Six members of the 35th Street Gang, with the author second from the left in the back row. (photo from Cassandra Freeman)
Sheena and I don’t recall why we were trying to measure the house with a ball of string. We just remember me holding one end of the string, throwing the rest down from my bedroom, and her running all around the house with the rest of it till she got back to me. We were 8 years old and we were part of what we proudly called the 35th Street Gang.
At a recent reunion, 43 years later, seven of us mischievous women decided that playing was a powerful thing. It was about athletic activity, creativity, community building, trust – and simply some of the funnest times we’ve had.
Fairly early in our lives, “we seven” decided we owned the block. That’s why we called ourselves the 35th Street Gang. For some of us, a rite of initiation to the gang was to climb with hands and bare feet up to the very top of the pole and touch the signs that read 35th and Maple, then slide right back down again.
Kick the can was one of our favourite games. It was a combination of tag and hide-and-go-seek. I remember shivering with anticipation in a neighbour’s garage, hiding from the girl who was “it.” Of course, she found me before the others, and we raced down the short hill and around the corner, each of us trying to be the one who would kick the can first. I’m betting that we ran faster than we ever did in phys ed class. (Some adults still play this game I discovered, and you can search for them on meetup.com.)
Roller skates were all the rage in the early 1970s. They attached to the bottom of your sneakers with a metal key. I can still feel the vibration from the wheels going all the way through my body from the contact with the cement below. And just skating in the middle of the road wasn’t good enough for us. One of us, Louise, created a song we all sang and did the motions to while skating. It went like this: “Butterflies fly, and so do I, and I like it, so I don’t sit, I fly … so do I.”
The most daring kind of play we did was tobogganing. Daring because we slid down a severely slanted sidewalk covered with snow and ice. The year I was 8, winter was particularly cold. That did not deter us and neither did the teenage boys who threw ice balls at us on the way down. We were determined to have a good time.
We had a regular toboggan that fit three of us, a red slippery carpet, and a small round “flying saucer” one that would go round in circles as you went down. The bump we all made in the middle of the run was the most fun. We would fly off that thing so high it took a few seconds to come back down to earth again.
One time, I was sitting in the middle of the flying saucer and flew off that bump and started spinning in circles. I still remember that moment when I realized – too late – that I was going to hit the huge chestnut tree at the bottom of the run. And so I did. Thwack! My back hit that tree so hard it took all the breath out of me. Realizing a few seconds later that I was all in one piece, I got up and marched back up the hill and slid all the way down again on someone else’s toboggan.
We did all of these things running in and out of my parents’ house. As a result, all of my friends still know about all the Jewish holidays and what a kosher kitchen is. They would even march in on Passover with non-kosher-for-Passover popsicles to torment my poor older sister who was trying to keep the holiday. Today, they remember my parents, Joyce and Bernie, as being their second parents growing up. One of us, Madeleine, even says that she became a war crimes prosecutor because she learned about the Holocaust from spending so much time in our house. (See jewishindependent.ca/working-for-human-rights.)
When John Fraser became a member of Parliament, we used his election signs to build a huge maze in the Frasers’ front yard. We crawled around until our knees hurt. We had such a great time until we learned that he and his wife would be leaving for Ottawa with their three daughters. We said our sad goodbyes and waited for the time we would see them again.
Looking back, I am thankful I was involved in an old-fashioned kind of play that created lifelong friendships. Now, at our reunions, we become kids again and laugh our heads off for hours.
Cassandra Freemanis a freelance writer and teaches improv games for parties and performance.
Greek sheet pan chicken, using a recipe from the website Downshiftology. (photo by Shelley Civkin)
I know it’s pretty laughable that I only discovered parchment paper a few years ago, but there’s always someone late to the party. Parchment paper is your friend, and it’s so ridiculously versatile and handy, I can’t believe I baked without it for all these years! (Although, having been single until I was 53, I must admit to not having baked much in those years.) I even turned my husband Harvey onto it. Now he uses parchment paper for everything. I caught him the other day trying to make a fruit salad on parchment paper. We buy the stuff by the truckload now. It saves on clean up, eliminates the possibility of burned pans, and withstands high heat. Plus, it contains some sort of magic that results in perfect meals every time. Seriously, I haven’t had a fail since I became a parchment paper convert. I know. Crazy, right?
My latest foray into culinary exploration using parchment paper was Greek sheet pan chicken. Harvey tried the recipe first, and it scored a 10/10. Weeks later, he asked me if I wanted to make it and, quite frankly, I couldn’t say no. After all, he’s been making me pancakes for breakfast three times a week, so I was hardly in a position to negotiate. I was just worried that I wouldn’t be able to replicate it. But I sucked it up, donned my Disclosure Diner apron and got on with it. Without a word of a lie, this recipe produces the most juicy, harmonious flavours I’ve had in eons. And there was virtually no clean up – winner, winner chicken dinner.
The recipe is from the website Downshiftology, and it’s by Lisa Bryan. Thank you, Lisa. It’s a wee bit labour-intensive, with all the chopping, mincing, dicing and marinating, but what isn’t time-consuming these days? Caveat: the original recipe calls for feta cheese, but since I don’t mix meat and milk, I omit that. Believe me when I tell you that there’s plenty of salt in this recipe already. Feta compli! Just cook up a side of rice, orzo, quinoa or bowtie pasta and you’re set. Oh, and maybe whip up a salad if you’re feeling inspired.
Now, I know that lots of people prefer the leaner white chicken meat, but thighs are just more tender and moist. You can be the judge, but I can’t be responsible for the cooking time for chicken breasts, so you’re on your own there.
Give this recipe a go, and tell me if this isn’t Mediterranean cooking at its best. I generally have a rule to not use recipes that call for more than five or six ingredients, but I made an exception here, and it paid off in spades.
