writing

Against their best interests

Writers often get submission calls saying “Sorry, we cannot pay you, but our publication is widely distributed. You’ll get great exposure!” I don’t bother, thinking something like “No, thanks. I live in Manitoba, Canada. We can die of exposure.”

For most, writing isn’t lucrative. If I sell an article, sometimes the cheque covers the grocery bill. Years ago, I decided that I don’t work for free. I avoid residencies and literary submissions with reading fees. Even a well-appointed writer’s residency often costs money for travel, food or lodging. Meanwhile, I pay for utilities and care for my kids, so I write at home. It’s cheaper. Same for reading fees. Although small publications need support, if I pay them to read my submission, it conflicts with my goal to get paid. It’s common sense when trying to make a living.

In early November, I read Winnipeg Free Press editor Ben Sigurdson’s column about writers, books and awards called “Paper Chase.” The headline read “Authors, artists boycott Israeli cultural orgs.” It summarized a petition signed by “thousands” of writers, listing by name some with Manitoba connections. These writers choose to avoid working with Israeli cultural and literary institutions, publications and festivals because they are ostensibly “complicit in violating Palestinian rights.” The petition doesn’t mention Hamas, which governs Gaza. It doesn’t hold Hamas or Egypt accountable for their contributions to the crisis or mention Oct. 7. There’s no reference to the wider global conflict, which includes Iran and Hezbollah, among others.

By withdrawing their work, these authors want to punish non-political Israeli entities. They assume that, with their great literary fame, they’re important enough that their choice matters. They wish to deprive Israelis of hearing or reading their work. Due to their moral outrage, these authors won’t earn money from Hebrew translation rights, appearances at Israeli universities, conferences, festivals or book signings.

I noted that Sigurdson’s column removed the name of Jonah Corne, a Jewish University of Manitoba professor, from his list of Manitobans who boycott Israel’s literary scene. I don’t know why he did that.

Some suggest these protests are against Israel, where half the world’s Jewish population resides, but not against diaspora Jews. Why then leave a Jewish Manitoban off the “notables” who joined the boycott? Is it a mistake, or a tell? This protest conflates all Jews and Israelis, no matter one’s political beliefs or where one lives.

Writers fail to look after their own self-interests, be they monetary or ethnic, with this type of activism. Signing a petition could bring an author’s work attention, assuming “any publicity is good publicity.” Yet not all Manitobans on the petition got that dubious editorial publicity. Omitting a Jewish Canadian from the list of Manitobans who signed the boycott smells fishy.

Sigurdson also didn’t mention the long list of authors and creatives who signed a counter-petition by the Creative Community for Peace. This group is against discriminatory cultural boycotts. They support free expression for all. This list includes many recognizable names, from popular and intellectual circles, including Ozzy Osbourne, Mayim Bialik, Bernard-Henri Lévy and Gene Simmons, among others. Professors, actors, directors, musicians, Pulitzer-winning journalists and Nobel Prize-winning authors populate this list. These creative communicators, against boycotts and for free speech, include Jewish writers, but also allies.

This connects to the commotion about Canada’s Giller Prize. Jack Rabinovitch started this prize in honour of his late wife, the journalist Doris Giller. This award is Canada’s largest literary fiction prize, which comes with $100,000. The prize highlights Canada’s diversity and literary excellence and is sponsored by Scotiabank. It’s now fashionable to protest the prize and Scotiabank’s investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. The petition lists others, including Indigo and Audible. Many authors now protest and boycott the jury. Others pull their work from consideration and sign petitions against the Giller via “Canlit Responds.”

The Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman writes that, if Scotiabank were sufficiently pressured, it might withdraw sponsorship from the prize rather than fully divest from whatever financial investment offends the protesters. No other sponsor would be likely to take on a prize that comes with so much protest baggage. The largest Canadian literary fiction award would disappear. Have these protesting authors thought this through? If the Giller Prize collapses, Canadian fiction authors can no longer benefit from it.

Rabinovitch and Giller were Jewish Canadians. This prize celebrates Canadian literature. In 1972, Giller, as a Montreal Star writer, worked as a correspondent in Israel, but this couple lived in Canada. Protesters forget to be grateful. The generosity of this prize and the positive attention it brings Canada’s literary scene shouldn’t be underestimated. Lederman writes that protesters haven’t targeted other large literary awards with financial ties to Israel or many other businesses on the boycott list. Is this protest about financial ties to the Middle Eastern conflict, or is it about bias against Jews, even if they live in Canada?

Practically, writers must make money if they want to work in their field. Publicity for political pet causes might make money from literary appearances, book signings, sales, or translations. But boycotting financial opportunities and suppressing access to books doesn’t help writers support themselves. Many readers support worldwide free expression and won’t purchase the books of those who boycott. Some readers won’t support those who hold Israeli cultural institutions, literary events or citizens responsible for a conflict that spans the Middle East. We don’t hold the Giller Prize, a literary award, responsible for North American political conflicts and policies. Why hold it and Israeli literary institutions responsible for a war started by Hamas and Iran?

In Canada, we celebrate diversity. The 2024 Giller Prize jury writes: “Writers of fiction imagine … what it means to be another: to be marginalized, to be suppressed, to be guilty – to be joyful! – or simply not seen.” Writers remain unseen and marginalized when readers don’t buy or read their work.

Further, Canadians have marginalized Jews, both in Canada and worldwide since Oct. 7, 2023, failing to condemn Hamas or antisemitism. For those who choose boycotts, that “othering” and marginalization of the world’s small Jewish population remains acceptable. Some now believe that, when it comes to the cultural contributions of Jewish Canadians, “none is too many.”

Cutting communication with the Israeli literary scene threatens Canadian cultural institutions. A political boycott also threatens half the world’s population of Jews, those in Israel. It doesn’t embrace free expression or bring peace. As Lederman suggests, it’s unlikely to help any Palestinians.

Boycotts allow writers to shoot themselves in the foot. Writers can’t pay for essentials when they aren’t paid for their work. Without big awards, even famous writers sometimes can’t pay for groceries. Limiting readership limits income. It’s noteworthy that, while past Giller winners protest, the media hasn’t reported on anyone returning that $100,000 prize.

Choosing diversity means including all Canadians, even Jewish Canadians who create opportunities like the Giller Prize. When it comes to how we behave, cause and effect still matter, even when writing and selling fiction.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Exploring ideas, worlds

“If there is one thing we learn during difficult times, it’s that community plays a crucial role, fostering unity, resilience and offering emotional support,” writes Dana Camil Hewitt, director of the annual Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, in her introduction to this year’s event, which will once again bring community members together to share stories and conversations – and in a difficult time.

The festival opens Feb. 10 with playwright, journalist and author Michael Posner in conversation with Alan Twigg, founder and editor for 33 years of BC BookWorld, about Posner’s three-volume biography of musician, composer and poet Leonard Cohen. The opening night includes a live musical performance with Harriet Frost and Martin Gotfrit, which illustrates perfectly how the influence of books extends beyond the printed page.

The world around us and how it shapes who we are, and vice versa, is front and centre in the Feb. 11 festival event Essays as Life Stories, featuring Vancouver’s Yosef Wosk and Hamilton’s Gary Barwin.

