freelancer – Page 28

PuSh Festival turns 20

Clayton Lee explores his childhood obsession with Jewish professional wrestler Bill Goldberg in his The Goldberg Variations, which is at Waterfront Theatre Jan. 30 (photo by Kenneth Koo)

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival runs Jan. 23-Feb. 9. This year’s run marks the festival’s 20th year.

PuSh 2025 features more than 25 presentations, including 20 original performance-based productions; five animated parties and cabaret-style events; two film events; and two artist residencies, one of which will culminate in an open studio showing by international guest artists. In addition to a strong Canadian presence, with 13 presentations, the PuSh Festival includes works by artists of Belgium, South Korea, Brazil, United Kingdom, Uruguay, France, Denmark, Italy, Taiwan, the United States, Sweden and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Among the many presentations this year are at least two with a Jewish angle.

On Jan. 30, 9 pm., at Waterfront Theatre, The Goldberg Variations by Clayton Lee (Canada/United Kingdom) will have its Western Canadian premiere, with a talkback following the show.

Through an unapologetic investigation of desire, power dynamics and identity, Lee explores his childhood obsession with Jewish professional wrestler Bill Goldberg and the impact it has had on his sexual and romantic history. The perplexing crossroads between dominance, submission, heartbreak and vulnerability are laid bare in this candid and unconventional performance where fantasies are both indulged and deconstructed.

Rebecca Margolick is part of Dances for a Small Stage, Feb. 4 and 5, which showcases 10 experimental, short dance pieces by femme and non-binary artists from different generations and dance practices. (photo from PuSh)

On Feb. 4 and 5, 6:30 p.m., at Please Beverage Co., Jewish community member Rebecca Margolick is part of Dances for a Small Stage. Presented by PuSh Festival and Small Stage, the event showcases 10 experimental, short dance pieces by femme and non-binary artists from different generations and dance practices. The other artists participating are Claudia Moore, Cori Caulfield, Jessica Dawn Keeling, Nasiv Kaur Sall, AJ Simmons, Nicole Rose Bond, Burgundy, Ray Young, Adreane Leclerc and Bettina Szabo. There is a post-show talkback Feb. 5.

Other highlights for the 2025 PuSh include BOGOTÁ (Jan. 31 and Feb. 1) by Montreal’s Andrea Peña & Artists, which constructs a brutalist landscape from choreography inspired by Colombia’s political and spiritual heritage, and Dimanche (Feb. 6-8) by Belgium’s Focus and Chaliwaté companies, which paints a sharp yet tender portrait of humanity caught off guard by devastating natural disasters.

PuSh 2025’s animated parties and cabaret-style events include Van Vogue Jam’s Dune Wars Kiki Ball (Feb. 2), opening and closing parties with surprise performances, and the return of the frank theatre’s QT Cabaret at Club PuSh (Jan. 29).

Rounding out the lineup will be two film events: a free marathon screening featuring Brazilian actress Renata Carvalho, the artist behind PuSh’s Transpofagic Manifesto (Feb. 9), and a Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden) film screening (Feb. 6).

The festival’s Industry Series for arts leaders (producers, presenters, curators, directors, and more) returns for 2025, from Jan. 28 to Feb. 2. PuSh, in partnership with Playwrights Theatre Centre and Festival TransAmériques, will also offer free artistic consultations for local artists with invited national and international dramaturgs.

Ticket prices for most PuSh shows range from $15 to $39. Visit pushfestival.ca or call the PuSh Festival info line at 604-449-6000.

– Courtesy PuSh Festival

A multidimensional memoir

With her latest book, Olga Campbell sets out to leave a legacy, one that encompasses the trauma of the past but also the richness of the present and hope for the future.

Dear Arlo: Letters to My Grandson is Campbell’s third book. Her first, Graffiti Alphabet, comprised photographs of graffiti she found around the Greater Vancouver area. Her second, A Whisper Across Time, was her family’s Holocaust story.

The first essay in Dear Arlo is about Campbell’s parents, Tania and Klimek. They lived in Warsaw. “They were surrounded by family and friends and had much to look forward to,” writes Campbell. “Then, in 1939, everything changed. The Nazis invaded Poland from the west, the Soviets from the east. Life as they had known it stopped.”

Klimek would be arrested by the Soviets first, a pregnant Tania two weeks later. They were sent to different Russian prison camps. They survived, but the baby didn’t, nor did any of Tania’s family, most notably, her twin sister and parents, Campbell’s maternal grandparents.

“Several months after their release from the prison camps, my parents found themselves in Baghdad, Iraq,” writes Campbell. “By that time, my mother was pregnant with me and could go no further. I was born in Baghdad on February 14, 1943.”

Eventually, after living in both Palestine and the United Kingdom, the family came to Canada. It wasn’t an easy life, learning a new language and new culture, or a long one for Campbell’s mother, who died at 52 of cancer.

image - A page from Olga Campbell’s memoir Dear Arlo: Letters to My Grandson, which features letters, art, poems, essays and recipes — A page from Olga Campbell’s memoir Dear Arlo: Letters to My Grandson, which features letters, art, poems, essays and recipes.

Campbell shares her stories and wisdom with readers as a grandmother speaking to her only grandson, Arlo, with whom she obviously has a special relationship.

“I am writing this book as a legacy for you,” she writes in the first letter to Arlo. “A multidimensional memoir. A compilation of my writing, my art and a few family recipes. These writings and art are my responses to events in my life. The losses, trauma, grief … and the joy, happiness and love. It’s about the angst and awe of life, which is ever-changing, full of challenges but also magical.”

Brief letters to Arlo are spread throughout the memoir, which is gloriously full of Campbell’s artwork – painting, mixed media, sculpture and more, all of it in colour. A graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, she has had many exhibitions since deciding to become an artist in her 40s, having started her professional life as a social worker. She has participated in the Eastside Culture Crawl since its inception almost 30 years ago, and has been a consistent part of the West of Main Art Walk (Artists in Our Midst) as well.

