Moshe Denburg, founder of the musical ensemble Tzimmes. (photo from Tzimmes)
Tzimmes will take part in the Siyyum Sefer Torah celebration of Tri-Cities Chabad, as the community marks the completion of a Sefer Torah on March 10, 2:30 p.m., at Old Orchard Hall in Port Moody.
Rabbi Mottel Gurevitz, the driving force behind this year-long project and the spiritual leader of Tri-Cities Chabad, expressed the significance of completing a Torah: “The completion of a Sefer Torah is a monumental occasion in the Jewish tradition. It represents the unity of our community, the passing on of our heritage to future generations and the commitment to our shared values. It is a symbol of strength, resilience and continuity.”
Do you defy a stereotype? Have you faced prejudice or stigma in your life? Do you have unique life experience, or a story to tell? Apply now to be a human book for the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library’s Human Library event on Sunday, April 7, and share your lived experience with others.
The Human Library originates in Denmark and has spread across the globe. The program is based on the idea of “unjudging” others, and seeks to challenge our preconceived notions of people through conversation.
The local Sunday event will run from noon to 4 p.m. Community members will come in and ask to take out certain “books,” meaning they’ll have the opportunity to have a conversation with certain volunteers. To give an example, the library currently has three volunteer books and their titles are “Child Holocaust Survivor,” “Brain Cancer Survivor” and “Police Officer,” which indicates the facet of their lived experience/identity that they are willing to talk about. Each volunteer can expect to have four to seven sessions with “borrowers,” either one-on-one or in small groups. There will be a lot of breaks and snacks, and volunteer books are empowered to decline talking about anything that makes them uncomfortable. There will be a training session prior to the event to help everyone prepare.
A Human Library is a way for people to reach out and connect with individuals in their community with whom they might not normally engage. Human Libraries promote tolerance, celebrate differences and encourage understanding of people who come from varied cultural or lifestyle backgrounds.
A still from the film Stolen Time: lawyer Melissa Miller reviews footage from a long-term-care room camera. (photo from National Film Board of Canada)
“I’m only at the beginning of this fight,” says lawyer Melissa Miller in the documentary Stolen Time, written and directed by Jewish community member Helene Klodawsky. Miller, of Toronto firm Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP, is lead counsel in mass tort claims against for-profit long-term-care corporations Extendicare, Revera Inc. and Sienna Senior Living.
Stolen Time will screen in Vancouver March 21 at VIFF Centre – Vancity Theatre, as part of a national release that includes Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal. The film is a joint production of Intuitive Pictures Inc. (with Jewish community member Ina Fichman at the helm) and the National Film Board of Canada (Ariel Nasr, producer).
To give readers an idea of what Miller is up against, there is a scene in the film where the private investigator she has hired, Brett Rigby, shares some financial data. According to Rigby’s documents, Extendicare had a revenue of $1.1 billion in 2019, $91 million in earnings and $42 million cash dividends declared – “and they’re locking up incontinence pads,” remarks Miller.
The film notes that “a few hundred family clients have grievances against these companies,” the most common complaints being serious dehydration, malnutrition, injuries and misdiagnoses. The homes apparently meet the requirements for staffing, but at least one person is off at any given time, so they are consistently understaffed. There seems to be no regulatory oversight, while the companies bring in record profits, the film contends.
Miller has been suing for-profit nursing home corporations in Canada and elsewhere for negligence since 2018, both in mass tort (class action) claims and independent cases against various facilities, one of which is featured in the documentary.
Video clips of residents experiencing abuse juxtaposed with family videos of the long-term-care residents when they were healthy allow viewers to see the people more fully and the depth of the injustices more clearly. Miller contends that it isn’t the staff who are to blame, generally, but rather that the staff aren’t given adequate resources by the companies, who could afford to do something but don’t.
A complicating factor in effecting change is that, for example, Revera is owned by a Canadian Crown corporation, ie. the federal government, notes the film. As COVID ravaged nursing homes in 2020, with thousands of residents dying, “governments across North America pass[ed] legislation to protect them from lawsuits.”
“Today, nursing home chains around the world have become sites for wealth extraction by investors and shareholders,” writes Klodawsky in her director’s statement. “At its core, such financialization of care ties frail elders to overworked, racialized and predominantly female staff. When public pension fund managers, private equity and real estate companies help set the rules, compassion and dignity fall by the wayside. Nonetheless, rapidly expanding populations of the frail elderly, combined with shrinking numbers of family caregivers, ensure a steady stream of residents.”
People interviewed in Stolen Time include Dr. Pat Armstrong, a sociologist and professor at York University; Lisa Alleyne, a personal support worker who has worked in for-profit nursing homes (she is also an artist and her illustrations of what some long-term-home residents face are powerful); Rai Reece, who writes and teaches on anti-Black racism; Jackie Brown, who researches how publicly traded companies make money for investors; Jason Ward, who investigates how public pension funds are invested in for-profit nursing homes globally; Katha Fortier, who has been fighting for the rights of care workers for decades; Ayesha Jabbar, a former social worker who became a union rep; and members of a couple of the families Miller is representing.
