Two women dancing, 1965. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.13986)
If you know someone in these photos, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected] or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.
National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, Vancouver section, members. Seated, left to right, are Lisa Boroditsky, Jill Kipnis and Sandi Hazan Switzer. Standing are Heather Sirlin, left, and Jane Stoller. (photo from NCJWC Vancouver)
Members of National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, Vancouver section, have been busy close to home, not only supporting various initiatives for disadvantaged children in local schools – Books for Kids, HIPPY, Operation Dressup, and hygiene and nutrition school programs – but learning more about the Jewish history of the city.
On Sept. 8, more than 25 people participated in a sold-out walk through the “old city” of Vancouver, organized by Lisa Boroditsky, Jane Stoller and Sandi Hazan Switzer. Participants were enthralled by the stories of Harry Hammer, by the geographical and architectural details, to say nothing of the oral history of horse-drawn carts, family stores and tales of running to the bus for cheder.
NCJWC members also worked nationally, supporting successful efforts by CIJA (Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs) to get Parliament to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism; and internationally, issuing a call to action to participate in the campaign to free human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been imprisoned in Iran’s Evin prison since June 2018.
In May of this year, Prof. Irwin Cotler, chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Montreal, addressed the executive of the International Council of Jewish Women on the issue of human rights. He made a compelling case for participation in the campaign to free Sotoudeh, sentenced to 38 years and 148 lashes in Iran because of her work defending women’s rights. She has been imprisoned four times since 2010.
Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are integral to ensuring rule of law and the functions of democracy; they are fundamental principles clearly defined in international law and they are the inherent right of all people. These two democratic themes were betrayed in 2018 when, as part of peaceful protests, some women removed their hijabs and waved them like flags and then were prosecuted for this behaviour. For defending these women, Sotoudeh has been unjustly imprisoned.
The International Council of Jewish Women executive voted to support Cotler’s recommendation and Debby Altow, vice-president for Canada on this executive, circulated a backgrounder and sample letter of protest for 33 affiliates worldwide. Both email and postal addresses for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and UN Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, were distributed, making such protest letters easier to submit. For more about Sotoudeh and NCJW Vancouver section, visit ncjwvancouver.org.
At Rosh Hashanah, the new moon is revealed.
The Zohar, that classic mystical text from the 13th century, describes the High Holidays as a developmental process of female empowerment, which culminates in Yom Kippur.
According to the Zohar, the place we return to when we repent is our supreme mother, the Sephira, and we receive understanding from the Tree of the Ten Sephirot. Returning to our mother means to be gathered to the mother’s womb, a sort of death in order to be reborn, a self-nullification for gaining a new life.
This inversion has to do with the complex relationship between a mother and her children: she gives them life and they establish her motherly essence; she gives them life and they mark the beginning of her end, as “one generation passes and another generation comes.” Children return to their mother to understand their origin, and thus reveal their future.
Thanks to these paradoxical relationships between the generations, the mother has the power to heal, to sweeten and to explain every question and shattering in our lives.
“Returning to the mother” is not always an absolute, unequivocal and affixed teshuvah (repentance). It is a teshuvah that is coming into being, the same way that the world to come is coming into being, and the status of which is always (a world) “to come.”
According to Shaarei Orah by Rabbi Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, “the world to come” is also another name of the sephira (kabbalistic attribute) Understanding. Understanding is constantly giving birth to souls and, thanks to her, we are renewed and recreated every day, especially at the beginning of the year, at Rosh Hashanah.
At Rosh Hashanah, the new moon is revealed. The year begins with coverage and concealment, due to a cloud that covers the sun. In the kabbalah, the sun is the male. The moon, which is usually identified as the Shechinah (divine presence) and is also the lowest sephira, called Malchut (kingship), gets her light from him. When the sun is not shining, the Shechinah is hidden as well, and our world is in darkness. How can the light of Genesis be lit? The Zohar says:
“… Through teshuvah and the sound of the shofar, as it is written: Happy the people who know the blast. Then, O YHVH, they will walk in the light of Your presence (Psalms 89:16).
“Come and see: on this day, the moon is covered and does not shine until the 10th day, when Israel turns back in complete teshuvah and Supernal Mother returns, illumining Her. On this day, Mother embarks on Her journey and joy prevails everywhere.
“Thus it is written, Yom ha-kippurim hu, it is the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:27) … the verse should read Yamim Kippurim, Days of Atonements … because two radiances shine as one, Upper Lamp illumining Lower Lamp. This day, She shines from the upper light, not from light of the sun; so it is written, ba-keseh le-yom haggenu, on the covering until our festival day.”
The Zohar emphasizes that the only way to cleave the cloud is with the sound of shofar and teshuvah – both mental and supernatural ways to reach the supreme source and attract new life out of it. The Zohar teaches, symbolically, that this task is assigned on every New Year: to cleave the cloud with repentance, to cancel the decree by the voice of the shofar.
Only then, after the 10 days of repentance, will the light illumine Yom ha-Kippurim. It is a double light: that of the supernal mother (Understanding) which illumines her daughter (Shechinah), and the two will reunite into one. That is why this day is called Yom ha-Kippurim, the day of two feminine lights illumining together, without the aid of any masculine light from the outside.
