Michael and Phyllis Moscovich in Cuba. (photo from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver)
When community lay leaders Michael and Phyllis Moscovich were planning their most recent mission trip, they never imagined discovering Jewish ties to former Cuban president Fidel Castro, and the vibrant community that exists on the island.
Michael, a committed volunteer with Jewish Federation and a board member for several years, is currently a member of Federation’s Israel and overseas affairs committee, as well as its Partnership2Gether committee. He and Phyllis also jointly chair the Ethiopian students internship program. The couple’s shared passion for travel and interest in Jewry across the Diaspora has motivated them to participate in nine previous Federation missions. Last October, they participated in their first American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) mission to Havana, with a group of like-minded community members from North Carolina.
“I wanted to see Cuba before the regime changed and am always interested in Jewish communities elsewhere,” explained Michael.
JDC missions provide participants with a highly personal perspective on daily life for Jews and others in more than 70 countries in which JDC operates.
Cuban Jews have lived on the island for centuries, some tracing their ancestry as far back as the late 15th century to “anusim” who fled the Spanish Inquisition. In a February 2007 story, the New York Times estimated that there were about 1,500 identified Jews living in Cuba, most of them (about 1,100) living in Havana. The article added, “This small Jewish presence [in 2007] is in stark contrast to the bustling community that existed before Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. In those days, there were 15,000 Jews and five synagogues in Havana alone.”
JDC’s re-entry into Cuba in 1991 has sparked a Jewish resurgence on the island and a growing awareness of the community and its rich history. As it does elsewhere across the globe, JDC, in partnership with the local community, provides assistance to Cuba’s Jews, develops Jewish leaders and has prompted a revitalization of Jewish life. Working with JDC, the community has established a Jewish summer camp, adult education, an Israeli dance festival and communal holiday celebrations.
The mission visited all the operating synagogues in Havana, the Jewish cemetery and all the major tourist sites. “We met several times with members of the community, highlighted for us by a lunch with an unassuming fellow who spoke little English,” shared Michael. “By the end of lunch, we had determined he had been Fidel’s personal bodyguard for over a decade.”
One of the more surprising revelations of the trip for Michael and Phyllis is that there never seems to have been overt antisemitism in Cuba. “Fidel never even knew our guy was Jewish, until he attended a Chanukah celebration at one of the synagogues where one of the members mentioned that his bodyguard was a synagogue member,” Michael remarked. Also noteworthy is the fact that the young people are allowed to make aliyah, when almost no one else is allowed exit visas.
The opportunity to immerse themselves in the community was enlightening. “My expectations were all met. Seeing Havana, [getting a taste of] the regime, getting a sense of what 45 years of communism can do to an otherwise colorful and vibrant country,” said Michael. More remarkable from his perspective was “seeing the Jewish community and how it is sustaining itself.”
Michael and Phyllis took away with them enduring memories of the tenacity of the Jewish community and the vibrancy of the entire population, despite the hardships the regime has brought on its people. “It was great to travel with similarly committed Jews, to see the great work JDC has done, to meet our brethren, to see again what communism does and doesn’t do, to see it crumbling however slowly,” Michael explained. “The experience re-confirmed my personal commitment to the community, here and overseas.”
Federation invites you to participate in a mission trip to Vienna, Budapest and Israel, with mission chairs Anita and Arnold Silber, from Oct. 11-22, 2015. Visit the Israel and Overseas Experiences page on Federation’s website (jewishvancouver.com) for more information about opportunities to visit Israel and experience Jewish life in communities around the world. You can also donate to this year’s campaign via the website.
– This article was originally published in eYachad, and is reprinted with permission.
Anne, left, and Eva Gitelman. (photo from Deborah Rubin Fields)
The things we take for granted. Today, we spend countless internet hours looking for someone (or something). We assume increasingly rapid communication systems will effectively power these searches. Yet, for Eva Poll and Anne Rosenthal Schiffman, my paternal grandmother’s nieces (my first cousins once removed), staying in touch was a tremendous undertaking.