In addition to the art and letters in Dear Arlo, Campbell includes some of her poetry and essays. She shares how she came to write her second book, her experiences dealing with intergenerational trauma, her path to spirituality, how she found courage, and more.

She writes about losing her husband, in 1994. “Along with him, my plans and dreams for the future also died,” she writes. He died of a stroke at 49 years old – the pair had been together for 32 years, married for 26 of those years.

She shares the story of how she came to have her current dog, Nisha. “I was very sick in September 2019 with what my doctor now believes was COVID, before anyone had heard of COVID,” writes Campbell. Struggling many months with breathing difficulties, she turned, in desperation, to Ganesha, a Hindu god. “My wish to him was to remove all obstacles to my physical, emotional and mental well-being.”

A couple of days later, there came a knock at her door. Two work acquaintances were there, asking if she could adopt a rescue dog. Campbell did, and Nisha “was extremely timid, jumping, trembling and shaking at every sound, every movement. I held her all day every day for the first week to calm her down and get her used to me. She is still a little timid but every day she becomes more brave. She is playful, full of fun and great company,” writes Campbell. “She did remove all obstacles to my physical, emotional and mental health.”

Another uplifting essay is the one on how Campbell has “never come of age.” When she paints and creates with friends, she feels like she is 5 years old, she says. When with her teenage grandson, she also feels like a teen, and sees “the wonder of the world.”

image - A page from Olga Campbell’s memoir Dear Arlo: Letters to My Grandson — A page from Olga Campbell’s memoir Dear Arlo: Letters to My Grandson.

Campbell has role models, older friends and neighbours who still have bucket lists and exercise regimes. Having traveled much herself – Myanmar, Morocco, Vietnam, India, Cambodia, Laos, Turkey and other places – she now wants “to do inward travel. To get to know myself and others around me. To find the mystery inside. To nourish relationships with the people I know and with new people that I meet.” She wants to have different adventures: “Creative adventures, people adventures, spiritual adventures.”

There are more than a dozen recipes in Dear Arlo – from an apple torte that a 5-year-old Arlo bet Campbell she wouldn’t make (which she did but he never ate); to cabbage pie and Russian salad, recalling when Arlo was teaching himself Russian; to broccoli and cheese soup, vegetarian meatloaf and ginger apple tea, in response to Arlo’s request for some recipes.

Campbell is grateful for many things.

“I have had a good marriage and a wonderful family – my lovely daughter, her loving partner and my wonderful grandson Arlo,” she writes.

“I have dealt with losses and tragedies in my life, including the premature death of my husband, but I survived, and now I am happy. Those intense feelings of sadness that I grew up with no longer plague me. I can be triggered, but on the whole, I am fine.”

The memoir ends as it begins, with a letter to Arlo, who, says Campbell, has been “the best grandson I could ever have imagined.”

She writes, “The past provides us with valuable lessons that we can use to inform our present and future. A sense of connection and continuity with the people who came before us. This adds a depth and richness to our lives. I look forward to having many more adventures with you.”

We get to see Arlo grow up, in photos throughout the book. And the photo placed squarely in the centre of this last letter is perfect: Arlo in the driver’s seat of his new red convertible, toque on, giving a thumbs up, smiling, with Campbell beside him, also bundled up for a cold drive, but also with a big smile.

To purchase Dear Arlo or Campbell’s previous books, visit olgacampbell.com.

Campbell’s artwork is on display at the Zack Gallery Jan. 8-27, with an artist reception Jan. 9, 6-8 p.m. Campbell speaks as part of the JCC Jewish Book Festival on Jan. 23, 7 p.m., in the gallery.

Escape from Soviet Union

A photo of Reuven Rashkovsky from the book An Improbable Life: My Father’s Escape from Soviet Russia, by his daughter, Dr. Karine Rashkovsky. Here, Reuven is pictured with a MIG 19 Soviet fighter plane. At 18, he was drafted into the military, conscripted for three years.

Perusing the pages of the Independent’s predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin from the 1960s and ’70s, demonstrates the centrality of the movement for Soviet refuseniks in Jewish life of that time. Jewish communities in North America and elsewhere in the West were deeply devoted to the Jews behind the Iron Curtain who sought to emigrate to Israel and other places of freedom.

That movement, ultimately, was a largely Western phenomenon. In a new book, Vancouver’s Dr. Karine Rashkovsky shares her family’s story. An Improbable Life: My Father’s Escape from Soviet Russia, and others of its still-emerging genre, open the narrative to the stories from the other side of the Iron Curtain, those of the refuseniks who Western activists were trying to free.

The Soviet Union, Rashkovsky writes, was a country based on an ideology intended to eliminate ethnic and religious lines, but which counterintuitively insisted that every citizen’s internal passport indicate their nationality – and for Jews, regardless of their geographic origins, their nationality was “Jewish.” And that “nationality” meant slammed doors in the face of opportunity for those carrying that mark.

The book is a personal testimony – written by the daughter in the first person from the perspective of her father, Reuven – but it is also part of a larger story of the struggle of refuseniks and the lives they eventually made for themselves.

After his escape from the Soviet Union, Reuven fought in the Yom Kippur War, attained a PhD in Israel and France, and both he and his wife narrowly avoided being on the hijacked Air France flight that was the centre of the famous raid on Entebbe, Uganda.

In the preface, Reuven calls his life, “a kaleidoscope of hardships and failures.” But there are plenty of successes also.

Reuven’s parents were born in Bessarabia, in what is now Moldova. It was a highly multicultural area and they spoke German, Romanian, Yiddish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Russian. When the Romanian fascists took over their town, the family fled, but went east to Odesa, rather than to Palestine or America.

When Germany invaded the USSR, Reuven’s father was drafted into the Red Army. His facility with languages put him in the intelligence unit and he assisted in interrogating prisoners of war. He was severely injured during a Luftwaffe bombing raid and, because he was an officer, the family was evacuated to a military hospital in Uzbekistan. There, he learned to walk again and returned to service, participating in the capture of Berlin, in March 1945. Reuven was born in Uzbekistan, in November 1945.