According to another commentary in the Zohar, unlike at Rosh Hashanah, when the masculine God appears, exposing and lifting His left hand in a gesture of sentence and vengeance, on Yom ha-Kippurim, we realize that this same hand is meant to support Shechinah and lift her from the dust, as is written in the first part of Song of Songs: “Let His left hand be under my head.” (2:6) On this day, Shechinah, the female hero, appears as a bride and we all are her bridesmaids, accompanying her to “Mother river” of the sephira Understanding, to immerse in it and clean her from our sins.
Finally, after being atoned, the dance of sephirot culminates in Sukkot, and the celestial couple is united. The second part of the verse – “and His right hand embrace me” – is implemented, and light and happiness fill the world. At Rosh Hashanah and Yom ha-Kippurim, we pray facing Shechinah and Understanding, and their light envelops and shields us after the cloud is cleaved.
***
The Book of Zohar sees King David as “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”: the archetypal sinner, the court jester and, eventually, also the partner of teshuvah herself. In Psalms 130, King David says: “Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord / Lord, hear my voice / Let your ears be attentive / to my cry for mercy / If you, Lord, kept a record of sins / Lord, who could stand? / But with you there is forgiveness / so that we can, with reverence, serve you / I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits / and in his word I put my hope / I wait for the Lord / more than watchmen wait for the morning / Yea, more than watchmen wait for the morning / Israel, put your hope in the Lord / for with the Lord is unfailing love / and with him is full redemption / He himself will redeem Israel / from all its sins.”
This psalm begins with calling to God out of the depth, continues with asking God’s forgiveness, ends with yearning and anticipation that grow out of God’s absolution, and reaches the point of redemption and salvation. There are hidden words of praise to God and, as in other psalms, David’s ability to turn his supplications into poetry and to converse with his soul, so bound up with the divine soul, is outstanding.
According to King David, forgiveness is possible only when we are “with God,” and the mercy and redemption are in Him and “with Him” and, therefore, are in us, when we are attached to Him. The space that enables us to undergo the process of “making teshuvah” is created, and we are able to “return to the place” that is our origin and the root of our soul.
King David is not only a great poet, but also the archetypal sinner who, according to our sages, was born to set up “the yoke of repentance.” The sages deal a lot with David’s sins, justify him and even declare radically: “Whoever says that David sinned is merely erring.” (BT Shabbat 56a)
At one point, a scene is described in which David enters the Beit Midrash during a dispute about the world to come, the scholars taunt him about Batsheva and he reproaches them about a flaw in their morality: “… when they are engaged in studying the four deaths inflicted by beit din [court], they interrupt their studies and taunt me [saying], ‘David, what is the death penalty for he who seduces a married woman?’ I reply to them, ‘He who commits adultery with a married woman is executed by strangulation, yet he has a portion in the world to come. But he who publicly puts his neighbour to shame has no portion in the world to come.’” (BT Sanhedrin 107a)
It is evident that our sages were deeply engaged with questions of evil inclination, reward and punishment and, mostly, they identified with King David’s image. This colourful hero – the fighter, the fallen, the worldly, the dancer, the poet – seems to them the most likely to repent and to be fully pardoned either by men or by God. In fact, it might be said that each generation has its own King David. They see him in a different light and cast upon him their own personal traits, their fractures and their hopes to be redeemed.
The Zohar regards David as the hero with a thousand faces. David of the Zohar is poor and deficient, empty and, therefore, filling up and being a penitent (ba’al teshuvah). He knows how a man’s bruised and low soul can be elevated from the depths to a level of joy and thankfulness.
According to the Zohar, the place we return to when we repent is our Supreme Mother, the Sephira, and we receive understanding from the Tree of the Ten Sephirot. Returning to our mother means to be gathered to the mother’s womb, a sort of death in order to be reborn, a self-nullification for gaining a new life.
And what has King David to do with this feminine process? Surprisingly, the Zohar identifies King David as the Shechinah, the same Shechinah that seemingly has nothing of her own, even though the other sephirot depend on her, and she is the most concentrated and colourful of them all. David is like a hero returning from a voyage, radiating myriad lights collected from all his sins and fractures. Had they remained in the form of fractures alone, darkness would have prevailed in the world. Thanks to Understanding – the mother and the wife – they have turned into a spectacular kaleidoscope of lights.
David refuses to hide his sins. After having confessed, acknowledging his deeds and admitting them, the sin loses its form, returns into its raw essence and finally turns into praise to the Lord. God, on his part, forgives our sin and gathers us to Him. Thus, David turns his soul into a lever of teshuvah out of love. Precisely these factors – his feminine side, his majestic quality and his skill to turn a confession into praise – enable David to ascend to mother Understanding and immerse us in the river of forgiveness.
Dr. Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and was ordained as a rabba by the Hartman-HaMidrasha at Oranim Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis in 2016. These articles are based on her originals in Hebrew and are meant to be read together. For more articles from the SHI, visit hartman.org.il.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” by Lilian Broca is part of the exhibit Brides: Portrait of a Marriage, which is at the Italian Cultural Centre’s Il Museo until Sept. 30.
In most romance novels and fairy tales, a love story ends in a wedding and the couple lives “happily ever after.” In real life, it’s not that simple. Marriage has its challenges.
The show Brides: Portrait of a Marriage, which opened at the Italian Cultural Centre’s Il Museo in Vancouver this summer, examines some of the aspects of marriage that fairy tales purposefully omit. The show incorporates the works of several local artists in different media: textile art by Linda Coe, photography by Grace Gordon-Collins, drawings by Jewish community member Lilian Broca and a tapestry by fellow Jewish community member Barbara Heller.
