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Joyce Ozier’s explosive colorful expression

Joyce Ozier’s exhibit, Making Panels panels panels panels, is at Zack Gallery until Nov. 2. (photo by Olga Livshin)

Splashes of colors hit you as you walk into the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery’s latest show, Marked Panels panels panels panels, by Joyce Ozier. The green panels smile. The dark purple growl, “Notice us!” The blue looks like wings in the sky, soaring in joy.

Ozier is fascinated by color. In all of her creative pursuits, color has played a prominent role. With an education in art and theatre, she has always been drawn towards the unusual, the colorful and the non-standard. “I was interested in experimental things, in visual theatre,” she told the Jewish Independent.

She arrived with her husband to Vancouver in 1970, and subsequently co-founded Royal Canadian Aerial Theatre, an experimental theatrical enterprise. “We did outdoor events with audience involvement,” she said. “Our performances didn’t usually have a story, but they often had a message. We employed lots of imagination in our shows. One of our pieces had hundreds of colorful balloons. We created a moving sculpture out of them…. It was about beauty and pollution.”

The theatre was a step towards her current show, but it took many more years before the full connection would materialize. After a decade of producing shows, Aerial Theatre dissolved, and Ozier was ready for a new direction, although she wasn’t sure what that would be. She tried her hands at theatre administration, was one of the founders of what is now known as the Scotiabank Dance Centre, but her creativity demanded a more visual outlet.

“In the late 1990s, I founded WOW! Windows,” she said. “It was a display and design company, and we built it into an award-winning firm. We had many retail clients in the Pacific Northwest, but it started by accident. Of course, starting your own business is risky, but I’ve always had courage.”

Her son was a student at the University of British Columbia then. “He knew I was searching,” Ozier recalled. “One day, he came home and said, ‘The Royal Bank at the corner has terrible window displays. Why don’t you offer them to make their windows for free?’ I did. Later, I made photos of the windows, created a brochure and sent it to the other stores in town. I got my first offer the next day: to design windows for Wear Else. Their designer just left, and they liked my brochure.”

Ozier used her creativity to the max with her new company but she had to learn a lot. “You just take one step after another,” she said. “One of the lessons I learned was that retail display is not fine art. It’s a sales tool. The artist must make use of what the company is selling. But I used lots of colors in my windows.”

In 2009, she retired from WOW! Windows, but she still had a passion for colors and looked for a new way to find her expression. “I started painting. I never painted before, but I had an art education.” Never having been interested in realistic figurative art, she immersed herself in abstract painting.

“I wanted to paint large canvases, to work big, but there was a problem. To move such paintings, you need a truck. Then I thought: if I do it by several panels, I could fit a panel in my car.” That was how her current show at the Zack Gallery came into being.

“I always start with four panels,” she explained of her process. “I paint all the panels at once, trying to get them to balance. After awhile, I move the panels, shuffle them around, change arrangements, turn them sideways or upside down, and a new composition emerges. I paint some more. I never know where I [will] end up with each piece. It’s an adventure.

“Sometimes, I have to take one panel out – three panels work, but four don’t. I always know when the piece is finished. There is energy there I don’t control. It sweeps me along.”

Anything could be inspiration for a piece, a starting point. One piece, “Chefchaouen,” is inspired by a real place, the eponymous village in Morocco. The four panels of the painting form a mosaic of blue and white, of sky and snow.

“There is a story there,” said Ozier. “Everything is blue in that village, the houses, the streets. That village in the mountains was discovered in the 1930s by a group of European Jews escaping Nazism. They thought they found safe haven. They didn’t, but they didn’t know it then. They settled there and painted everything blue. Blue has a special meaning in Judaism, divinity and equilibrium. Later on, they found out that blue stucco also repelled mosquitoes. There are no Jews there now, but the color remains.”

Some of her other paintings have more poetic titles, like a symphony of grey called “Cloud Thoughts” or a smaller one-panel painting, “Summer Wind,” a quaint green explosion. “Coming up with titles is difficult. I have to think about them a lot,” Ozier said.