Traveling beyond the world

In his new book, Naked in a Pyramid: Travels & Observations, scholar, rabbi and philanthropist Yosef Wosk brings readers along on his extraordinary journeys throughout the world. But this is no Rick Steves guidebook. There are no hotel recommendations or Top 10 must-see lists. Far from it. Rather than inspiring wanderlust, in fact, some of Wosk’s adventures will make the reader happy to be home in an easy chair experiencing vicariously rather than accompanying him on these not-always-alluring quests.

Wosk acknowledges that travel for him is not about R&R but always about adventure, challenging himself to discover not only the world but his place in it. Travel, for him, is “more of an intuitive imperative, a pilgrimage to the ends of the earth so that I might know both the planet and myself better.”

To these ends (literally), Wosk has traveled to both the north and the south poles. His reflections on being – within a little more than a year of each other – at the figurative top and bottom of the planet, lead to fascinating metaphysical contemplations. He is also provoked to contest mundane assumptions when he sees, at the South Pole, an upside-down globe. Why, he realizes he has never contemplated, should north be on top?

Wosk does not just see stuff, or even experience it, like an ordinary traveler, but finds himself transported beyond even the remote locales he visits to some supernatural planes. Near the North Pole, for example, he alarms travel-mates by laying down, albeit densely insulated, on the frozen Arctic ground “like some marooned sapien seal.” Becoming one with the planet’s most northerly extremity, he recalls, “I was seized by this unanticipated epiphany of transcendent unity.”

The intensity with which he lives the places he encounters makes for a fascinating read and those of us who lack his depth of connection with the ethereal may feel pangs of jealousy, if not inferiority, at failing to experience as profoundly.

He visits Venice, the birthplace of Marco Polo – well, one of the reputed birthplaces – and finds resolve from the “Master of Travelers, the one who dared.” But Venice, as magnificent as it is, seems to be among the least remarkable of Wosk’s destinations.

“I have explored caves and caverns in Israel, Thailand and deep within the Rock of Gibraltar where Neanderthals lived for over 100,000 years, and also entered the coastal caves along the cerulean Na Pali coast in Kauai,” he writes. “Gazing into the luminous waters of the Blue Grotto in Capri, one of the most enchanting islands on the planet, one senses its womb of wonders.”

Claustrophobia is a recurring theme (for the reader, if less so the writer), with reminiscences of crawling on his back into a sarcophagus, descending into the bowels of a Soviet-era nuclear-powered Arctic icebreaker, or meditating (naked) in the subterranean hollows of the pyramid that gives the book its title.

The book is deeply personal, including revealing insights into his deepest thoughts, as well as the sorts of travel nightmares to which anyone can relate, such as being stuck together with a sulky travel companion who he had considered a potential love interest, but who turns out to be the roommate from hell. He seems to recognize that his well-intentioned psychoanalyzing of her behaviour may not have been the remedy he had hoped.

His sense of being an outsider is not merely social but otherworldly.

“I have always felt like a fool, somewhat awkward in an unfamiliar world – as if I have just awakened from a distant dream and been planted, like Adam, in a strange Garden of Gaia. I spent most of my life as an unrepentant pilgrim, exploring often exotic and embarrassing sensations of mind, body and soul.”

He openly admits that some of these sensations are enhanced by herbal or chemical assistance.

“On a beach off the road from Pafos to Limassol, in southern Cyprus, a friend and I took LSD at the fabled birthplace of Aphrodite,” he writes. “The beach was gravel and the waters rough but as the long, foaming waters born of the massive surf around the Rock reached the shore, one could easily imagine the earth being impregnated by the semen-bubbled surf and picture the goddess of love emerging from the sea.”

The book is about travel, but Wosk also covers voyages more broadly defined, such as the process of moving through life itself, including the reflection that a great rabbi imparted to him.

“One of my teachers, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, used to tell us that you don’t have to wait until you’re dead to die; that one can be involved in a succession of deaths and rebirths, that there is non-mortal death and resurrection while still alive,” writes Wosk.

In a harrowing experience while illicitly climbing the Egyptian pyramid of the title, he seems to have exactly this sort of non-mortal death, which may well have been entirely mortal had things turned any further awry.

Wosk has rubbed shoulders (or, more accurately, minds) with greats like Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan and Joseph Campbell. He worked at the right hand of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel as his teaching assistant and calls the late humanitarian author “one of the most influential mentors in my life.”

If Wosk sometimes seems a figure remote from the ordinary human, he yanks himself back down to earth in numerous segments, such as explaining how he overcame his intimidation at applying for Harvard’s divinity school. He eventually conquers his resistance and completes the graduate school application in the mechanic’s anteroom while his car is being serviced nearby. Even by the standards of a vegetarian, which he is, Wosk’s culinary tastes are decidedly and literally down to earth. (Favourite food? The potato.)

He refers modestly to his extensive philanthropy, which includes the Beit Wosk Community Centre, in Ashkelon, Israel, and the Dena Wosk School of Performing Arts at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (named for his late mother), but elides hundreds of other contributions over the years.

He pays tribute to his late father Morris (“MJ”) and late uncle Ben, who arrived as children in this country. The brothers did odd jobs before starting a business collecting and repairing used pots and pans, which they shined up and sold around town using a horse and buggy. From this, they graduated to a storefront and later a furniture chain. Eventually, the brothers reshaped the city’s skyline with some of Vancouver’s most recognizable high-rise residential towers. To say the family came a long way from rural Ukraine is an understatement. MJ Wosk is estimated to have donated $50 million to a variety of causes.

It is difficult to sum up this book as this or that genre. While one section is an extended poem, much of the rest reads as prose poetry. Moreover, it is travel journal, philosophy treatise, theological tract and memoir of a person who curates and collects not just fascinating objects (which he does) but ideas, experiences and memories. Perhaps the book could be best described as an exhibition, a retrospective of a just a few of the intangible treasures Wosk has amassed in a lifetime that seems more unique than every life, by definition, is.

As fellow thinker John Ralston Saul said of this book, “He brings us a life intensely lived.” To appreciate how intensely, one really needs to immerse oneself in these pages.

– Pat Johnson

Exploring language’s many facets

Gary Barwin’s Imagining Imagining is reflective, sentimental, intellectual and absurd. His facility with the English language is remarkable and he is more well-read than most of us, but there are various levels of understanding of any text, and everyone will take away something of value from this imaginative and mind-expanding collection of essays.

The multiple-award-winning author of some 30 books, including the bestselling Yiddish for Pirates, Barwin is also a musician, composer and artist. He draws upon all his varied skills and interests in his imaginings. He begins with reflections on the Hebrew alphabet, where the Book of Genesis says the world began: “the earth was without form and void until God gave shape or reality to it, all with words. With the letters that form the Hebrew alphabet.” He talks of the letters’ sounds and shapes, even illustrates the letter shin with an extra arm on the left that looks like it is topped with a crown, the image of which appears on the tefillin box that Orthodox Jews place on their forehead for morning prayers. According to a kabbalist text, there is a letter missing from the Hebrew alphabet and some think this four-armed shin might be it. “So, the thinking goes, we might already know what it looks like. But we don’t know what new sound it might make, this new sound that might heal the universe.”

While lauding language and its potential as a cause for hope, Barwin warns that language can also lull and trick us. “We must always look very carefully at language. At its beauty, its mystery. Its power to make us think and feel things. Its power to make and remake the world,” he writes.