GREEK SHEET PAN CHICKEN
1/2 cup olive oil juice of 1 1/2 lemons (about 3 tbsp) 4 garlic cloves, minced 2 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp dried thyme 1 tsp Dijon mustard 1 tsp kosher salt 1/2 tsp ground black pepper 6 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin-on 1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped into 1-inch pieces 1 red bell pepper, chopped into 1-inch pieces 1/2 large red onion, thinly sliced 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes 1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted (more, if you love olives) 1/4 cup feta cheese (optional) 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
Preheat oven to 425°F. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, thyme, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper.
Put chicken thighs in a bowl (or plastic bag) and pour two-thirds of the marinade on top. Then toss the chicken around in the marinade to make sure it’s well coated. Marinate the chicken for 15 minutes or more.
While the chicken is marinating, put a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Spread the zucchini, bell peppers, red onion and tomatoes onto the sheet and drizzle the remaining marinade on top. Toss together to coat the vegetables.
Add the chicken thighs to the baking sheet and nestle the veggies around them. Bake for 30 minutes.
Remove the baking sheet from the oven, add the olives (and feta, if you’re using it) and then put it back in the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft and the chicken is cooked through. You can always turn on the broiler for a minute or two at the end if you like the skin crispy.
Sprinkle the chicken and vegetables with finely chopped fresh parsley before serving.
Not only does this dish look gorgeous, but it’s got deep, rich flavour and the recipe is pretty easy to follow. Of course, if you’re serving it to company, it’ll take a bit of manoeuvring to transfer it to a platter because there are so many moving parts. But it’s a pandemic, so who’s having company over for dinner anyway?
Sometimes, I think to myself: do I really want to bother with all this dicing and chopping and slicing? Operative word: sometimes. This is a treat-yourself-to-a-sumptuous-dinner-and-stop-being-so-lazy kind of meal. Like my dad used to say: you’re the most important guest in your own home. Go nuts. Cook for looks. And taste. Like so many different meals, this one is just as good if not better the next day, since the flavours seem to marry overnight.
As for a pre-dinner treat, why not aim for easy but yummy. If you want to bump up the fanciness quotient a notch, make some toast points (crusts cut off), smear on some mayonnaise or egg mix, and top with caviar. I buy the inexpensive black lumpfish caviar for special occasions and it’s delish. It’ll impress the heck out of your partner, your guests, even yourself. And, you know what? You deserve it! Why should caviar be reserved just for New Year’s Eve or engagement parties? Those poor misunderstood fish roe – they deserve to be showcased all year round. If I weren’t afraid of all the judging that might accompany it, I’d eat caviar every day.
Another caveat: don’t eat this meal before you go for a blood test, because your sodium will be off the charts.
Shelley Civkin, aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.
Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah light memorial candles to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (screenshot)
Vancouver’s city hall, the Burrard Street Bridge and other landmarks around the city were lit in yellow light Jan. 27, as were buildings across the country, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The commemoration coincided with the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Yellow was chosen, said Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, to reflect the colour of the candles of remembrance being lit globally to mark the day.
“Antisemitism is on the rise around the world,” the mayor said before reading a proclamation on behalf of city council. “Vancouver has the opportunity to join with the Jewish community and all of our residents and Canadians from all walks of life in demonstrating our commitment to stand against antisemitism, hate and genocide.”
Stewart was joined by councilors Sarah Kirby-Yung, Pete Fry and Adriane Carr.
Kirby-Yung spoke of calls from constituents who have had swastikas drawn on their sidewalks or who have come across antisemitic graffiti in local parks.
“I’ve seen firsthand, when you go to work out at the gym or community facility, the need to post security guards, to have them at schools and daycares, at synagogues during times of worship,” Kirby-Yung said. “It takes all of us individually to stand up to discrimination. We need to continue to work together, collectively with our Jewish community, to ensure safety and inclusion for everybody.”
The Vancouver event was sponsored by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.
Nico Slobinsky, Pacific regional director for CIJA, urged unity.
“Antisemitism is not just a Jewish problem, it affects us all,” he said. “Only by working together and standing up against antisemitism are we going to insulate all Canadians against the threat of hatred and racism in our society.”
Nina Krieger, executive director of the VHEC, noted that education about the Holocaust is at the heart of her agency’s mission.
“This mission is perhaps more urgent than ever as globally and in our own backyard we are encountering a rising tide of Holocaust denial and distortion,” Krieger said. “The latter includes actions or statements that seek to minimize, misrepresent or excuse the Holocaust. These assaults on the memory of the most well-documented genocide in history should raise alarms for all citizens of our diverse society. Online or offline, intentional or not, distortion of the Holocaust perpetuates antisemitism, conspiracy theories, hate speech and distrust of democratic institutions, all of which have reached new heights during the pandemic. Around the world, opponents of public health invoke Nazi policies to systematically persecute and murder Jews and others in order to depict themselves as victims and their governments as persecutors. Such outrageous comparisons are clearly inappropriate and deeply offensive to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.”
Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke of her father’s survival during 34 months in Auschwitz – an unimaginable expanse of time in a place where the average life expectancy was measured in days. (Romney’s experiences, and those of her father, Jacques Lewin, were featured in the April 7, 2017, issue of the Independent: jewishindependent.ca/marking-yom-hashoah.)
Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke at the local commemoration marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. (photo from VHEC)
Prior to the streamed event, Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah elementary school lit candles of remembrance. King David High School students Liam Greenberg and Sara Bauman ended the ceremony with a musical presentation.
Earlier, another ceremony was livestreamed from the National Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa. Emceed by Lawrence Greenspon, co-chair of the National Holocaust Memorial Committee, the event featured ambassadors and Canadian elected officials and was presented by CIJA, the National Capital Commission, the embassy of Israel in Canada and the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.
Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of CIJA, said the day of remembrance is intended to be as much “prospective as it is retrospective.”