Beginning in the mid-1920s and continuing for almost 70 years, these two sisters struggled to keep in contact with their three Pinsk siblings, once their orphanage had shipped them and 32 other Jewish orphans to adoptive Jewish families in the United Kingdom.
Pinsk’s orphaned children on the SS Baltricer, April 1926. (photo from Deborah Rubin Fields)
How did I piece together this faraway story of my Pinsk relatives? The truth is that until their death, my cousins Eva and Anne held on to letters, cards, diaries and photos from Pinsk (today a city in Belarus). Through these saved items, my family’s story emerges.
Eva was born in 1913 as Chaya. She was the fourth of five children born to Avrom and Shaina Basya Gitelman of Pinsk. Anne was born in 1916. She was named Chana. Their older siblings were Hershel, born 1906, Sarah Leah, born 1907, and Devorah, born 1909.
Prior to 1918, I know little about Eva and Anne’s life. But late that summer, both their parents died within weeks of each other. With their deaths so close together, the parents might have succumbed to either the influenza pandemic or to starvation (giving their five young children whatever food they had been able to scrounge). According to Azriel Shohet, author of The Jews of Pinsk, 1881-1941 (translated from the Hebrew by Faigie Tropper and Moshe Rosman, edited by Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman), at the time, conditions in Pinsk were terrible.
Eva and Anne went to live in the Jewish orphanage at 2 Dominikanska St. It is not known how my older (but still quite young) cousins managed, either on their own or with assistance.
My paternal grandparents had just emigrated to Chicago but, somehow, they learned the children had been orphaned. My grandfather contacted the Joint Distribution Committee, asking for photos of the orphans. With eight of their own children, it is unlikely my grandparents were in a position to provide much assistance.
All I know is that by age 16 or 17, Sara Leah married Yisrael Kuper and that they quickly began their own family. Devorah began working in the Pinsk veneer factory and lived with the Kupers. At some point, Hershel married a woman named Faigel and became a father.
What I have learned through research is that the orphanage’s economic situation worsened in the early 1920s. Shohet writes that even though the staff took good care of the orphans, it sometimes had to feed the children hot bean cereal instead of bread. In August 1923, the orphanage sent the following “advertisement” [translated from Yiddish] to the Pinsker Relief Fund in London:
Chaya learns in the school and Chana Gitelman learnt dressmaking. In peacetime, they lived in a village near Pinsk. In the war, they became ruined. The parents died and the children were taken to an orphanage…. They … are good children and very diligent. (Courtesy of David Solly Sandler, author of The Life and Times of the Children from the Three Pinsk Jewish Orphanages in the 1920s)
By 1924, the two sisters and their orphaned friends knew they were candidates for adoption by Jewish families in Britain. In 1924, close to the time of Rosh Hashanah, a friend named Faigel Bambel wrote the following in Anne’s autograph book:
To remember To Chana Gitelman When you go away to a faraway land, don’t forget me…. Don’t forget how it was for you here where we were together. Today I send you my wishes, and I believe that we’ll remain good friends. (Yiddish translation by Amy Simon)
By 1926, the orphanage had found homes for Eva, Anne and 32 other orphans. A few months before departing Pinsk for the United Kingdom, the siblings had their last family photo taken. (For unknown reasons, Hershel and family are not in the picture.) At sailing, Eva was 13 years old and Anne was 10 years old. The sisters never saw Pinsk again.
While I never asked Eva or Anne about the psychological toll of leaving family, the onboard ship photo seems to indicate the difficulty of parting. Eva is the only child holding a suitcase. According to her nephew, Colin Schiffman, Eva saved all her Pinsk correspondences in this suitcase. Moreover, Eva kept the suitcase under her bed, taking it out to use as a writing table.
They were adopted by two different Jewish London families: Eva by the Polsky family (Eva later shortened her family name first to Pole, then to Poll) and Anne by the Rosenthal family. To their credit, these two families permitted the girls to maintain contact with one another, as seen in the lovely 1929 photo from their adolescence.