“I always wanted a show about brides,” Angela Clarke, curator and director of Il Museo, told the Independent. “We have weddings at the centre almost every week. There is so much energy, so many emotions. But the Roman goddess of marriage, Juno, was not a happy woman. Hers was not a happy marriage, and the controversy attracted me.”
Brides is part of the museum’s Gendered Voices series, and looks at marriage from a woman’s perspective.
“This exhibition places the institution of marriage under the looking glass,” said Clarke. “Each participating artist tackles the deep psychological complexity and immense social pressure involved in a traditional marriage. Historical perspectives and family dynamics, personal reflections and the impact of feminism are explored in the show.”
Each artist contributed her own personal outlook. Coe’s fabric panels belong to her Dirty Laundry series. Colourful and sophisticated-looking hangings were all created from fabric snatches that were once parts of women’s dowries, used and reused for several generations before they ended up in the artist’s stockpile.
“The eight fabric panels represent eight stages of a woman’s life,” explained Clarke. “Each one incorporates relevant texts from Renaissance romance novels and etiquette manuals. In the 16th century, such manuals were very popular in Italy, especially among the middle classes. They were written to instruct young brides in the proper comportment, in the ways to become a successful bride and mother.”
In addition, those eight panels reference the eight requisite parts of a romance novel, from the Middle Ages to the modern Avon romances. “Those stages have names, the same names as the panels,” Clarke said. “No. 1, Stasis (infant). No. 2, Trigger (young girl). No. 3, Quest (betrothal). No. 4, Surprise (courtesan). No. 5, Critical Choice (bride). No. 6, Climax (wife). No. 7, Reversal (matron). No. 8, Resolution (widow). Every love story published these days must follow this structure.”
Heller’s tapestry and Gordon-Collins’s photographs explore wedding dresses and the commodification of weddings. The tapestry shows a bride in a beautiful dress, but her face is blurry, unimportant, and the dress becomes the focal point, a uniform, a symbol.
The photos, in the photogram or X-ray style, lack faces altogether, only the wedding attires of four generations of women of the artist’s family can be seen.
“Grandmother’s wedding tunic was modest, especially in comparison to the artist’s daughter’s wedding dress, much more opulent and sensual, and designed for one-time use only,” said Clarke. “Here, we can trace how, through the generations, the weddings grow into an industry, and the wedding accessories become commodities.”
While neon-bright colours dominate Gordon-Collins’s images and Coe’s collages shimmer with the patina of gold, Broca’s contribution to the show is a sequence of stark black and white lithographs, all from her Brides series.
“My mother passed away in 1989,” Broca said, as she explained the roots of her series. “I was devastated by her death, although it was a blessing after suffering for years from cancer. Soon after her passing, I started dreaming about her as a young bride. I decided to draw my dreams.”
Her drawings reflect the dichotomy between the happily-ever-after concept and the fact that most marriages in the past were arranged, and not unions of love.
One of the drawings, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” depicts a bride sitting in a chair, regarding a frog in her lap. A few more frogs – potential princes? – wait at her feet, expecting her to choose between them.
“I knew my bride would not kiss that frog,” said Broca. “So I added several other potential grooms. Some small, others big…. Still, I had a feeling she would resist them all.”
The work “Upon Reflection” is even more powerful. It shows a bride in a gown and veil looking into a full-length mirror. The image in the mirror depicts the bride, face and posture serene, as befits the occasion, but Broca has left the image of the bride herself white and, from within it, there is the drawing of a woman, the bride, trying to escape.
“That woman, upon reflection, discovers how much she doesn’t wish to be married, to be tied down. What happens next is up to the viewer’s imagination,” said the artist.
For Broca, black and white was the only possibility for the series. “It was the most appropriate way to describe what I felt…. After the first two or three drawings, I began to realize that many brides were not happy at the altar – I showed them. Only a very few happy brides appear in my drawings. Not because happy brides are a minority, but because happy brides are difficult to portray without slipping into a less-than-powerful mode. I may be wrong, I may be able to do it today, but, at that time, it didn’t seem possible.”
Clarke knew about Broca’s series and wanted to include it in its entirety in the show, but that wasn’t possible. “We couldn’t include so many that Angela wanted because they had been sold,” said Broca. “We couldn’t borrow them. The owners live in the U.S. and Eastern Canada. As it is, the two works in the exhibition were borrowed from local owners.”
Brides is at the Italian Cultural Centre until Sept. 30.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
Rabbi Lynn Greenhough represents a series of firsts for the Victoria Jewish community. (photo from Kolot Mayim)
When Lynn Greenhough is officially installed as rabbi of Kolot Mayim Reform Temple in Victoria tonight, Sept. 6, she will bring with her a series of firsts to the city’s Jewish community: its first rabbi born on Vancouver Island, its first Canadian-born rabbi, its first full-time female rabbi with her own congregation and its first rabbi who was not born into Judaism.
A stalwart in Victoria’s Jewish life for nearly 30 years, Greenhough has been Kolot Mayim’s spiritual leader since 2017, while simultaneously completing her rabbinical studies at the program offered by the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute (JSLI) in New York.