“As we remember, we also reaffirm our resolve to combat the hatred that still plagues our world today, perhaps more so than at any time since those dark days of the Shoah,” he said. “There is an urgent imperative to sound an alarm and refuse to let its ring be silenced. Hate is no longer simmering in dark corners, relegated to the discredited margins of civil society. It has, in many respects, increasingly asserted itself in the mainstream public square. It has become normalized.
“Countering hate speech is both a necessary and essential imperative to preventing hate crime,” he said. “So let us resolve, collectively here today and across this great country, to give special meaning to our remembrance by fulfilling the pledge, ‘never again.’”
Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Ronen Hoffman, told the audience that his grandmother’s entire family was murdered in the Shoah. He denounced the misuse of that history.
“Any claim, inference or comparison to the Holocaust that is not in fact the Holocaust only acts as a distortion to the truth of what happened to the victims,” he said. “Invoking any element of the Holocaust in order to advance one’s social or political agenda must be called out as a form of distortion and, indeed, denial.”
Germany’s ambassador to Canada, Sabine Sparwasser, noted that, in addition to the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it was also recently the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where the “Final Solution” was devised.
“No country has a greater responsibility to learn from the past and to protect the future than Germany,” she said. “Remembrance is the only option. This sacred duty is the legacy of those who were murdered and of those who survived the horrors of the Shoah and whose voices have gradually disappeared. The greatest danger of all begins with forgetting, of no longer remembering what we inflict upon one another when we tolerate antisemitism, racism and hatred in our midst.”
Other speakers included Ahmed Hussen, minister of housing and diversity and inclusion; the American ambassador to Canada, David L. Cohen; Mayor Jim Watson of Ottawa; Andrea Freedman, president and executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa; and Dr. Agnes Klein, a survivor of the Holocaust.
A still of one of the humorous (and relatable) moments in Image of Victory, which is part of this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.
The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival opening night film is the epic Image of Victory, directed by Avi Nesher. It’s not with grandiosity that the movie leaves its mark, though there is some of that, but rather with the quiet moments of humanity it so movingly depicts.
Sombre piano music over which one can hear missiles flying, bombs exploding, wind blowing are heard as the initial credits are shown, modest white lettering on a black background, nothing showy. “There are moments when you try to make sense of your life,” begins the narrator, as black-and-white footage of a shot-out building appears, then a jeep, soldiers with rifles pointed, tanks. “You wonder if you made good use of the time God gave you on this earth. You seek someone to compare yourself to. Someone you think truly lived.”
For Egyptian journalist and filmmaker Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, that person is Mira Ben-Ari, though he doesn’t know her name or anything about her at the time. It is the image of her from decades ago that he cannot forget – battle-worn, staring down the Egyptian forces, she smiles, she takes out a gun and shoots. Cut to an older Hassanein, in his study, depressed and angry, watching the TV news about Israel and Egypt’s peace agreement, after decades of war. Was all the fighting and all the death it caused in vain? He blames himself for not having the courage to expose Egypt’s president as a traitor for making the peace deal. He idealizes Mira’s bravery and purpose, thinks back to when he was 24, and fearless – when he was assigned to document Egypt’s military operations against the soon-to-be-reestablished Jewish homeland.
Inspired by the Battle of Nitzanim in June 1948, in which the kibbutz was destroyed by Egypt, Image of Victory imagines what it might have been like on both sides of that conflict. Both Mira and Hassanein are based on real people, as are other characters in the film, and this movie is about a near-mythological event. The voiceover, the black-and-white footage, the fancy costumes of New Year’s Eve revellers in Cairo, idealistic kibbutzniks, zealous army commanders. Any one of these elements could have slipped into a larger-than-life portrayal, but director Avi Nesher shows restraint – and a valiant attempt at balance that has an air of realism, though the kibbutzniks are admittedly more developed entities.
The majority of the film takes place in chronological order, six months out from the battle. When we first see the kibbutzniks working the dusty land, they are doing so under occasional fire from the Egyptian farmers who were displaced after their landlord sold said land to the Jews. The rules of engagement are fascinating. After one altercation, the Egyptians yell to the kibbutzniks that they are all done on their side, and the Jews cease their fire so that both sides can safely collect their wounded and dead.
In the midst of the tension, life goes on in the kibbutz – there are broken hearts and newly starting relationships, there is joyous singing, dancing and piano playing, there is hard labour, there is frolicking on the beach. But underlying all the apparent normality is the hyper-reality of mortality, both because many of the residents and their recently arrived Haganah protectors are Holocaust survivors, as well as the threat of Egyptian attack. As one young soldier tells Mira, “You’d think it’s paradise if being here wasn’t risking death.”
After a brutal attack on a truck carrying supplies to the kibbutz, the Egyptian commander doesn’t want Hassanein to film the emptying of the truck of its supplies because it looks like they’re stealing. Perception is Hassanein’s constant battle – what he is being told to film and what he really wants to film. For example, during a lull in the fighting, he makes a film about two Arab villagers falling in love, which is trashed by the producer who hired him. People don’t want to watch that, yells the producer, they want war.
After the Egyptian forces are repelled by the newly declared state of Israel, Hassanein is ordered to film an Egyptian victory, so that King Farouk can save face. The enormity of the Egyptian army descends on Nitzanim, which Israel’s leaders – for ideological reasons encapsulated by the character of (real-life) commander Abba Kovner – have abandoned.
While the kibbutz’s children (including Mira’s young son) and some of the adults were evacuated or assigned to other defence tasks, the rest of the residents and soldiers were left to fend for themselves, vastly outnumbered. The real-life outcome is known: more than 30 kibbutz members and soldiers were killed, more than 100 taken prisoner. What Nesher’s film offers is an idea of the ambitions, the loves, the fears, and more, of some of those who were at the ground level, caught in a situation not entirely of their making.