After the war, the family relocated to Belgorod-Dnestrovsky (now in Ukraine but under shifting sovereignty for centuries and known by at least 13 different names and transliterations over time). His father was a police officer and his mother worked 25 years in a fish cannery, which was relatively good fortune for the family in terms of providing protein, thanks to fish she smuggled out of the factory in her bra.

Eventually, they would be a family of seven, with five surviving children. At age 6, Reuven was responsible for taking care of his younger siblings all day while the parents were at work.

In response to antisemitic bullying, Reuven became a scrapper, taking his malnourished body to the gymnastics coach at school and forcing the coach, through the power of determination, to take on the unpromising-looking young Jew. As his biceps grew, the bullying receded. But the discrimination became more insidious and systemic.

In the home of a more well-off classmate, Reuven discovered books. Together, they devoured foreign works in translation, “free from Communist Party propaganda and boring Soviet patriotism.” This set Reuven on a trajectory of skepticism and dissidence that could have ended badly (and, along the way, did have bad moments – but ultimately resulted in freedom and a very successful life in the West).

Reuven’s teachers ascertained that he wasn’t a fan of the Communist Party and so he did not get a favourable reference for university. After 10th grade, he got a job at a slaughterhouse, then became an apprentice electrician. He began night school, where his facility with numbers shone and where his politics were not known and he might get a recommendation for university.

At 18, he was drafted into the military, conscripted for three years.

Eventually, the American allies of the refuseniks forced the American government to put conditions on the sale of American wheat, upon which the Soviet economy depended. The 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment tied trade in this necessary commodity to visas for Soviet Jews. Until then, of the several million Jews in the USSR at the time, just a few hundred had been permitted to leave.

Reuven was part of a group of about 25 Jewish youths who decided to hold a hunger strike to demand emigration. They took a petition to city hall and police soon blocked the exit. They were taken before authorities and subjected to “a long lecture on how inappropriate it was to think about leaving our Soviet paradise for Israel, that aggressor capitalist country, a puppet of America.”

When an interrogator threatened the group with imprisonment, one of the dissidents explained to the KGB officers why that was not a good idea.

“She calmly explained to him that we’d communicated with Western journalists and passed them our names and plans for the hunger strike. We’d also alerted these journalists to expect a phone call before midnight to tell them what had happened today. If we didn’t call them, they would tell the Western media about us. Katya went on to tell the colonels what would happen if we were arrested: America wouldn’t sign the contract for selling wheat to the Soviet Union, which would harm the whole country. And Moscow would come down hard on Odesa’s KGB for causing such a disaster.”

The next morning, Reuven and his family went to the government offices first thing. The entire family was granted the right to emigrate except for Reuven’s brother Fima, because he was serving in the army. But the authorities finally agreed that everyone would be allowed to emigrate after Fima’s military service. Reuven’s parents refused to abandon their son and decided that Reuven and his sister Hanna should go on ahead to Israel and the rest would follow later, which they eventually did.

Traveling through Moscow, at New Year’s 1971-’72, Reuven was put up at the apartment of a friend’s mother. There, he met Fania, who was visiting from Kyrgyzstan. She didn’t know anything about Israel and it had never crossed her mind to emigrate. A few shots of vodka in, Reuven told her he would be waiting to marry her if she ever decided to come to Israel.

“It was crazy of me to say such words – to offer marriage to the most innocent girl I ever met and one I had only known for hours – on my last evening in the Soviet Union,” he says. “Of course, I was both very stressed and excited that I was leaving the country, and I had been drinking quite a lot of vodka to relax a bit.”

That was the beginning of a happy 50-something-year marriage that continues today.

Freed of the Soviet Union’s antisemitic shackles, Reuven’s career took off. Hebrew University was looking for a Russian-speaking mathematician to teach first-year students, then he developed a curriculum for high schoolers with advanced math skills. An opportunity landed in his lap to teach at an elite Israeli school in Paris. Friends who had migrated to New York extended an invitation, which led to a side journey to Toronto, where Reuven’s career took another turn and the family became Canadian.

While they were living in Paris, Reuven was unable to attend his brother’s wedding in Israel, in June 1976, but Fania went. On his way to the airport to pick her up on her return, Reuven heard that terrorists had hijacked an Air France plane to Uganda. Reuven was beside himself. It turned out, Fania had missed the plane and was rebooked on a later El Al flight – but jammed phone lines prevented her from notifying Reuven for several days.

Jews of a certain age remember the fight for Soviet Jewry. The Rashkovskys’ book, An Improbable Life, is a story of what they were fighting for.

Rashkovsky is part of the JCC Jewish Book Festival on Feb. 24, 6 p.m., at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, along with Sasha Vasilyuk, author of Your Presence Is Mandatory, a debut novel, based on real events, about a Ukrainian World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag, and his family who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them. Visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

Krell families give to JWest

The Krell, Lewis, Kallner and Singerman families are excited their gift will help in the creation of an expanded Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. (photo by Rachel Topham)

The JWest capital campaign cabinet is grateful to Dr. Robert and Marilyn Krell and their families, Shoshana and Shawn Lewis, Simone and Howard Kallner, and Michaela and Matthew Singerman, for supporting the redevelopment of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver site. The individual gifts from each of the four couples reflect two generations equally committed to building a strong Jewish future in Vancouver.

The Krell family has deep roots in Vancouver. Marilyn’s Polish grandfather, David Davis, who arrived in 1909, was one of the founding members of Congregation Schara Tzedeck. Robert, born in Holland, was hidden during the Holocaust and, after reuniting with his parents, arrived in Vancouver at age 10, in 1951. Both Robert and Marilyn were influenced by their parents’ involvement in the synagogue and a variety of Jewish organizations.

“Vancouver is where I became a Jew,” said Robert, who participated in Habonim as a child and became actively involved with the Canadian Jewish Congress as an adult. In 1971, he and Marilyn were married by Rabbi Marvin Hier, who was Schara Tzedek’s rabbi at the time. The couple raised their three daughters, Shoshana, Simone and Michaela, in a traditional Jewish home where Shabbat was always celebrated. The Jewish values that began at home were reinforced at Vancouver Talmud Torah, Camp Hatikvah and at the JCC.