Her first solo exhibition opened at the Zack Gallery on Oct. 2 and continues until Nov. 2. To learn more, visit joyceozier.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

CIJA-UJA host Toronto mayoral debate

At the debate are, from left, John Tory, Ari Goldkind, Doug Ford and Olivia Chow. (photo from cjnews.com) 

There wasn’t much focus on Jewish issues at the CIJA-UJA-hosted mayoral debate Sunday night, but Ari Goldkind, the race’s sole Jewish candidate, arguably stole the show with his caustic barbs directed at fellow candidate Doug Ford, particularly when he confronted the councilor on his brother’s past use of an antisemitic slur.

The debate, held at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto’s Wilmington campus and attended by several hundred people, featured fringe candidate Goldkind debating alongside leading contenders Ford, John Tory and Olivia Chow.

The debate was moderated by National Post columnist Chris Selley, who gave each candidate several minutes to respond to questions on transit, taxes, community safety and conduct in city council.

Goldkind, a defence lawyer and the fourth-place mayoral contender, had the audience chuckling with one-liners such as “What does Ford stand for? Falsify. Overstate. Repeat. Deny” and “This campaign has turned into a reality show. It’s like the Kardashian show.”

He later took Ford to task for what he said was the former’s failure to apologize for an antisemitic slur uttered by his brother, Mayor Rob Ford – who made a conspicuous appearance partway through the debate – last March.

“Mayor Rob Ford called Jews the ‘K’ word,” Goldkind said. “And then he has the chutzpah to come in here tonight. He might get a free pass from the others on this stage, but not me. When you insult a whole people, you are not setting an example for the city.”

As the audience laughed and booed, Ford responded, “I have a Jewish doctor and a Jewish dentist … my family has the utmost respect for the Jewish community…. We look forward to working with the Jewish community, as we have for the last four years.”

He then added that he had already apologized on behalf of his brother for the remark, adding, “I’ve told [Rob] clearly that those comments were unacceptable.”

On the subject of funding proposed transit projects, Goldkind said, “I’m the only one on stage who’s open in saying we have to talk about taxes. If you believe Tory’s Smart Track plan is going to be free, or Ford’s ‘subways, subways, subways’ will be, or that Chow’s proposed tax increase [to fund transit] will only be on the wealthy, if you accept that math, they’ll earn your vote,” he said sarcastically.

He added: “I will ask each household in the city to pay 50 cents extra per day … then … instead of going to the provincial and federal governments with our hands empty, go to them and say, ‘the people of Toronto have spoken and we have a transit plan worth investing in.’”

Invectives aside, the four took turns laying out their respective visions for transit, with poll-leader Tory emphasizing Smart Track, his London, England-modeled surface rail subway plan. Meanwhile, Chow endorsed building light rail transit (LRT) and a downtown subway relief line, Ford called for subway expansion and Goldkind advocated for a downtown relief line, new LRT lines and replacement of the Scarborough subway line with LRT.

Regarding taxation, Ford and Tory both pledged to privatize garbage collection in the city’s east end.

Ford trumpeted his brother’s administration’s slashing of the vehicle registration tax. Chow said she would increase the land transfer tax for houses valued at more than $2 million and raise property taxes around the rate of inflation, and Goldkind suggested congestion fees and road tolls on certain highways to help pay for infrastructure improvements, as well as raising the land transfer tax on homes valued at over $1.1 million.

The candidates also addressed community safety and the recent spike in antisemitic incidents in Toronto.

Chow said the Toronto Police Service hate crimes unit could use more support and training to be able to better work with people, including those with mental health issues. She suggested that her plan to beef up after-school activities across the city could be a good antidote against “young people who get into trouble and get recruited by people who are full of hate.”

Tory brought up the need for better education for “the young and less young,” including more training for police and interfaith initiatives in the community.

Ford said that under his brother’s administration, the city hired more police officers and reallocated a number of officers to the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy. He said the city needs more mentors for young people.

The Toronto mayoral election will take place on Oct. 27.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Barrable-Segal brings printmaking to life

Jocelyn Barrable-Segal (photo by Olga Livshin)

Jocelyn Barrable-Segal was raised by parents with two vastly different professional backgrounds: her mother was an architect and her father was a pilot. Following her own path, Barrable-Segal managed to combine the two in her own career. For 35 years, she has been a flight attendant with Air Canada. Several days each month, she flies around the world. The days she is not in the air, she is an artist, and you can find her at Malaspina Printmakers, a printmakers’ workshop on Granville Island, where she creates unique lithographs.

