community at large.

That deep affinity was further solidified after a two-month trip to Israel with her ninth-grade class. More recently, while serving as president of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver in 2016, Pollock took a trip with her husband Neil to visit the Krakow and Moscow JCCs.

“These visits were incredibly powerful,” Pollock told the Independent. “Witnessing the young adults of these communities, discovering and exploring their Jewish heritage was beautiful. Even more inspiring was the hard work and dedication of the Polish and Russian volunteers and staff in creating welcoming spaces to facilitate this Jewish self-discovery.”

In November 2017, Pollock traveled to northern Israel as a participant on a Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs mission. “Many of the participants on the trip were IGEC members or staff and their passion for our partnership region was infectious. I joined the IGEC soon thereafter,” she said.

A visit to Federation’s partnership region, Etzba HaGalil (the Galilee Panhandle), followed, in November 2019. That experience was multifaceted. The area is known for its physical beauty and the warmth of its residents, said Pollock, but the harsh reality of security issues and the regional challenges of jobs, infrastructure and opportunity also prevail, she noted.

“Seeing this firsthand infused me with gratitude to our Federation, which has worked so closely with the region since the mid-1990s to bring desperately needed aid and programming in a continuing effort to address the challenges faced by its residents,” Pollock said. “Jewish Federation has strategically invested funds to strengthen this region through education and social welfare programs, capital projects and regional development, and building enduring relationships between members of our community and residents of Etzba HaGalil.”

Similar to efforts locally, some of the funds to Israel have been allocated to new programs addressing youth mental health issues, violence and abuse at home, educational gaps and food security – all problems that have been compounded by the pandemic.

As for the challenges in another region in need, Far East Russia, where many Jews live in remote locations, Federation partners with the Joint Distribution Committee. The JDC is a global organization that addresses critical rescue and relief needs in more than 60 countries, including in the former Soviet Union (FSU).

“Working together with the JDC, life-saving aid is provided to over 80,000 elderly Jewish people in the former Soviet Union who struggle to survive on meagre pensions of $2 per day. They are the poorest Jews in the world, most without family or government support. Their distress and vulnerability are exacerbated by the region’s remoteness and freezing winters,” Pollock explained.

Many of these elderly Jews are well-educated and trained as doctors, lawyers, scientists and educators, she said. Having spent most of their working lives under communism, however, they were unable to accumulate savings. When the Soviet Union collapsed, along with the region’s pension and social assistance infrastructure, they were left poverty-stricken.

“Vancouver is geographically the nearest Jewish community to the Jewish communities in the easternmost part of Russia, adjacent to Siberia. As a strategic priority to strengthen Jewish life around the world, Jewish Federation (as the closest Federation) plays a very active role in supporting this region,” Pollock said. “We ensure long-term economic and social stability for Jews living overseas and in Israel by funding much-needed programs that provide a safety net for our most vulnerable people.”

These specialized programs, funded in part by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver through the annual campaign, impact the lives of at-risk youth, low-income seniors and those living in economically fragile areas.

This year, Federation is funding a program directed at youth in the FSU called Active Jewish Teen (AJT). Engagement in the Jewish community, it believes, is an essential first step in making communal responsibility an inseparable part of one’s Jewish identity. Though still building momentum, AJT already has more than 3,200 members in 63 locations across seven countries.

Besides investing strategically, Federation’s IGEC has made solid connections with the groups it is serving in the FSU, said Pollock. It is also attentive to urgent needs arising in other Jewish communities around the world, helping fund operations and campaigns in South America, Ethiopia, the United States and elsewhere, she said.

Closer to home, throughout the year, Jewish Federation’s Israel and global engagement department brings opportunities for the Vancouver community to experience Israeli culture. Next year’s Yom Hazikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) and Yom Ha’atzmaut will present opportunities for the community to come together in person.

“Building off the success of last year’s virtual Israeli Independence Day celebration, we will include more local talents and have community fun projects such as the community song and more surprises,” said Pollock, adding that there is a contingency plan in place should the COVID situation change.

Further, shinshinim, teenage emissaries from Israel, will be in town in the coming year. The shinshinim engage local young people in various activities and help foster meaningful ties between Disapora Jews and Israel.

Members of the Vancouver community have a chance to travel to Israel next summer, as well. Federation is facilitating a community mission from July 24 to Aug. 5, 2022.

“I know many of us are keen to travel and get back to Israel and this is going to be an amazing experience,” said Pollock. “At this point, we are looking for people to register their interest and there are a number of information sessions coming up.”

To learn more about the trip to Israel and to donate to the annual campaign, visit jewishvancouver.com.

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

Russian logic game popular

Irina Zilberstein (photo from Irina Zilberstein)

Many people love the TV show Jeopardy!, which can also be played as a board game and online. There is a variation of it in Russia, which developed independently from the American version. It, too, is hugely popular, not only on television, but there are Chto, Gde, Kogda (What, Where, When) clubs all over the country, and around the world – including here in Vancouver.

“Chto, Gde, Kogda is a game played by teams of five players and a captain,” explained Irina Zilberstein, president of the Vancouver club. “It was invented in the former USSR in the 1970s. Unlike other brain games, which often require lots of factual knowledge, this is a logic game, where a Grade 12 general knowledge of the world plus logic skills are sufficient to play.”

According to Zilberstein, during a game, several teams of six players compete with one another and with the audience. When a question is presented to a team, they have 60 seconds to discuss the possible answers among themselves before they voice the one response they all agreed upon.

