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Tag: Scribe

Writing & fixing holy scrolls

Writing & fixing holy scrolls

Scribe Mordechai Pinchas concluded Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2024/25 Kvell at the Well series with the talk Torah Tales: Adventures in Scribal Art. (photo from Mordechai Pinchas)

On April 6, Mordechai Pinchas spoke about his experiences as a Jewish scribe (sofer, in Hebrew) in the final webinar of the 2024/25 Kvell at the Well series. Titled Torah Tales: Adventures in Scribal Art, the event was organized by Victoria’s Kolot Mayim Reform Temple.

Based in London, Pinchas, who is known academically as Marc Michaels, has been writing Torah scrolls, Megillat Esther, ketubot and the scrolls inside mezuzot and tefillin for more 30 years. He is a Cambridge scholar, earning a PhD in Jewish manuscripts from University of Cambridge’s faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern studies.

A Jewish scribe writes and restores holy works using quills, parchment and special inks, all the while following a strict set of rules, explained Pinchas. Indeed, there are many, many rules, which Pinchas came back to through the course of the talk. 

The scribal art, he said, goes far beyond calligraphy and requires a detailed knowledge of Jewish law and a relatively high level of religious observance. 

Pinchas provided a recipe for the special ink a scribe might use, which includes gum arabic, gallnuts (from oak trees), iron sulfate and water. The gallnuts are crushed to form tannic acid, mixed with the other ingredients and cooked on an open flame until a residue is left. The larger lumps of gallnuts are strained out and the mixture is left for six months to turn black and be used as ink. 

For quills, Pinchas believes that a swan’s quill is too soft and a goose quill too hard and prefers a turkey quill. “As Goldilocks would say, it is just right,” he said.

Quills, Pinchas warned, must be adjusted in such a way to limit the risk of a scribe sneezing because, if that happens on parchment, it is impossible to remove. Scribes shifted to quills on the move to Europe, he said. Beforehand, they used reeds – which were used to write the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“We switched to quills because that’s what the Christians were using and they were getting a much finer, nicer point on their calligraphy,” he said.

A large part of a scribe’s job is repairing scrolls. Returning again to the rules, he said, “It only takes one letter to be wrong, and that means maybe the ink has come off or it’s broken or whatever, for the whole scroll to be pasul (invalid).”

If a scroll is deemed pasul, Pinchas told the audience, then it must be placed in the ark with an indicator to show it’s invalid, such as arranging its belt outside of its mantel. Jewish law states that it must be repaired within 30 days, but, he said, it may take much longer.

Among the Torah scroll repair horrors presented by Pinchas were gauze that joined seams together, stains from tape that had to be scraped out, and a patch that was sewn onto the scroll. 

Typical repairs, he said, are not so extreme and mostly involve fading and broken letters, which require much overwriting. On occasion, whole columns no longer exist, having been completely rubbed away by time. Sometimes, members of a congregation might mark the scrolls with a pencil or ballpoint pen. In one slide Pinchas displayed, someone had drawn a flower onto the scroll.

In his career, Pinchas has also encountered incorrect spellings, deletions and Hebrew characters that were mistakenly joined together. Missing words, mixed-up letters and omitted characters from various Torah scrolls were shown to the Zoom crowd as well.

“And then you get wear and tear, dirt, holes, rips and things like that. You have to be very careful. You can patch a Torah, but you’re not allowed to do half patches,” he said.

What’s more, accidents can happen, especially when lifting the Torah during times when one side is much heavier than the other, ie., at the start and at the end of the yearly reading cycle. In one example, a Torah was torn through columns, thus the columns had to be removed and rewritten in the style of the original scribe.

Perhaps topping the list of Torah misadventures is the case Pinchas came across of a young person studying for her bat mitzvah and the family dog chewed through a section of the Torah. 

“It was literally the best excuse for not learning a bat mitzvah portion – the dog ate my portion,” Pinchas joked. 

“I had to do an emergency fix because there wasn’t enough time. I repaired it in the style of the original scroll, but only part of it, which you’re not normally supposed to do except in the case of an emergency – and this was a massive emergency. Because the parchment was much older than the shiny new parchment, I coated it with Yorkshire Tea. And it worked.”

A prolific author, designer and presenter, Pinchas designed the prayer book for the Movement for Reform Judaism and has written numerous books and articles on scrolls, the Bible and art; he wrote the children’s book The Dot on the Ot. Pinchas is currently working with Kolot Mayim to restore a Torah scroll. 