“Malaspina is an artist-run centre,” Barrable-Segal told the Jewish Independent on a recent visit. “It started in the early ’70s with three or four artists. Now there are about 60 of us.” She went on to explain that Malaspina is equipped for a dozen different systems used in printmaking, but she uses only one process, the ancient technique of stone lithography. “I love to draw,” she said, “and lithography is the only technique that requires drawing.”

Barrable-Segal does that drawing on stone. The technicalities of embedding an image into stone and later transferring it from stone to paper are not for this short article, but it’s important to point out that each image can have many layers, each layer introducing one additional color plus whatever details the artist wants to add or alter. The process is time consuming and labor intensive, but Barrable-Segal said she doesn’t conceive of working in any other art form.

“With lithographs, you can change the image if you change your mind, have layers of drawing and colors,” she said, “while in painting, as soon as you’re done, that’s it.” She also likes to be able to have several copies of the same print, although she never mass-produces them. “I make limited editions, no more than seven copies of one print.”

Her prints are mostly flowers or landscapes but they are never life-like. They hover between abstract and impressionism. “I’m attracted to metaphors,” she said. She uses multiple sources for her pictures, including photographs from her travels, but she transforms the imagery through the creative filter of her imagination, enriches reality with emotional and esthetic folds. Her artistic touch converts memory into art.

That’s why she keeps flying, to bring back more visual mementos, more nutrients for her lithographs, she explained. “I see different countries, and each happy place finds its way into my images. Of course, no photocopies.”

Frequently, she draws flowers and floral compositions. “I buy live flowers at the public market and look at them,” she said. “That’s how it starts.” Flowers are the predominant theme for her work in the In Wait show that recently opened at Burnaby Art Gallery.

“In Wait is a collaborative project of the Full Circle Art Collective,” she said. “There are seven of us in the collective, seven women: Heather Aston, Hannamari Jalovaara, Julie McIntyre, Milos Jones, Wendy Morosoff Smith, Rina Pita and me. We all met at Malaspina, but then some of us drifted apart. We reunited for this show.”

The inspiration for the show came from the story of Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, she said, and it took the artists three years from the idea to the vernissage.

“Penelope was waiting for her husband to return, but her suitors were insistent that he was dead and she should choose one of them. She said she would weave a shroud before she married again. All day long she wove and then, in the night, her ladies-in-wait would unweave what she had done. The shroud was never completed. She waited. We all wait for something in our lives. It’s a universal theme for women.”

For her, another sad theme overlaid the waiting – the theme of grief. Her parents passed away recently, and working on the show helped her deal with her sadness. “For me, grief associated with poppies. I needed to find solace. I drew lots of poppies for the show.”

Women friends and their collaboration and support were another aspect of the show that came from the story of Penelope and her faithful maids. “Each one of us would make a piece and pass it on to the others. The others would add something, change. They would say: what does it need? Perhaps this detail or line or color should be added.”

Sometimes three or four people would contribute to the image before it returned to the original artist. “When you get your image back with someone else’s input, you think: what do I do now? It’s different. How to keep the integrity of the image? How to bring our combined visions together? This way, you’re always creating.”

Art making is ingrained in Barrable-Segal’s life. “I started flying because I didn’t want to be a full-time artist. It’s not realistic, even though I have a master’s degree in fine arts. But I would never abandon art. I do it for myself. I would continue even if I didn’t sell anything. I always have my sketchbook with me. When I play golf with my husband, I’m not interested in the ball. I look at my shadow on the grass and think how it would look in a lithograph.”

In Wait is at Burnaby Art Gallery until Nov. 9. For more on Barrable-Segal, visit jmbs.ca.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Tikva’s rent subsidy program

“Thank you for the gift you gave us this coming year. You made our lives less challenging during these difficult times. We are very grateful for your help and support. We have just received the cheque from you. Thank you so much for all you are doing for our family.”  – A beneficiary of Tikva Housing Society’s Esther Dayson Rent Subsidy Program

Sukkot is a holiday when we think about how fragile and exposed our lives can be without a proper roof over our heads. For many families in our community, living in a temporary shelter is not a short-term symbolic choice for the holidays; it is their permanent reality. Tikva Housing Society helps individuals and families pay their rent through a growing rent subsidy program.