Stolen Time is an engaging film that raises a lot of important questions about how nursing homes are run. It is unfortunate that it doesn’t include any interviews or statements from company representatives or government officials.
The post-screening panel discussion in Vancouver will feature Sara Pon, staff lawyer and researcher atSeniors First BC, and co-chair of the BC Adult Abuse and Neglect Prevention Collaborative; Bruce Devereux, a recreation therapist with three-plus decades of experience in the not-for-profit aging care sector; and Julia Henderson, assistant professor in the department of occupational science and occupational therapy at the University of British Columbia, and chair of the North American Network in Aging Studies.
The current show at the Zack Gallery, Community Longing and Belonging, brings together a range of artists and styles. Pictured here is Alejandra Morales’s “A Landscape of Consumable Dreams.” (photo by Olga Livshin)
The current show at the Zack Gallery, Community Longing and Belonging, which opened Feb. 21, is the sixth annual exhibition in celebration of Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month.
The exhibit was organized by the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Inclusion Services and curated by Shelly Bordensky, the program’s coordinator. Most participating artists are either members of the JCC program or similar ones in other localities, like Aspire Richmond. These initiatives support people with developmental disabilities through various creative endeavours.
The Zack show’s creative displays consist of paintings and pottery. While the size, media, colour palettes and framing of the works are all different, the underlying theme is the same: we all want to belong, we are all together on this planet.
Two paintings reflect that theme not only in their content and method of execution, but in their titles as well: “All Together 1” and “All Together 2.” Both works are cheerful and colourful, rendered with the abandon of the primitivism style. Cats and birds frolic on the canvas without regard for one another or for rules of perspective. Both list the artist as Art Hive, the visual art division of JCC Inclusion Services.
Bordensky told the Independent that both paintings were group pieces, created by several people. “Each artist added an element – a cat or a bird – and our wonderful art instructor, Kim Almond, made sure they all matched in style and colours.”
According to Almond, 13 artists, all members of Art Hive, participated in each painting.
“Mark Li and Andrew Jackson started off the two collaborative paintings for the group, and it was a great project to work on as a class,” she said. “Colours were a huge part of the process, as the artists were always striving to create that special pop of colour.”
Another example of group art is the pottery creations – playful little animals, solemn hamsas (hands) and juicy pomegranates – crowding several stands around the gallery.
“These ceramic pieces are all Raku ceramics by the pottery artists who are members of our Art Hive,” said Bordensky. “Together, we can create so much.”
Individual artists’ paintings are also on the theme of community.
Alex Lecce’s untitled piece is a slice of a neighbourhood street with a pie shop. The colours are realistic, and the image captures a quiet, everyday moment. We all go there, the artist seems to say. Those pies make our lives happier and more flavourful. They unite us in our humanity.
On the other hand, Alejandra Morales’s painting, “A Landscape of Consumable Dreams,” is jarring in both the colour palette and the structure. This painting screams of discord. There are two disparate parts in the image. The top part is a tangled bunch of flowers, all in beautiful, greyish lilac hues, intertwined and elaborate. The bottom part is a vague human figure bowing to the pretty flowers. The colours of the figure are harsh, grating; they don’t fit with the flowers. But the figure obviously wants to fit, just as we all want to fit in with our surroundings. The complexity of the juxtaposition of humans versus nature is unmistakable.
Other paintings are not as complicated. Mami Zimmerman’s “Best Friends” features two ponies. Its simplicity is charming and lovely. We all want such friends.
Calvin Ho’s painting “Nuts” is another example of primitivism in the show. The bright depiction of a squirrel and a woodpecker is reminiscent of picture books from our childhood. Bold lines and primary colours underscore that feeling. The two creatures are playing tug with a nut. Or maybe they are sharing it. Or fighting over it. The innocence of the picture invariably induces a smile.
In contrast, Merle Linde’s powerful landscape – “BC Wildfire 2023” – doesn’t invite smiles. The painting, its red and black scheme grim and scary, reminds us of the horror of the wildfires that affect our forests every year. The tragedy implied in the painting unites us, just as the sweeter emotions in other images do.
In a telephone interview with the Independent, Linde said: “I’ve always enjoyed art, from the day I could hold a pencil. I liked going to art shows, too.” Mostly self-taught as an artist, she said she only started painting seriously after she retired.
Judaica is one of the directions she explores in her art. To date, the Independent has used two of her paintings for its cover: for the 2023 Passover issue and for the 2022 Rosh Hashanah issue. Occasionally, she teaches classes for seniors in various artistic techniques.
“Acrylic pour is a fascinating technique,” she said. “You pour the paint and let it spread as it will without a brush, and then wait till it dries. That was what I did for the background of the ‘Wildfire’ painting. I made it a few years ago. When I saw the news about the wildfires last summer, I picked up a brush and painted the black burned-out tree skeletons on top. I have two such paintings, but there was only space for one in the Zack show.”
Most of the paintings in the show express themselves at first view. However, Gail Rudin’s “Out for the Hunt” raises questions. It portrays four seemingly perky owls on a merry, greenish background. One could assume a light-hearted company of friends on an outing, until one notices a line of tiny mice scurrying away in terror in the very bottom of the picture. Suddenly, the entire image changes its meaning, illustrating the unavoidable conflicts within nature, where the hunters and the hunted coexist. Despite the constant danger of the wild, nature somehow always finds its balance. Maybe, as humans, we could take lessons from that.