“The televised show was very popular in Russia,” said Zilberstein. “In order to get on a team for the televised show, students started university clubs to practise for auditions.… When the USSR fell apart, many people missed the game. It continues on TV in Russia in its original format, but, here, people began creating their own Chto, Gde, Kogda clubs, where they played in tournaments against each other rather than against the audience.”

The Vancouver club was born 15 years ago. Populated by immigrants from the former Soviet Union and played exclusively in Russian, it grew slowly. “At first, we played in community centres, then at UBC, and then we moved to the Perez Centre, as they had a large and readily available space,” said Zilberstein. “For a long time, we had a maximum of five teams, each with six or more players. One of the many challenges, as the club grew, was that crew members brought in their friends, who all wanted to play together. The teams became too large.”

Eventually, the club split into two clubs. “Certain antisemitic attitudes emerged,” Zilberstein recalled. “Some players were mad that Jewish members didn’t want to play on Jewish holidays. The use of a Jewish centre as a meeting location also caused some hostility.”

Zilberstein became the president of the Russian Jewish club. “Our clubs are multi-age, anyone can join. We have teenagers, we have seniors. The game is played in Russian, but several enthusiasts are currently trying to convert it into English. This really helps to attract kids. The English translation and English version of the game are still in pilot stages, with notable leaders in Chicago, New York and San Francisco.”

She also mentioned that the most fascinating games occur when Russian-speaking teenagers, born in North America, participate.

“They consider English their first language and, because of that, they have a unique perspective, which contributes a lot to the teams’ logic and synergy,” she explained. “When they translate the questions in their minds into English, it gives an additional slant to the teams’ problem-solving discussion. The teens’ involvement means that, eventually, they’ll find a way to play in English.”

Zilberstein was proud to say that, right now, there is at least one Chto, Gde, Kogda club in all major Western cities where Russian speakers live, with a heavy concentration in North America, the United Kingdom, Israel and Germany and, of course, in Russia and the former Soviet republics, like Ukraine, Latvia, Uzbekistan and others.

“The biggest Canadian club is in Toronto,” said Zilberstein. “The next one is in Montreal, and the third one is in Vancouver. Most major U.S. cities have a club. The states with larger populations, like California, have 10 to 15 clubs.”

All the teams of all the clubs register with a centralized worldwide governing body, which ranks them internationally. Currently, there are about 51,000 registered teams in the ranking system; this count does not include the teams that play just for fun.

To get a ranking, teams compete. “We have many tournaments of varying sizes,” said Zilberstein. “There are country championships. If your team wins, you get to go to the world championship. There are also big tournaments that are played synchronously internationally, so that teams can compare with each other and get stronger.”

The pandemic has affected the tournament schedules and gatherings, as it has affected most every other aspect of life. “Pre-COVID, we would meet once a week on Sundays and play a tournament,” she said. “Those tournaments were of the online variety. You could register online and then get two or three days to complete the tournament. You had to sign an NDA not to discuss questions online for those days, to accommodate various people’s schedules and time.”

During COVID, they moved the games exclusively online, for safety. “It has actually been a lot of fun,” said Zilberstein. “People from all over the world have joined us for our games via Zoom. After COVID, we will resume playing in person, as that is essential to the cohesive team problem-solving.”

Zilberstein described some of the procedures and how the games work. “Certified question-makers help write the tournaments. There are amazing tournament-makers out there,” she said. “Each tournament usually has 36 to 45 questions, divided into three tours.”

People pay a small fee to participate in the clubs and in tournaments, and part of that money goes towards paying the people who put in the time and effort to create and fact-check the tournament questions.

Zilberstein has enjoyed playing Chto, Gde, Kogda since she was a university student in Russia. In Vancouver, where she has lived since 1999, she works in IT and, in her free time, plays Chto, Gde, Kogda. She also volunteers with JAM, an organization that tries to unite Jewish immigrants for whom English is a second language.

“What is great about this game is that it’s logic-based. No fact memorization is required,” she said. “It’s like gymnastics for your brain, and anyone can play. Often, you only need to know where to start the logical deduction of the question.”

Zilberstein offered an example of a question and its answer. “The question: in many folk stories, tears are compared to gems or semi-precious stones. Russians compare them to pearls; Aztecs to turquoise. What do Lithuanians compare them to? The answer is derived from a following logical progression. Lithuania is on the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is famous for its amber, so the Lithuanian folk tales compare people’s tears to amber.”

She is sure that, as a team game, Chto, Gde, Kogda helps people develop essential life skills. “This involves synergy between team members. I’ve seen teams with superstar individual players, but they don’t have synergy, don’t know how to listen to each other, and end up losing. A big part of creating the synergy is up to the captain. The captain participates in answering the questions, but his or her main job is to make sure the team players listen and build on each other’s ideas rather than contradict each other. A team has to work together to win, and the captain is the key to that victory.”

Zilberstein has been the captain of her team for the past five years.

Anyone who wants to learn more or to participate in the game can contact Zilberstein via email at [email protected] or visit bc-vancouver.chgk.info. The club also has a Facebook and Instagram presence.

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

Best years ahead: Shanken

Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken holding a T-shirt featuring Dr. Patricia Daly, vice-president of public health and chief medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health. The Facebook post thanks Daly for always being there, throughout COVID-19, “behind the scenes providing valuable support.” (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)

The largest capital project in the history of British Columbia’s Jewish community – the redevelopment of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver site – is going ahead as planned, despite the pandemic. This and many other projects are continuing as planned, says Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken, in part because the agency has been preparing for a crisis for more than a decade.

As the Jewish Federation is set to launch the 2020-21 annual campaign, the Independent spoke with Shanken about the achievements and challenges of a year that started out relatively normally and veered suddenly into the utterly extraordinary.