The program began in 2011, when the board approved a subsidy for an individual who could not be housed at Tikva’s Dany Guincher House because there was a shortage of available units. Later that year, the Ben and Esther Dayson Charitable Foundation made a commitment to fund a rent subsidy program that would allow Tikva to extend its portfolio by housing people in private market units. The program thus became the Esther Dayson Rent Subsidy Program and grew large enough to subsidize seven households. In 2013, the Tikva fund subsidized three single and four family households for a total of 19 persons.

Since October 2011, Tikva has been involved in a Richmond development to administer 10 family apartments and, since December 2012, it’s been involved in Vancouver in a development of 32 townhouse units. As construction can take years to complete and the need for affordable housing is immediate, Tikva’s board decided to put greater emphasis into fundraising for the rent subsidy program. In 2014/15, with additional help from donors (such as the PAID Foundation and the Al Roadburg Foundation), Tikva will be able to house nine singles and eight families for a total of 39 persons.

During August and September 2014, the committee received 44 applications referred through the Jewish Family Service Agency, synagogues and Jewish day schools. All applications were point scored to determine the highest need. The top 20 applicants were interviewed. To date, agreements have been signed with 12 applicants. Of the 20 applicants interviewed, four singles and one family were homeless. The subsidy will allow all those funded to look for appropriate rental units to call home.

You may wonder what sort of poverty issues the 44 applicants for Tikva’s rent subsidy program experience. Here is a sampling of some of their stories.

Five of the applicants are homeless, living on the street, in shelters and couch surfing. One of the homeless applicants is a single father with three children who arrived in Vancouver in April 2013 after losing all they had during flooding in Saskatchewan. The Esther Dayson Rent Subsidy Program allowed this family to move out of the shelter where they were living and move into a three-bedroom apartment. The children will now be enrolled in the nearby school and the father will be able to look for work in the community.

A single woman moved to British Columbia from Alberta and does not meet the one-year residency requirement to apply for government rental assistance. Rents in Greater Vancouver are much higher than in Lethbridge, and her $1,100 pension barely allows her to pay $750 for rent, while leaving only $350 for all of her other expenses.

Another family of two parents and two small children lives in Surrey. They were relying solely on a disability pension after the husband was injured in a work-related accident that left him paralyzed. The wife looks after her husband and their small children and, therefore, cannot work outside the home.

While spending a cool evening in the sukkah, remember how important it is for each and every person to have the warmth and stability of his/her own home. For more information about the Tikva Housing rent subsidy program or to donate, visit tikvahousing.ca.

Susan J. Katz is a freelance writer, pastoral-care consultant and musician living in Vancouver. Her website is susanjkatz.com.

The state of impermanence

As a harvest festival, Sukkot is infused with thanksgiving for the bounty that Jews in Canada and, mercifully, in most of the world today, enjoy. The holiday is also an earthy affair, as we move out into our backyards (or, in some cases caused by this hot housing market, our sliver of a balcony) and into temporary shelters inspired by those used by the Israelites during the 40 years of exodus in the desert. The emphasis of the sukkah is on impermanence and inhabiting one, even if just for a meal, inspires reflection on the impermanence in our lives, including life itself.

Sukkot is immediately followed by Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah – and the juxtaposition is striking. On Simchat Torah, we celebrate the most permanent thing the Jewish people have experienced. On this day, we complete the annual reading of the Torah and immediately begin again, missing not a beat between the end of Devarim, Deuteronomy, and the beginning of Bereisheet, Genesis.

For a people who have known – who, indeed, have just finished a week of reenacting – historical impermanence, Simchat Torah is a reassurance that, in the face of all historical, social and technological change, at least one thing remains constant: the book that binds us in spirit and practice.

The Torah is a constant in times of change, and it is easy to take for granted that, in the long history of the Jewish people, we are living out one of the most dramatic epochs our people has ever known. For millennia, our forebears yearned for Zion, longing to celebrate next year in Jerusalem and to be a free people in our land. In our generation, this dream has come to pass.