If it’s not obvious already, Barwin is a big thinker. And he has a big vocabulary. Imagining Imagining might be a book to read as an ebook, for easy access to a dictionary. For the most part, however, his skill as a writer means that we get the gist if not the whole idea, that our curiosity is piqued and we continue to revel in our own thoughts long after we finish reading an essay.

Those who have read Barwin’s novels will know that he has a great sense of humour, and there are many smiling, even laugh-aloud, moments in these essays. One essay is entirely devoted to humour, and it’s fascinating – and funny. In it, he shares his favourite poem, “Modern Poem,” written by Martin Laba: “one, two, / three, four, / five, you idiot.”

“I like it because we can empathize with the feeling of having read something, perhaps a modern poem, something that is so hard to understand, that appears to be saying something willfully inaccessible or that appears so entirely pointless that it seems to be deliberately trying to make you feel like an idiot,” writes Barwin. “I like the poem because of the nice twist, the surprise at the end, the shock of recognition. Oh yes, I know poems like this. And I know that feeling.”

There are many shocks of recognition in Imagining Imagining, as there are shocks of non-recognition. Barwin is a smart, accomplished person and his views on things – from Hebrew letters, to insomnia, to ampersands, to his grandfather’s moustache, and more – will have you thinking about yours in new ways. For example, that chapter on humour stresses the immense value in laughter, not the least of which is that it “gives us an alternative to despair,” it allows us “the ability to frame our experience.”

“Through humour, we are able to stand outside what’s happening and look at it philosophically. Through humour, we find a way to engage, to think about what is happening and still have agency,” writes Barwin.

Engagement, community, the interconnectedness of all things. Barwin challenges readers to think outside the box, to reconsider what is a box, whether a box can ever truly exist. Speaking “mostly but not entirely metaphorically,” Barwin asks about the need for (cell) walls, “don’t things morph into one another, if only eventually? The same is true of concepts and abstractions. One person’s manbun is another’s mantra. Is it true that someone’s pain is my pain and it is only the self and society which create reasons to keep them at a distance? I want my thinking and feeling to reflect the fundamental unipanrhizomatubiquity between/of things.”

After reading Imagining Imagining, you should have a notion of what “unipanrhizomatubiquity” means, even though Prof. Google doesn’t. That feeling of getting it, not getting it, is an unsettling sensation perhaps, but it’s one that propels questions, discovery. That makes what seems impossible potentially possible. That makes reading – and so many other things – exciting and worthwhile.

– Cynthia Ramsay

For the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, guide visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

A mission to encourage

Aren X. Tulchinsky is Vancouver Public Library’s new writer in residence. (photo by Jeff Vinnick / VPL)

As this year’s writer in residence at the Vancouver Public Library (VPL), Aren X. Tulchinsky proudly represents his two cherished identities as a transgender man and as a Jewish person.

“I bring all of my lived experience into the residency,” said Tulchinsky in a Jewish Independent interview. “I am out and proud as a member of the Jewish community and the LGBTQ2S+ community, and I bring my identities with me into the residency. I guess you could say this is a very Jewish and queer residency. The library has been very supportive of me.”

Tulchinsky wears his heart on his sleeve or, at least his right bicep, which is ringed with a tattooed chai in Hebrew letters. “We celebrated the launch of my residency with an evening of words and music, during which I read from new and previous work, and was accompanied by local klezmer musicians,” he noted.

The 65-year-old Toronto native is probably best known for the award-winning 2003 novel The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky, under his former name, Karen X. Tulchinsky, which evokes the 1933 antisemitic riot at Toronto’s Christie Pits park. He has had a varied career in film and television writing, editing and directing, and penning short and long fiction, including lesbian romance, notably the novel Love Ruins Everything.

Tulchinsky came out as lesbian as a teenager, and has been writing stories since.

Tulchinsky was named in September to the VPL post, which was launched in 2005 to promote Canadian literature. Among past resident writers are Miriam Libicki (jewishindependent.ca/drawing-on-identity-judaism), Sam Wiebe, Rawi Hage and Gary Geddes. Last year’s appointee was Black Canadian writer Harrison Mooney, author of the critically applauded Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery.

Tulchinsky, who lives in Vancouver, responded to the VPL’s call for applications and was shortlisted. “Then I was called in for an interview with about 10 people from the programs and learning department at the VPL central branch,” he said.

“It was a bit intimidating to be interviewed by a whole group of people, but I must have impressed them because, a few days later, the manager of the department phoned to let me know that they had chosen me for the position.”

Asked if he thought his being transgender was a factor in his selection, Tulchinsky replied: “Not really. The only way my identity as a transman was significant is that in the posting the VPL was encouraging writers from under-represented groups to apply.

“Judging from most of their past writers-in-residence, I assumed they would give the position to a more mainstream writer, so I have never applied in the past. Their encouragement for writers from diverse backgrounds … is what motivated me to apply.”

One of his chief responsibilities is acting as a mentor to emerging writers, in particular, those from marginal communities.

“It is my mission to encourage writers from marginalized communities, specifically, BIPOC, Indigenous and LGBQ2S+ writers, to attend my (free public) workshops and apply for a spot on my one-on-one consultation afternoons,” Tulchinsky explained. “I think Jews, People of Colour and queer and trans writers all have a lot to teach the mainstream world about our lived experiences. I want writers from under-represented communities to feel comfortable to come forward and let their voices be heard.

“Traditionally, Canadian literature has been dominated by white, straight, cis-gendered men (and a few women). We have a lot to catch up on. We all gain from a more diverse society and more diverse voices in Canadian literature.”

The residency will also allow Tulchinsky time for his own writing, principally, the first draft of a novel entitled Second Son, a family saga that draws on events in his own past.

The main character, Charly (formerly Charlotte) Epstein-Sakamoto, is a biracial, transgender man coming to terms with PTSD resulting from a tragedy that devastated his family decades earlier.

“The heart of the novel is based on my own journey transitioning from female to male, a child’s death in my family, and my experiences in a long-term, interracial, cross-cultural (Jewish-Japanese) relationship,” said Tulchinsky.

“Charly knows he’s a boy, even though his parents, his doctor, his teachers and all the other kids at school insist he’s a girl. When Charly’s brother (the first son and his only sibling) Joshua is killed in a tragic bike accident, his dad is so devastated he sinks into a deep depression, his mother begins an affair with her sister-in-law, and Charly finally begins to assert his true gender identity.”

Tulchinsky is also developing another novel, based on family stories and beginning in Russia in 1941.

“As I was writing the novel and researching the Holocaust, I started thinking about how many Canadians think the Holocaust began in 1939, with World War II, but the reality is the oppression of Jews by Hitler and the Nazis began years before the war, within days of Hitler becoming chancellor of Germany in January of 1933.

“I began writing another novel that begins in 1932, when Germany – Berlin in particular – was one of the most progressive places in the world. In Berlin at that time there were numerous gay clubs and cabarets, safe places for gay men, lesbians and trans people to gather, and the Jewish community was also thriving.

“That all changed overnight once Hitler came to power. I ended up with two new historical novels that I am still working on.”

Tulchinsky’s CV is lengthy, and one wonders how he has been able to be so productive.

