|
|
June 30, 2006
On the outside, looking in
Peretz celebrates 60 years of spreading Yiddishkeit in Canada.
VERONIKA STEWART
In the small but comfortable library of the Peretz Centre for Secular
Jewish Culture, or the Peretz School, as it was once called, the
shelves are lined with books whose spines display an uncommon language,
one only a small percentage of Vancouver's Jewish community would
be able to decipher – Yiddish.
Galya Chud, a participant at all levels of activity at the secular
humanist centre since October 1945 ("Can you believe that?"
she said, shaking her head), sat, legs crossed, behind a long, rectangular
table. She is one of only a few founding members left in the city,
60 years after the centre's birth.
According to Chud, the centre was a welcome addition to a Vancouver
Jewish population just beginning to flourish after an influx of
soldiers returned from the Second World War, choosing Vancouver
as a new home for themselves and their families.
"When the Peretz School opened, we had wonderful enrolment,"
Chud reminisced. "We used to have a kindergarten class in the
morning and afternoon for younger children. And then we had after-school
classes from four to eight o'clock. It was a thriving organization."
But at the dawn of the McCarthy era, the nonpolitical organization
that functioned primarily as a school and gathering place for young
Jewish families was typecast in a very political way.
"Everything went very well until the McCarthy era," Chud
explained. "Now, the original group of people who organized
it were a very mixed group, but they had one thing in common, and
that was to perpetuate Jewish history, culture and language. There
were people who were active in the Zionist organization, people
who were active in the Labor Zionist organization, people who were
just interested in Yiddish, and I'm sure there were one or two people
who were communists. So of course the Peretz School was targeted,
and that really scared an awful lot of people. People were worried
that they might not be able to cross into the United States."
The rumor of Peretz political affiliations was heightened when a
visitor to the relatively young Peretz Centre – named after
I.L. Peretz (1859-1915), a major icon of Yiddish literature –
observed a portrait of its namesake mounted on the wall and mistook
the rendition for Karl Marx, despite very few physical similarities
between the two. The visitor then relayed the information to the
Vancouver Jewish community at large, further fuelling allegations
that the centre's left-wing founders were propagating communism
through their newly founded organization, according to Sylvia Friedman,
also an active member at the Peretz, since 1948. (Her late husband,
Searle, began the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir at the centre.)
"The people who started the Peretz, a number of them, were
left -wing," said Friedman. "And Vancouver had hardly
a Jewish working class here. They had kind of a bourgeoisie Jewish
society. They were all middle class or upper-middle class and professional.
Our people mainly were workers – the people who started the
centre. Politically, they didn't see eye to eye. And [there was]
the fear, always, of the left-wing. Immediately they named them
'communist.' "
The incident involving Peretz's portrait escalated the situation
and the centre soon found itself isolated from the community at
large.
"Immediately it got around in the community that we had a picture
of Karl Marx up," said Friedman. "More than anything,
it was a political thing and we were tainted."
Chud agreed.
"We lost a great deal of support because people were scared
to be associated with anything that was seen as communist,"
she said. "Just the rumor itself, that there was a communist
there, was enough."
In fact, said both women, the Peretz Centre was founded not with
the intention of spreading communism, but of teaching and perpetuating
the Eastern European Yiddish and secular humanist culture virtually
destroyed during the Holocaust. However, because of the Cold War
culture that perpetuated the fear of communism's spread, Peretz
was alienated from mainstream Jewish culture in Vancouver.
Flash forward to six decades later, and Peretz no longer feels a
harsh alienation from the religious community. Instead, Friedman
said the religious community pays them little heed.
"Politically, I don't feel that we have the same problem that
we first had when we came here in the early years," said Friedman,
who acts as renting manager and managing editor of Peretz publication
Outlook. "I think it's changed drastically. The whole
community has changed. They're more accepting. They finally realize
that we're not a monolithic community."
The main objective of the Peretz Centre has not become easier to
achieve, however. Relaying Yiddish to an increasingly disenchanted
Jewish youth in a world where Yiddish isn't any country's official
language is a major obstacle the centre still faces, far different
from the hardships that came along with their former "communist"
label.
"You could promote Italian culture because there's an Italy,"
said Donna Becker MacDermot, a more recent addition to the Peretz
staff, "and that's why I think so much of the Jewish community
looks to Israel, because it's there. So you can teach Hebrew and
then if someone wants to really learn it, they can go to Israel
and there's an immersion. But there's no Yiddish immersion."
She added that, although there is still literature being produced
in Yiddish, as well as discussion groups and websites devoted to
the language, the survival of the language is currently hanging
in the balance.
Although the centre may not be able to promote Yiddish at the same
capacity as when it first opened, MacDermot believes it has an important
role to play in the community, especially for those who come from
mixed marriages (among the services offered at the centre are b'nai
mitzvah for the children of interfaith marriages, and secular Friday
night dinners).
"The perception that the Peretz Centre is a step out the door
before assimilation really isn't true. It's more like we're the
last thing holding onto people," said MacDermot. "If it
wasn't for the Peretz Centre, people would be completely assimilated,
because there's no other place in the Jewish community where they
feel welcome, or their spouses feel welcome, or their children."
After 60 years of service, the centre's current efforts are being
channelled to appeal to anyone and everyone who feels a connection
to the Jewish community, through choir programs and classes, as
well as the construction of their own versions of secular prayer
– which MacDermot asserted is an ongoing and sometimes tedious
process. In this way, MacDermot hopes to keep the centre alive,
and alleviate some of the stress put on elderly volunteers by attracting
a younger crowd.
"We're all aware of the fact that we need to be increasing
the participation of younger people," she said, "so my
goal for the next 60 years is that we get the whole variety of ages
that we used to have."
Veronika Stewart is a Vancouver freelance writer.
^TOP
|
|