While the COVID-19 crisis wreaked havoc on communities worldwide, and upended 2020 in unpredictable ways, Shanken said that Federation has been prepared for a crisis and that means the community remains in a position of economic and social health. After the 2008 economic recession, the organization launched a multi-year planning and allocations process intended to smooth economic ripples and equip partner agencies with reliable income expectations.

Federation raised $10.3 million this year – $8.9 million through the 2019 annual campaign and $1.4 million in special targeted funds from donors toward specific high-priority community needs such as supplemental education, to expand Jewish Family Services’ food hubs and to increase outreach to suburban and remote Jewish communities. Dr. Jonathon Leipsic was campaign chair. Alex Cristall, Federation board chair, and Shanken, provided a comprehensive overview of the year’s achievements in the 2019-20 annual report, available online at jewishvancouver.com.

When the pandemic struck, Federation launched an emergency campaign to help agencies meet the challenge of providing services to their constituencies while confronting the health crisis and its associated economic implications. The amount raised so far is not being announced, but $505,000 in funding has been released, for services like food and housing supports through JFS; to the JCCGV to help with service delivery; to supplemental and day schools to assist with tuition subsidies and transitions to online learning; for emotional support for seniors through the Jewish Seniors Alliance; and more.

A crisis like COVID, said Shanken, can have unintended consequences in helping communities overcome divisions and work together to reduce duplications of effort.

“Crisis often opens the door for opportunities for collaboration that never would have existed before for myriad political reasons,” he said. “People have far greater clarity around what the big picture looks like when they are in crisis. They are willing to forgo those smaller, often political complications that don’t allow for the advancement of big-ticket projects.”

Programs and projects that were underway before COVID include a Jewish Day School Council, chaired by Hodie Kahn, which began a year ago to undertake a benchmark study on the costs of education for each of the five schools in Metro Vancouver’s Jewish community. The findings of the report are expected to point the direction toward new funding models for Jewish education.

Community security also remains top of mind. This year saw the largest number of community organizations receive federal funding for security upgrades to facilities – Federation’s community security advisory committee, chaired by Bernard Pinsky, helped secure more than $225,000 from the federal Security Infrastructure Program. Security training sessions were provided to 160 community members.

A significant portion of campaign funds support programs abroad, including in Israel, especially in Vancouver’s partnership region, the Upper Galilee Panhandle. A connection with Jews in far-eastern Russia is also enjoying support from Vancouver’s campaign.

The challenges presented by the pandemic brought out the best in the community, Shanken said.

“It’s unprecedented in its negativity and it’s unprecedented in its positivity,” he said. “It’s unprecedented in the way that we are seeing need but it’s also unprecedented in the way that we are seeing cooperation to address that need. It’s really been a beautiful thing to see the community come together, agencies across the spectrum working together to ensure that we really have a great community as we come out of this.”

He recalls a phone call he received at the height of the lockdown.

“Somebody called me up one time when we were knee-deep in this thing and said to me, you know, Ezra, if you want to go through a crisis, go through it with the Jewish community, because we do it better than anybody,” he said. “I actually think that there is some truth to that. We really are very, very good at coming together at these critical moments. You see that materializing in the way that our agencies are working together, the way our donors are working together, the way our volunteers are coming now to serve, people are delivering food packages, over 1,300 people are being fed a week, that’s being done on the backs of volunteers and amazing professionals, multiple agencies working in conjunction with each other to make that happen. And that’s only possible because people’s best selves are emerging during this moment.… What strikes me is we really, really do, as a Jewish community, show our best selves in times of crisis.”

Shanken credits Eldad Goldfarb, executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, for forging ahead with plans for the redevelopment of the site.

“I think people are still very passionate about seeing this project move forward,” said Shanken. “We are committed to continue to walk down the road. I can’t tell you when we will get a shovel in the ground, but I will tell you we have not put this on hold.”

Though this has been a most unusual year, so far, Shanken is bullish on the Metro Vancouver Jewish community.

“I believe it in my soul that the best years for our community have yet to happen,” he said. “We have had an amazing run over the past decade or more. Our community is incredibly strong, well positioned to emerge from COVID better than it’s ever been. But, for us to emerge in that way, it requires a commitment from our community to seize on the moment and bring us to that place that I know we can get to. The call that I would have for people is to join up, because we have an unprecedented opportunity to do truly great things for this community and to make us even stronger than we’ve ever been.”

Campaign wraps up

“We’re making our final push toward another record-breaking campaign,” Jonathon Leipsic, chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, said when the Independent caught up with him last month, as the 2019 fundraising drive was entering the home stretch.

The campaign’s goals for the year are “to continue to grow to meet the ongoing needs around security, education, affordability and beyond.” The distinguishing message of the 2019 campaign, when it kicked off on Sept. 1, was to amplify the impact of donors’ giving and to “create a ripple effect.”

That amplification can be seen on several fronts, such as affordable housing, the most pressing concern of Lower Mainland residents. In 2007, long before real estate prices reached the levels of the late 2010s, Jewish Federation helped establish the Tikva Housing Society. Tikva serves all those who have been impacted by the high costs of rent – families, young individuals and seniors. The society now manages 98 affordable housing units, 37 of which came about in late September through a joint project with the YWCA – awarded by the City of Vancouver – for rentals at the new Arbutus Centre at 4188 Yew St.

Jewish Federation’s work encompasses all phases of a person’s life by providing community planning expertise, developing partnerships and raising funding for critical programs and services throughout the region. These are delivered through its many partner agencies, including programs that support seniors, Jewish education, arts and culture, and services for youth and young adults.