“To be honest, part of my diverse career has to do with the fact that I found it impossible to survive as a novelist, even though I had numerous books published,” he said. “I am a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, which provides advanced training in film and television. Since then, I have worked as a writer and video editor on numerous television series. I have found it more possible to make a living in film and TV than I could as a novelist. The downside is I rarely have time to work on novels. This residency at the VPL is affording me time to write, which is a real gift.”

His advice to aspiring writers is be disciplined and tenacious.

“You need discipline to sit in a chair and write or you will never finish a novel. And you need tenacity to get your work published. Most writers get a lot of rejections before they find a publisher. Every time you get a rejection, just send your work out again,” he said.

Being Jewish and queer, Tulchinsky looks with growing dismay at what is happening today.

Twenty years ago, The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky reminded Canadians of a shameful history. It remains among the top 10 Canadian books ever borrowed from the VPL.

The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky follows a Jewish family living in Toronto’s Kensington Market in the 1930s and ’40s and is set against the backdrop of a massive antisemitic riot.

“On Aug. 16, 1933, at an amateur league softball game in Christie Pits park – a neighbourhood filled at the time with Jewish and Italian immigrant families – members of the antisemitic Swastika Club showed up with a giant swastika flag, which set off a riot between Jews and gentiles that involved 15,000 people and lasted throughout the night and is the largest race riot in Canadian history,” Tulchinsky said. “Unfortunately, with antisemitism, racism, transphobia and homophobia back on the rise throughout the world, the themes in the novel are just as relevant today as they were when I originally wrote the book.”

Tulchinsky thinks the current polarizing, often acrimonious, debate over sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) issues is “an effort on the part of the political right-wing to inflate the importance of cultural wars to distract people from the real issues we should be focusing on, such as climate change, wealth inequality and homelessness.

“I once saw a bumper sticker that read: ‘If you’re against abortion – don’t have one.’ I think it is the same when it comes to SOGI. If you are heterosexual and cis-gendered, you can either be an ally to the LGBTQ2S+ community and actively support us and fight for our rights, or you can leave us in peace.

“As an out and proud transman, I am just living my authentic life. And I hope I can serve as a positive role model to trans and non-binary kids who are struggling with their identity.”

Janice Arnold is a freelance writer living in Summerland, BC.

A hippie homesteader in B.C.

“When I came to Galena Bay, I had been afraid of many things,” writes Ellen Schwartz in Galena Bay Odyssey: Reflections on a Hippie Homesteader (Heritage House Publishing Company, 2023). “Of the physical work I would have to do. Of trying new things I have never done before, like gardening and building and raising animals. Of living in isolation. One by one, I had attempted these things, and I had survived. I had even mastered some of them. Those fears had fallen away.”

This paragraph comes as Schwartz is atop a hill, “too scared to move,” and her skis start sliding. She survives the “ungraceful and disastrous” run, even pushes through a second one. But she can’t keep her vow to never to do that again because, in the 1970s, she lived in such a far-flung place that skiing was a necessary mode of transportation, not just a leisure activity.

It is easy to see why Schwartz chose to write a memoir about this period of her life. Born into a middle-class family – her father an internist-turned-cardiologist, her mother a teacher before becoming a stay-at-home mom to Schwartz, her younger sister and brother – and raised in New Jersey, Schwartz went to university in Chicago. There, she did all you might expect a young person with the new freedom of being on their own to do. And then some, as it was the late 1960s. She writes openly about her experiences with drugs and having sex for the first time: “I figured Ned was The One. I imagined that we’d go through our four years [at school] together and eventually marry.” That didn’t happen. Nor did Schwartz go on to lead the conventional life she imagined for herself at the time.

Instead, she went to join a close friend at a farming commune in Pennsylvania, the members of which ultimately wanted to move to British Columbia. Not intending to stay longer than summer break, Schwartz fell in love with one of the commune’s founders and, well, ended up in British Columbia with Bill, who would become her husband. The group didn’t last long, but the Schwartzes are still together, though no longer in Galena Bay, which is in the West Kootenays. They now live in Burnaby.

The young urban-raised couple faced many challenges homesteading, and Schwartz has many stories of taking on the unknown, whether it be camping along the route across the continent to British Columbia, building their own cabin (including chopping down their own trees), growing their own food, raising a child in a remote area (their second would be born in Vancouver), etc., etc. Not to mention finding work that would sustain them physically (keep them housed, clothed and fed), if not spiritually. She shares the details of her hippie days matter-of-factly, with humour and with the perspective of reflection. For example, after recounting her parents’ muted reaction to her and Bill’s homemade home, she offers potential reasons for their lack of enthusiasm.

Schwartz’s unique history encapsulates the overarching idealism of many in her generation. Her grandparents were “impoverished Jewish immigrants who had fled the hardships and pogroms of Lithuania and Poland” to give their kids a better life in the United States, so their grandchildren also were well set up for material success. The grandchildren – Schwartz and her peers – had an idea but no real understanding of the sacrifices that had been made to achieve the comfortable lifestyle they rejected, because of the racial and social inequality they saw around them, the environmental degradation and the war in Vietnam.

“Bill and I, part of the first wave of baby boomers, were in the privileged position of having enough education, enough wealth and enough leisure to be able to criticize our parents’ lifestyle,” she writes late in the memoir. “We were well-off enough to be able to turn our backs on materialism. We were prosperous enough to indulge in idealism and, idealistically, to define an entire new set of values. (At the time, I didn’t appreciate the irony.)”

But her desire to make the world a better place was – and is – genuine and remains a guiding force. Schwartz, who was a teacher for many years, began her subsequent career writing educational material. We find out in her memoir that the first fiction story she sold was released in 1980. She is now a celebrated children’s author, with almost 20 books to her credit directed towards younger readers, ranging from picture books to novels for teens to a couple of non-fiction publications. She is also a freelance writer and editor.

Galena Bay Odyssey is a wonderful glimpse into an integral part of Schwartz’s life. It also offers insight into North American hippie culture and the strength and ingenuity required to live in an out-of-the-way place like Galena Bay. That the “action” takes place in British Columbia will make the memoir of even more interest to local readers.

Meet a total mensch

Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler at the JQT Vancouver artisan market last fall at Or Shalom for Sukkot. (photo by Carmel Tanaka)

When you enter Massy Books in Chinatown, one of the main Indigenous authors featured in the centre book aisle is Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler. I smile every time I pop in because I see signed copies of his award-winning young-adult horror fiction for sale – Wrist and Ghost Lake, both published by Kegedonce Press. Of course, Nathan would take the time to sign each book! He’s a total mensch, and we met in the best of ways.

I was having brunch with my dear friend Evelyn Tauben of Fentster Gallery at Toronto’s Pow Wow Café, owned and operated by Nathan’s brother, Shawn, an Indigenous Jewish chef. We bonded over being “Jewish&” and he mentioned that he had a sibling out west and that we should connect. So, I reached out over Facebook and we met up at the Fountainhead Pub in Davie Street Village, Vancouver’s “gaybourhood,” a few months later. Since then, Nathan has become a good friend, and you’ll also see him around JQT events, sometimes tabling as a JQT artist or just showing up to enjoy the festivities and the food.

I caught up with Nathan when he was guest curating Centring Indigenous Joy: A Celebration of Literature, Arts and Creativity with Word Vancouver for Indigenous Peoples’ Day last month. The Jewish Independent asked me to attend the event and interview Nathan for the paper.