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

Format ImagePosted on May 30, 2025May 29, 2025Author Sam MargolisCategories LocalTags education, Judaism, Kolot Mayim, Mordechai Pinchas, Scribe, sofer
Museum releases 40th Scribe

Museum releases 40th Scribe

Mordechai Edel is among the artists featured in the latest edition of The Scribe, which will be released April 19 at VanDusen Botanical Garden. (photo from JMABC)

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia (JMABC) is releasing its 40th issue of The Scribe, which celebrates the lives of B.C. Jewish residents by focusing on one sector each edition. The official release of the Visual Arts Issue will take place on April 19, 7 p.m., at VanDusen Botanical Garden, in the Floral Hall.

image - Visual Arts Issue of The Scribe coverThe 2022/23 issue features a cross-section of the province’s Jewish visual arts community, including painters, sculptors, mixed media artists, illustrators, textile artists, art educators, art consultants, an art curator and a gallery owner. Features are based on interviews recently documented for the JMABC and interviewees represent several cities and many islands. They include Ron Appleton, Miriam Aroeste, Hinda Avery, Suzy Birstein, Tanya Bub, Olga Campbell, Janis Diner Brinley, Mordechai Edel, Janet Essevia, Jessica Freedman, Linda Frimer, Monica Gewurz, Lori Goldberg, Pnina Granirer, Barbara Heller, Jeannie Kamins, Stacy Lederman, Julia Lucich, Anna Lutsky, Cynthia Minden, Suzy Naylor, Joyce Ozier, Nora Patrich, Marcia Pitch, Jack Rootman, Sidi Schaffer, Phyllis Serota, Elizabeth Shefrin, Carla Stein and Mia Weinberg.

“The Visual Arts Issue of The Scribe is surely one of the most dynamic and visually stunning publications in its 40-issue history,” said Daniella Givon, JMABC president. “Jewish individuals have made significant contributions to our province’s arts and culture sector throughout our history in B.C., and 2023 is a fitting time to take an historical snapshot of artists who are working and thriving here.”

Carol Crenna, managing editor of The Scribe Visual Arts Issue, added, “It’s been an extraordinary experience to meet this group of talented Jewish artists, many internationally known. They are fearlessly innovative, inspiring individuals with the strength and ability to push boundaries and bridge beliefs. They’re also wonderful storytellers with rich life experiences. I found their personal stories fascinating, and often entertaining, but, most important, they made me think differently.”

The publication’s launch will include a silent auction of artworks donated by many of the artists highlighted in the issue. The keynote speaker of the event will be journalist Marsha Lederman, Western arts correspondent for the Globe & Mail. Refreshments will be served. All proceeds are in support of the JMABC.

For tickets ($36), visit jewishmuseum.ca.

– Courtesy Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia

Format ImagePosted on April 14, 2023April 12, 2023Author Jewish Museum and Archives of British ColumbiaCategories Books, Visual ArtsTags artists, Carol Crenna, Daniella Givon, history, Jewish museum, Scribe
Gourmet anything but lazy

Gourmet anything but lazy

Susan Mendelson, founder of the Lazy Gourmet, shares a little about herself and her business at the launch of this year’s The Scribe. (photo by Kenneth I. Swartz)

One of Vancouver’s most successful food industry professionals shared her story recently, helping to launch this year’s edition of The Scribe, the journal of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia.

The topic of the 2018 issue is food, covering restaurants and related sectors from the early days of the community up to destinations that are still operating today. Susan Mendelson, best known around town as founder of the Lazy Gourmet, brought her thespian side to the audience at the Western Front Nov. 28, eliciting laughter as she guided the packed hall on a tour through her remarkable career.

“My mother’s mother, Grandma Faye, was a large influence in my life,” Mendelson said. An extraordinary baker and cook renowned in her small Jewish community of Quebec City, Grandma Faye took it as a challenge to keep a deep freezer filled with baking for when friends dropped by or to be ready for a tea party.

As a child, Mendelson loved to cook and bake. When the Six Day War broke out in Israel, in 1967, the family rallied to raise funds to send to Israel. Young Susan planned a bake sale in their backyard. She made all of her favourite squares and cookies and the neighbours snapped them up. Mendelson’s mother only told her years later that the cost of the ingredients was on par with what was raised that day. Thankfully, Mendelson told the audience, that wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.

Mendelson came to Vancouver to study at the University of British Columbia and gravitated to the theatre department. Her theatre professor, Larry Lillo, became a close friend. He broke the news to Mendelson that she would never be a great actress … though he really loved her cheesecake.

After third year, Mendelson took a break from school and worked in a group home for troubled teens. There, she met Deborah Roitberg, with whom she made the food for the kids in the group home. An instant friendship developed.