For someone born and raised in Happy Valley – 15 kilometres west of Victoria – at a time when the area was still a farming community, the rabbinate was not a calling many in the community, or indeed on the Island, might have considered.
Her first taste of Judaism, and some of the recent history of the Jewish people, came in Grade 5, when she found a copy of William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in her schoolroom library, and her curiosity and sense of connection to Judaism ensued. She recognized that justice had tragically failed Jews during the Holocaust and she felt a need to be part of rebuilding a world where such a failure could never happen again.
“I consciously gravitated towards Judaism because of its inherent sense of justice,” Greenhough told the Independent. “At that early point, I realized, I would be a Jew.”
Life, jobs and family followed. She finished school, married and had a son, helped open Everywoman’s Books in Victoria and then worked for Canada Post as a truck driver for 20 years.
In the 1980s, Greenhough attended a few Jewish events at Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El. She began to light candles and tried to build a sense of Shabbat into her week. She also looked for a Jewish partner who could help her build a Jewish home. Yet, it wasn’t until she was in her late 30s that she was determined – accompanied by now-husband Aaron Devor – to convert. Devor grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood on Long Island, but was not a regular synagogue attendee. Along the way, the couple became deeply engaged in Jewish life.
By 1992, Greenhough’s conversion was complete and, from then, it was full-on immersion to the point where she became a leader and educator. At Emanu-El, she guided historical tours, joined the board of directors, led services, including chanting Haftarot and Torah, joined the Chevra Kadisha (Burial Society) and served as a funeral officiant.
In 1996, she served as an instructor at the synagogue’s Hebrew school and then began teaching and coordinating b’nai mitzvah classes. In 1998, she began to teach Torah and Haftorah studies for adults and, in 1999, taught an introduction to Judaism course for those interested in conversion.
However, it was the Chevra Kadisha that became her passion. In 2000, Greenhough completed her master’s degree at Royal Roads University under the supervision of Dr. Rabbi Neil Gillman, z”l, from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Her thesis – We Do the Best We Can: Chevra Kadisha in Small Jewish Communities in North America – looked at both the history of Jewish models for care of the dead, and present-day practices and training models from 16 different small Jewish communities.
This work led to further connections. Greenhough, along with Rena Boroditsky of Winnipeg, Man., and David Zinner of Maryland, worked together to organize the first of now 16 international conferences dedicated to learning about these burial practices.
Greenhough has also taught Judaism in the University of Victoria’s religious studies program (2007-09), was scholar-in-residence at Temple Beth Shalom in Phoenix, Ariz. (2009) and taught courses in academic writing at Royal Roads (2012-16).
In 2014, she joined Kolot Mayim as a member and led Torah studies and Shabbat and holiday services as needed, before becoming its spiritual leader in September 2017. Synagogue members are glowing in their praise of Greenhough as their choice.
“She brings a richness of experience as a born and raised ‘Island Girl.’ Indeed, she has attracted, and continues to attract, new members through her wisdom, spirituality, empathy, knowledge and quirky sense of humour,” said Sharon Shalinsky, president of Kolot Mayim.
Kolot Mayim was founded in 1998 by a small group of individuals and families, initially meeting monthly at the Victoria Jewish Community Centre. As the congregation grew, the frequency of services increased, ultimately to a weekly schedule. The synagogue has struggled to find a permanent rabbi and has, at times, been challenged in terms of membership recruitment and retention. The past year, though, it has seen a 70% increase in membership.
To mark the installation of a new rabbi at its westernmost location, Dr. Pekka Sinervo, the head of the Canadian Council of Reform Judaism, will be on hand at the ceremony, as will Rabbi Allan Finkel, who, along with Greenhough, is a 2019 graduate of the JSLI program and now leads services at Temple Shalom in Winnipeg.
Ahead of the occasion, Greenhough reflected, “This was not a career move, but the fulfilment of a dream.”
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Left to right, Sasha Gerson, Joanna Wasel and Frances Belzberg will be honoured by CHW on Sept. 22. (photos from CHW Vancouver)
Welcome to September! A few signals that summertime is ending are the kids going back to school, the Jewish holidays quickly approaching and the return of Jewish community gatherings like the upcoming Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW) Vancouver luncheon.
On Sept. 22 at the Richmond Country Club, CHW is holding an event to honour exceptional volunteers. As a volunteer organization driven by women, which focuses on the welfare of children and women in Israel but is also concerned with the health care of all Israelis, CHW often chooses to recognize the contributions of local women who make a difference to the lives of those in our local community.
This year, the organizing committee of the luncheon, headed by CHW volunteer Toby Rubin, selected three visionaries who have put their considerable talents as organizers, motivators and mentors to work to improve various areas of Jewish life in Vancouver. Sasha Gerson, Joanna Wasel and Frances Belzberg represent three different generations of volunteers and all contribute in diverse ways to the community.
Gerson is well known in the Russian-Jewish community. For years, she helped immigrants settle in Vancouver through her work at Jewish Family Services. Her most public role is as an award-winning radio host. Twelve years ago, she and her partner, Dmitry Shiglik, launched Radio VERA, a weekly Russian-English talk show. Her motivation is to bring Jews together, and her volunteer activities through the radio have included organizing trips to Israel, festivals for children and music events. She interviews people primarily in Vancouver but has guests from Russia and Israel on her show. She is also a CHW volunteer, currently serving as treasurer of CHW Vancouver.