The acting is phenomenal – adeptly showing the interplay of diverse characters, with their own senses of humour, their own past traumas, their own desires, their own measures of victory. The characters are more than stereotypes and the stories more nuanced than the ones we most often hear. Nesher wants us to be skeptical of national mythologies and of the media that help propel these misleading views, yet respectful of one another’s narratives, as complicated as they may be and no matter how divergent they may be from our own. It’s perhaps an impossible ask, but some ideals are worth dying for – or are they?
Image of Victory director Avi Nesher and producer Ehud Bleiberg participate in a live Q&A on March 6, 11 a.m. The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival runs March 3-13. For tickets: vjff.org.
Truckers and others ostensibly contesting government pandemic responses have laid siege to downtown Ottawa. In reality, the protesters seem to have a panoply of grievances, many of which manifest as antisemitic, racist, sexist and just plain obnoxious.
Those noxious traits spread across the country last weekend, as satellite protests took place in Vancouver and other cities. In Toronto, a handbill was distributed declaring that “every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish,” followed by a litany of other antisemitic declarations. This is on the heels of the appearance of swastikas and confederate flags at protests, the appropriation of Holocaust imagery by anti-vaxxers and other inappropriate expressions from COVID skeptics.
The defence, such as it is, from organizers and supporters is that these cases are incidental, represent a minority within the movement and, in effect, should be ignored.
Racism, antisemitism and other forms of hatred should never be dismissed or overlooked. Ideas and images like these must be identified, isolated and removed from any movement that wants to be taken seriously by Canadians. It is no less abhorrent to march alongside people carrying a swastika flag than it is to carry a swastika flag.
Some cases, like waving the Nazi flag, are clear cut and easy to call out and condemn as antisemitism. Other cases, like (we suspect) Whoopi Goldberg’s, are more nuanced. Goldberg’s statement that the Holocaust was not “about race” set off a frenzy. As if more fuel was needed, a jokey recipe she submitted to a cookbook decades ago, called Jewish American Princess Fried Chicken, conveniently resurfaced. All of this seems to have opened a floodgate of previously muted concerns about Goldberg’s appropriation of a Jewish last name and even Jewish identity. Goldberg was called out and suspended for two weeks by her producers.
In fact, Goldberg may have been expressing some combination of contemporary “progressive” understandings of race, which sees a hierarchy of oppression based on skin colour. Before we get too self-righteous about the state of racial dialogue today, remember that a couple of generations of Jewish Americans and Canadians have spent a great deal of effort to downplay differences between ourselves and the (white) majority. There is genuine confusion about Jewishness as a religion, a peoplehood and a racialized group. While it should not always fall on minority communities to school others on issues of identity, neither should our default be to assume ill-will when confusion or ignorance remain possibilities.
While people who wave swastikas may be irredeemable, people like Goldberg – who has expressed solidarity with the Jewish community to the extent that she has said, “I just know I am Jewish” – are a different story. She may be misguided about where Jews fit into today’s conceptions of race and identity, among other things, but her flailing in the midst of the controversy suggests she is confused, not hostile.
There is an alternative to “calling out.” There is a term – “calling in” – through which the opportunity is taken to educate someone who has made an unfortunate remark, to encourage them to learn and adjust their outlook. The process has the potential for turning enemies (or perceived enemies) into allies – and it has worked wonders in countless cases.
Acknowledging intent is critical. Goldberg’s words were poorly chosen and she needs some education. People who wave swastika flags are on another level. Putting on a yellow star because you are asked to vaccinate for the health of yourself and others is contemptible. Handing out flyers blaming COVID on the Jews is as antisemitic as words get. There is a time for calling in and a time for calling out.
The organizers and supporters of the trucker protests need to call out the bad seeds among them. The legitimacy of any movement – whether it be against vaccines, for the rights of a group of people, for protection of the environment, or for whatever other cause – depends on well-intentioned members acknowledging and addressing the presence of those who are motivated by less well-intended objectives, not ignoring them.
And this brings us back to us. It is fine, indeed correct, to call out the hypocrisies of our critics and those with whom we disagree. But we have all been in conversations around the dinner table, on social media, in private messages and emails, where our friends, relatives or guests have expressed unacceptable ideas about others, including fellow Jews who look different or who practise Judaism differently. Racism exists in every community.
If we ask other groups to be vigilant about intolerance in their communities – and to be willing to “call out” or “call in” various comments and actions – we should make sure our own house is in order. We cannot demand that others do this if we do not practise it ourselves. It applies to our critics and enemies. It also applies to ourselves and our friends.
A still from the documentary Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen.
The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival runs March 3-13, and features more than 30 films, all of which will be available online for the duration of the festival. As always, there are shorts and features, fictional narratives and documentaries – presenting a great diversity of perspectives. This month, the JI offers readers a peek into the lineup.
Fifty years of Fiddler
Like a lot of people, Norman Jewison thought Norman Jewison was Jewish. When he was growing up in Toronto’s east end, other students would call out, “Hey Jewy!” Decades later, when he was one of Hollywood’s acclaimed filmmakers, it would come as a shock to many that someone with the word Jew as the root of their surname was, in fact, not Jewish. It hit Jewison earlier, when he tagged along to synagogue with one of the only actual Jewish kids in his school.
“When the melamed at the temple told me to leave, I thought, ‘What’s going on?’” he said. “Where do I belong?”
The feature-length documentary Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen purports to tell the story of how the stage play based on Sholem Aleichem’s Anatevka tales turned into the cinematic blockbuster Fiddler on the Roof. It does that, but it is also very much a story of Jewison’s trajectory as an interpreter of historical and current events.
Jewison had already made a splash with his 1967 race-focused movie In the Heat of the Night when he conjured the idea of filming Fiddler. Friends and foes predicted failure. Too Jewish. Not a large enough potential audience. But Jewison forged ahead, certain that his version would universalize the story into “a film for everybody.” Arriving at a time of social upheaval in the United States and elsewhere, Fiddler’s underlying themes were relatable to many, Jewish or not.