Community Longing and Belonging is on display at the Zack Gallery until April 2.
Olga Livshinis a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
As the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival approaches, the Jewish Independent reviews three more of the festival’s offerings: A Radiant Girl, All About the Levkovitches and One More Story.
Linking past to present?
In A Radiant Girl, 19-year-old Irene (Rebecca Marder) is an actress whose incessant theatrics get on her family’s nerves but the enthusiasm for performing that she and her diverse group of drama student friends exhibit provides a convenient distraction to the events going on around her in 1942 Paris.
A succession of Nazi policies add up, one after another, from the “Juive” stamped in red on her identity papers to the expropriation of Jewish people’s bicycles, radios and telephones, but Irene and her friends continue their thespian activities, mostly oblivious to larger events. The viewer, of course, knows that more ominous things await but the ending is both dramatic and subtly understated.
Costuming and hairstyles in the film do not always clearly situate the timeframe of events, especially early on, and a viewer beginning the film without any background might not be certain if it is set in contemporary times or another era. As the movie progresses, automobiles and more clearly discernible 1940s clothing styles make the era more specific. But is the filmmaker sending a message about the timelessness of vigilance against the slow drip of authoritarian actions that can lead to totalitarianism and catastrophe?
Shadow boxing
A family drama is at the heart of All About the Levkovitches, in which Tamás, an aging boxing coach in Hungary (Bezerédi Zoltán) is forced to confront his estranged son Iván (Tamás Szabó Kimmel) who, recently religious, returns from Israel for his mother’s shiva, hauling along his young son.
The decidedly unobservant father/widower has no interest in following traditional Jewish mourning rituals. “What’s a minyan?” asks one of his friends as he explains what is happening at home. “A bunch of Jews in my house,” he replies. (“When my mother died, we just drank,” the friend says.) The arrival of the local Jews to pray with the grieving son while the father goes about his business in an undershirt is a priceless vignette of worldviews colliding.
The father, who doesn’t know any Hebrew, and his grandson, who may or may not understand Hungarian, eventually find a common language. So, too, do the estranged father and son, through much fighting, boxing, arguing and wrestling demons.
The grandfather’s disastrous attempt to assemble a Scandinavian do-it-yourself wall unit as his own ritual tribute to his late wife is a metaphor for his fumbling way of dealing with crisis, a project that is (somewhat predictably) resolved when the handy ba’al teshuvah son finally relents to helping, resolving not just the bookshelf problem but the larger issue of how things fit together.
It is a darkly hilarious and often emotionally moving drama.
Live, laugh, love
In One More Story, Yarden (played by Dina Sanderson) is a 20-something journalist at Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper and needs an attention-grabbing human interest series. She goes to that old standby, modern dating, and sets up doofus Adam on a series of disastrous dates, aiming for the print media version of the reality TV dating genre.
She recounts the foibles of Adam’s love life – with flashbacks to cringe-inducing interactions between the hapless Adam and a stream of mismatched potential romantic interests – while herself on a first date (with the film’s director Guri Alfi, playing the bad first date foil for Yarden’s storytelling).
The bad dates within a bad date motif provides a canvas for a variety show-style packed script of hilariously calamitous meetups. But Adam goes off script when love at first sight hits him out of the blue – literally – which does not coincide with Yarden’s journalistic requirements.
There is nothing particularly innovative in the romantic comedy department, but the witty writing and vivacious acting, plus a veritable bombardment of sight gags and more subtle facial expressions, make the film a laugh riot and a delight.
Watch vjff.org for the full lineup and tickets for the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs April 4-14 in theatre and April 15-19 online.
Congregation Sha’are Shalom in Kingston, Jamaica. (photo from Jamaica Tourist Board)
It was a muggy Friday afternoon just hours after my family and I had touched down in Jamaica for a two-week vacation, and the plan was to attend evening services at Kingston’s only synagogue, Congregation Sha’are Shalom. Too tired to argue, my kids and spouse changed clothes, we squashed six into the rental car and ventured into the city.
Though we knew the stately synagogue on Kingston’s Duke Street had been there since 1912, it still felt surprising to go inside and find eight members of the tribe leading a Shabbat service. The two-level synagogue is a magnificent piece of architecture, with a majestic, mahogany aron hakodesh filled with Torah scrolls from other Jamaican synagogues that closed or merged over the years. The ground floor is composed of sand, making this one of just five sand-floored synagogues worldwide. One story says the sand hearkens back to when Jews were worshipping in basements in Spain and Portugal, during the Inquisition, and sandy floors silenced their footsteps. Another legend says the sand is there as a reminder that we should multiply like sand on the seashore.
Sha’are Shalom has space for at least 300 congregants, but when we arrived, there were just the eight locals and the six of us. The deep, sonorous baritone of one member, who led the service from the mahogany bimah, filled the air with a spiritual melody and, above us, ceiling fans whirred, adding a reprieve to the humid evening. From the bimah, Stephen Henriques, the spiritual leader, spoke of the dispersal of Kingston’s Jewish community over the past four decades, adding that many of today’s members are interfaith. “Still, we are here, celebrating and living our Jewishness, as we have done for centuries,” he said.