Familiar to those who are connected in any way to Camp Hatikvah, Wasel is known as a volunteer extraordinaire. She is currently serving her fifth year as president of the Camp Hatikvah board and, during her presidency, she has expanded participation in the camp’s programming. One of her most important legacies is the introduction of Family Camp, which was first held eight years ago. This program has brought a camp experience to more than 220 people every year since its inception.
“You’re never too old or too young to be a camper!” said Wasel of Family Camp. She sees the weekend-long experience as a chance for adults to make new friends. “People bond and it establishes a foundation for the Camp Hatikvah community. In addition to being good, quality family time, we see it as a community-building experience,” she said.
Camp Hatikvah is associated with the Young Judaea movement, a Zionist organization that dates back to 1917. Historically, CHW has been associated with Young Judaea, as well, providing funding for national programs including Biluim Canada and Israel.
The third honouree, Belzberg, has had a life-long commitment to philanthropy and Jewish community building. She has been involved with CHW for 67 years, most of those in Vancouver. Having contributed in the early years of her marriage to Hadassah in Edmonton, Belzberg knew that joining a Hadassah chapter when she moved to Vancouver would help establish close friendships in a new city. She continued as a volunteer in many leadership roles, including chair of the Hadassah Bazaar, and on the national board as well.
Belzberg’s dedication to community extends beyond CHW. She also has served as Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s first women’s division chair and has held many other leading fundraising roles, including with St. Paul’s, B.C. Children’s and Vancouver General hospitals. She was a founder of the Dystonian Medical Research Foundation and was recognized for her diverse and numerous efforts with the Order of Canada in 1995. Belzberg has given countless hours as a volunteer, driven by a belief she explained this way: “Without community involvement,” she said, “there will be no future for the Jewish people. It is up to us to combat antisemitism and make sure our communal organizations remain strong.”
Those who attend the Sept. 22 luncheon, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., will have the opportunity to hear a short address by each of the honourees. Proceeds from the event will benefit one of the many educational projects CHW supports in Israel – the CHW Centre for Clinical Training and Community Care, Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem, is one of the fastest-growing institutions of higher learning in Israel. It is a pluralistic college with a range of undergraduate and graduate degrees, from health and life sciences to information and computer technology.
Luncheon tickets are selling fast, said Rubin. With more than 100 already sold and capacity at 150, those interested should purchase tickets soon. For more information or to register, call the CHW office at 604-257-5160.
Michelle Dodek is a freelance writer living in Vancouver.
When Jeanne Abrams told a friend she was planning to do her doctorate dissertation on an aspect of Colorado Jewish history, her friend replied, “What a wonderful idea! You’ll hardly have any work to do.” She proved wrong.
“While I was researching my dissertation and finishing up my PhD, I visited the Beck Archives of Rocky Mountain Jewish History at the University of Denver,” Abrams told the Independent. “The director, when she retired, asked me to interview for the job. The rest is history. As director of the Beck Archives, one of my tasks was to become an expert on Western American Jews, and that’s how the book came about,” she said, referring to Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trail: A History in the American West (New York University Press, 2006).
“I’ve always had an interest in American Jewish women, and found there were some differences that I wanted to point out, and that Jewish women played a very important part in settling and developing Jewish communities in the American West,” she said.
Abrams herself was born to Holocaust survivor parents in Stockholm, Sweden. Sheltered there after the war by the Swedish Red Cross, her family moved to the United States when Abrams was less than a year old.
Through her research, she has learned that, in the United States, while Jewish men were very involved in city and organization building, it was often left to the women to develop religious continuity and community.
She said Jewish women “were in the forefront of founding synagogues, keeping Jewish tradition alive in the home, and they also branched out in many areas – particularly strong in philanthropy and charitable enterprises. At the same time, because of a combination of factors, including the more open environment in the West and that kind of spirit of adventure, Jewish women also really ventured into professions, into higher education.
“I think this environment in the West made this area of the country different for Jews in general. I certainly don’t want to suggest that there was no antisemitism in the West but … [Jews] were more prominently accepted into general society, so American Western Jews, men and women … were often leaders in both the general community and the Jewish community simultaneously.”
Throughout Denver’s history, there have been many endeavours that have involved people of different faiths. As an example, Abrams cited the Denver Charity Organization Society, which was organized in 1887 by a Jewish woman, a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister. The society evolved into what is now known as the United Way.
“Jewish women were also in the forefront of political life here in many ways, and I don’t think that most people realize that women voted in the West long before they did on the East Coast…. We’re coming up to the 100th anniversary of the amendment that allowed women to vote in the U.S.,” said Abrams. “In 1893, women were already voting in Denver. It was the largest city in the U.S. in which women could vote. I think people often think of women’s suffrage with the East Coast, New York, and minimize the amount of influence that early suffragettes had in California, here in Colorado, and in many other cities.”
In 1899, the National Jewish Hospital was founded as a place for people with tuberculosis. It drew patients and staff from all over the country, and was funded by people all over the country. According to Abrams, this was likely one of the first national Jewish organizations to hire a Jewish woman in the role of executive director, in 1911.
While Abrams’ research has primarily focused on Denver’s Jewish population, she also has come across parallels in Canada.