Case in point: the film was huge in Japan. There may be next to no Jews in that country, but, in the early 1970s, when Fiddler was released, Japanese society, like many countries, was struggling to balance modernity and tradition.
The documentary Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen comes a half-century after Fiddler on the Roof’s screen debut. It interviews surviving contributors and actors, many of whom saw their early careers explode with the popularity of the movie. Rosalind Harris, now 75, played Tzeitel both on Broadway (after understudying for Bette Midler) and in the film. Her thrill at the film and her place in it is undiminished by time and she nearly steals the documentary.
The enthusiasm of Jewison himself seems equally undiminished. He tells of how he sought out Isaac Stern, perhaps the 20th century’s greatest violinist, to dub the music of the titular character. He dismissed Frank Sinatra’s entreaties to play Tevye and scored Topol, the Israeli actor (né Chaim Topol), who had played the lead in Israel and then in London, casting aside, in the process, Zero Mostel, Broadway’s longtime Tevye.
Diplomatic relations with the Soviet bloc at the time made it impossible to film in Ukraine, where Anatevka is set, so Jewison struck a deal with the “non-aligned” Yugoslavia and much of the filming took place in Lekenik (now in Croatia), in wooden buildings constructed based on historical architectural records. One commentator in the documentary notes the irony that the film about a disappeared community was filmed in what is now referred to as “the former Yugoslavia” – “another place that is no more.”
Jewison speaks emotionally about watching the film’s Israeli debut beside Golda Meir and a meeting he had with David Ben-Gurion, who told Jewison that whoever is crazy enough to choose to be a Jew is Jew.
“If I’m crazy enough to want to be Jewish, then I’m Jewish,” Jewison interprets Ben-Gurion’s words.
But when he received an Academy Award, he cheekily acknowledged the truth. “Not bad for a goy,” he joked.
Not bad for a Canuck, one might add.
The documentary’s director, Daniel Raim, will participate in a live Q&A on March 7, 7 p.m.
Shorts of all sizes
Since this year’s Jewish Film Festival is online and on demand, you can choose to view the numerous short films as a binge or watch one or two between features as a sort of visual amuse bouche.
At about 30 minutes, Paradise is on the long end of the “shorts” spectrum. It features Ala Dakka, who will be recognizable to Fauda fans, as the doe-eyed Palestinian boxer, Bashar. In real life, Dakka is an Arab Israeli who, in media interviews, has been open about his struggle with his identity. In this film, he plays Ali, who has just arrived at Eilat airport from his home in Berlin, to attend his sister’s wedding. After a fight over the phone with his father (it was cheaper to fly to Eilat than to Tel Aviv, so now he is going to miss the pre-wedding dinner), he decides to skip the festivities altogether and hitchhike to the Sinai. (This after a five-hour interrogation by border security at the airport, which doesn’t help either Ali’s frame of mind or his ability to make the celebratory banquet.)
Picked up by a group of Israeli partiers, Ali opts to introduce himself as Eli, and so begins a subtle and, of course, inevitable succession of miscues and small betrayals. It is a tightly told story of self-identity and the perceptions of others. Dakka is a rising star in Israeli film and he brings memorable depth to his character in this short, charming drama. A subtext of the film is the happy-go-lucky Israelis’ perceptions of Egypt (or perhaps the broader “other”) and a degree of paranoia that one of the party crowd acknowledges doesn’t require pot-smoking to ignite.
A slightly shorter film, at about 20 minutes, is Pops, which pits grieving siblings against each other, as they try to do what they each think their recently deceased father would have wanted regarding his burial. The uptight son and the hippy-ish daughter come to an unorthodox compromise.
A scene from the short film Pops, in which two siblings must compromise on their father’s burial plans.
You’re Invited sees a rabbi’s daughter invite her friends to a funeral when she learns that the deceased has no kin. Charming in concept and cheesy in execution, with uneven acting and heavy-handed writing, the short film is sweet enough, although anyone who has been a pallbearer will recognize an empty box when they see one carried in a movie. Explicitly based on a true story, the 13-minute film is neither too long nor too short.
For a quick laugh, at seven minutes, The Shabbos Goy follows a religious woman as she deals with the unexpected activation of a personal electronic device – a very personal electronic device – during Shabbat lunch. She runs into the street to find a non-Jew who she can entice but, due to halachah, not overtly request to turn the humming device off before the men in the house discover the source of the noise. (The women of the house, notably, remain blasé.)
The Jew who defended Nazis
Ira Glasser, a former head of the American Civil Liberties Union, is the focus of the documentary feature Mighty Ira.
Ira Glasser was the director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1978 to 2001, a period when the organization exploded in size and relevance – and also when it took on some of the most contentious topics the country has ever faced.
Perhaps not a household name, Glasser and his contributions to civil liberties in particular and to American society more broadly are examined in the documentary feature Mighty Ira.
It is easy to admire Glasser in theory and to support his principles in principle. It is harder to swallow when he champions what Oliver Wendell Holmes termed “freedom for ideas we loathe.” This challenging conflict is at the heart of Glasser’s life’s work and the heart of the film.
Glasser’s vigilance for justice was born at Ebbets Field, the now-disappeared home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, which Glasser calls his cathedral. The Dodgers were gods to the kids in Glasser’s Flatbush neighbourhood, no less so when Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball, in 1947. At age 9, Glasser discovered that Robinson was forced to stay in hotels and eat at restaurants apart from his teammates while on road trips to parts of the country. That injustice stirred in young Ira a lifelong mission.
But devotion to racial equality can seem to come head-to-head with First Amendment rights to free expression, as when neo-Nazis sought to march in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., in 1977. The provocative plan to wear fascist regalia and parade through a town whose population was half Jewish – and which included one of the world’s largest communities of Holocaust survivors – was thwarted by town officials, who used a backdoor ordinance to prevent the event. (There was a 500-member B’nai B’rith chapter in town at the time, all of whose members were survivors.)