We were warmly welcomed to the service, and happily joined in a kiddush of grape juice, challah and sweet Jamaican coco bread. I tried to imagine a time when the synagogue was brimming with Jews, its walls resonating with children’s laughter, congregants’ prayers and Jewish possibilities. There were times like this, but they happened many, many years ago.
Jamaica was occupied by the Spanish from 1494 until 1655. During that time, Jews from Spain and Portugal began trickling onto the island. With the Spanish Inquisition underway, those Jews became Marranos, practising their faith in secret. In 1655, when the British occupied Jamaica, Jews were able to practise their faith without secrecy, but they weren’t completely free from discrimination. Between 1690 and 1740, a “Jew Tax” was levied and only in 1831, the year of the largest slave rebellion in the country, were Jews allowed to vote and participate fully in public life.
Jews had been quietly involved for years before that, but they embraced this opportunity with gusto. By 1849, eight of the members of Jamaica’s House of Assembly were Jewish. George Stiebel, a Jewish businessman who made his fortune in gold mining in Venezuela, was the country’s first Black millionaire, in 1881. He built Devon House, one of the country’s flagship mansions and a national monument today.
We continued to nibble on coco bread in the Jewish Heritage Centre adjacent to the synagogue, wishing we had more time to peruse the walls, where there is lots of historical data on Jewish contributions to the island. It was dark by the time we left, so we didn’t have time to see the memorial garden, where tombstones dating back to the 18th century have been relocated.
A few days into our stay, we left Kingston for Ocho Rios and Montego Bay on the north coast. When the sun shone, we explored Jamaica’s beaches, relishing the feel of the warm water on our skin. When the rain came pouring down, we drove to neighbouring parishes to explore small towns.
One such drive took us to Falmouth, a small town whose poverty and neglect is loudly revealed in its deeply potholed roads and dilapidated homes and buildings. Coming, as we did, from an all-inclusive resort just 20 minutes away, the disparity between the two environments was glaring.
But it wasn’t always this way. The Jewish cemetery in Falmouth is filled with the graves of Jewish merchants who dominated the once-flourishing trade here in the 19th century. When I announced we were making a stop at the cemetery, there was a collective groan from the back of the car. “We went to synagogue – now we have to visit dead Jews?” my son asked. As my husband valiantly navigated through potholes the size of small swimming pools, I tried to explain how a cemetery could be a fascinating place to explore history.
Though we were probably only a stone’s throw away from the cemetery, we never made it. After one particularly large pothole, and another ahead that threatened to drown the rental car, a decision was made. “I love you, sweetheart, but I just don’t want to get stuck out here,” my husband declared.
I couldn’t blame him.
Drive around Jamaica and safety is not a feeling that comes easily. For one, the drivers overtake with such reckless disregard for life that road accidents always feel imminent. For another, the looks you get from some locals leave your Spidey sense tingling with fear. Leave the resorts and there are few warm welcomes from the community at large it seems, with the exception of those who have something to sell. Jamaica is known for its violence, with a rate of 52.9 homicides per 100,000 people, as compared to Canada’s, at 2.5.
We turned around and headed back to the resort, where staff sweep trash off the beach daily, and food and booze are readily available day and night. Moving between the pool and the ocean, it didn’t take long to relax. As the mojitos flowed, though, my mind kept returning to those tenacious Jews who arrived in Jamaica hundreds of years ago. They came with sand in their shoes and buckets of determination to pursue their religion and build success in a new land. I wondered what they’d say if they could see Jamaica today.
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.
The City of Vancouver’s Broadway Plan includes different ideas for different areas. This image shows the general intention for Broadway’s shoulder areas. (image from vancouver.ca)
Assuming you haven’t been hiding under a rock for the past many years, you’re probably familiar with Marie Kondo. For those of you boulder-hiders, she’s the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. I think she’s also the genius who coined the term “spark joy.” As in: “If it doesn’t spark joy, get rid of it.” While I’d bet the farm that this thought has crossed the mind of many a wife over countless years of marriage, I believe what Kondo is referring to is the stuff that clutters our home. And, by “stuff,” I don’t mean husbands. Although, if the shoe fits….
Speaking of clutter, my husband and I recently got a shock. The apartment building I’ve been living in for the past 37 years (and Harvey’s home for the past 18 years) is on the chopping block, thanks to the City of Vancouver’s Broadway Plan. The city has ever so kindly put up a huge sign on the front lawn of our building with the jazzy-looking redevelopment plan. What is currently a quaint three-storey apartment from the 1970s is soon to become two high-rise towers (19 and 20 floors, respectively) with retail below.
This whole situation is not sparking a lot of joy. If I’m being completely honest, it’s pretty much just sparking a whack load of anxiety. Currently, we are paying the lowest rent on the planet for a large two-bedroom apartment. We will soon be faced with finding a similar-sized apartment that will easily rent for two to three times as much. Did I mention that we’re both retired? This is no pity-party; it’s just a reality that is sparking the opposite of joy.