The creation of the state of Israel has changed Jews, Judaism and Jewish practices in small and large ways. One of the most significant ways is the sense of permanence provided by a Jewish homeland. Yet, there have been times of war and terror when the dream has turned nightmarish. And there remain many in the world who would like Israel to be an impermanent way station, merely another sukkah, for the Jewish people.

Jews – in Israel and around the world – are determined that Israel should remain as permanent and enduring as the Torah. Yet, unlike the Torah, which has a definitive beginning and end, Israel’s borders are not recognized by the international community, nor is there a consensus in Israel about where precisely they should be in the event of a final status agreement for a two-state solution.

While Jews worldwide were contemplating construction of their sukkot, the United States and others were condemning Israel’s recent announcement of additional housing construction in East Jerusalem.

Such settlements do nothing to convince the world that Israel is acting in good faith vis-à-vis a two-state outcome. On the other hand, condemning construction as the primary obstacle to peace in the region is a difficult pill to swallow: there are more pressing impediments to peace on both sides of the conflict.

However, while settlements may not be the main impediment to peace, they are an attempt to build something relatively permanent in a region without clear borders. It seems a considerable waste of resources – human labor, building materials, money, time, even Israeli and Palestinian PR efforts and goodwill – to keep building, especially knowing that the area is disputed and, therefore, impermanent.

Such construction also raises the hopes and dreams of those who ultimately will live there – what happens if they are forced to move? Israel has demonstrated its willingness to uproot Jewish residents in Sinai and Gaza in exchange for the faint hope of peace.

Through history and ritual, Jews understand that most things are temporary, like settlements that eventually give way to compromise. We also understand that some things are meant to last, like Torah and like the irreversible redemption of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

Orkestars at Vogue

Members of Orkestar Slivovica include Susan Gerofsky, fourth from the left. (photo from Caravan World Rhythms)

Caravan World Rhythms presents Boban & Marko Markovic Orkestar on Oct. 18 at Vogue Theatre. Opening for Boban & Marko is a collaboration between local bands Orkestar Slivovica and Jack Garton’s Demon Squadron. The main level of the Vogue will be turned into an open dance floor for the whole evening. There will also be reserved seating available for those who prefer to sit and watch.

Boban & Marko, the quintessential Balkan brass band, comes back to Vancouver after again being crowned “Leading Band in Serbia,” a title to which they have been named multiple times since the late 1980s. Their music, performed by a 13-piece strong orchestra, is defined by their gypsy lineage, while giving a nod towards other musical and cultural backgrounds related to Romani traditions. Aside from their numerous awards, the group has performed and been featured in films.

Vancouver’s homegrown Balkan brass band, Orkestar Slivovica, includes Jewish community member Susan Gerofsky. The eight-12-piece brass ensemble plays and sings a diverse repertoire, from insanely fast dance tunes to heart-wrenching songs, often in crooked rhythms and exotic scales. Gerofsky plays tenor horn and accordion and contributes vocals, but she also plays baritone horn and other brass instruments, pennywhistle and piano, and has dabbled with banjo, fiddle and ukulele.

Gerofsky has been involved with folk music and dance for many years, starting with youthful experiences doing Israeli and international folk dancing and working as a volunteer at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto.

When not playing with the band, Gerofsky is a tenured assistant professor in the department of curriculum and pedagogy in the faculty of education at the University of British Columbia. She holds degrees in languages and linguistics as well as mathematics education, and worked for 12 years in film production, eight years in adult education (including workplace and labor education) and eight years as a high school teacher with the Vancouver School Board. Gerofsky has been involved in interdisciplinary research and teaching involving embodied, multisensory mathematics education, garden-based learning, applied linguistics and film. She has studied, researched and taught in England, Brazil, Italy and Cuba. She speaks several languages.

Collaborating with Orkestar Slivovica are special guests Demon Squadron, spearheaded by the musician, songwriter and showman Jack Garton of Maria in the Shower. Their sound is rooted in reggae, funk and folk, and includes the backbone trio of Amrit Basi on drum set, Michael Alleyne on bass and Garton on accordion, trumpet and voice. The trio welcomes frequent collaborators on saxophone, trombone, organ and backup vocals.

The Oct. 18 show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets, $42 (general admission)/$52 (reserved seats), are available in person at Highlife Records, Banyen Books or Boemma Deli; online at caravanbc.com; or by phone, 1-855-551-9747. For music and more, visit bobanimarko.com, orkestarslivovica.org or jackgarton.com/demonsquadron.