By 2031, it is predicted that the number of Jewish seniors in Greater Vancouver will double to 6,200. With this comes the challenge of helping them keep living independently and stay engaged within the Jewish community. As part of its strategic planning process, Jewish Federation co-hosted the second annual Changing Landscapes Forum on Nov. 26, which focused on three areas to address the high-priority needs of elderly community members: aging in place, caregiver support and social connection.

As for Jewish education and educational programs, Jewish Federation currently partners with Jewish day schools, summer camps and supplementary school programs across the region. As well, its vision reaches beyond the metropolitan area, to Israel. More than a decade ago, it identified at-risk youth in its partnership region of the Upper Galilee as a group in urgent need. It then invested in tech education, which has allowed other organizations to build on its success. The Israeli government recently selected an international consortium of venture capital groups to develop a food-tech centre in Kiryat Shmona, the Upper Galilee’s largest city. The centre will benefit residents of the region and position the area as a global hub of innovation.

Jewish Federation’s work also extends to eastern Russia, home to some of the most impoverished Jews in the world. Through its partnership with the Joint Distribution Committee, an international rescue and relief organization, Federation provides needed services to 27,000 Jewish children and their families and more than 165,000 elderly Jews. As the nearest federated community to these Jews, Federation’s efforts help bring humanitarian aid in the form of food packages, medicine, heating fuel and home-care visits, among other things.

For his part, Leipsic said, “I am always humbled by the generosity of our Jewish community and the incredible volunteerism exhibited by the army of volunteers and canvassers that give their time in support of Am Yisrael.

“It is a privilege and honour to serve,” he added, in explaining why he took on the role as campaign chair, on top of having a full schedule as a physician, radiologist and professor of radiology. “I try to live my life in accordance with the talmudic saying klal Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh – all of Israel is a guarantor for each other.”

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

This year at Purim

Purim is a time when we play with identities, dress in disguises and revel in deceptions. There is an aspect of great fun to this holiday, and there are lessons that are deeply serious.

One of the timeless aspects of the Jewish calendar is that, while the dates and texts may remain the same – Purim again will start the night of 13 Adar and the Megillah will not have changed – we, the readers, are different than we were last year and the circumstances of the world we live in have changed since our last reading.

As with many Jewish holidays, Purim includes a lesson about the importance of continuity and survival against existential enemies. This is, sadly, an enduring reality.

Just this week, at the annual conference on international security policy, in Munich, Germany, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated the danger posed by Iran’s nuclear program and warned that regime not to underestimate Israel’s resolve in confronting it.

There are other threats, as well, in the form of growing antisemitism among far-right parties in Europe and in the British Labour Party, online and in the number of antisemitic incidents reported in North America and elsewhere.

We are still trying to uncover whether antisemitism played a role in the mass murder of 17 students and teachers at a Parkland, Fla., school last week. The tragedy led a white supremacist group to claim the perpetrator was one of theirs, but, despite being widely reported, this claim has been debunked.

Five of the 17 victims were Jewish – the high school is in an area with a significant Jewish population – and the murderer’s online rantings were teeming with hatred of African-Americans and Jews. In one online chat, he claimed that his birth mother was Jewish and that he was glad he never met her. Per usual, we are engaged in debating what motivated the perpetrator – easy access to guns, mental illness, pure evil or various combinations of these. As usual, we will engage in a nearly identical cycle of shock, grief, argument and ultimate apathy the next time this occurs, and the next time.

Threats of another kind are also top news right now, with charges recently laid against a number of Russian individuals and groups who are alleged to have interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The deception appears to have involved creating and stealing social media identities, as well as starting fake political pages intended to divide Americans. A rally against Islam, in Houston, Tex., in May 2016, was met with a counter-rally against Islamophobia. Both rallies, it now appears, were incited by Russian troublemakers.

More seriously still, the allegation is that deceptive and outright false statements were made in online posts and advertisements, which had the apparent impact of suppressing support for Hillary Clinton in key swing states, thus electing Donald Trump president. As each new allegation and example of proof has arisen, Trump has misrepresented reality, deflecting charges that his campaign (including members of his family) was engaged in collusion with the Russians, and claiming vindication at every turn.

A better president would pledge to get to the bottom of whatever is (or isn’t) real in the matter. Instead, this president plays partisan games and, unlike King Ahasuerus, does not take wise counsel willingly.

So, identity, disguises and deception are not only central to our Purimspiels, but woven through our news cycles and sensibilities every day, demonstrating again the eternal relevance of our narratives. Each year, on this holiday as on other days, we recognize and gird ourselves against the threats to our identity and existence. But we also celebrate our survival and rejoice in our not insignificant good fortune.

Celebrating many milestones

Alexandra Gerson, centre, says a few words at a Jewish talent show put on by Radio VERA last year. (photo from Radio VERA)

“I have a dream: I want to bring together Russian-speaking and English-speaking Jews in Canada, to unite them into one seamless whole. All I do, my Radio VERA included, is serving that goal,” said Alexandra Gerson, a co-owner of VERA.

This year, VERA celebrates its 10th anniversary. Timed to coincide with that milestone, the radio station is helping bring the concert Le Chaim to Richmond’s Gateway Theatre on Feb. 3.

“VERA is an acronym of the words Vancouver Jewish Russian Association, in Russian,” Gerson explained. She said VERA’s roots lie in her previous radio program, Russian Voice, a pre-taped one-hour weekly show in Russian, which launched in 2001 with the financial support of David Stevens. The program had mostly Jewish content, but it didn’t last long. From its inception, Gerson said she received multiple antisemitic threats and her car was vandalized. Home-grown Russian extremists were not happy with a Jewish program called Russian Voice, she said, and they kept harassing her. Concerned for her young daughter’s safety, with the police urging caution, Gerson eventually closed the program, but she didn’t give up her love for radio. “You can listen to the radio anywhere, in your car, in your home or office, working or resting,” she mused.