“We know Jews have a very long tradition of philanthropy and social justice. I found that across the border as well,” said Abrams. “But, in terms of the hospitals, when I studied them, I’d say, in Denver, the two Jewish sanatoriums actually had more interaction by women than I saw in Montreal.”
With her book, Abrams wanted to impart a sense of appreciation for women in the American West – of them having been leaders.
“They’ve often been overlooked, because historians tend to be very East Coast-centric,” she said. “I think that people generally seem to be surprised that there are Jews living out in the West. If they thought of anyone, they had the stereotype of cowboys living there.”
While more people associate Denver with the gold rush, Abrams noted that more people actually came to Colorado in search of health than wealth, specifically referring to the tuberculosis treatments available.
These days, Abrams has mainly been studying early American history. Her most recent book was, she said, “on America’s first three ladies. It’s called First Ladies of the Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison and the Creation of an Iconic American Role. I’ve moved back and forth, but I’ve enjoyed the different topics I’ve covered.”
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
Lea Gottlieb at work. (photo from Lea Gottlieb Archive via Design Museum Holon)
Summertime … bathing suit season. As a child, I fondly remember our family trips to Israel. Among all the memories is the treat of a scrumptious falafel before we went off to the Gottex bathing suit factory, where my mother indulged my two sisters and me with the colours and styles from Lea Gottlieb’s latest swimwear collection.
Born Lenke Lea Roth on Sept. 17, 1918, in Sajószentpéter, Hungary, Gottlieb was raised in poverty. Before the Second World War, she worked as a bookkeeper in a company that produced raincoats. There, she fell in love with Armin Gottlieb, the owner’s son; the two married and started a family.
During the Holocaust, Gottlieb’s husband was imprisoned in a labour camp. Gottlieb and their young daughters, Miriam and Judith, went into hiding and were saved by a family who sheltered them in a pit behind their home beneath trees and flowers.
After the war, the family reunited and tried to rebuild what they had established in the past, moving to Czechoslovakia to start anew. However, staying in Europe, with its continuing antisemitism proved impossible for the Gottliebs and, in 1949, they moved to Israel.
They landed in the country with pretty much nothing but the clothes on their backs and Gottlieb’s gold wedding band. Turning this item into cash, as well as borrowing some money, she purchased a sewing machine and enough fabric to start making raincoats. It didn’t take long for Gottlieb to understand that a line of raincoats in a place that has mostly sunshine would not make for a fruitful future – rather, bathing suits would prove a more promising venture. Merging her name, Gottlieb, with the word textile, Gottex came into being.
Gottlieb’s Hungarian cultural roots remained evident. She maintained her distinct accent and served Hungarian cuisine in her showrooms. She celebrated her survival by incorporating flower motifs into her signature designs, and, with her choice of colours, she expressed her love of her new home, Israel – aqua for the Mediterranean, yellow for the dessert, pink for Jerusalem stone and greens, the Galilee. From swimwear came a line of trousers, caftans and tunics, as Gottlieb wanted her creations to be worn at the beach or by the poolside, for a drink at the bar and on the dance floor.
During the peak of Gottlieb’s career, her work was admired by many leading ladies. Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Grace, Nancy Kissinger and Brooke Shields were among her many fans. A friendship formed with one special client, the late Princess Diana, who was given private showings in Buckingham Palace each season.
Gottlieb and her daughter Judith were the design team, based in Israel, while her husband oversaw the financial side and daughter Miriam ran the showroom in New York. Together, the family built a global fashion house and Gottex became the top swimsuit line in the United States, with the most sought-after models walking in their shows and being featured on the cover pages of international fashion magazines.
Gottlieb’s achievements included numerous fashion awards, earned both in Israel and elsewhere. A highlight of her career occurred at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, in Israel. There, Gottlieb was part of an honourary exhibition, called My Homeland, which acknowledged Holocaust survivors’ essential role in contributing to Israel through cultural, economic and national security development.
In 1995, the loss of Gottlieb’s husband, the financial pillar of the company, was a devastating blow. She was forced to sell Gottex in 1997. As part of the sale, she had to sign a non-compete agreement, which prohibited her from designing for eight years. And more loss was to come. In her daughter Judith’s final days of battling cancer, in 2003, she apparently implored her mother to continue with her passion of design and start again. But, even when the company did come up for sale, Gottlieb couldn’t afford to buy it back. “I lost the two most important things in my life, my daughter Judith and my life’s work,” said Gottlieb after her daughter’s death.
But, at 85 years old, Gottlieb managed to reinvent her career. With the support of a design team, she launched a new line of swimwear under her own label, Lea Gottlieb. The industry had become much more competitive since she created Gottex and, relatively soon after she had restarted, Gottlieb closed production and retired.
Gottlieb passed away in 2012, at the age of 94. She left behind a legacy in her beloved homeland, as well as in the eyes of veteran and aspiring designers around the world.
Ariella Stein is a mother, wife and fashion maven. A Vancouverite, she has lived in both Turkey and Israel for the past 25 years.
The cast of Tara Cheyenne Performance’s The Body Project. (photo by Wendy D. Photography)
Among the more than 20 choreographers and companies from across Canada, Brazil and Korea that are participating in this year’s Dancing on the Edge Festival are local Jewish community members Alexandra Clancy (Soleful Dance Company) and Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg (Tara Cheyenne Performance).