Liberal Zionism still critical

Israel Defence Forces soldiers debrief during the Israel-Hamas conflict. New Israel Fund of Canada’s president Joan Garson discussed the painful war of this past summer and the ongoing responsibility of liberal Zionists in Canada to push for Israel to be a model of democracy, pluralism and tolerance. (photo from IDF via Ashernet)

The Jewish state won’t survive without a Zionism that’s liberal and a liberalism that’s Zionist. Such was the recurrent assertion of Haaretz reporter and columnist Ari Shavit at the New Israel Fund of Canada’s (NIFC’s) annual symposium, held on Sept. 14.

Entitled The Future of Israel Starts Here and held at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, the free event drew almost 1,000 people and marked the fourth annual symposium for NIFC, an organization founded 29 years ago that describes itself as being committed to fostering the development of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state “as envisioned in her Declaration of Independence.”

The symposium was moderated by Joseph Rosen, who recently wrote an article called “The Israel taboo” in an issue of the Canadian magazine The Walrus.

The event featured Rosen interviewing Shavit via Skype, as well facilitating a lively discussion between Shavit and Akiva Eldar, chief political columnist at the online magazine Al-Monitor, who attended in person. NIFC president Joan Garson also spoke.

photo - Ari Shavit
Ari Shavit (photo by Sharon Bareket)

Shavit spoke passionately about how the Zionist community needs to “talk seriously and honestly about our own mistakes” and to acknowledge where the government of Israel has committed wrongs both on a moral and political level, such as with ongoing settlement building in the West Bank. He argued this must be frozen to give the Palestinians space economically and geographically and “to move toward a two-state solution.”

It’s imperative that Zionists stop treating Israel as being above criticism, he stressed. Zionists must look its sins in the face, address the arguments made on the other side of the conflict and “limit injustice to Palestinians as much as possible.”

Further, Shavit spoke about restoring Israel to its former “state of wonder,” its promise to serve as a refuge for Jews – “a home for our homeless” – and to be as just as possible.

“What happened in 1948 [when thousands of Arabs ran from or were driven from their homes and villages during the country’s founding] was in the context of the brutal history of the 1940s,” he said. “But after that, after we secured our existence at a terrible human cost for us and for them [the Palestinians], to go into the other 22 percent of the land and to try to co-opt it [through occupation and settlement building] is a huge mistake.”

But Shavit also argued that it’s unacceptable to exclusively demonize Israel for its injustices, as its critics often do, or to use the history of its founding to delegitimize it.

“Some of the world’s best democracies were founded on the terrible treatment of indigenous people. Israel can’t be singled out,” he said. “But let us remember our democratic past and try to build a future for the Palestinians.”

Garson discussed the painful war of this past summer and the ongoing responsibility of liberal Zionists in Canada to push for Israel to be a model of democracy, pluralism and tolerance.

“As liberals, we are activists,” she said. “We think it’s our job not just to sit on the sidelines, but to engage … to make Israel the country of its founders dreams…. When we see [Israeli] policies in need of change, we speak and we act.”

She added: “We must be honest with ourselves, our children and our congregations … to bring intelligence and clear thinking to Israel as we do to other issues … and to commit to telling the truth about the country to ensure there will be another generation of lovers of Israel.”

Rosen subsequently posed questions to Eldar and Shavit about whether liberal Zionism is “dead” and about the position of Israeli left-wing “peaceniks.”

Eldar, who described himself as a “radical peacenik,” argued that liberal Zionism is crucial to the future of Israel, but that it can’t coexist with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

It’s not enough to decry the settlements, he said, “we have to do something about it and call on every government in the world to do something.”

Eldar explained that he, therefore, does not buy products made in the settlements.

“If, God forbid, one of your friends was about to commit suicide, you would do everything to stop it,” he said “This [settlement expansion] is a suicidal project.”

Shavit later spoke about how many Israelis feel that Israeli “peaceniks” don’t care about them, that they’re more concerned with the well-being of the Palestinians than that of their own countrymen.

“We Israelis who advocate for peace need to love all our people, to go out and canvas and tell them why their future is connected to peace,” he said.