Glasser’s ACLU took up the case, and the backlash against the unpopular cause was enormous. It tested the mettle of the ACLU leadership – to say nothing of their fundraising department – and their commitment to free speech. But the leadership, which included a great many Jews, were almost unanimously steadfast.
The documentary shows how the ACLU’s relevance grew in the time of Glasser’s leadership, not solely because of his actions but also because the country was struggling with a range of social and moral conflicts. While the rights group had been at the forefront of issues like the Scopes “Monkey Trial” (addressing the place of religion in public education), the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War and Brown v. Board of Education (banning school segregation), the ACLU’s docket really filled up in the time Glasser was at the helm in large part because the country was confronting and struggling with so many divisive issues.
Mighty Ira is the story of a remarkable man, but it is also a history of American free speech in the second half of the 20th century.
Director Nico Perrino will be a guest at the March 9, 1 p.m., screening of the documentary.
More information about the festival will soon be available at vjff.org.
Mark Gurvis returns to Vancouver as head of the new Ronald Roadburg Foundation. (photo from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver)
Feb. 1 was Mark Gurvis’s first full day on the job as chief executive officer of the Ronald Roadburg Foundation. A newly established Vancouver-based organization, the foundation aims to bolster Jewish communities locally and internationally while developing innovative solutions to challenging societal issues.
A fixture in the community when he headed the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver from 2002 to 2013, Gurvis is excited to be back in town.
“I had a wonderful professional experience and my family had a wonderful life experience being part of the community,” he told the Independent. “We had a great run with the Federation. It is great to come back to a fresh opportunity. We are looking forward to getting involved again.”
At the outset, Gurvis will be busy doing many of the things needed to get a young foundation up and running: sorting out technical matters, getting the office organized, and reaching out to and reconnecting with people to determine the needs of the community.
“This is a complete start-up,” said Gurvis. “As with any new organization, an awful lot goes into the beginning to work out vision, goals and priorities. We have all of that ahead of us. We have a lot to learn about the current state of affairs in each area of focus we want to dive into and explore how we can best make a difference with the resources that will become available. There is a lot of organizational development stuff to tend to as well in starting up an organization from scratch.”
The foundation will be active in examining and assessing the needs of the community. “It’s too early to be putting oars in the water and say this is where we are going,” Gurvis stressed. “I encourage everyone to be patient as we do all the things to get the focus of the organization in place and then see how we can have a positive impact on the community and the region.”
Gurvis has had a full schedule since leaving his job at the Jewish Federation. He was executive vice-president of Jewish Federations of North America through 2020. In 2021, he created Community Network Consulting, a venture that focused on the strategy of nonprofits, community planning and organizational development.
Upon learning of the new position opening up, however, it seemed like the right opportunity to return to Vancouver, he said.
The Ronald Roadburg Foundation was founded by Jack Bogdonov, Stephen Gaerber and Bernard Pinsky, all of whom serve on its board. Gurvis, as CEO of Federation, worked with Gaerber, who was chair of the Coast-to-Coast partnership with the Galilee Panhandle in Israel, and with Pinsky, who was involved with the Jewish Federations of Canada (JFC-UIA).
“We recognized Mark’s intellect, creativity, calm demeanor, and ability to build consensus among constituencies as second to none among all Jewish professionals we had encountered,” said Pinsky. “When Jack, Stephen and I looked for a CEO that could help us accomplish the transformational change we aim for, there was only one person we reached out to: Mark Gurvis.”
Pinksy added, “Our board agrees that we are very fortunate to have Mark join us and, in our view, Mark gives us a big leg up on other start-up foundations because of all of the qualities mentioned above, as well as Mark’s depth and breadth of knowledge of the Jewish community, in Vancouver, Canada, the United States, Israel and the world.”
Ronald Roadburg, the foundation’s namesake, was a local businessman who passed away in 2021. Born and raised in Vancouver, he learned business from his father, Al Roadburg, who also headed the family enterprise, Broadway Properties.
“Two things his father taught him that he especially took to heart were: own property that is where people immediately know its location; and try not to sell properties, ever. These two principles led to the Roadburgs’ great success in the property business. Ron’s will left most of his assets to charity, and the foundation named after him will carry out his intention,” Pinsky said.
To those who knew him, Ronald Roadburg stood out for his sense of humour and compassion. “He loved helping people and he loved animals. He loved art, supporting local artists, and he collected many whimsical and unusual pieces,” Pinsky recalled. “During the last 10 years of his life, he was a director and participated wholeheartedly in making donations to worthy causes through a foundation established by his father.”
Roadburg commissioned numerous murals, which still appear on buildings that he owned around town. He championed several causes to help the less privileged in society and was an unwavering supporter of Israel.
The Ronald Roadburg Foundation will be situated on West Broadway. Over the next few months, the leadership will be honing its focus on specific areas of philanthropic investment and establishing its grant-making policies and practices. To learn more about the foundation, visit roadburgfund.org.
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Alison Cristall is the new assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. (photo from Alison Cristall)
Alison Cristall feels that she has come full circle, as she assumes her new job as assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. Among her earliest recollections are times at the Davis YM-YWHA in Montreal: going to preschool, taking swimming lessons and attending summer camps.
“I used to wait for my mom to finish her aerobics class while I hung out at the café eating French fries and doughnuts. Needless to say, I have extremely fond memories of my childhood, and our JCC was a very big part of it. My hope is that I can be a part of creating memories for others that are foundational to their lives,” she said.
Cristall officially started at the JCC on Feb. 7 and, in a recent interview, she affirmed her excitement about the new role and shared some of her thoughts.
“My priority is to listen to the staff, the community, members and stakeholders,” she said. “We are at an interesting time. In this time of change, I think understanding where our community is at, where our funders and stakeholders are, and understanding what their priorities are, is going to be foundational to how I proceed with the team.”
Cristall will be taking over many of the same responsibilities as Debbie Tabenkin, the recently retired director of programming and strategic initiatives, though in a reprised assistant executive director’s position. The last person to hold that job was current JCC executive director Eldad Goldfarb.