Soleful Dance Company’s Where the Music Begins will take place July 12, 8:15 p.m., in the Firehall Arts Centre courtyard, and Tara Cheyenne Performance’s The Body Project (working title) is part of Edge 5 July 11, 9 p.m., and July 13, 7 p.m., at the Firehall. DOTE runs July 4-13. Click here to watch the festival trailer on YouTube.
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Where the Music Begins, created by Clancy and composer and musician Mike W.T. Allen, was commissioned by Dances for a Small Stage for its Summer Series.
“Mike and I had played music together but never officially constructed any works for stage,” Clancy told the Independent. “Throughout the rehearsal process, there would be a back and forth of ideas; sometimes I would have a rhythmical phrase of tap dance and Mike would then create a melody over top, and sometimes Mike would compose a phrase of the melody and I would choreograph specifically to that part of the tune. After some give and take between our prospective instruments and ideas, we solidified a melody and then decided upon the structure of the tune. Some of the tune is improvised, some is a conversation, and some is very set and predetermined. We both enjoyed the collaborative process and found a harmonious way to create music and dance together.”
Clancy grew up in Vancouver and has always been involved with the Jewish community. “I was raised Jewish; attending Hebrew school on Sundays, becoming bat mitzvah, and participating in holidays and traditions,” she said. “After going on Birthright a few summers ago, I was re-inspired by the beauty of the culture and have tried to stay more engaged in the community by attending Axis events and other social gatherings, as well as going to synagogue when I can. I am grateful for the support and familial kindness that I have received from the community, consistently reminding and encouraging me that I am capable of whatever I put my all into.”
And she has put her all into a lot, having trained in all genres of dance, studying at Danzmode and the Vancouver Tap Dance Society. She was a member of Tap Co., a pre-professional youth tap dance company, and has trained and performed across North America.
“After graduating, I lived in Austin, Tex., and was a member of Tapestry Dance Company in its 25th season,” said Clancy. “I then moved back to Vancouver and have been performing and teaching ever since. This past year, I taught at the Arts Connection, Dance Co., and the Pulse, sharing my love and passion for tap dance and educating the next generation of talented dancers.
“As recital season comes to an end, I am currently in a creative residency with Dances for a Small Stage, where we are developing works for our Summer Series and exploring digital literacy in dance. As well as preparing for DOTE, I am also in the studio rehearsing and creating for our upcoming performance at Jacob’s Pillow later this summer. In the fall, I will be moving to Calgary to attend the training program at Decidedly Jazz Dance Company.
“My goal,” she said, “is to broaden my toolbox to assist in expressing myself and telling stories through dance. This upcoming year, I hope to continue to collaborate and create through Small Stage, develop more new works with Soleful Dance Co., film a concept video, and share dance through as much teaching and performing as possible.”
Jacob’s Pillow is located in western Massachusetts in the town of Becket. Clancy auditioned for and then attended the inaugural tap dance program at Jacob’s Pillow in 2010 and returned two years later (again with an audition) for a second summer of learning and dancing. “My time at the Pillow was the most influential training thus far in my life and it has always been a dream of mine to perform my own work at the Pillow,” she said.
That dream will become a reality this summer.
“Jeffrey Dawson and I co-choreographed a piece for an online competition Jacob’s Pillow was running this year, and we were lucky enough to be chosen as Top 6 and then voted Top 3, meaning we will get to perform our work live at the Inside/Out stage on Aug. 17,” said Clancy.
In addition to choreographing and teaching, Clancy established Soleful Dance last spring. She and some other dancers “felt we needed a name and a clear avenue to share the work we had started developing. Based in Vancouver, this company is a platform to express ourselves and tell stories through the music of tap and the movement of dance.
“Although under my direction,” she said, “Soleful Dance Company is rooted in collaboration. Our ultimate goal is to make audiences feel something. All of the members of the company’s primary focus is tap dance; however, everyone brings a versatile background to the creative process, spanning from contemporary dance, to acting, to playing music and more. We hope to continue to grow and create more works to share with audiences in the near future.”
Clancy described tap dance as “a magical art form that allows one to not only express through movement but connect and emote through sound.
“This traditional American art form has a rich and complex history that is intertwined deeply with jazz music and culture,” she explained. “There is a sense of community that I have always appreciated about tap dance, and I feel a great amount of respect and gratitude that I get to perform and participate in its culture. It just feels good to get to move your body and dance and then, on top of that, creating and connecting with music opens endless doors of expression.”
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The Body Project is a new interdisciplinary performance created from interviews, symposiums and roundtables.
“I started research on and around the theme of ‘female body image’ about a year ago,” Friedenberg told the Independent. “Part of our research/creation process has been interviewing female-identifying and non-binary people (many dancers and actors). To date, 35 people have generously participated.
“In the studio, I have been mining my own complicated and unhealthy relationship with my body as a dancer in a female body with the help of my amazing collaborators/performers. The process so far has involved exploring how the forms of stand-up comedy and dance can express this difficult, and often absurd, story of struggling with body image that many of us share.”
The performers – Bevin Poole, Caroline Liffmann, Kate Franklin and Kim Stevenson – came into the process shortly after Friedenberg began her exploration of the topic.
“We are working very closely with intimate and difficult material so, although I am leading the process, it is essential that all the voices/bodies in the room are present in the work. For example, there is a section choreographed by Kim Stevenson – much of the gestural language has been created through our own gestures as we’ve spoken about our personal experiences with body image.”