Eldar said the central problem is that fear seems to have become more effective than hope in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We on the left are trying to sell hope,” he said. “I’m upset that people are trying to sell fear. Why not look at the glass half full? Look, for example, at how Egypt has worked with us [in the latest ceasefire negotiation between Israel and Hamas] instead of injecting more fear and saying we don’t have partners for peace in the region?”

He said that Israel needs to withdraw from the settlements, but not unilaterally. “We need to do it by making peace.”

 – For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

How mammals respond to novelty

Measuring the response to novelty: A mouse repeatedly touches the object and pulls away (nose and whisker contacts are color-coded; d is the distance of the snout from the object). (photo from wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il)

Put a young child in a new playground and she may take awhile to start playing – approaching the slide and then running back to Mom before finally stepping on. A new model suggests that it is not fear that makes her run back and forth, but simply the fact that her brain is telling her to stop and take in the new information – the height of the slide or how slippery it appears – before going any further.

Drs. Goren Gordon and Ehud Fonio, and Prof. Ehud Ahissar, believe that this is a basic pattern in mammals that governs how we learn. The mathematical model they developed and tested in experiments suggests that our innate curiosity is tempered by mechanisms in our brains that curb our ability to absorb novelty.

In Ahissar’s lab in the institute’s neurobiology department, researchers investigate how animals sense their surroundings. Previous research in which Fonio participated showed that, in a new situation, a mouse would approach an unfamiliar space, retreat to familiar surroundings, and then approach again. When Gordon, Fonio and Ahissar examined how mice used their whiskers to feel out a novel object, a similar pattern ensued: the whisker would touch the object, pull back and then touch it again. Gradually, as the mouse became familiar with one part of its surroundings, it would begin to explore further, moving away from the known part. The pattern was so consistent, the researchers thought they could create a model to explain how a mouse – or another mammal – explores new surroundings.

The researchers based their model on the premise that novelty can be measured and that the amount of novelty could be a primary factor in shaping the way that a mouse – or its whisker – will move through an environment. This model successfully reproduced the results of the previous study, in which the movement of the mouse gradually became more complex through the addition of measurable degrees of freedom. For example, it began with movement along a wall, as opposed to traveling across the open space. Using data from the previous experiments and others for which such data were available, they were able to construct a model that required very few additional assumptions.

The model suggested that novelty, per se, was not the deciding factor, but rather how much the novelty varied within a given situation. Approaching and retreating appear to be a way to keep the amount of new information within a constant range. Like the wavering child in the playground, the mice would absorb a certain amount of new sensory input – the curve of a new wall, for example – retreat, and approach again once the novel information was already starting to become familiar.

To test the model, the researchers designed an experimental setup in which a family of mice was born and raised in a den, and then a gate was opened from the den to a new area in which the pups could freely explore and return to their familiar den. The researchers found that the model was able to predict how the mice would explore their new surroundings. It held true whether it was applied to locomotion or to the motion of whiskers in feeling out new objects. The initial movements explored the most novel features of the new environment. After those were learned, just as the model predicted, the animals moved further afield, exploring the still-unknown parts of their surroundings.

“The mice were not given rewards for their behavior – for them, as for humans, satisfying curiosity is its own reward,” said Gordon.

“This behavioral pattern enables the mice to control the level of sensory stimulus to their brains by regulating the amount of novelty they are exposed to,” added Fonio.

These limits to novelty and exploration may, of course, have another evolutionary advantage: while the urge to explore is necessary for animals that must seek out food, stopping to check out the surroundings a bit at a time could be a prudent survival strategy. In other words, curiosity may have killed the cat, but a whisker pulled back in time might save the mouse.

Does this model apply to humans? Gordon points out that when we learn a new subject, we often need time to think things over before going on to the next topic. Further research might reveal whether young children – babies just learning to crawl, for example – explore their new surroundings in the same way. Even an adult entering a new situation might undergo a similar process.

In the future, a mathematical model of learning might prove useful for teachers and students, as well as for research into neurological issues involving the ability to absorb new information. This model also might someday be used in the field of robotics: robots that learn on their own, like mice, to explore a new setting might be able to function in situations that are too dangerous for humans, such as the aftermath of an earthquake or a nuclear power plant accident, for example.

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