On the topic of sparking joy, though, I am now in the process of downsizing, in preparation for having to move. Frankly, I’m surprised by the dearth of joy that is sparked as I go through 37 years’ worth of stuff. Like many of my contemporaries, I was gifted loads of my parents’ old possessions when they downsized from a house to a condo to an apartment. I’m now realizing how popular teak was in the 1960s. And, surprise of surprises, it’s making a comeback. Which brings me to Facebook Marketplace, where I am divesting myself of myriad useless possessions. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and all that. Turns out, my trash is pretty lucrative.
What I’m learning through this experience is that there’s very little that sparks joy for me anymore. Let me clarify. My family and friends spark a great deal of joy. My community sparks a lot of joy. But does my mom’s 1958 aluminum roasting pan spark joy? Hard no. Likewise, their teak serving tray that once did yeoman’s service at cocktail parties. No joy there. However, the Gen Zs around town think it’s a new invention and are willing to pay top dollar for it. As witnessed by the bidding war it sparked on Marketplace when I listed it. I’m continually amazed by what people will buy: used barbells, wooden boxes, old clothes, eight-year-old computer keyboards and cordless mice, and on and on. I even sold the toilet riser I bought after I had knee replacement surgery last year. (All cleaned, of course.) To date, I have sold enough stuff to buy a brand-new high-end kitchen appliance. But not enough to buy a designer puppy. Or a Honda CR-V. But still.
In the process, I have acquired a new-found appreciation for simplicity and minimalism. Decluttering has become my BFF. Never thought I’d say those words. A true dyed-in-the-wool packrat, this whole experience has been eye-opening. And, believe me when I tell you that my decluttering is sparking a tremendous batch of joy for my husband Harvey, who likes things tidy. There are areas of our apartment he’s never even seen before. “We have a walk-in closet?”
As I throw myself body and soul into my new mission, I realize it’s taking a toll on my balabustaness. I’m so focused on getting rid of things that I sometimes lose track of time. “Oops, it’s dinnertime already? Guess we’ll just have to order in.” I have (in my head) committed to homemade meals at least five days a week. The other two days are catch as catch can. Read: tuna melts, scrambled eggs or takeout. OK, read: takeout. We’re supposed to be supporting the economy, right?
On the topic of balabustaness and cooking, did I mention that, due to health challenges, my husband has to be on a strict low-salt diet? And he also has to avoid high-potassium foods. Which makes being the Accidental Balabusta way less accidental. I’m practically the Intentional Balabusta now. But, oh, how I love a challenge. Think DASH diet, blah, blah, blah. Which is exactly how low-salt or no-salt food tastes. Blah, blah, blah. Consequently, I’ve enlisted countless heads of garlic, jars of spices and armloads of herbs. Onions would solve multitudinous culinary conundrums, except that onions and I are not on speaking terms.
As I scour the internet for low-salt recipes that don’t taste like sawdust, I am truly underwhelmed. Surely, we’re not the only family who is sodium-challenged yet appreciates flavourful food. Maybe we are. If anybody out there in Balabustaland has some delicious low-sodium recipes, please feel free to share with me.
On another health-related note, my husband recently had prostate surgery, and I’ve been given to understand that high-protein foods promote healing. Thing is, his appetite has diminished quite a bit since his surgery. He’s asking for light comfort foods, like eggs and soup. When I inquired what kind of soup he fancied the day he got out of hospital, my humorous hubby replied: “Leek.” I chose not to dwell on that unfortunate pun. He may have had his prostate removed, but he certainly hasn’t had a humour bypass. I settled on chicken soup.
But, like Harvey said, there’s a lot of humour in this whole prostate situation, if you ignore the pain. For instance, at Harvey’s first post-op visit to our GP, the doctor asked how Harvey’s was doing. To which Harvey replied: “Depends.”
Stay tuned for more on decluttering, salt-free cooking and, well, probably leakage. To those of you who have a urologist on speed dial, urine good hands.
I’ll see myself out.
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.