Robert, a founder of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC), mobilized the survivor community from a concept in 1983 to a reality in 1994, when the centre opened as a museum and educational institute that ignited Shoah learning in British Columbia and beyond. The Krell daughters grew up witnessing the VHEC board meetings in their living room and attending award ceremonies that recognized their parents’ contributions to a variety of Jewish organizations.

“Through their actions and deeds, they taught us that you give when you can and volunteer when you can,” Simone said.

Now with children of their own attending local Jewish institutions, the Lewis, Kallner and Singerman families have assumed leadership roles in the VHEC, VTT, Schara Tzedeck, Jewish Family Services, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Jewish Community Foundation. As they saw their parents’ commitment to support JWest, they knew they were also ready to answer the call to help build a new infrastructure to support the future of the region’s Jewish community.

“We are excited to contribute to such an important and pivotal project that will be utilized and cherished not just by future generations of our Jewish community, but of the greater community as well,” said Michaela.

Her sisters expanded that idea by saying, “The JCC has played a role for five generations of our family and it shapes many of our fondest memories.”

The family is excited that their gift will also assist in the creation of an expanded Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, an institute close to their hearts and lives. Founded with a mandate of Holocaust-based anti-racism education, the VHEC welcomes more than 25,000 students, educators and members of the public each year.

While it plays a crucial role in conveying the ongoing relevance of the Shoah, this teaching museum has long been challenged by a small footprint and its limited visibility in the lower level of the JCC. JWest will protect the legacy of the VHEC by significantly increasing its square footage and visibility. The new VHEC will be visible from West 41st Avenue and will feature state-of-the-art exhibit space for permanent and rotating exhibits. It will also have dedicated research and programming space to facilitate workshops that enhance learning and engagement. Its prominent location in the JWest campus’s Arts & Culture Centre will ensure that the VHEC remains a vital presence in the community well into the future.

“The VHEC was at the forefront of our upbringing and experience and it’s a highlight to see it being incorporated as an important component of JWest,” Simone said.

Shoshana echoed those sentiments. “It’s exciting to envision the future JCC as a hub that will encompass so many important institutions,” she said. “We want a safe space to house our next generation of Jewish institutions, so there’s an urgency for us to support this project as a commitment to the future of our children, our grandchildren and the community at large.”

Alex Cristall, chair of the JWest capital campaign, had this response to the gift: “With five generations of active involvement in Vancouver’s Jewish community, the Krell, Davis, Kallner, Lewis and Singerman families continue to demonstrate the depth of their commitment through their gifts and volunteerism. Their generous gifts to JWest will secure and revitalize our Jewish institutions and we are deeply grateful for their support of this project.”

As one of the largest capital projects underway in Vancouver, JWest is only possible with the support of donors and the encouragement of the community. In the coming months, the JWest capital campaign cabinet will continue to update and advise community members on the campaign’s progress and on opportunities to contribute to its philanthropic goal of $161 million.

For a full list of JWest donors, visit jwestnow.com.

– Courtesy Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver

Unity in tough times

Thousands of rabbis pose for a group photo in front of Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn, NY, on Dec. 1. (photo by Shmulie Grossbaum/Chabad.org)

Some 6,500 Chabad rabbis and Jewish leaders from around the globe gathered Nov. 27-Dec. 1 in Brooklyn, NY, for the annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries, the largest rabbinic gathering in the world.

Attending from British Columbia were Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman (Chabad Richmond), Rabbi Binyomin Bitton (Chabad of Downtown Vancouver), Rabbi Mottel Gurevitz (Tri-Cities Chabad), Rabbi Shmuel Hecht (Okanagan Chabad House), Rabbi Meir Kaplan (Chabad of Vancouver Island), Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld (BC Regional Hebrew Schools), Rabbi Bentzi Shemtov (Chabad Nanaimo and Central Vancouver Island) and Rabbi Yitzchok Wineberg (Lubavitch BC).

While the yearly conference has a celebratory feel, welcoming rabbinic leaders from Alaska to Zambia, the past year was a difficult one for the Jewish people, seeing tragedy in Israel, and elsewhere. For Jews around the globe and the family of emissaries in particular, the days just prior to the conference were especially difficult: on Nov. 25, Abu Dhabi-based Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan was buried in Israel, after being murdered by terrorists in Dubai at the age of 28.

Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries, known as shluchim, are husband-and-wife teams who dedicate their lives to strengthening Jewish life in communities worldwide, often in remote locations without established Jewish infrastructure. They aim to reach both affiliated and unaffiliated Jews, welcoming Jews from all walks of life.

The annual conference, also known as the Kinus Hashluchim, unites rabbis and lay leaders from all 50 US states and more than 100 countries and territories around the world for four days of workshops, networking and spiritual uplift. The conference concludes with a gala banquet, which brings all the Chabad rabbis and their guests together in a giant conference centre in New Jersey.

The Thursday was a day of catch-ups between colleagues, as well as the first of a series of workshops on contemporary issues that ran over the weekend. Topics included disaster relief, combating hate, education, counseling and dealing with grief. Conference-goers who serve students on college campuses where Chabad has become part of Jewish life participated in a separate track, discussing issues specifically relevant to campus communities.

The Friday visit to the Ohel, in Queens, NY, the resting place of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, marked the pinnacle of the conference. The emissaries came to pray for their families and communities, carrying with them countless prayer requests. Many came with handwritten letters from Jews in their hometowns and read them by the holy site. The Ohel visit culminated in the reading of the pan klali (“general letter”) that was signed by all emissaries and contained prayers for Israel, the Jewish people and humanity at large.

photo - Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis pray at the resting place of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, in Queens, NY, on Nov. 29 — Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis pray at the resting place of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, in Queens, NY, on Nov. 29. *(photo by Shmulie Grossbaum/Chabad.org)*

With the onset of Shabbat on Friday evening, the emissaries spent the Jewish day of rest in prayer and brotherly camaraderie, often in the company of family and friends.