About the creative process, Friedenberg said, “These are very busy people, so we have had times when we are all in the studio and other times when it’s just me and one collaborator. Making room for people’s lives and demands, including parenting and caring for parents, is an important part of our feminist practice.
“Justine A. Chambers is our dramaturge/outside eye and Michelle Olson will be involved in the project as a consultant and possibly a performer in the next phase of development.”
As professional dancers, the performers/creators have shared some common struggles and coping mechanisms regarding body image.
“The pressure to fit a very narrow ideal of the ‘dancer body’ has been difficult and complex for all of us,” said Friedenberg. “There’s the pressure to be very thin, small, more muscular, or less muscular. Pressure to fit an oppressive ideal of beauty. We each have found ways to navigate these limiting ideas. Sometimes we have had to remove ourselves from certain arenas in order to survive. Sometimes we have found power in defying the stereotypes of what a dancer should look like to the euro-centric patriarchal gaze. But I keep coming back to the effort and energy required to bare these expectations and what we can transform with that energy instead.”
She added, “It must be noted that the many voices, words, time and contributions from the people we have interviewed are alive in the work through our bodies and presence. Their names will be listed on our website. Although the work, at this early stage, is a version of my story, it is also very much a result of being together in conversation about body image, in a circle, speaking, listening, moving, supporting and sharing with many powerful female-identifying/non-binary people – ‘the personal is political.’”
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The full DOTE schedule can be found at dancingontheedge.org. For tickets, call 604-689-0926 or visit tickets.firehallartscentre.ca.
Words matter. In a period when traditional media compete with social media, where everyone on the planet can pretty much find a place to say whatever they want, the weight of words can seem lost in the deluge of opinions, aspersions and insults. So, it is encouraging, in some ways, to see a pitched battle over the use of a single word. It assures us that many people still understand the power that language can have.
After the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 final report, the federal government set up the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls. The MMIWG report, released last week, concluded that there are “serious reasons to believe that Canada’s past and current policies, omissions and actions towards first Nations peoples, Inuit and Métis amount to genocide….”
The use of the term genocide has sparked a debate. Top federal officials at first avoided using the word. At the ceremony marking the release of the report, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was interrupted by an audience member who yelled, “Genocide! Say it!” Trudeau opted against it on that day, but he would use the term later in the week. Justice Minister David Lametti deflected discussion, saying he would leave the determination around the use of the term genocide “to academics and experts.”
The 1948 Genocide Convention defines it as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jew who coined the term, described genocide as an effort to destroy the foundations of a national group with the objective of annihilation. While genocide certainly includes state-led mass murder, the term can also incorporate a range of less aggressively lethal acts, such as Canada’s residential schools system, the core goal of which was to eradicate indigenous cultures and languages among native peoples in the country.
The report identifies “colonial structures,” including the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, residential schools and offences against human rights, as antecedents to current rates of traumatic violence, suicide and deaths among indigenous populations.
The MMIWG report makes a series of recommendations, including, for example, that police services investigate officers for discrimination and mistreatment against indigenous peoples and failures to investigate crimes, government funding to improve recruitment of indigenous peoples into policing, a national task force to review and potentially reinvestigate every unresolved case and a standardizing of protocols around treatment of the thousands of missing and murdered women.
The chief commissioner, Marion Buller, chose the term genocide determinedly and used it throughout the report.
“This report is about deliberate race, identity and gender-based genocide,” she wrote in the opening paragraph of the final report.
However, the report also acknowledged that there are “outstanding disagreements” over the definition of the term. Alongside the final report came a 43-page legal analysis of the term genocide and how it applies to the Canadian situation.
The lead author of the legal assessment, Fanny Lafontaine, a specialist on international criminal justice and human rights at Université Laval, said, “I think it has to be understood as a very distinct type of genocide from the Holocaust…. Genocide is composed of lethal and nonlethal acts. All of that together leads to the physical destruction of indigenous people, but also as a social unit. It’s the genocide taken as numerous acts spanning decades, basically, that is the root cause of the violence against [indigenous] women,” she told the National Post.
RCMP statistics indicate that 16% of female homicides in Canada between 1980 and 2012 were perpetrated against indigenous women, who make up just 4% of the population. This is triple the rate of nonindigenous women and double those of indigenous men. Testimony from individuals and families that were incorporated into the final report tell a harrowing story of violence and dehumanization.
Some might say that the debate over the term genocide detracts from the urgent, less theoretical components of the report and its recommendations. Maybe. But the considered choice by those who best understand the social impacts of systemic discrimination against indigenous Canadians, especially indigenous women, to use the term genocide should give us pause. Among Jewish observers, there may be an understandable sensitivity to anything that seems to shift the weight of the word, which was created specifically to articulate the Jewish experience in the Shoah. Yet, we should also take this opportunity to learn and understand why and how a community in our midst would articulate their own experiences as amounting to genocide.
Knee-jerk responses are not helpful on this front (or any, probably) and, while the arguments over the meaning and intent of the term reassure us that people still appreciate the power of words, we might also caution not to get stalled over this debate. What non-indigenous Canadians should do at this point – especially if we have an issue with the use of the term genocide – is to dive deeply into the tragic legacies of colonialism that have led to this moment and try to understand why this term was carefully chosen. Perhaps, we can each start with a commitment to read the report.