אתר טוטל ג’ואיש טרבל שמיועד למטיילים יהודים שומרי מסורת האוכלים אוכל כשר, מפרסם מידע אודות קנדה
בחלק הראשון מתפרסם מידע כללי על קנדה
קנדה היא מדינה בחלקה הצפונית של צפון אמריקה, היא המדינה השנייה בעולם בגודל בשטח ואוכלוסייתה מונה קרוב לארבעים מיליון איש. קנדה מחולקת לעשר פרובינציות ושלוש וטריטוריות. המדינה היא מונרכיה חוקתית ודמוקרטיה פרלמנטרית. לקנדה גבול בודד עם ארצות הברית ומדובר על הגבול היבשתי הארוך בעולם, באורך של קרוב לתשעת אלפי קילומטרים. עיר הבירה של קנדה היא אוטווה בה נמצא הפרלמנט ומקום מושבה של הממשלה הפדרלית וכן של המושל הכללי, שמייצג את ראש המדינה – המלך של אנגליה. קנדה היא מושבה בריטית לשעבר והיא המדינה הגדולה ביותר בחבר העמים הבריטי. ברוב המדינה יש מזג אוויר קר בחורף, ובכלל מזג אוויר קר מאפיין את המדינה, אולם באזור דרום המדינה חם בקיץ. קנדה מאוכלסת בדלילות, רוב השטח הכפרי מיוער ובמדינה ישנם גם את הרי הרוקי. רוב תושבי המדינה גרים בערים גדולות ובינוניות, למעשה מדובר במדינה עירונית מאוד כאשר כשמונים ושניים אחוזים מהתושבים מתגוררים בערים. שליש מהאוכלוסייה חי בשלוש הערים הגדולות: טורונטו, מונטריאול, וונקובר. קרוב לשלושים מיליון תיירים מבקרים בקנדה מדי שנה. סיבות ההגעה שלהם למדינה מגוונות. ספורט החורף במדינה מפותח מאוד ומביא תיירות רבה למדינה, בקנדה יש גם הרבה פסטיבלים בחורף ובקיץ המושכים אליהם תיירים רבים מכל רחבי העולם
בחלק השני מתפרסם מידע על היהודים בקנדה
בקנדה גרים כארבע מאות ועשרים אלף יהודים שמהווים קצת יותר מאחוז מתושבי המדינה. מוצאם של רוב יהודי קנדה הוא אשכנזי אולם במדינה חיים גם יהודים ממוצא ספרדי, מזרחי ומגוירים. בקנדה ישנם מוסדות תרבות יהודיים רבים המשרתים את הקהילות הרבות במדינה על זרמיהם השונים. למרות היותם מיעוט קטן במדינה, נוכחות יהודי קנדה במדינה מתקיימת כבר מאז סיום מלחמת שבע השנים. רוב אוכלוסיית היהודים במדינה מתגוררת בערים הגדולות. בטורונטו ובמונטריאול חיות הקהילות היהודיות הגדולות במדינה, כאשר בטורונטו חיים כמאתיים וחמישים אלף יהודים ובמונטריאול למעלה ממאה אלף יהודים. אלו גם הערים בהן ניתן למצוא מסעדות כשרות וחנויות לממכר אוכל כשר. קהילות יהודיות חיות גם בערים אחרות אך אוכלוסייתן קטנה יותר, וגם הסיכוי למצוא בהם אוכל כשר קטן ונעשה קשה יותר לאיתור, אולם עדיין גם מחוץ לערים אלו ישנן מסעדות וחנויות כשרות גם מחוץ לטורונטו ומונטריאול
בחלק השלישי מתפרסם מידע על ונקובר
המדריך המלא למטיילים יהודים ולשומרי כשרות בוונקובר מפרסם מידע למטייל אודות מקומות כשרים (כגון מסעדות כשרות, בתי קפה, מאפיות וחנויות), וכן ומידע מגוון על מוסדות בקהילה היהודית בוונקובר או בסמוך אליה, כוללי בתי כנסת, מקוואות, בתי מלון כשרים או מוסדות המתאימים למטיילים דתיים, הקשורים לקהילה היהודית בוונקובר או לשאר חלקי בריטיש קולומביה. מוזכרים בין היתר שני ארגונים: הג’ואיש קומיונטי סנטר והכולל-אוהל יעקב. שני מקוואות: אחד בארגון של חב”ד ואחד בבית הכנסת שערי צדק. מוזכרים מספר בתי כנסת נוספים בעיר: בית המדרש, עץ חיים וטמפל שלום. ישנם גם שלושה בתי מלון בעיר המספקים אוכל כשר: הולידי אין, פארק אין-רדיסון והייקרופט סוויטס. בוונקובר יש גם מקומות שמספקים אוכל כשר: קפה ארבעים ואחד בג’ואיש קומיונטי סנטר, הקייטרינג של חב”ד, מאפיית גארדן סיטי בריצ’מונד, מסעדת מייפל גריל בקומת הקרקע של הכולל-אוהל יעקב, קפה נאווה, מאפיית סברה וחנות שהיא בעצם מחסן לאוכל כשר
The weekly rally for Israeli hostages at the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday, Feb. 18. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Family was the theme at the weekly rally for Israeli hostages at the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday, Feb. 18, the day before British Columbians marked the Family Day holiday. Speakers took to a stage at the edge of the gallery’s north face out of respect for a makeshift memorial to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in custody two days earlier.
“Family Day will be celebrated here tomorrow,” said Daphna Kedem, organizer of the weekly vigils for the hostages. “But this year casts a heavy shadow over the day for some families of our community here and in Israel…. It is difficult to be happy when families are waiting to be reunited with their loved ones, or for many families who have lost their loved ones.”
Dr. Michael Elterman, a psychologist, spoke of the psychological effects of what is happening in Israel and worldwide.
“We see the indescribable anguish in the families and we easily feel ourselves in their shoes and intuitively imagine what we might feel if that happened to us,” he said. “There has developed a related construct of post-traumatic stress disorder over the past decade … this is the sadness, anger and sometimes spiritual distress that arises from moral outrage. It is a broader set of reactions that arise even when the individual themselves were not present at the trauma but rather are morally outraged and left furious and depressed by events. This is even more likely where we identify so strongly with those who are personally impacted by Oct. 7.”