Cristall arrives at 950 West 41st Avenue with a wealth of experience around recreation centres and helping people be physically active. The Montreal native moved to British Columbia to obtain a degree in human kinetics and pursue her passion of health promotion and recreation.
While at the University of British Columbia, she developed Active U, a student-led health promotion program designed to increase physical activity and healthy eating for students living on campus. Upon graduation, she started work immediately on ACTNowBC, an initiative run by the provincial government to encourage a healthy and active lifestyle.
After the 2010 Winter Olympics, Cristall held a position with SportMedBC, where she oversaw the Sun Run in Training Program and its sister program, Aboriginal RunWalk, a provincially funded initiative to bring health and wellness programming to 100 Indigenous communities in the province.
For the past six years, she has been the recreation supervisor of the Trout Lake Community Centre, a job that did not get any less hectic due to the pandemic, because a building with an ice rink still needed to be maintained and some operations, such as summer day camps, continued.
“I had the time of my life at the centre,” Cristall said. “It solidified for me that running a community centre is my true passion.”
She added, “I am completely motivated by creating a safe, vibrant and relevant space for people to feel connected. When the opportunity came up to take this position at the JCC, I knew it was the right choice to leave the Park Board.”
Cristall recognizes that these are unprecedented times, and she hopes to take part in the development of new programs as the JCC begins to restart activities.
“The way centres have traditionally operated will change. We need to move forward and provide services that people need and are ready to participate in,” she said, emphasizing that an understanding of where people are emotionally, psychologically and spiritually in the return to some semblance of normalcy is crucial.
She points out that with this transition come opportunities for the JCC to grow. For example, a switch to providing some hybrid activities could open up what the JCC has to offer to a broader group of people around the city and beyond.
“It’s a good time to do an evaluation of programs and services and conduct needs assessments around the community, and to think towards the future,” she said.
Cristall spoke in glowing terms regarding her connection to the Vancouver Jewish community, from the time she first met her husband at a Hanukkah party to the present.
“This is such a lovely Jewish community and you can really find the areas where you fit in,” she said. “It is a community that is integrated yet still very close, and they take care of each other in a very amazing way, and the JCC is at the centre of it. There is something so grounding about having a JCC that can be the home for programs and services or some need within the community.”
The JCC board and staff are equally excited to have Cristall join them.
“Alison is an accomplished and experienced professional,” said Goldfarb. “She will help set the course and lead our team as we continue serving our community as well as gearing up towards the creation and building of our new JCC and community hub…. I look forward to working with her, our dedicated team and board as we shape the future of our community.”
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
A gift of Elie Wiesel’s Night was among the forces that influenced Madeleine Schwarz’s career path.
Madeleine Schwarz is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Not the kind you would expect to build much of her career prosecuting or aiding in the prosecution of war criminals around the world, including the Nazi war criminal known as the “Beast of Bolzano,” who was living on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.
Now based in Toronto, working with the Refugee Board of Canada, Schwarz spoke with the Jewish Independent about a few of her accomplishments.
Raised Catholic, Schwarz was one of seven kids on the block who frequented our house in Vancouver back in the 1960s and early ’70s. Little did we know that she would soon be making history.
She told the Independent that her passion for international criminal law began when she was a teenager and learned about the genocide of the Jewish people.
My parents, Joyce and Bernie Freeman, helped her along her journey by giving her Night by Elie Wiesel, an account of his terrifying time in Auschwitz.
“Your house was very much an introduction to Judaism,” she said. “Yours was a very open, friendly Jewish family. I recall coming to your house for Shabbat dinner in my convent school uniform.”
While studying international relations at the University of British Columbia, Schwarz had a number of Chilean friends who had family members in camps under the dictator Augusto Pinochet. That was her “introduction” to contemporary war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In 1994, Schwarz graduated with her bachelor of laws at Dalhousie University. In 2003, she obtained her master of laws at the University of Ottawa, specializing in international criminal law.
Her first job involving war crimes was at the Canadian Department of Justice. From 1999 to 2005, she worked closely with RCMP officers on investigations into crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Ukraine, Belarus, Italy and Rwanda.
When Italy found Michael Siefert, a former S.S. guard at a transit camp in Bolzano, guilty in absentia of 11 murders during the Holocaust, Schwarz put together the case to revoke his Canadian citizenship. She interviewed many people in Italy, including former resistance fighters who had witnessed his crimes.
“Seifert was quite a young man during the war. He was an old man during the proceedings. But he had committed horrendous crimes,” she said.
One of the documents Schwarz saw during the investigation made the Holocaust all so terribly real.
“I remember that we had an invoice confirming the transfer of a number of people to Auschwitz. That was one of the most horrific pieces of evidence I’ve ever seen.”
In 2003, as a result of her work and that of the legal teams who came afterwards, the B.C. Supreme Court ordered Siefert’s extradition and, in 2007, the Federal Court upheld a decision to strip him of his Canadian citizenship. In 2008, Siefert, aged 83, was sent back to Italy. His residence in Vancouver as a free man for more than 50 years was over.
During her time with the Department of Justice, Schwarz interviewed many victims and witnesses of war crimes. She said that, even when, after 15 minutes, she knew that she couldn’t use their story, she would sit there and listen for the whole two hours.
“When I’ve asked someone to tell me their story,” she said, “it’s incumbent on me to listen.… I might be the only person they will be able to tell their story to [in their lifetime].”
From 2006 to 2010, Schwarz lived in Tanzania, where she was one of the trial attorneys on the largest multi-accused trial for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Part of her work there was interviewing perpetrators of the genocide in the Butare prefecture.
She confided that this part of her job was very hard on her. “I remember interviewing three suspects alleged to have committed genocide in a row. I told my colleague – I need a break before I can talk to the fourth man.”