CT: In your opening remarks, you state that you are Jewish, Anishinaabe, Two-Spirit and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation. You go on to say that your father is a Holocaust survivor and that your mother is a residential school survivor. What has the journey been like for you? How has the way you introduce yourself evolved over time?

NA: Part of my idea behind the Centring Indigenous Joy event was related to the number of emotional film programs I’ve attended that are about processing historical trauma – really important work, but also kind of a downer. Sometimes a late-night shorts program full of zombies and gore is more cathartic somehow? I wanted people to come away feeling uplifted and happy rather than heavier, you know? Especially since it was an event for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted it to be celebratory. We’re more than our trauma.

Me and two of my siblings recently traveled to Europe to work on a documentary about our great-uncle who didn’t survive the Holocaust and, after visiting so many museums, memorials, internment camps and historical sites, all I wanted to do was … party!? I insisted my brother quit his delivery job so we could spend an extra two weeks outside our work on the documentary to just have fun, do touristy stuff, go to clubs and the beach. I think balance is needed.

I don’t usually include stuff about my parents being survivors in my introductions, but I felt it was part of my thought process behind the theme for the event (Indigenous joy), and I wanted people to know it wasn’t some kind of toxic positivity in the face of harsh realities, but something that I’d deeply considered. It was more about a shift in focus.

CT: How did your parents meet? And what was their families’ reaction to their union?

NA: They met in French class at the University of Guelph in 1967. My mom missed a class and asked my dad what she missed. That’s how they started talking to each other. My mom mentioned the ballet was in town (“a leading question,” she says) and he asked her out. There were very few Native people in university at that time, so it’s pretty unlikely they [would even meet], but that’s how it happened.

My Jewish grandparents were not happy about the fact he was dating a non-Jew, at least until the babies started coming – then all was forgiven!

All my mom’s family said about it was: “Oh, he’s too old for you” [a five-year age difference], but she also probably looked much younger than him at 19 years old.

CT: Where do Jewish and Indigenous cultures meet?

NT: Food and community and tradition, though the types of foods and traditions are different. Also, the inheritance of historical trauma, and overcoming oppression. You know, just a few minor things.

CT: When did you realize that you were Jewish and Indigenous? Was there a moment?

NA: I don’t remember a specific moment. I think I always just knew? We spent most weekends either going to visit our Ojibwe grandmother or our Jewish grandparents. We did the Jewish High Holidays, Passover, Hanukkah, Purim, etc., and we went to Sunday school for awhile, and in the summer our mom took us up to the reserve or out on the powwow trail and to Native community events in Guelph, where our aunt lives; there were always feasts and ceremonies. So, we always had that grounding in our cultures, where we come from. It wasn’t always a full picture though, it was also marked by absence of knowledge, language and people – relatives who didn’t survive, the knowledge that didn’t get passed down, a lot of unknowns and absences that also becomes part of who we are. Those gaps also become markers of identity.

CT: What has been your experience of being Indigenous and Two-Spirit in the Jewish community (here in Vancouver and elsewhere)? And vice versa?

NA: Well, I think it’s been pretty great here in Vancouver, thanks to the work of JQT, which really helps build community and creates space. When I lived in Peterborough, Ont., there was also a pretty cool alternative Jewish and queer scene. I went to a memorable queer Passover there once, which is one of the few gay and Jewish events I’ve been to; a gay-Jewish-boy networking I stumbled on in Toronto once; and then the JQT events I’ve attended or participated here in Vancouver, like the arts markets and the Shabbos Queen event. And I’ve been to many Two-Spirit-specific events – my twin brother helps organize the 2-Spirit Ball in Ottawa as part of the Asinabka Festival – and, recently, I went to the 2-Spirit Powwow at Downsview Park in Toronto. It’s actually pretty great being part of these communities. Queers are everywhere, so are Jews and NDNs – add in the arts scene and social networks, and it makes it easier to find community in a new place.

CT: Your jam is horror fiction and documentary filmmaking. What draws you to these genres?

NA: I love all things horror and urban fantasy. I went through a Goth phase, and I’m still a Goth at heart. So, when it comes to making my own work, it just makes sense to work in those genres. I also picked up a lot of film and video post-production skills when I attended OCAD [Ontario College of Art & Design] University in the 2000s. But I feel like fiction isn’t for everyone. A lot of people are turned off by anything that isn’t steeped in the conventions of the here and now. They see anything with an element of fantasy, and it’s too far removed from reality – though I think the opposite is true, the fantastic can make a great metaphor for exploring the realities of this world. But some stories feel like they need to be told as they are, they don’t need any dramatization or embellishment. So, it just depends on the story. The story should dictate how it gets told.

CT: You teach post-secondary creative writing, and your work is showcased in numerous art and film festivals. What are you currently working on? What is coming up next? What’s your dream project?

NA: I’m working on a short story for a horror anthology that Kegedonce Press is planning on putting out – though the story isn’t very scary so far, so I may need to write something else. I’m curating a few panels for Word Vancouver in September as part of their Literary Arts Festival, and I’ll be pretty busy with teaching again in September, which takes up a lot of time.

There is the documentary I mentioned about our Uncle Emanuel that we need to sit down and edit (many, many hours of footage to sift through to put the story together). I also have a graphic novel project that’s been on the back burner that needs to be done asap.

I’d love to write those Y/A [young adult] novels I’ve had in the back of my head for awhile, plus the next novel that’s in an unfinished state. Too many unfinished projects! Dream project: finish these ones first before I tackle anything new.

CT: Have you or your family come up with any fusion Indigenous Jewish recipes?

NA: That might be a question for my brother Shawn – he’s the chef! Though, a lot of my knowledge of Jewish cooking comes from my mom, who learned how to do a lot of cooking from her mother-in-law. I think that’s a type of fusion. Learning how to cook Jewish food by way of my Anishinaabekwe mom – even my Jewish food is Indigenous.

Follow Nathan on Instagram @rivvenrivven or on Twitter @nathan_adler.

Carmel Tanaka is the founder and executive director of JQT Vancouver, and curator of the B.C. Jewish Queer & Trans Oral History Project (jqtvancouver.ca/jqt-oral-history-bc) and the Jewpanese Oral History Project (Instagram: @JewpaneseProject).

This year’s book award winners

The fourth edition of the Western Canada Jewish Book Awards, presented by the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, culminated in a May 24 event at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver at which the winners in six categories – fiction, non-fiction, memoir/biography, children and youth, poetry, and Holocaust writing – were announced.

Winning the Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for fiction was Simon Choa-Johnston for House of Daughters, a stand-alone sequel to The House of Wives. Based on the author’s family, this multi-generational family saga opens when Emanuel Belilios, a wealthy Jewish opium oligarch, suddenly leaves Hong Kong, and his junior-wife, Pearl, blames Semah, the senior-wife. Pearl kicks Semah out of the mansion where the polyamorous trio had lived and shuns everyone, including her daughter. This is a story of passions and regrets, wealth and survival, set in Eurasian Hong Kong’s high society.