Her radio work brought her into the midst of the Zionist movement in Canada. “I’ve lived in Canada for 24 years,” she said. “My father was a Zionist, and Jewish ideas are dear to me. I’ve always liked being a Jew. I work for the Jews of Canada. I’m an official representative of the World Zionist Organization in Canada, and my Radio VERA is an integral part of my work. It promotes Jewish ideas and is a pro-Israel station. I come to the studio every morning, turn on the microphone, and say, ‘Hello, Jews!’ And feel proud.”

photo - Alexandra Gerson, co-owner of Radio VERA — Alexandra Gerson, co-owner of Radio VERA. *(photo from Radio VERA)*

Gerson’s pride in her Jewishness pushed her towards attending seminars and workshops on Jewish leadership. During one of them, in 2003, she met Dmitry Shiglik, an American businessman and a dynamic figure in the Russian-Jewish world. He became a steady backer of her then-new endeavor, Radio VERA, which broadcasted its first show in 2008.

“VERA broadcasts live five days a week, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.,” Gerson said. “It’s the most expensive time, when everyone is in their cars, heading for work. We exist because of our generous donors: Yosef Wosk, Alex Kivritsky of the HiFi Centre and, of course, Dmitry Shiglik, my co-owner.”

She stressed that VERA is not, and hasn’t been for a long time, a Russian radio broadcast. “It stopped being ethnic years ago. We do interviews about what is of interest to everyone. For example, North Korea is on people’s mind these days, so we did an interview with the editor of the Russian newspaper in Seoul.”

Every morning, listeners of VERA can expect relevant and time-sensitive interviews in two languages: Russian and English. “We do interviews in whatever language our guest prefers,” said Gerson. “Our hosts switch languages fluidly, as the situation demands. We’re the only radio station in Canada, maybe in the world, with such an approach. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Russian- and English-speaking people often have different mentalities, born in different cultures, so we have to use different techniques of conducting interviews.”

VERA, which is part of Fairchild Radio 96.1 FM, has interviewed most Canadian politicians, top people from the Russian and Israeli governments, international performing artists and athletes, writers and musicians. They usually conduct two interviews each show.

“At first, our listeners were almost exclusively local Russian pensioners, listening for the language,” said Gerson. “As we continued our bilingual policy, a middle-aged group joined in for content in both languages. Then we added overseas and non-Russian speakers, who regularly tune in to our programs. In a way, they know us better in the U.S.A. than in Canada. We have listeners in Israel, Russia and Europe. There are two ways to access our programs: live on the radio during the broadcast or online through our website, where we keep the archives of all the programs we’ve done in 10 years. Our site has up to 15,000 visitors a day.”

Despite the large amount of traffic and the work needed to produce a two-hour program five days a week, VERA has only three employees. “Pavel Manugevich and Denis Manzar are both my co-hosts, and Alex Kivritsky is our CEO,” Gerson said. Manugevich “has been with VERA since the beginning; he is a professional journalist. Denis Manzar has been co-hosting VERA programs for two years; outside the studio, he is a lawyer and a documentary filmmaker.”

Through her work on VERA, Gerson personifies a cosmopolitan blend of Jewish, Russian and Canadian. In 2014, she was named Russian-American Person of the Year in the media category. According to its website, the honour is presented by Universal Awards Management and the World Forum of Russian-Speaking Jewry, with support from the American Council for World Jewry. Gerson – the only Canadian to have received the honour – shared her award with American-Russian journalist Victor Topaller, who is also Jewish.

But Gerson isn’t resting on her accomplishments. She is always looking for ways to bring the Jews of Canada together, no matter their points of origin. As an example, three years ago, VERA started a new multi-faceted platform that goes beyond the radio.

“We have our annual sports day,” Gerson explained. “We organize the annual festival of Jewish children’s art and various Jewish holidays. Every year, we take 40 of our listeners on a trip to Israel, and we frequently promote concerts of Jewish performers.” It is in the latter regard that VERA is sponsoring the upcoming gala concert Le Chaim, which is the brainchild of Mikhail Gluz, artistic director of the Solomon Mikhoels Cultural Centre in Moscow.

“I’ve known Mikhail Gluz for several years,” said Gerson. “We first met in Moscow and, afterwards, regularly exchanged emails and swapped ideas. He told me about his new project, Le Chaim, a traveling show of Russian-Jewish performers from Russia, Israel and North America. He wanted to tour Le Chaim across Canada and the U.S., performing in any major city that would offer a venue, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the state of Israel. It is the first such project in Canada organized by Russian Jews in celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut.”

In addition to celebrating Israel’s Independence Day, the concert, which will also feature a documentary and historical footage, commemorates the 20th anniversary of the International Solomon Mikhoels Festival of Arts and is dedicated to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“When I heard about Le Chaim, I wanted to bring it to Vancouver, to coincide with the 10th birthday of Radio VERA,” said Gerson. “Mikhail was not eager at first. He said it wasn’t a commercially viable suggestion, the Vancouver Jewish community being much smaller than the other cities on their itinerary. But Yosef Wosk supported the idea and donated the money to make it possible.”

One of the performers in Le Chaim, Jewish jazz singer Alla Reed, has visited Vancouver before. “I loved it,” she said on the telephone from Russia. “Other cities have clean air or beautiful nature or thriving culture or receptive audience, but Vancouver has it all together. And it also has wonderful people, like Sasha [Gerson] and her Radio VERA. I look forward to meeting my friends and singing in Vancouver again.”