Sunday morning saw the snapping of the annual “class picture” under the iconic gables of 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and perhaps the most recognizable Jewish building in the world. The photo, featuring thousands of black-hatted rabbis, represents not just an annual tradition but also the many faces of the Chabad rabbis who bring Judaism to the world, from wartorn Ukraine to the towns along Israel’s hostile borders, to anti-Israel-filled college campuses across North America, to sleepier towns in quieter places.

The capstone of the conference was the gala banquet, held at the New Jersey Convention and Expo Centre, a powerful moment of remembrance and resilience. Speakers honoured Kogan with emotional tributes that emphasized the importance of continuing their global mission. The conference linked by video with the home of Kogan’s parents in Jerusalem, where his family was sitting shiva, and all 6,500 gathered shared the traditional text of comfort with the family.

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chair of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch – Chabad’s educational arm – greeted the audience, sharing words of consolation with Kogan’s family and the emissaries, his “extended family,” and sending prayers for the Israeli soldiers defending the Holy Land, as well as the hostages still held in Gaza.

A video tribute was made for Rabbi Moshe Kotlarksy, the vice-chair of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, who passed away after a lengthy illness on June 4. Kotlarsky was well-known for his role in the annual Kinus Hashluchim, directing an army of planners, staff and volunteers to ensure every detail of the massive event was perfect.

Among the most inspiring presentations of the evening was that of Rabbi Yehoshua Soudakoff, director of Chabad for the Deaf Community in Israel, who spoke of his path to finding his Jewish self as a deaf Jew.

“The voice you hear is not mine, but the words definitely are,” he said through an interpreter. “It is hard for a deaf person to find a place within the community. Torah and mitzvah while deaf are difficult. That is why I established Chabad for the Deaf Community. There are deaf Jews and Jews with various disabilities throughout the world. Let us continue our holy work to reach out to every single one of them and inspire them, just as I was once inspired,” he said to applause.

The gathering culminated in a roll call of Chabad emissaries. The event featured multilingual welcomes from emissaries around the world, including a notable announcement that a new Chabad couple had been dispatched to Andorra, highlighting Chabad’s ongoing expansion.

The evening concluded with dancing, the assembled rabbis united in their determination to continue their mission of Jewish outreach and community building, regardless of the challenges they face.

Resilience of Portugal’s Jews

King Manuel I of Portugal (1495-1521) had a problem. To marry Princess Isabella of Spain, he consented to the request of her parents – Ferdinand and Isabella – to rid Portugal of its Jews. But Manuel wanted to keep the Jewish citizens close by, for their economic benefits (money and skills). His solution? In 1496-7, he forced Jews to convert. (He also expelled the country’s Muslims.)

Manuel believed that New Christians – this population is likewise referred to as conversos, anusim or Crypto-Jews; marranos is a derogatory term that should not be used – would continue to boost the country’s economy. It should be noted that Jews in Portugal already paid a special poll tax and a special property tax.

Even after they were forcibly converted, Portuguese Jews could not live wherever they wanted. They lived in separate quarters referred to as judiarias, what we might call ghettos. They worked as artisans and rural labourers, weavers, tailors, cobblers, carpenters, leather tanners, jewelers, and every branch of the metal industry, ranging from ordinary blacksmiths to armourers and goldsmiths.

Several Jews nonetheless reached prominence in medieval Portugal. Among them was Abraham Zacuto, originally from Spain. Portuguese King John II invited Zacuto to be the royal astronomer. The king wanted Zacuto to chart a sea route to India. Unlike most of his fellow religionists, Zacuto managed to flee Portugal after King Manuel imposed conversion on the country’s Jews.

There was also Isaac Abarbanel, who was King Afonso V’s treasurer. Yehuda Even Maneer was the richest Jew in the kingdom and, for that reason, was appointed Portugal’s finance minister. Master Nacim, a Jewish eye doctor, was accorded certain privileges because of his professional skills.

Before King Manuel decreed the forced conversion, the Jewish community of Tomar built a synagogue, in spite of attacks orchestrated against them and other Jews in the country. Unfortunately, the building was used for its original purpose for only a short period, after which – for years and years after the forced conversion – it was used by the Church. The town itself became one of the sites of the Inquisition tribunal. Today, the synagogue has been renovated and is considered a national monument.

Crypto-Jews continued to covertly practise Judaism. In the town of Porto, for example, the Crypto-Jews secretly operated a synagogue, hiding it from the Inquisition.

photo - In 2013, a renovation project at a facility for Portuguese senior citizens turned up a Torah ark, carved directly into the stonework separating the building from its neighbour — In 2013, a renovation project at a facility for Portuguese senior citizens turned up a Torah ark, carved directly into the stonework separating the building from its neighbour. *(photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)*

In 2013, a renovation project at a facility for Portuguese senior citizens turned up an amazing find. Hidden behind the eastern wall of the dining room was a Torah ark, or aron kodesh, carved directly into the stonework separating the building from its neighbour. There were two compartments, a square space topped by a slightly larger arched tablet-shaped opening, with space for approximately six small Torah scrolls. Besides this relatively recent discovery, we have the 16th-century testimony of Immanuel Aboab, a native of Porto. (The late Yom Tov Assis, who was a professor at Hebrew University, had likewise been trying to locate where such an aron kodesh was located in the area.)

It was common among Crypto-Jews to light one Shabbat candle in a secret cabinet. There was also an emergency tool for snuffing out Shabbat lights if it was suspected that a Christian neighbour was spying. To make Shabbat different from other days, these secret Jews ate no meat. Purim was marked by three days of fasting beforehand. Passover was celebrated two days late, so as to throw Christians off the track. Other secret Jews took the risk of undergoing circumcision.

Within limits, these Crypto-Jews read psalms and recited the Shema, didn’t work on Shabbat, didn’t eat pork and fasted on Yom Kippur. Manuel (Abraham) de Morales passed out manuscripts of what he thought were important points to know about Judaism. But most of the Jewish customs were orally transmitted from mother to children.