In the non-fiction category, the Pinsky Givon Family Prize went to Alan Twigg, editor of Gidal: The Unusual Friendship of Yosef Wosk and Tim Gidal, a selection of letters between Israeli Tim Gidal, a pioneer in photojournalism, and Vancouver scholar and art collector Yosef Wosk. In the late 1920s, with his handheld Leica, Gidal was able to travel in interwar Europe, capturing rare images of Polish Jews prior to the Holocaust. Wosk first encountered Gidal’s work in a magazine in 1991 – the photo “Night of the Kabbalist” captivated him. Wosk was determined to meet the photographer and eventually did. The two became close and the letters – selected by Twigg from hundreds the friends exchanged over two decades – both memorialize Gidal as an artist, scholar, historian of photography and “hero among the Jewish people,” and also capture the essence of Gidal and Wosk’s friendship.

The Cindy Roadburg Memorial Prize for memoir/biography was given to Marsha Lederman for Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed. In it, Lederman delves into her parents’ Holocaust stories in the wake of her own divorce, investigating how trauma migrates through generations. At the age of 5, Lederman asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents, and her mother told her the truth: the Holocaust. Decades later, her parents having died and now a mother herself, Lederman began to wonder how much history had shaped her life and started her journey into the past, to tell her family’s stories of loss and resilience.

Boy from Buchenwald by Robbie Waisman (with Susan McClelland) took the Diamond Foundation Prize for children and youth writing. In 1945, Robbie Waisman, then Romek Wajsman, had just been liberated from Buchenwald, a concentration camp where more than 60,000 people were killed. He was starving, tortured and had no idea if his family was alive. Along with 472 other boys, these teens were dubbed “the Buchenwald Boys.” They were angry at the world for their abuse, and turned to violence: stealing, fighting and struggling for power. Few thought they would ever be able to lead functional lives again, but everything changed for Romek and the other boys when Albert Einstein and Rabbi Herschel Schacter brought them to a home for rehabilitation.

The Betty Averbach Foundation Prize for poetry went to Tom Wayman’s Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back: Poems for a Dark Time, which explores the question of how to live in a natural landscape that offers beauty while being consumed by industry, and in an economy that offers material benefits while denying dignity, meaning and a voice to many in order to satisfy the outsized appetites of a few. A cri de coeur from a poet who has long celebrated the voices of working people, the collection also grapples with why “anyone, in this era so profoundly lacking in grace, might want to make poems – or any kind of art.”

Rounding out the awards was the Kahn Family Foundation Prize for Holocaust writing, which was given to But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust by Charlotte Schallié (editor) and illustrators Miriam Libicki, Barbara Yelin and Gilad Seliktar. But I Live is a co-creation of the novelists and four Holocaust survivors: David Schaffer, brothers Nico and Rolf Kamp, and Emmie Arbel. Schaffer and his family survived in Romania due to their refusal to obey Nazi collaborators; in the Netherlands, the Kamps were hidden by the Dutch resistance in 13 different places; and, through the story of Arbel, who survived Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, we see the lifelong trauma inflicted by the Holocaust. The book includes historical essays, a postscript from the artists and words of the survivors.

Each category in the 2023 Western Canada Jewish Book Awards was assessed by five jurors, in different configurations, from the following professionals: Linda Bonder, a retired librarian; Susanna Egan, professor emeritus of literature in English from the University of British Columbia; Dave Margoshes, who writes fiction and poetry on a farm west of Saskatoon; Norman Ravvin, a writer, teacher and critic living in Montreal; Rhea Tregebov, an author of fiction, poetry and children’s picture books, and a retired professor in the UBC Creative Writing Program; Elisabeth Kushner, a librarian and writer living in Vancouver; Karen Corrin, former head librarian of the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library at the JCC; Nicole Nozick, former executive director of the Vancouver Writers Fest and former director of the JCC Jewish Book Festival; and Anita Brown, who is working with the Waldman Library.

Daniella Givon, chair of the awards committee, introduced the May 24 event, sharing a bit about the awards and thanking all the sponsors and participants for the high calibre and diversity of the submissions. The winning authors then said a few words, and Dana Camil Hewitt, director of the JCC Jewish Book Festival, closed the proceedings with more thank yous, and an invitation for everyone to purchase and enjoy the books.

– Courtesy Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival

B’nai mitzvah tutoring

Sasha Kaye (photo from B’nai Mitz-Van)

Sasha Kaye recently launched B’nai Mitz-Van, a tutoring service that prepares b’nai mitzvah students for their Torah and Haftarah readings. She also offers basic voice training, performance anxiety management and d’var Torah writing support.

Kaye completed a double major in voice performance and psychology for her bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia, and she has a master’s degree in performance science from the Royal College of Music in London, England. In her master’s thesis, Kaye examined the experiences of musicians with moderate-to-severe performance anxiety in simulated performance environments.

“I came back to Vancouver in January 2023,” Kaye told the Independent. “Most of my time so far has been spent unpacking and readjusting to life in Vancouver!”

Kaye grew up attending Congregation Har El, where she is a member. She has led services as a lay cantor. “I performed at various holiday and milestone community events, and participated in extracurricular, Jewish-led activism with peers from King David High School,” she said about her younger years.

Kaye has performed with the University Singers choral ensemble, UBC Opera, the Vancouver Orchestra Club and Postmodern Camerata, among other groups. She performs as a solo recitalist and has almost 10 years of teaching experience.

“I came up with the idea for B’nai Mitz-Van while I was still in London, and the idea was partially inspired by my master’s thesis,” she said of her latest venture. “In addition to struggling with an anxiety disorder, I had particularly vivid performance anxiety as a musician. The two collided pretty spectacularly for my own bat mitzvah. Despite being well-prepared for it, I was constantly ruminating on potential mishaps and catastrophizing the consequences. What if I got so anxious that I forgot the trope for my Torah reading? What if I forgot the words? What if my voice cracked? What if I dropped the Torah? I would let my family down. These cognitive distortions are evident to my adult self, but the distress was very real to 12-year-old Sasha. When I told people I was anxious, they told me I had nothing to be anxious about. While I’m sure they were trying to reassure me, this ultimately dismissed my feelings and made me feel much worse. I had zero tools to cope with or manage my anxiety.”

Kaye said she has little recollection of the bat mitzvah itself. “I was so anxious, I essentially blacked out,” she said. “Based on second-hand information, I did well enough on the day, but I was unable to enjoy the simchah – and that’s ultimately what the day should have been about. B’nai mitzvot should be joyous occasions for everyone, including the b’nai mitzvah themselves.

“As someone who knows how to chant Torah and Haftarah, and knowing what I know now about performance anxiety, my hope is that B’nai Mitz-Van can both teach young adults what they need to know for their special day, and also give them the tools to manage feelings of nervousness or anxiety that they may have.”

Kaye has experience teaching b’nai mitzvah-age kids from when she used to teach singing lessons, which she did for about three years, and she has five more years of experience teaching older students.

“Performance anxiety is extremely common,” said Kaye. “While it may or may not necessarily impact the quality of your performance, that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable to deal with.

“The experience can manifest cognitively, meaning through the kinds of thoughts you have, like fixating on the possibility of making mistakes in performances and overestimating the consequences; physiologically, meaning through bodily sensations like racing heart, dry mouth, shaking or feeling restless; emotionally, like feelings of nervousness, dread or irritability; or behaviourally, like avoiding practising.