For more information on VERA, visit veracanada.fm. Tickets for Le Chaim on Feb. 3, 7 p.m., can be purchased via VERA or from Gateway Theatre at 604-270-1812 or gatewaytheatre.com.

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

Long-overdue reunion

Left to right, Lilia Apelbaum, Olga Livshin and Tanya Kogan, during their reunion in Vancouver. (photo by Tanya Kogan)

For two weeks this August, my apartment was unusually crowded. Friends from Haifa and Los Angeles were staying with me. We talked almost nonstop the entire time they were here. While they have already left for their respective homes, the memory of their presence still lingers in my house, in the photographs and in my fond recollections.

In 1973, the three of us, three Jewish girls, high school graduates from different Moscow schools, lived in the Soviet Union. We met for the first time when we enrolled in the Moscow Institute of Economics and Statistics. For five student years, we were inseparable. We studied in the same groups and partied with the same friends but, after graduation in 1978, we parted ways. This year, 39 years later, the three of us met for the first time since then, at my place in Vancouver.

Many things have changed in our lives, of course, but, despite the grown-up children, deteriorating health and multiple wrinkles, all three of us have stayed basically the same: the same personalities, the same interpersonal dynamics, the same feeling of closeness as friends. And our relationship with our Jewishness also has stayed basically the same.

At the time of our youth, all observance of Jewish traditions in the Soviet Union was suppressed. Not banned, per se, but not encouraged. There was one synagogue in Moscow and, I have to admit, I never visited it. My parents tried to blend in with mainstream society, so they never visited it either. We didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays, and I didn’t even know about most of them. Only my grandfather went to synagogue on most Saturdays and some Jewish holidays. He tried to instil some sense of Jewish identity in our household (as he lived with us) but, unsupported by my parents, he was unsuccessful. I was never interested in anything Jewish when I was young.

The situation was a bit different with my two friends. Tanya Kogan (née Schneiderman) lived in a similar household to mine. Her parents’ one ardent desire was to blend in. Being “the same,” not sticking out, was safer in Communist Russia but, after her high school graduation, Tanya broke away from the “blend-in” mold.

“I wanted to know who I was,” she told me. She immersed herself not only in her academic studies at the institute but also in Jewish customs and traditions, to the extent they existed in Moscow of that time.

“I tried to learn Yiddish from my grandmother, even though she was ashamed to speak it. I went to synagogue for some Jewish holidays and, every year, for Simchat Torah. It’s such a fun holiday. Lots of students from our institute were there. Not many colleges and universities in Russia accepted Jewish students, but ours did, and there were many of us. We danced in the streets together,” she remembered. “I bought matzos every year and fasted on Yom Kippur.”

photo - Left to right, Tanya Kogan, Olga Livshin and Lilia Apelbaum – Class of 1978 — Left to right, Tanya Kogan, Olga Livshin and Lilia Apelbaum – Class of 1978. (photo from Olga Livshin)

My other visiting friend, Lilia Apelbaum, was also part of the group of students that danced in the streets outside the Moscow synagogue on Simchat Torah. Her father came from a family where tradition was paramount.

“We bought matzos every year when I was a schoolgirl,” Lilia said. “We would travel on the Moscow Metro with the big packs of matzos wrapped in brown paper, to a seder in some relative’s home, and I would think: ‘I’m special. I’m better than all the people around me. I know something they don’t.’ I felt very proud.”

In 1996, Lilia, her parents and her young son immigrated to Israel. She still lives there, in Haifa.

“My father went to synagogue often when we lived in Moscow, but he stopped going after we immigrated,” said Lilia. “In Moscow, he needed it to prop his Jewish identity but, after we settled in Israel, he said he didn’t need it anymore. He felt Jewish and happy without the support of religion.”

Lilia herself doesn’t follow any Jewish tradition, doesn’t keep kosher and doesn’t attend synagogue, but she is still, as in her childhood, intensely proud to be a Jew and an Israeli. “I love Israel,” she said. “It’s a wonderful country, very humane.”

She told me a story about her neighbour and friend. “She is very sick. Once, we walked outside together, and she fell. Her legs wouldn’t support her and I couldn’t help her – she is a big woman, much bigger than myself. I panicked; didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, a couple cars passing along the street stopped. Totally unknown men climbed out of those cars, lifted her, helped her to a bench, and then drove away. Where else would a car stop just to help a strange woman on the sidewalk? Only in Israel.”

She talked about the urban improvements being undertaken in Haifa, about Israeli healthcare and technology, about her fellow Israelis, and her eyes shined with love for her country.

Tanya also left Russia. In 1996, she and her family immigrated to America and settled in Los Angeles. “I almost never go to a synagogue here,” she said. “But I do keep kosher. Mostly. In my own way. During Passover, we don’t eat bread. I make so many interesting dishes with matzos, my family always anticipates the holiday. They don’t want bread – they remember that torte and this pie for years after and always ask if I would make them again. It’s a game we play. It’s easy and fun to be a Jew in America.”

Like my friends, I left Russia, too, at about the same time. In 1994, I came to Vancouver. Unlike my friends, though, I didn’t get in touch with my Jewish roots right away. It took me some time to become a part of the Vancouver Jewish community. At first, I was busy with my computer programmer job, raising children as a single mother, and generally integrating into the Canadian society. But life has a wicked sense of humour. It pushed me toward my Jewishness in a roundabout way.