From saved correspondences, I discovered that until at least 1939, the sisters were in contact with the Pinsk part of the family. To insure responses to their letters, Eva and Anne purchased two-part (send-and-receive) international postal cards. One saved card already shows the Second World War censor stamp the British employed after declaring war on Germany.
Eva and Anne purchased send-and-receive international postal cards. This saved card, sent from Pinsk, shows the censor stamp the British employed after declaring war on Germany. (photo from Deborah Rubin Fields)
Anne must have told the Pinsk family about her plans to marry Bobby Schiffman on July 14, 1940, as brother Hershel sent a message: “Chana, how are you, what’s new with your wedding and with work? Regards to your parents and to your husband/groom.” Cousin Chaya wrote: “Regards to Chana and her husband.” Bobby and Anne had three sons: Alan, Stephen and Colin and eventually several grandchildren.
Eva chose to remain single. She had been engaged at least once, but did not go ahead with marriage because she had promised her Pinsk family she would always look after her little sister. Eva’s nephew Colin confirms that, by 1941, Eva was already living with the Schiffmans in London. Colin recalls that, as a young woman, Eva led a busy social life. For most of Eva’s working life she was the final quality-control person at the clothing factories at which she worked (and she sent back many items!).
After the Second World War and for the next 50 years, Eva searched for family, but kept her feelings to herself. As such, she never revealed how much emotional or physical energy it demanded to send numerous handwritten letters to Jewish newspapers, to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, to the JDC, to Yad Vashem. Just as important, she never divulged how hard it was waiting for replies. While she found relatives in such far-flung places as the United States and Argentina, she unfortunately discovered no Pinsk family member had survived the Nazi onslaught.
With Yiddish-speaking relatives, the sisters communicated in (both written and spoken) Yiddish, but together they conversed in English. As the years went by, the two sisters seemed to enjoy a quiet life of working in the family’s Newbury Park house and garden, taking care of Colin, Bobby and the family cat, and, importantly, keeping each other company.
Anne died in August 1995. Eva died in April 2001. Despite trying childhoods, a difficult passage from one country to another and an upbringing in two different homes, until the end, the two sisters remained tremendously devoted to each other.
In the macro, their cherished papers provide an eye-opening glimpse of one corner of early 20th-century Eastern European Jewry. In the micro, they open a fascinating window to the lives lived by some of my relatives, lives marked by separation, on the one hand, and continuity, on the other.
Deborah Rubin Fieldsis 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.
When I lived in New York for 10 years in the 1960s, going to the Lower East Side was a very regular part of my Sunday routine. However, while the name Yonah Schimmel might sound familiar to anyone traveling the same circuit during that time, regrettably, I never came across Mrs. Stahl. That’s because knishes were not part of my regular eating regimen.
That said, being a food writer and cookbook author, Knish (Brandeis, 2014) by Laura Silver was a fascinating read – because I learned more about the “pillow of filling tucked into a skin of dough” – but even more so because I learned about Silver’s favorite source of knishes: Mrs. Stahl in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. When Mrs. Stahl went out of business, Silver’s “mourning” took the form of her search for “Jewish soul food.”
Silver has written on food and culture for the New York Times and the Forward, and she is the author of what her publisher calls “the one and only absolutely definitive biography of the knish,” making her the world de facto authority on the Jewish pastry.
Mrs. Stahl’s produced “baked round mounts, each plump with a stuffing, savory or sweet. Each piece – the size of a fist or just bigger – revealed a hint of filling on the top, a bald spot, as if for a yarmulke…. If you cut the knish in half, the cross-section revealed a membrane of dough that split the innards into chambers, like those of the human heart.”
From this, we divert to two of the strong influences in Silver’s life: her Riga-born grandmother who arrived in New York in 1906 and their relationship until her death, as well as the 2005 closing (after 70 years) of the infamous Mrs. Stahl’s, which started her on the journey. “Knishes,” she writes, “were my family’s religion.”
Beginning with the Brighton Beach Neighborhood Association, Silver investigates many New York connections to the knish; she travels to Israel, Paris, Warsaw, Bialystok and Knyszyn, Poland, where she found her family’s roots. She goes to Banff and St. Paul, where she finds groups of seniors making knishes, and San Francisco where she meets Mrs. Stahl’s granddaughter.