“How to manage performance anxiety is the million-dollar question!” she said. “There are a number of techniques and methods that have been researched, and different things may work for different people. Some things that can help pretty reliably, if they are practised, are feeling prepared in your material; breathing exercises, like box breathing; grounding exercises that focus your senses on the here and now; and examining your self-talk, that is, how you talk to yourself in your own mind.

“Retraining self-talk can take a long time and it can be very challenging,” she acknowledged, “but it helps to start by noticing how you talk to yourself. Would you speak that way to a friend who was going through the same thing? If not, chances are your self-talk needs some adjusting from the harsh and self-defeating to the encouraging and self-supporting.”

About working with b’nai mitzvah-aged kids, Kaye said they “are at a really fascinating stage in life. They’re starting to come into their own sense of self, and they’re able to start thinking critically about the world around them without the cynicism that can follow us as adults. There’s an enthusiasm and idealism for tikkun olam that’s really refreshing.”

And, given her years of experience as a tutor of academic writing, Kaye can help students organize their enthusiasm and their ideas into a clear and concise d’var Torah. “More importantly,” she said, “I help them find their own way of relating to their parsha, so they can find the lesson they want to share with the congregation.”

Kaye offers both in-person and online lessons. She can be reached at [email protected] or 236-515-9469.

Engaging in guided autobiography

For more than 20 years, the Second Generation (2G) Group in Vancouver has organized and participated in workshops, local and international conferences, meetings and special projects, with a goal of developing a deeper understanding of ourselves and our history, as well as leaving a legacy for future generations. This article is about how 12 members of Vancouver’s 2G community used guided autobiography (GAB) to write their stories of growing up as children of Holocaust survivors.

Deborah Ross-Grayman: For some years, I have co-facilitated the 2G Group in Vancouver. Over time, I became aware that a growing number of us wanted to write both our own stories of growing up as children of Holocaust survivors and document the survival experiences of our parents. We wanted to explore how growing up in our families, and living with a Holocaust legacy, may have shaped our responses to life’s circumstances and influenced decisions we’ve made and actions we’ve taken. I began to look for a class we could take as a group.

Wendy Bancroft: In the fall of 2020, I was leading a GAB workshop series for the Simon Fraser University Liberal Arts and 55+ Program when I received an email from the program office saying they had been approached by a member of Vancouver’s Second Generation community, looking for a writing instructor to help them document their experience of living with this legacy. There are other writing courses offered through the 55+ program but students tended to give GAB high marks for being “safe” and having a “therapeutic effect,” hence my name was suggested.

GAB is a gently structured method designed to help individuals recall, reflect on, write about and share aloud meaningful memories. Feedback focuses on the experience being shared, and theme-based writing provides a ready focus. Stories must be kept under 1,000 words and all stories are shared aloud in a small group.

It’s a method designed by renowned gerontologist and founding dean of the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Dr. James Birren, and it was originally intended as a tool to enhance life review for older adults. In addition to choosing foundational and universal themes, Birren developed a set of associated memory-stimulating questions. It was a powerful tool that has, for several years now, been shared in general populations by instructors certified through the Birren Institute of Autobiographical Studies. I am one of some 600-plus individuals, globally located, trained to lead workshops using guided autobiography.

Truth is, I was thrilled to be asked to lead workshops for the Second Generation Holocaust survivors community. Although not raised as a Jew, I learned as a young adult that my birth father was Jewish and, ever since, I’ve wanted to know more about my genetic inheritance.

Ross-Grayman: For our part, none of us was familiar with GAB, nor knew about Birren. We were attracted by the fact that it gave us a structured way into telling our stories, and six of us enthusiastically signed up.

Bancroft: Shortly thereafter, I had my first meeting with Deborah and Henry Ross-Grayman, co-facilitators of the 2G Group.

Planning the workshops

Bancroft: Deborah and Henry told me about the group and what they hoped to get out of the writing; I helped them understand what GAB was about. Then came the important task of choosing from the many writing themes offered in GAB. Deborah and Henry chose themes addressing experiences they felt would be especially relevant for their 2G community: family, spirituality and identity, facing fear and finding courage, love and intimacy, and finding resilience.

It was then my job to adapt the introductions and associated questions to be relevant and sensitive to the 2G life experience. Up to that point, my knowledge of Judaism had been limited to novels and what I had learned in the past from attending a three-night series of information sessions offered as a Taste of Judaism through Temple Sholom. I worried I might use insensitive language and references so I read books and articles dealing with Holocaust effects and watched interviews available on the internet.

Our first official GAB for 2G workshop series took place on March 14, 2020.

That this was a special group was immediately evident. Many already knew each other so they had a head start on bonding, but they were also unusually open and deeply sharing, warm and … vociferous. The term “herding cats” often came to mind. Some were already outstanding writers. One was an actress and did marvelous imitations of her parents and grandmother.

Most stories were linked to Holocaust effects and led to insights about family or other events in the past. I think here of one that had to do with driving anxieties triggered by bridges. The author remembered being 3 years old and hiding with her family under a bridge to escape bombing. While the stories could be painful, pain was often offset by laughter.

Ross-Grayman: Wendy guided us on our journey with sensitivity and care. In the first session, each of us committed to confidentiality, which created a safe container for our exploration. And, as a result, a deep intimacy developed as we shared things that some had never shared. Through the process of writing, reading and listening to our authentic and honest pieces, we increased our compassion and understanding of ourselves and each other.

In reflecting on the impact of these powerful sessions I wrote: “Like Partisans in the woods, with words our weapons, we fought for truth and liberation. Arm in arm we supported each other, witnessed ourselves mirrored in the other and found the strength to continue excavating. Our expert guide pointed the way with care. We arrived at the end of our journey full of purpose and understanding, more connected and less entangled with the past.”

What began as a six-week course for six of us, grew to a two-year writing project for 12 members: Fran Alexander, Olga Campbell, Esther Chase, Barbara Gard, Jane Heyman, Gabriella Klein, Agi Rejto, Marianne Rev, Deborah and Henry Ross-Grayman, Sidi Schaeffer and Marg Van Wielingen. A majority are in the helping professions and the arts. We were born in Australia, Hungary, Iraq, Germany, North America, Poland and Romania.

We continue to meet bi-monthly as an informal 2G writing group.

Bancroft: It has been a deep and meaningful experience for me. Over the time I’ve spent with these dynamic, compassionate and highly intelligent individuals, I’ve come to feel an even stronger attraction to Judaism. The 50% of me that is Ashkenazi Jew keeps pushing for more and more recognition.

Ross-Grayman: It is important for these stories to be recorded for posterity so future generations can have a greater understanding of the impact of the Holocaust and intergenerational transmission of trauma and resilience. This is not just for the future Jewish community, but for all communities and peoples affected by war, genocide and trauma.

We are now organizing a Second Generation anthology, which we hope to publish soon.

Wendy Bancroft has been helping people tell their stories for 40 years, eight of those as a guided autobiography instructor. In 2022, she was awarded the Betty and James Birren Award for Excellence in Practice from the International Centre for Life Story Innovation and Practice (ICLIP). More information about Bancroft and GAB can be found at storycatchers.ca. Deborah Ross-Grayman brings her background co-founding and running a woman-owned business and her work as a child and family therapist to her role, over 20 years, as co-facilitator of the Vancouver Second Generation Group. She is also a visual artist and writer, currently working on her memoir. She can be reached at [email protected].