Not surprisingly, the period before the forced conversion was not totally free of tension between Jews and Christians: Franciscan and Dominican clergy walked through judiarias, ready to convert Jews. Moreover, Portugal’s new merchant class was apprehensive about the influence of the Jewish citizens and their capital. Under the reign of João I (1385-1443), new laws obliged Jews to wear an identifying sign on their clothes and imposed curfews on the judiarias. There were scattered outbreaks of violence, like the attack on the Lisbon judiaria in 1445, in which many died.

photo - Jew Street in Lisbon, Portugal — Jew Street in Lisbon, Portugal. *(photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)*

After the forced conversion, New Christians would be charged with being infidels, not heretics. These New Christians generally adopted Christian given names and Old Christian surnames. They probably did this to deflect attention. But harder times still followed for Portuguese Jews, with the massacre of 2,000 conversos in Lisbon in 1506 and the Portuguese Inquisition, which began in 1536. Inquisitors would come to a town and tell the gentile population that they were looking for secret Jews. They would present a list of suspicious behaviour to look for.

In medieval Portugal, turning in New Christians became a profitable venture. Arrested conversos had their assets seized by members of the Inquisition. Occasionally, Church officials would accept bribes for temporary pardons.

Apparently, if a New Christian approached an inquisitor, he had a chance of redeeming himself by admitting that his family lit Shabbat candles or washed sheets for Shabbat. On the other hand, if an Old Christian accused a New Christian of still practising Jewish rituals and the latter denied the observances, he would face a worse outcome from his trial.

The number of Inquisition victims between 1540 and 1765 is estimated at 40,000. Punishment included being raised by a pulley with one’s hands behind one’s back. Convicted infidels were then burned at the stake.

Cells where Crypto-Jews were held before their Portuguese Inquisition trials. *(photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)*

The cruel punishments passed down by the Portuguese Inquisition drew large crowds of spectators. The crowds were akin to those who would come to watch bullfights.

Trials ceased after about 250 years, although Portugal’s Inquisition was not officially abolished until 1821.

Jewish informers should also be mentioned. These people, as can be imagined, found an open ear among Portugal’s prejudiced secular and religious leaders. If these traitors were discovered by the Jewish community, they might have had their eyes gouged out, their tongue removed or been put to death for putting the community at tremendous risk. So serious a crime was acting against one’s own people that even Maimonides condoned Jewish informers.

The impact of the forced conversion and the Inquisition continue to be felt. Take, for example, Belmonte, located in the northern part of Portugal. It has a small Jewish community that has retained the rituals of Judaism despite all the hardships and persecution. In the 1990s, when the idea of building a synagogue was raised, some Jewish community members were against it. Why? Because being a member of the anusim community was their cherished identity. Almost 200 years after the Portuguese Inquisition had been abolished, they couldn’t imagine living openly as Jews.

Estimates are that at least 20% of Portugal’s current population has anusim roots.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Approaching final judgment

I know I have sinned. Haven’t we all? How then to achieve redemption when I have this whole mountain of transgressions looming over me? I can see it clearly every time I look in the mirror. Was it Yogi Berra who said, “Don’t look back, they may be gaining on ya”? Well, I do look back, and I do see the mountain of my failings.

My problem is that I don’t really, really believe that all those things on the pile are so bad. But then I think about “the Judge,” and hope that He is a reasonable entity. Haven’t I all sorts of mitigating circumstances that I could raise to alleviate any judgment? (I know the record in history shouldn’t lead me to be so confident.)

I have read that, in ancient times, He was pretty harsh because He had to be to prove a point. Rules were immutable. Those who erred against His rules were just erased. The earth opened up and swallowed them up. Some were turned to pillars of salt, some swept away by raging waters, impaled on the swords of the righteous who were rewarded, ravaged by plagues or the Angel of Death. All manner of things of a nasty kind were visited upon those who crossed Him. He sure hated to be contradicted.

But Abraham was able to negotiate some matters with Him, and Jacob wrestled with the angel and survived. Job was restored to his honoured state, and Jonah survived his defiance of the Almighty. David was even able to mollify Him in spite of his own heinous crimes, and he retained the honour of having a descendant who would usher in the End of Days.

Surely these are good signs. Why couldn’t I negotiate a soft landing? I have written some poems, like David, and I can’t imagine that my sins approach the gravity of his biggie. What about all my good will, my good intentions, the milk of human kindness that pours from my being – they have to count for something.

OK, obviously I will not be given the right to build the Third Temple in Jerusalem – and I’m not sure that’s a very good idea right about now, anyway. I also will not likely be recognized as a light upon my nation, or any nation. Even though I think some of my doings are worthy and my writings are prophetic and of divine origin. I have tried with all my might to be a hero. (Well, most of the time!)

I will be happy and satisfied if my grandchildren continue to speak to me, or at least say hello. I accept that mine will be a small life. It took me quite a few years to accept that the best things I ever produced were my children. And a great-grandchild! And I can’t even take all the credit for that.

I was hoping I would accomplish more, but I guess my spirit was too weak and small in size. I was hoping I would make some small mark on the wall of time. Now I would be satisfied if I could point to an unsigned abrasion. That’s how it is when reality sets in and we look around us at all the time that has flown. I ask myself, when is it that I will actually begin to do those world-shaking things that I had inwardly resolved, or foolishly promised, to do?

I will have to be content with the derring-do of my children and grandchildren. And my great-grandchild, the beautiful Shaked! Mayhap they will be blessed with those better elements of DNA that did not find their fruition in what I was able to offer.

I look forward to seeing it all when I have passed the final muster. I know I will have a real negotiating job to do. That may be my finest hour. After all, none of us knows the final outcome. Those with the strongest faith and belief carry forward what is essentially a fervent hope. I can join that congregation. I can look forward to the trial that defines my redemption. I can look forward to viewing the future that will become my children’s past. That is worth fighting for with all the heroic energy I can gather.

Whether or not the energy I consist of returns to the vast storehouse from which new lives are dispatched, I know that the DNA I leave behind will not be relegated to dead storage. I retain the hope, as do all who came before me, and follow after, that there are redeeming qualities in what I leave behind, whatever my personal fate.