In 2002, I got very sick. My illness altered my worldview and induced me to change my priorities. In 2003, I started writing fiction. A few years later, I quit my computer job to dedicate myself fully to my writing career. At that time, I tried to find a writing gig. I took a course on a mentored job search, and one of the assignments was to find a mentor.

I scoured the internet for some Vancouver writing professional to approach, to ask to be my mentor, and came up with the name Katharine Hamer. At that time, she was the editor of the Jewish Independent, a newspaper I had never heard about before. I sent her an email and, to my amazement, she replied. She said she didn’t have time to mentor me, but she offered to add my name to the list of her newspaper contributors. I grabbed the opportunity.

My first article for the Jewish Independent was published 10 years ago, in July 2007. I write about Jewish artists and writers, teachers and musicians. I love my subjects, every one of them, but I have never written about myself before. This is the first time and my 301st article for the paper.

Three friends from Moscow, three Jewish women from around the world, spent a wonderful week together during their reunion in Vancouver. We are planning to meet again soon. We are not going to wait another 39 years.

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

Overview of the Pale

Jewish Genealogical Society of British Columbia member Danny Gelmon, left, speaks with Hal Bookbinder. (photo Stephen Falk)

Why Did Our Ancestors Leave a Nice Place Like the Pale? That was the title of Hal Bookbinder’s March 14 talk at Temple Sholom.

Bookbinder was hosted in Vancouver by the Jewish Genealogical Society of British Columbia (JGenBC). He is involved with JewishGen, JewishGen Ukraine and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles. He has published numerous articles on research techniques, Jewish history, and border changes; the latter a matter of particular import to Ashkenazi Jews researching their families’ histories in Eastern Europe. A former president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, Bookbinder was honoured in 2010 with the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

On March 14, Bookbinder gave a detailed and insightful presentation, all without using notes. “Pale comes from the Latin palus for a stake, the stakes which were used to mark off an area.” he explained. “It was also used for the English Pale, a territory within Ireland controlled by the English. The Pale of Jewish Settlement in western Russia was a territory within the borders of Czarist Russia where Jews were allowed to live.”

Bookbinder said, “Limits on the area in which Jews could live came into being when Russia attempted to integrate Jews into the expanding country, from which Jews had been excluded since the end of the 15th century.” From 1791 until 1915, he said, the majority of Jews living in Eastern Europe were confined by the czars of Russia within the “Pale of Settlement.”

Bookbinder broke up the history of the Pale into six periods, each approximately 25 years long: creation, confinement, oppression, enlightenment, pogroms and chaos. The first era, that of creation, arose from Russia’s westward march to seize new territories in Belarus, Poland and Ukraine, he explained. Russia didn’t want Jews within its borders, but, as it expanded its empire westward, it came to be responsible for millions of them, creating a “Jewish question” for itself.

Catherine the Great (who reigned 1762-1796) responded by ruling that Jews should stay in the Pale. The confinement era intensified efforts to keep the Jews in the Pale, so as not to “infect our good Eastern Orthodox brethren,” explained Bookbinder. During this era, Catherine the Great’s son, Paul I, initiated a new program aimed at assimilating Jews into Christian culture by making their lives so miserable they would rather convert than remain as they were.

This led to the period of the cantonists, during which Jewish boys were drafted into the Russian army. Some did convert, though most did not. Large numbers died from mistreatment, neglect and malnourishment. The military schools provided army training as well as a rudimentary education. Discipline was maintained by the threat of starvation and corporal punishment. At the age of 18, pupils were drafted to regular army units, where they served for 25 years. Enlistment for the cantonist institutions, which originated in the 17th century, was most rigorously enforced during the reigns of Paul I’s son Alexander I (reigned 1801–1825) and Nicholas I (reigned 1825–1855), said Bookbinder. It is estimated that around 40,000 Jewish children were stolen from their families during this period. The practice was abolished in 1856 under Alexander II (reigned 1855-1881).

Czar Alexander II took a more “enlightened” approach, continuing to seek the conversion and assimilation of Jews through gentler methods. Czar Alexander III, a rabid antisemite like his grandfather, initiated the era of pogroms after he came to power in 1881.

Starting in 1905, with the ascension of Nicholas II, the chaos period began. “Russia was in ferment,” said Bookbinder, “and it was the era of assassination attempts, the Bolsheviks, fighting between the Red Army and the White Army, the Cossacks – creating a situation that was so unpleasant that it prompted many of our ancestors to leave.”

But, Bookbinder asked, “Why did they leave then? They had lived through so many horrors, and this was far from the worst they had seen. I think it is because, during the more enlightened era of Czar Alexander II, our ancestors got a taste of a more dignified, more secure existence and took courage. When things descended again into chaos, they had had enough, and many escaped Russia.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

An opportunity lost

Mykhailo Chomiak edited a Ukrainian-language Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland. It happens that Chomiak was the maternal grandfather of Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister.

This fact is a matter of historical record, but apparently Russian operatives were shopping the story around as if it were fresh – and as if they believe Canadians will hold Freeland, and perhaps by extension the Liberal government, responsible for Chomiak’s past.

A writer on the Canadian online media outlet rabble.ca went so far as to accuse Freeland of a cover-up, which is nonsense, since she was acknowledged for her help editing an article on the subject that was written 20 years ago by her uncle, John-Paul Himka, an historian.

Freeland called it “public knowledge that there have been efforts, as U.S. intelligence forces have said, by Russia to destabilize the U.S. political system.… I think that Canadians, and indeed other Western countries, should be prepared for similar efforts to be directed at us.” She is absolutely correct. Russia almost certainly was involved in the U.S. presidential election and may indeed be responsible for the fact that Donald Trump is now in the White House.