Closing her book, she lists the best spots for knishes today, including New York, Michigan, Baltimore, Boston, Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Minnesota. The book also contains many pages of interesting notes, an extensive bibliography, an index and acknowledgments. In between, she recounts her visit to such knish hot spots as the Pasta Factory in Vineland, N.J., which purchased Mrs. Stahl’s bakery knish recipes. Then she tells the story of Gussie Schwebel, a New York knish maker, who learned that Eleanor Roosevelt was going to be in town and wanted to introduce her to the knish, several of which were dispatched at 5 p.m. on Jan. 27, 1942, to the first lady’s New York apartment.
Even if you’ve never been a big fan of knishes, this is an utterly charming book that recreates a bygone world and captures Silver’s hope that “Jewish soul food” is ready for its second renaissance.
In San Francisco, Silver met Toby Engelberg, Mrs. Stahl’s granddaughter and includes the famuos family recipe.
TOBY ENGELBERG’S POTATO KNISHES
Dough 3 1⁄4 cups flour 1 tbsp sugar 1 tsp salt 1⁄2 cup vegetable oil 1 cup lukewarm water
Turn oven on low until dough is ready. Mix flour, sugar and salt. Add oil and water. Mix with a spoon until the dough pulls together, or use a food processor or stand mixer (with a dough hook). Turn out on board and knead, incorporating all pieces. Knead until dough is one piece and is smooth and glossy. Turn off oven. Oil dough and place in oiled, covered bowl. Place in oven until ready to use. Let rest at least two hours; the dough should barely rise, if at all. Keeping the dough overnight in the refrigerator is fine. Bring back to room temperature before use.
Potato filling 6 lbs russet or new potatoes 1 cup oil 1⁄4 cup salt, or to taste 1 1⁄2 tsp pepper 8 cups raw thinly sliced onions
Scrub potatoes and peel (except if using new potatoes with very thin, unblemished skins). Boil about 20 minutes until knife tender and drain. Mash with a potato masher. Add oil, salt (not adding all at once and tasting as you add) and pepper, and mix. Stir in the onion.
Assembling and baking: Vegetable oil and flour as needed
Preheat oven to 450°F. Roll out about half the dough on a lightly floured counter or table top. Roll with a handle-less, rod-style rolling pin out from the centre until dough is thin enough to see through, about 1/16-inch thick.
Oil top edge of dough with a pastry brush. Place two-inch diameter line of filling about two inches from top edge. Pick up top edge and drape over filling. Brush oil on dough in a two-inch strip on the bottom edge of the filling. Pick up the dough with filling and roll again onto the oiled dough, compressing the filled dough as you turn it. Repeat until the dough covers filling three to four times, being sure to always brush oil on the dough first. Cut to separate the filled potato knish log from the remaining dough. Cut off edges of filled dough. Cut the filled roll into pieces about six- to eight-inches long and coil like a snail, tucking last end under the coil. Alternatively, place roll onto ungreased cookie sheet, and slash with a knife crosswise every two inches. Either rolls or snails should be placed on the pan with an inch of space between. Repeat with remaining dough on countertop. When that is used up, repeat with reserved dough.
Bake 20-25 minutes (starting knishes on lowest oven rack and raising to top rack after about 10-12 minutes) until tops are browned and knishes are cooked through. Cool in pan. If cooked in rolls, cut into serving pieces. Knishes can be reheated in the oven or in a skillet on the stove top.
Makes 16-18 knishes.
Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant feature for janglo.net and leads weekly shuk walks in English in Jerusalem’s food market.
Tabor Winery uses only 10 growers, which is unique and helps control the quality of the grapes. (photo from taborwines.com)
The fifth in a series featuring nine Israeli wine producers features Justin Kohn of Tabor Winery. The most recent article – on Bazelet HaGolan Winery – was published in the Jewish Independent on Sept. 19, and can be found online at jewishindependent.ca.
Christopher Barnes: How did the winery get off the ground?