I know that whatever the outcome for me regarding redemption, there will be some part of me that is reincarnated. We are all blessed by that potentiality. What a glorious vision that presents! I shall hope it is not watered down by my sins. I shall hope that my potentials will not suffer from my bull-headed insistence on attempting to negotiate a private treaty of redemption, that they will not be diluted as a punishment.

Yet, I do still hope to strike a better deal than I deserve for my delays, my prevarications, my impatience with the disciplines of orthodoxy, my confidence that time has tempered the rigidity of Mosaic law. No votes, please – there are so many who would speak out against me and so few to argue in my favour. I confess I have been seduced by the convenience of laxity in the face of strict religious practice.

Perhaps I can find a good lawyer. It is always a great idea to present a good case. I intend to be an active participant in my defence and to energetically press my case. I wonder what the rules are in that court of last resort. I intend to call my children and grandchildren as character witnesses.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Gifts, property and curses

We recently had some work done on our garage. In 2021, when we purchased our new home, which was built in 1913, the inspector marveled at the garage, which was an early, purpose-built building meant for cars as compared to the converted carriage houses nearby.

There are still outbuildings in the neighbourhood, now used for cars or workshops, which contain horse stalls, but our garage, the inspector said, was special. That said, it’s narrow and the floor’s broken. It had the remains of both an old knob and tube electric panel and a chimney. Once, we imagined, a chauffeur warmed the space with the woodstove every winter to keep the car running.

When the contractors who fixed our house so we could live in it came back to work on the garage, things became complicated quickly. It turned out it was not just a couple rotten boards. Long ago, someone had cut important structural supports to put on larger heavier garage doors, likely when cars themselves became larger. A little stabilization project became a multi-week event, complete with new concrete footings all the way around the building and new structural supports. The garage no longer sits at a dangerous tilt. Our kids can go inside without danger.

This expensive project doesn’t mean that we’re suddenly using the garage in Winnipeg this winter. The concrete floor is still broken, the doors are narrow and the whole thing needs a coat of paint. All of those renovations will have to wait, because winter’s here. I’ve just cleaned snow off the car, parking on the street again this morning. This experience was one of those reminders that, in life, unexpected things happen, and that we make the best decisions we can in the moment, and roll with it.

This brought me to what I’ve been studying in Bava Batra, the talmudic tractate I’ve been studying as part of Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day). Lately, what I’ve been learning has to do with death-bed gifts and inheritance. There’s an understanding that, if someone is on their death bed, they can give their property as a gift without the legal formalities that would normally be required. Also, the rabbis rule that, if a person miraculously does not die, their promises and gifts can be retracted. In other words, if you gift everything to your brother on your death bed, but then you don’t die, you can keep your home and fields.

On page 153, there’s a woman who gives away her property as a gift as she’s dying, but, by some miracle, she recovers. She goes to Rava, a wealthy rabbi who headed a school in Babylonia, and asks for her property to be returned. After all, she is still alive and needs her belongings back. But Rava says that the “gift” cannot be returned. His ruling doesn’t align with the rest of the rabbis or the law.

Obviously, this unnamed woman is upset and protests. Rava then has his scribe, Rav Pappa, create a ruling that, on the surface, looks like it’s in this woman’s favour, but references a text that indicates that this woman should just leave, without her property. Rava assumes this woman won’t notice his trickery, but this (unnamed) woman is smart, and angrier than ever.

Left with no other options, the woman in question resorts to a curse. Given the time, roughly 1,670 years ago, curses, amulets and magic were all used, and, in this case, the curse works. The woman curses Rava, says his ship will sink. Rava, somehow trying to trick the curse, soaks all his clothes in water to avoid it. Readers: the curse works, and not the tricks. Rava’s ship goes down. Rava drowns.

Later, medieval commentators wonder why the curse worked. The woman felt angry for good reasons. Rava had robbed her of her property. Rava’s ruling also had shamed her, and it was meant to trick her into leaving. This woman was clearly wronged. Sometimes, when a curse punishes the correct target – the later rabbis conclude a curse has strong power.

Long ago, someone really wronged our property, this garage, when they cut the structural supports. Given how unstable it was, it could have killed someone. Thankfully, no one was on their death bed here and apparently there were no curses. I did wonder whether we were expecting a miracle to fix this historical structure, or whether an expensive demolition was in order. It’s sometimes hard to undo a bad decision, but we were able to afford to repair a bad situation, which was created by someone else’s bad judgment.

People often seek the easiest way out – through tricks or pulling a fast one. Finding the best way forward sometimes means enduring jackhammering, structural work and funding a costly repair. Maybe if we hadn’t asked “our guys” to check out the garage, we wouldn’t have known the danger. Once we did, though, we couldn’t ignore it. Once the garage project started, even though this huge expense wasn’t in the budget, we had to deal with it.

Hanukkah is coming up. Although our kids will still get treats and gifts, my husband and I will celebrate getting our garage back. Unlike this powerful, smart, unnamed woman who was wronged in Bava Batra, we didn’t lose all our property. We rolled with the unexpected, and now have a safe space, instead of a precarious risk. All this worked out better for us than for that unnamed woman long ago – and we didn’t even have to curse anybody.

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

Celebrate, share light

Hanukkah is a holiday made joyous by its origins in the victory of the Jewish people over our oppressors and the liberation by the Maccabees of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Now, thousands of years later, over eight nights, we light candles to honour our brave ancestors and to recognize the fortitude, across the millennia, of the Jewish people.

The meaning of Hanukkah has acquired a new relevance: the bravery demonstrated by the people of Israel – especially since Oct. 7, 2023.

It has been more than 15 months since, in the most shameful and grievous fashion imaginable, Hamas deliberately started a war, placing the people of Israel – and of Gaza and the entire region – in jeopardy. Israel continues to defend its residents and citizens from terror on multiple fronts, facing both assaults from Hamas and unprecedented attacks by hundreds of rockets from Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israelis and the global Jewish community continue to call for the release of 101 hostages who remain captive in Gaza. Families across Israel and the world continue to adjust to life without the 1,200 Israelis – and victims from 30 other nations – systematically murdered on Oct. 7.