The elements of a hit song

I freely admit it, I was one of those angsty teens who wrote bad poetry to express all my big feelings. I also wore a lot of black, but that’s not relevant here. What kind of surprises me about myself is that, despite having taken piano for years, learned various other instruments and sung in choirs since I was in single digits age-wise, it wasn’t until last year that I put some not-bad (not-great) poetry to music and wrote a song. It was inspired by my wife and it must have been beginner’s luck, because I’ve not been able to replicate that success.

This is a long preamble to why I was excited when award-winning songwriter and music consultant Molly Leikin emailed that she had a new book out: Insider Secrets to Hit Songwriting in the Digital Age (Permuted Press). While it’s too soon to say whether it will help me write another song, I did find it informative, easy to read – Leikin has a great sense of humour – and full of practical advice. I’ve just been too busy to do many of the myriad exercises and put in the time necessary to hone any skills.

There is a whole chapter on making the time to write, as well as how to quiet the inner critic, who often stops creative-aspiring people dead in their tracks. Other chapters focus on writing lyrics, composing a melody, picking a strong song title, working with a writing partner, overcoming writer’s block and other aspects of the process. There are also chapters on what needs to be done to get a song published, what royalties are, and what types of jobs you might be able to do to sustain yourself until your music can. Interspersed between the how and what chapters are interviews Leikin has conducted with some of her peers, other songwriters, producers and industry professionals.

Insider Secrets is targeted at writers who want to get into the business. And whether one succeeds at that is as much hard work as it is talent, probably more. One great aspect of Leikin’s approach is that she believes in being kind to oneself, so offers several ideas for how to reward yourself when you do put in the hard work.

“Whatever you do,” she writes, “make a point of acknowledging that you’re doing it as a reward for what you’ve just created. It is a victory in itself, just because you did it, not because your song was downloaded 10 million times. The victory starts with you.”

Ultimately, Leikin says, it comes down to persistence. It is also crucial to understand that a creative life is not a straight path, but an up-and-down one, and you have to learn how to navigate the challenges.

“A writer’s job is to write,” states Leikin. “If you do that, keep raising the level of your craft and write your fingerprint, and hustle your hustle, someday, the world will know your work. But until then, I want you to feel in your bones that you have the magic to go the distance. No Grammy can give that to you. Honestly, you have to give it to yourself, every day, all day, for the rest of your life.”

To purchase the book and for more information on Leikin, visit songmd.com.

The kill fee – and its fallout

I was honoured with the opportunity to chant the first aliyah for the Torah portion Aharei Mot. I’m still new to chanting Torah, so I practise every day. I can read and translate Torah but, for some reason, I didn’t reflect on what I was reading at first. I was chanting that very sensitive set of instructions given from G-d to Moses to pass along to his brother Aaron.

A few weeks ago, we read in Leviticus 10:1-7 that Aaron’s sons Nadav and Abihu offered “strange” or “alien” fire. Their sacrifice was overeager and unusual. They drew “too close” – in some readings of Leviticus 16:1 – to G-d and were struck down. They were killed.

After the death of Aaron’s sons, the instructions Moses passes along to Aaron are crucial. He isn’t to go into the Holy of Holies, behind the curtain, because G-d dwells in a cloud above the cover. Aaron’s sacrifices and his approach to the holiest spaces are scripted, careful and correct. When reading rabbis’ commentaries on this, their thoughts are all over the place, from quoting Sting’s lyrics “Don’t Stand so Close to Me” to talking about vulnerability and the divine. This is a text that has a lot to unpack.

As a freelancer, I do writing and editing jobs with various deadlines. Sometimes, I write a piece months in advance, submit, and hear nothing back until the publication arrives in the mail with payment. With other jobs, I get to revise and review copy edits, the editor says exactly when the piece will run and I’m paid early without prompting. Others require me to submit an invoice or I don’t get paid at all. Every gig is different. I’ve even worked for publications that have gone bankrupt before my article was to appear. So, I did all the work but, in the end, received nothing, not even a publication credit.

In other situations, I write or edit something with a short deadline. These can be very satisfying jobs that happen quickly. Sometimes, it’s a political analysis piece that runs in the newspaper. Other times, it’s a healthcare editing job that might improve the lives of breastfeeding moms. There’s a thrill to a tight deadline where I manage to get it done, and perhaps make a difference.

Before Passover, I submitted some queries (ideas) to a publication with which I’d worked before. I got a very fast response. The editor said she’d been about to write on one of these topics. Would I cover it instead? I said sure, asking for her outline and any other details she wanted included. Instead, she suggested I write it on my own, without her outline. I did this as fast as I could, as I also faced the hard deadline of cleaning and cooking for the holiday. I asked for quick feedback, since my time was limited, but I didn’t receive any.

Almost a week later, the editor asked me for revisions, asking why I didn’t include several items, which were on her mental checklist, unbeknown to me. I didn’t feel prepared to do it, but I researched and did one more rewrite before Pesach.

During the middle of the Passover, the copy edits arrived. I’d never seen so many before! Much of it seemed to ask me to prove mundane things with academic sources. Many copy editors have provided me with corrections and solutions over the years, and it’s usually just an “approve” track changes or a comment or two to move ahead. Responding to these comments took nearly three hours. I felt as though perhaps I’d written something wrong, although I’d been researching, writing and teaching on the topic for years.

The next day, I received a note from the editor. It would take too long for us to come to agreement over the edits. I was sent a “kill fee.” A kill fee is usually a quarter to a third of the amount agreed to for the whole project, if the project cannot go forward. This was a bit of a relief. I had more time for the holiday. I could be done with a hassle that already had earned me less than minimum wage.

Moments after I accepted the kill fee, the editor was on social media, writing glib jokes about the article topic and how she had to write the article herself. So, not only had I lost the gig, but there was some shame now, too. This was public “punishment.” Somehow, I’d been incapable of writing on this supposedly easy topic. With the holiday’s end and Shabbat approaching, I had ample time to reflect on the crummy experience.

For context … in the book Little Women, published more than 150 years ago, the character of Jo March is offered a $100 US prize payment for a story she wrote. I was offered $150 Cdn to write this story and paid a kill fee $50 Cdn.

When I thought back on Aaron’s painful loss of Nadav and Abihu, and how they’d been warned not to do things the wrong way, I wondered what lessons I could find there. I don’t make sacrifices at an altar. I never want to lose my children in such an awful way. However, on a much smaller scale, I pushed myself too hard to meet an elusive last-minute work goal. It cut me close when I failed, and then to be shamed via social media for it. I had my work “killed” – perhaps because my writing failed to come close enough to the editor’s ideas, or maybe because it was a little too detailed or uncomfortable and they questioned it. Who knows? Just as we will never know what Nadav and Abihu were thinking, I couldn’t be inside this editor’s thoughts either.

Unlike Aaron, I don’t have to work with this editor/client again. Aaron serves G-d, and cannot make the same mistakes his sons did. He is in a painful place where he must learn to do better. I, too, am in a place where I need to reconsider how I work and what I will work towards.

Luckily, I didn’t lose anything so precious as did Aaron. I can still explore how to make things better – it’s important to find a work/life balance that works, because that article was not worth the hassle. As the TV advertisement goes, some (important) things, like our family and holiday celebrations, are priceless.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.