This anxiety is heightened by increases in antisemitic rhetoric and attacks, including in Vancouver.
“Some of you may be experiencing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, such as disturbed sleep, intrusive thoughts, trouble concentrating and being easily startled,” Elterman said, adding that help is available through Jewish Family Services and other resources. Getting involved in the community response can help ease feelings of helplessness and he directed people to the Community Toolkit on the website of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.
“Remember to practise self-care in small ways, like proper nutrition and sleep,” he said. “Continue to do the things you previously enjoyed, even if you don’t feel like doing them. Finally, hug each other a little longer and a little tighter.”
Aviya Kones, who works at Jewish Family Services, spoke not about the services offered by that organization, but about the people of Kfar Aza, where she grew up.
“Kfar Aza was a desert oasis,” said Kones. “It was home, it was love and life, it was filled with unique and quirky and hilarious traditions and it was generations of family. It was also savagely and brutally destroyed after countless and seemingly endless hours of horrors.”
Her own childhood home was destroyed on Oct. 7.
She shared memories of three people who died that day.
“Smadar, a year above me, was tall, slender, so elegant,” she said. “Even as a child, I recall looking up to her. She had big, beautiful brown eyes and thick brown hair. I remember being awed by her grace, kindness and gentle nature.
“Nadav was two years older than me,” she said. “He knew how to make everyone laugh in every situation – not at anyone’s expense but maybe his own.
“Yoav was my age group,” she continued. “He had blue eyes, blond hair and a genuine smile. All the girls thought he was cute and all the guys wanted to be his best friend. He was shy, kind, creative and athletic. He loved his family. He was so close with his parents, his siblings and the many, many cousins he had living on the kibbutz.
“All three, amongst many others, tragically, brutally and with unimaginable cruelty, lost their lives on Oct. 7,” said Kones. “They were living in our beautiful oasis, our safe place, our home. They are survived by a broken and mourning community, generations of family that absolutely adored them and … all three were also survived by their young children. Nadav had two daughters, Smadar had three children and Yoav was a first-time dad to a little girl who was only 10 days old on Oct. 7.”
Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel and head of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, said that Oct. 7 was not just an attack on Israelis or those living in Israel.
“It was indeed the beginning of an attack on the entire Jewish people,” he said. “It was a catalyst for antisemitism across the world that we have felt even here in Vancouver…. Too many of us have felt the antisemitism that began to boil over on that day.”
Gordon Shank, a First Nations member, a business innovator and a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, which saw Indigenous children abducted from their families and placed with white families, spoke of the centrality of family and the trauma of separation.
“I’ve known the pain of separation from family, being torn from the embrace of loved ones, albeit under different circumstances,” he said. “The Sixties Scoop and the current crisis in Gaza might stem from vastly different contexts yet, at their core, they resonate with the universal cry for the right to family, to unity and to belonging. This parallel is not to equate the experiences but to underline the shared understanding that every individual deserves to grow, to dream and to thrive within the warmth of their family’s love.”
Of the hostages and their families, Shank said: “Their pain is our pain. Their hope is our hope. Let our gathering today send a powerful message that we stand together across cultures and histories, united in our resolve to bring the hostages home.”
The march through downtown streets that has been a feature of the weekly events since October will be a monthly activity only for the coming weeks, Kedem told those gathered. The crowd then moved to the sidewalk adjacent Georgia Street for a demonstration, with a brief disruption by an individual waving a Palestinian flag.
Kedem has organized the weekly events since October and, early on, affiliated with the ad hoc international group Bring Them Home which, in turn, is affiliated with the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, in Israel.
Recently, Kedem also associated her activities with another international group, Run for their Lives, which encourages groups as small as a single individual to demonstrate solidarity with Israel and its hostages by walking, biking or running.
Yoav Brill’s documentary Apples and Oranges, about a moment in the history of the kibbutz movement, is mesmerizing. (photo by Avraham Eilat)
The 2024 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival takes place in person April 4-14 and online April 15-19. As usual, a diversity of offerings is included in this year’s festival and the Independent will review several films in this and upcoming issues. The Vancouver Jewish Film Centre also sponsors events throughout the year and some screenings take place before the annual festival begins. Full festival details will be online at vjff.org as April approaches.
Idealism remembered
Amid the euphoric aftermath of the 1967 war and the enduring popularity of the 1958 Leon Uris book Exodus (and its 1960 film incarnation), thousands of Jews and non-Jews descended on Israel to volunteer on kibbutzim.
They came to experience and emulate “the embodiment of man’s highest ideals – the kibbutznik,” as an apparently promotional film clip declares in Yoav Brill’s mesmerizing documentary Apples and Oranges. In just one particular spurt, 7,000 volunteers arrived in Israel en masse from around the world.
Through the recollections of aging Scandinavians, Brits, South Africans and others, and with nostalgia-inducing archival footage, the documentary shines a light on the socialist idealism and hippie adventurism that motivated these people to travel to the farming communities of rural Israel. Many returned, to Sweden, Denmark, wherever, and formed associations to support the kibbutzim and drum up more volunteers. So successful were they that the supply exceeded the demand. One group chartered a jumbo jet to go from Stockholm to Tel Aviv but the Israelis had to admit they had no use for 340 volunteers.