Yet, amid the chaos and terror of daily rocket attacks, the spirit and fortitude of the people of Israel remains as strong as ever.

This year, as we light our candles over the eight nights of Hanukkah, we contemplate the history and symbolism of our Jewish traditions, and we have an opportunity to consider their meanings in our current reality. Just as we light our hanukkiyah with its eight, equally proportioned candles, we remember Jews have an admirable track record in fighting for social equality, and we consider where, today, there are inequalities to be addressed.

photo - This year, as we light our Hanukkah candles, we contemplate the history and symbolism of our Jewish traditions, and we have an opportunity to consider their meanings in our current reality — This year, as we light our Hanukkah candles, we contemplate the history and symbolism of our Jewish traditions, and we have an opportunity to consider their meanings in our current reality. (photo from pexels.com)

As we add candlelight to our homes, we remember our age-old obligation to bring light to our families, friends and neighbours. We encourage well-rounded education, free from hate, for all children; we advocate for a safe and welcoming learning environment for our post-secondary students and faculty; and we support the most vulnerable among us.

There is much to do – what will your focus be over the coming year? To what cause will your efforts be directed?

Can we hope that Gaza will be freed from the terrorist influence of Hamas? Will Lebanon emerge from under the sway of Iran-backed Hezbollah? Will Israel’s adversaries stop their war against the Jewish state?

Will our focus be on our own family, our close friends, our community, a charitable cause? Will we share the Jewish values we cherish, the triumph of light over darkness, freedom over oppression, and the importance of upholding one’s identity and beliefs?

And can we help our fellow Canadians uphold the values we hold dearest? How much light can we share this Hanukkah season?

Let’s find out.

Chag sameach.

Judy Zelikovitz is vice-president, university and local partner services, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

Hanukkah as a messy middle

Hanukkah reminds us that miracles are possible and that seemingly unwinnable wars can be won. But it also holds lessons about partial victories, imperfect heroes and incomplete belonging.

We tell the story of Hanukkah, in our liturgy and in our songs and in the rituals we use to celebrate the holiday, as the decisive end of a frightening conflict: the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and the Temple is rededicated with Divine imprimatur.

But that is not the full picture of how Hanukkah was experienced in its day: alongside the joy and triumph, there was loss, uncertainty and ongoing strife. This reality of Hanukkah as the messy middle holds lessons of perseverance for us today as we celebrate the holiday while the state of Israel fights a war that could last a long time, and whose outcome is unknown.

Leading up to the victory of Hanukkah, Jews fought one another, heroes died and families mourned, and, as the martyrdom narrative of Hannah and her seven sons describes, civilians made profound sacrifices. It is easy to envision the experiences of people waiting for loved ones to return, of everyday acts of survival and kindness, of the fear experienced by individuals, families and communities. Even the victory of Hanukkah must have been tinged with deep loss.

What’s more, the Hanukkah victory did not end the war between the Seleucid-Greeks and the Maccabees: military campaigns continued for years thereafter. Statecraft was employed as alliances were made and broken; communities dedicated monuments to their fallen heroes, and even the great Judah the Maccabee died in battle. In short, Hanukkah did not decisively conclude the saga. Rather, it marked a crucial milestone amid continued sacrifice and uncertainty about the future. And yet, the Jewish leadership established the holiday to hail a crucial milestone.

image - “The Story of Hanukkah,” by Ori Sherman, 1985 — “The Story of Hanukkah,” by Ori Sherman, 1985. *(from thecollector.com)*

The Book of Maccabees describes a Jewish civil war in relation to Hanukkah. But that does not fully characterize the story of the Judean state that emerged after the war. True, that state (164 – 63 BCE) was rife with intra-Jewish bickering and general divisiveness, whether political, social or religious. However, the majority of Jews in the second and first century BCE did not belong to any sect.

Moreover, Jews who lived in vibrant communities outside of the land of Israel still viewed themselves as the close kin of Jews who lived in the land of Israel: identifying themselves as Jewish by observing Shabbat and the holidays, circumcising their baby boys, keeping dietary laws, and gathering regularly in synagogues to read and interpret their scriptural traditions. What bound all these Jews together was more powerful than what divided them.

The character of Hanukkah as we observe it was most explicitly shaped by a rabbinic establishment living hundreds of years after the Hasmonean period. And though the original Hasmoneans (the Maccabees) were the heroes of Hanukkah, these later rabbis viewed them as flawed. After all, the priestly Hasmoneans took over the throne, combining the priestly and monarchic functions in a way that denied the Davidic dynasty and compromised the separation of religious and political powers. Nonetheless, the courage of the Maccabees continues to inspire the collective Jewish imagination. This conveys the complicated truth that there are no perfect heroes. The people who stand up, and who are willing to take risks and make sacrifices, become the instruments of salvation – regardless of whether the people in their time, or the later sages, agree with all that they stand for.

These three lessons of the Hanukkah story should inform our celebration this year, at the same time as the realities of the war in Israel.

First, let’s appreciate partial redemptions. This includes the reunions that have happened of hostages with their families and the progress made by the Israel Defence Forces in eradicating Hamas. Acknowledging partial victories becomes a source of gratitude, and it equips us with resilience as we forge ahead, despite uncertainty and difficulty.

Second, let’s take seriously the gains we have made in our commitment to Jewish peoplehood. Oct. 7 has drawn the majority of Jews together, despite significant differences among us. We must try to sustain this sense of Jewish peoplehood without imagining that our disagreements will disappear.

And third, let’s accept the current need and ability to work even with flawed leadership. Many who spent the year before Oct. 7 protesting Israel’s current administration have chosen to prioritize the war effort, to focus on defeating Hamas and bringing our hostages home.

As we continue to navigate the messy middle of today’s conflict, may the more complex aspects of Hanukkah and its aftermath inspire within us the hope and faith we need to persevere as a people.

Dr. Elana Stein Hain is rosh beit midrash and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. To read more from institute scholars, visit hartman.org.il.