After traveling to Europe and Israel, Mendelson thought she would return to school and pursue social work. Around that time, Lillo had founded Tamahnous Theatre, an experimental ensemble that was becoming the resident company at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He hired Mendelson as house manager, which allowed her to go to school during the day and work at the Cultch, as the institution is familiarly known, at night. But the salary didn’t cover her expenses, so she began to make cheesecake to sell at intermission, later adding carrot cake and Nanaimo bars to her repertoire – “when the curtain came down at intermission, the lobby was stormed by people pushing in line to make sure that they got their piece of the cake.”

Anne Petrie of CBC radio’s afternoon show called Mendelson, having heard about the cheesecake phenomenon, and asked her to come on the program.

“I told her that I was putting myself through university with the recipe, but that I would come onto her show to tell her listeners how to make chocolate cheesecake, a recipe that my friend Miriam Gropper had given me,” Mendelson said.

Her cheeky attitude was a hit with audiences, and she was asked back. She returned for Valentine’s Day, talking about aphrodisiacs. Soon she had a regular radio gig paying $25 per appearance.

Mendelson’s boss at the Cultch started asking her to cater opening night parties. Wedding catering followed and then Mendelson was given the responsibility of catering to all the performers at the first iteration of the Vancouver Children’s Festival. She and Roitberg discussed opening a take-out food business.

“Our concept was that people would bring in their casserole dishes and platters and we would fill them with our food and they would take them home and pretend that they had made them themselves,” she said. “We would call ourselves the Lazy Gourmet, in honour of our customers who wanted gourmet food but were too lazy to make it themselves.”

Over the years, Mendelson had shared scores of recipes with radio listeners and some asked her to put them in book form. Mama Never Cooked Like This sold out and went into reprints; it was picked up by an American publisher.

To coincide with the publication of her second book, which was written for children and titled Let me in the Kitchen, the producer of the Children’s Festival, Chris Wootten, asked Mendelson to produce her own show. The best part of that experience, Mendelson recalled, was that a single dad in the audience brought his 7-year-old son and they bought the cookbook and made recipes

from it. “Six years later, I met those two,” she said. “And, seven years later, I married the dad and became stepmother to the most wonderful young teen. I was so happy that Jack and Soleil had experienced that show and that in some way we shared that amazing experience of my life.”

TV appearances followed and Mendelson was asked to write a souvenir cookbook for Expo 86.

But the trajectory was not entirely positive. After expanding the Lazy Gourmet from one store to three, the company began losing money. They eventually abandoned two of the storefronts and Roitberg left the business to raise a family.

Soon after the birth of daughter Mira, Mendelson was invited to cater a new event that was coming to Vancouver: the Molson Indy Vancouver.

“If you thought that the Children’s Festival wore me out … you can’t even imagine what that event did to me physically,” she said. “But, of course, I loved it and, by the last few years of the race, which took place on Labour Day weekend – Jack will tell you that it was our anniversary weekend that we didn’t celebrate for nine years – we were also catering the Abbotsford Airshow, which took place two weeks beforehand and, two weeks before that, we catered the Skins Game at Predator Ridge in the Okanagan.”

In addition to hard work, Mendelson credits her success to hiring people who she says are smarter and more talented than herself. A couple of years ago, she gave shares in the company to two long-term team members and moved into a part-time role. The company continues to expand, including a lifecycle catering department. “We call it womb-to-tomb catering,” she said, citing baby-namings, britot milah, b’nai mitzvah, weddings and funerals, as well as personal events. More recently, Mendelson took on catering the lunches at Vancouver Talmud Torah.

The Scribe launch also included words from Cynthia Ramsay, editor and publisher of the Independent, who has also, for the past nine years, edited The Scribe.

“When I started the job, the journal was a mix of academic essays and community-related history,” Ramsay said. “But it soon changed to become a means by which the museum could highlight its collection; the oral histories, photographs and other artifacts that it houses on the community’s behalf. We’ve done issues on the Jewish Western Bulletin, the Jewish Independent’s predecessor; on the furniture industry; scrap metal dealers; the clothing industry; on some of the community pioneers who are buried in our cemeteries all around the province; and, this year, of course, our issue is on the food and service industry.”

She credited museum staff Alysa Routtenberg, Marcy Babins and Michael Schwartz, and the publications committee, which this year included Routtenberg, Perry Seidelman, Gary Averbach, Debby Freiman, Fred Swartz and Ronnie Tessler. The JI’s production manager, Josie Tonio McCarthy, does the layout for the journals.

Seidelman, president of the JMABC, urged audience members not to throw out photographs or documents. “Give them to us,” he said.

Format ImagePosted on December 14, 2018December 12, 2018Author Pat JohnsonCategories BooksTags food, history, Jewish museum, Lazy Gourmet, Scribe, Susan Mendelson
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