Generally, the spirit of the overseas visitors was welcomed, though the social impacts were not negligible. The temporary nature of their visits was disrupting. A middle-aged man reflects on his perspective as a kid on a kibbutz, welcoming all the strangers who became like big brothers and sisters, only to have his heart broken every time the groups departed from what he calls “the kibbutz fantasy.”
Strangers from another world – blond, exotic, sophisticated and drinking milk with their meals – descended on a cloistered society where all the teens had been together since kindergarten, introducing predictable social and hormonal disruptions. For their parts, many of the volunteers soon discovered they had no aptitude for the tasks to which they were set, although at least one Brit made use of his talents performing Shakespeare for an audience of cattle.
Many of the overseas youngsters were unabashedly out for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. As one woman interviewed in the documentary says, “If there weren’t female volunteers at [Kibbutz] Mishmar HaSharon, many of our boys would still be virgins.”
In one incident that apparently caused national outrage, a group distributed hashish-laden brownies to an entire community, including at least one 8-year-old child, a crime that is not the least bit funny – but, of course, is hilarious when recounted by octogenarians who experienced it.
With their Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan LPs, the foreigners brought a little bit of Woodstock with them, and took away some Israeli dance routines. But the adventure, as the viewer knows more than do the figures in the old footage, would not end well. Terrorism, including a highly publicized attack in which a volunteer was murdered, would strangle the flow of future volunteers.
The documentary is a masterpiece of the genre, capturing the joy and exuberance of the experience for both Israelis and the visitors, but addressing the serious problems the interactions raised. The clash of cultures introduced existential issues, including around conversion, mixed marriages, secularization and, of course, the collapse of the traditional kibbutz.
The apples and oranges of the title, we are to understand, are the people who came together on the kibbutzim, as much as the produce they harvested.
Critics of the volunteer phenomenon seem to place some of the blame for the collapse of the kibbutz system on the labour underclass they represented, which undermined the egalitarian foundations of the movement.
The kibbutz network has largely petered out, almost entirely in spirit if not completely in form, and some of the Jews and non-Jews who came during the heyday have remained and integrated to varying degrees in the society that Israel has become. In one instance, an aging, bearded former volunteer actualizes his idealism by leading a ukulele orchestra.
The collapse of the idealistic experiment that the end of the film documents is expected but no less depressing for that. The slice of history and the magnificence of the story, so vividly told in the film, will stay with the viewer.
Transcendence of song
In Less than Kosher, a number of fairly two-dimensional character sketches come together – but with a redeeming twist.
A feature film that began its life as serialized online videos has the feel of excellent amateurism. Wayward Jewish girl meets rabbi’s bad boy son. Overbearing Jewish mother, well-intentioned buffoonish rabbi, go-along-to-get-along intermarried stepdad and hyper-chatty high school friend flesh out the cast.
Sitcom-like circumstances turn the atheist young woman into unlikely cantor. But the outstanding component of the film, the real star, is the voice of Shaina Silver-Baird, the lead actor and co-producer (with Michael Goldlist) of this cute confection.
The unlikely cantor Viv, whose once-promising pop music career is on the skids, has the voice of an angel and the story is less about her family or her romance with the (married) rabbi’s son than about the transcendent power of song. When she opens her lungs, Viv ushers in a changed world – and Silver-Baird’s voice invites the viewer into it. Music video-style segments, which Viv is dismayed to have dubbed “Judeopop,” raise the film to a different level. Liturgical music goes Broadway. Amy Winehouse does “Shalom Aleichem.”
A tiki-themed shiva is truly the icing on the sheet cake.
Mysterious case
He was guilty of much, but was he guilty of murder? Pierre Goldman maintained he was innocent of the latter charges and a based-on-a-true-story film explores not only a man’s possible guilt but the intergenerational impacts of Polish-French Jewish life in the mid-20th century and their potential explanations for some unusual behaviours.
The Goldman Case is a dramatic reenactment of a famous (in France, at least) case of the Jewish son of Polish resistance heroes, whose own life was impacted by an apparent need to fill the giant shoes of his parents. The son wanted to be “a Jewish warrior” and so became a communist revolutionary, traveling to Latin America, Prague and elsewhere in search of opportunities for valour.
Charged with a series of crimes, including the murder during a holdup of two pharmacists, Goldman was convicted in 1974 and sentenced to life imprisonment, though he maintained he was innocent in the two deaths. Following the 1975 publication of his memoirs, the judicial system reconsidered his case and major French voices, including Jean-Paul Sartre, took up his cause. This film is a (massively condensed) court procedural of that retrial.
Goldman’s Jewishness was not on trial but, interestingly, his defence team built their case partly around his family’s experiences.
The case – and the film – end with a new verdict. But the dramatic story would continue. Audiences will no doubt race to Google more about Goldman and his crimes and punishments. Enduring mysteries, though, will make the search necessarily unsatisfying. This cannot be said of the film, though, which is a gripping enactment, enlivened by the extremely animated courtroom drama, which suggests the French judicial system tolerates a great deal more outbursts than we expect in Hollywood depictions of North American judicial proceedings.