Nevertheless, it seemed like a missed opportunity for Freeland not to use the chance to acknowledge some of the complexities and complicities around her grandfather’s history.

Let’s step back for a moment and realize that Canadians are relatively fortunate that, whatever enormous sacrifices Canadian families made during the Second World War, the war itself never reached our shores. For families in Europe at the time, many of whose descendants are, through immigration, now Canadians, the war impacted every aspect of civilian life. Possibly millions of people are responsible for acts of heroism or betrayal that are lost to history. Had it not been for the writings of a member of her own family, Freeland’s grandfather’s story might have been another largely forgotten piece of that war’s far-encompassing awfulness.

Who can estimate how many Canadians have ancestors who engaged in complicity (or worse) with Hitler’s regime, or with Stalin’s, or with any number of less-renowned tyrants and bad ideologies worldwide? We do not rest from seeking redress for the worst crimes during history’s worst times, but behaviours that do not constitute war crimes have rarely received the full attention of the media and public that Chomiak’s case has garnered in the past days. And we certainly do not – and should not – place any blame at the feet of grandchildren for events that took place before they were born. Freeland has done absolutely nothing wrong.

Still … she could have done something better. She could have (and perhaps by the time you read this, she will have) turned this into a teaching moment for Canadians.

The parents or grandparents of some Canadians may have chosen to, or been forced to, engage in actions we see as abhorrent. We cannot change the past. But we can potentially make a better future by acknowledging it, openly identifying wrongs and committing ourselves to better actions than that exhibited by some of our forebears. As examples, present-day Canadians have begun a process of reconciliation around the genocide perpetrated against indigenous Canadians, and Canadian governments have apologized for actions against Japanese-Canadians and the passengers of the Komagata Maru and the MS St. Louis.

In Freeland’s case, she is right to warn Canadians that Russia is attempting to undermine the credibility of our country’s foreign minister. But she should go further and insist that no Canadian – whether the country’s top diplomat or a new Canadian who was sworn in as a citizen yesterday – is guilty of acts undertaken by their grandparents. A few words about the complexity of historical memory could also be helpful. And it would be valuable for the federal government to make a firm public declaration that blackmailing or smearing a Canadian based on the acts of an ancestor will fail in its mission.

Understanding Onegin

Lauren Jackson as Olga Larin and Josh Epstein as Vladimir Lensky in Arts Club’s Onegin. (photo by David Cooper)

Generally, I don’t think background research is something that should be required in order to fully enjoy a performance; but every now and then a play really needs context, and the viewer becomes lost without it.

So, I would suggest – even to those with extensive Russian literature under your belts – if you have not read Alexander Pushkin’s dramatic poem, “Eugene Onegin,” start there before you see the musical Onegin. The poem contains descriptions of the characters, homes and countryside that add depth of interest that could simply not be communicated on stage.

That’s not to say that Onegin (pronounced “Onyegin”), the musical interpretation of the poem, can’t stand on its own. The singular creation by Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone, combining the poetry of Pushkin and the opera of Tchaikovsky, is highly entertaining from start to finish.

The supremely talented group of seven performers, including the Jewish community’s own Josh Epstein, executes so many complex harmonies and moving solos, I certainly wasn’t walking out at intermission.

Set in 1819 St. Petersburg, the poem centres on four main characters: a self-proclaimed rakish womanizer, Eugene Onegin; Vladimir Lensky, a romantic poet; Vladimir’s love interest, Olga; and Tatyana, Olga’s sister, who’s in love with Onegin.

At first, Onegin rejects Tatyana, breaking her heart, and turns his attention to Olga, incurring Vladimir’s jealousy and bringing about a duel. Years later, after extensive traveling, Onegin returns to St. Petersburg and wants to be with Tatyana. But, by then, she’s already married, and Onegin realizes he’s wasted his life chasing women he doesn’t care about.

Taking place primarily in rural vacation homes, these well-to-do look for anything to “deal with the boredom of long winters” and come up with hunting, dancing, dueling and falling in and out of love.

The script includes quite a bit of play-by-play, where explanations of who’s who and what’s going on are interspersed with the action on stage. One by one, we’re introduced, in song, to the characters, with tongue-in-cheek descriptions. At one point, even the details of an impending pistol duel are sung to audience – just in case we were a little rough on the regulations.

These “asides” help with the background and also offer some great comedic breaks, often picking up on the satire that winds its way through Pushkin’s original work.

As an added bonus, guests are encouraged to bring their alcoholic drinks into the theatre and raise a glass for a sip every time someone says lebov (love in Russian). This is even facilitated by the cast handing out cups of vodka during the performance.

But there are also some bizarre non-sequiturs, such as when a singer in what looks like a boudoir is given a mic and electric guitar to continue her performance. Though it provided a chuckle, the reason for that choice went over my head.

While the script tries to provide the context I mentioned, it simply can’t make up for what’s lost from the poem, and I couldn’t help feeling “left out” of the framework.

For example, according to one translation of the poem, Onegin’s house is described: “All of the rooms were wide and lofty/ Silk wall paper embellished the drawing room/ And portraits of czars hung on the walls / The stoves were bright with ceramic tiles / There was no need for these things at all / Because he would yawn with equal distraction / At an ancient pile or a modern mansion.”

This paints such a great picture of the lifestyle and ennui of the main character, but not one that I caught onto in the musical.

Besides detailed description of scenery, the poem delves extensively into philosophical discussions, particularly about love, that would come across far better on stage as verbal jousting rather than a sing-song.

Onegin runs until April 10 at BMO Theatre Centre. Visit artsclub.com.

Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer and media trainer in Vancouver. Her consulting work can be seen at phase2coaching.com.