When it came to the trial, Schwarz and her team secured convictions of all six accused, including the first woman charged with ordering rape as a war crime.
“I think, as a lawyer and particularly a prosecutor, you are assessing the evidence and being critical. You have to be pretty surgical about it,” said Schwarz.
A few years later, at a UN conference, a co-presenter from Butare approached her and told her that his entire family had been wiped out by the genocide there. “And he said thank you very much for your work. And I practically burst into tears because I felt humbled that somebody would say that … it was not something I felt I should be thanked for, nor any of us should be thanked for because it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
As a commissioner looking into the killings in Les Cayes prison in Haiti during 2010, Schwarz led an international team and supervised the final report with recommendations on future prosecutions, penal reform, justice reform and police training.
Schwarz was in Kenya in 2013, working as the human rights and justice advisor to the UN Special Envoy in the Great Lakes region of Africa, a region encompassing 13 countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. With a team of experts, she collaborated with myriad different organizations to create strong networks of people who would work together to promote better communication, peace and understanding in the region.
“There are so many layers that need to be addressed if you are ever going to deal with root causes of conflict, that range from ensuring people have access to clean water, food, lodging and education, to building trust and confidence among the leaders and civil society, to advocating for accountability for past crimes…. It takes a lot of time,” she said.
From 2016 to 2019, Schwarz worked as a trial lawyer and deputy team leader at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It was there that she prepared arrest warrants for individuals alleged to have committed crimes in Libya since 2011.
Despite seeing the very worst of humanity, Schwarz still has hope for the human race. “I’ve seen some pretty horrible things,” she acknowledged. “I’ve also seen people who do tremendous things to try and make change or try and help people.”
And she had this to say about the International Criminal Court.
“I think that investigations and prosecutions of individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are incredibly important,” said Schwarz. “I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re always getting the complete truth and I do not think we always get it right. However, I do think we get some truth and some accountability that is important for victims, as well as for countries moving out of conflict. I think that is important. And it’s a different way of telling the story than a novelist or historian.”
Cassandra Freeman is a freelance writer living in Vancouver. During the early 1980s, she was part of the Jewish student movement that called for the extradition of Nazi war criminals living in Canada.
Ricci Segal, owner of Perfect Bite Catering Co. (photo from Perfect Bite)
The Perfect Bite Catering Co. works out of Vancouver Talmud Torah’s kosher kitchen. In addition to providing hearty lunches for VTT students, staff and parents of children who attend the school, the company caters events in the Jewish community. As well, since 2019, the Perfect Bite has been catering to many in the larger Metro Vancouver community, through its online store.
Perfect Bite owner Ricci Segal has always known that she wanted to be a chef. Born in South Africa, her family moved to Canada when she was 6 years old. Segal remembers, as a kid in South Africa, cooking with her mom, who was “a fantastic cook.”
In high school, Segal’s first restaurant job was at Coco Pazzo, where she assisted the chefs and ran the dishwashing room. She got her first experience in the catering industry when she worked for two years in Arizona for her aunt’s kosher catering company. It is there that she got her first taste of the business.
“I learned so much from working with my aunt,” said Segal. “She has a staff of 30 and she threw me right into the mix.”
She added, noting her gratitude, “By working there, I picked up all I know of catering and it helped me create my business.”
Before starting her own company, Segal attended culinary school at Vancouver Community College. While a student at VCC, she was asked to be a support member of Culinary Team Canada. The team competes on behalf of Canada for all culinary competitions, including the IKA Culinary Olympics, which takes place every four years. According to Segal, “it was an amazing experience.” The team traveled to Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany and Chicago to compete and they won several gold medals. Being on Culinary Team Canada allowed Segal “to learn from the best chefs in Canada.”
“It definitely molded me into the chef I am today,” she said.
Segal did her apprenticeship at three top restaurants in Vancouver: the Pear Tree, the Four Seasons Hotel and Le Crocodile. It was in this period that she really honed her skills. The Four Seasons at that time was the top kosher hotel in Vancouver and Segal was able to be a part of some of the most luxurious kosher events.
In 2010, she parlayed her extensive experience into her own business and established the Perfect Bite Catering Co., while also moonlighting as a chef instructor at VCC.
About her decision to open a kosher catering company, she said, “There was a need for a different style of kosher catering food in Vancouver and it happened naturally from there.”
What makes the Perfect Bite unique, Segal said, is that its staff – who were recruited from her stints teaching at VCC or from working with them at various establishments – “are all French-trained chefs who have worked in the best restaurants.
“That is what we bring to the kosher world in Vancouver,” she said.
She noted that her company specializes in gourmet food, “so most of our clients are foodies.”
Perfect Bite Catering offers a range of kosher meal options. (photo from Perfect Bite)
Segal officially moved into Talmud Torah’s kitchen in September 2019. Prior to that, she had a retail location on Fraser Street and 28th Avenue, which was not kosher, but she would do her kosher catering for Jewish functions out of Congregation Schara Tzedeck’s facilities. When she moved her business to VTT, she made it into a full-service kosher catering company that is supervised under B.C. Kosher.
Like many businesses affected by the pandemic, the Perfect Bite has been forced to adapt to survive. According to Segal, the biggest challenge was the loss of all the events, which made up the majority of the company’s business.
“The silver lining is that it has given us time to create an online store, where we sell fresh and frozen foods to help with everybody’s busy lives,” said Segal. “We have great oven-ready meals and are expanding into some weekly fresh options.”
Some of the items available include power bowl salads, sandwiches, lasagna, butter chicken, sweet-and-sour chicken, caramelized onion brisket and Moroccan chickpea stew, to name a handful. A three-course weekend dinner is also available every other week for pick up on Friday at VTT.
“My long-term goals are to continue servicing the Vancouver kosher market with great healthy ready-to-eat meals, as well as doing full-service catering events like bar and bar mitzvahs and weddings once we are able to do so safely,” said Segal.
David J. Litvakis a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com.