Justin Kohn: We’re fourth-generation growers, in the village by Tabor, right by the Mount Tabor. The Sela family [was] growing for about 100 years, and Oren Sela, company CEO, told his father, “Let’s make our own wine. A lot of people are doing it now in Israel, and they’ve been very successful.” They started up with 30,000 bottles, really to friends and a few critics, and word got out. Now, 2.3 million bottles later, we’re the sixth-largest producer in Israel.
CB: Talk a little bit about the types of soils and the climate that you have.
JK: We’re in the Mediterranean, of course, so a lot of wine producing reaches that area. But Israel has got a lot of microclimates within the small country that it is. Being located in the Galilee, where the winery is, we do get some nice cool nights and hot days, as well, but the elevation is pretty good. Right by the mountain, Mount Tabor, the elevation is 562 metres above sea level, so that’s a good altitude to have.
We also have some vineyards in the northern part of the Golan, even some in the northern Galilee and even some in the Golan Heights, so we really have the best selection of grapes coming out of the Galilee region. But, unlike other large wineries, we only use 10 growers, which is unique – this helps us to really control the quality. Each grower is incentivized by an agronomist, who will evaluate the quality of the crop and, therefore, pay them more based on the quality. She’ll visit each grower once a week and she has the ultimate say, not just when to prune, when to harvest, etcetera, but even which grapes to grow. There have been times she’s ripped out vines and replanted new vines where she’s deemed them suitable in that soil type.
CB: What would you say is unique about Tabor?
JK: I think the most unique aspect of Tabor Winery is that we really allow nature to take over and we try to step back. We let the soil do the talking, let the grapes do the talking. We don’t try to mask it. The winemaking process is pretty simple but we take ultimate care in the growing. We really focus on the soil to make sure that we have the ideal varietal growing in a soil, and how to manage that particular varietal throughout the year.
Additionally, we started as a boutique winery; we’re now producing 2 to 2.3 million bottles – we’re a large winery – but, as I mentioned, as a boutique, our focus and our DNA has always been on quality. We’re able now to continue producing quality but we don’t have the pressure of producing volume. I mentioned we’re the sixth largest – those ahead of us are about five times our size. Some of them, number five is even two times our size.
So, the attention to quality is there and yet the economies of scale to drive the price down per bottle really gives us an advantage over some other wineries.
CB: Anything else you want to add?
JK: I think Tabor is in a very unique position in the market, in that we’re making wines that are approachable and drinkable for what the consumer wants and at price points that are also approachable, everyday price points…. We think wine is meant to be enjoyed by people with other people. Being able to come home to that bottle every day is really what it’s about.
This article is reprinted courtesy of the Grape Collective, an online publication for all things wine. For more information, visit grapecollective.com.
Our species’ waking and sleeping cycles – shaped in millions of years of evolution – have been turned upside down within a single century with the advent of electric lighting and airplanes. As a result, millions of people regularly disrupt their biological clocks – for example, shift workers and frequent flyers – and these have been known to be at high risk for such common metabolic diseases as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. A new study published in Cell, led by Weizmann Institute scientists, reveals for the first time that our biological clocks work in tandem with the populations of bacteria residing in our intestines, and that these micro-organisms vary their activities over the course of the day. The findings show that mice and humans with disrupted daily wake-sleep patterns exhibit changes in the composition and function of their gut bacteria, thereby increasing their risk for obesity and glucose intolerance.
A consensus has been growing in recent years that the populations of microbes living in and on our bodies function as an extra “organ” that has wide-ranging impacts on our health. Christoph Thaiss, a research student in the lab of Dr. Eran Elinav of the Weizmann Institute’s immunology department, led this research into the daily cycles of gut bacteria. Working together with David Zeevi in the lab of Prof. Eran Segal of the computer science and applied mathematics department, and Maayan Levy of Elinav’s lab, he found a regular day-night cycle in both the composition and the function of certain populations of gut bacteria in mice. Despite living in the total darkness of the digestive system, the gut microbes were able to time their activity to the mouse’s feeding cycles, coordinating daily microbial activities to those of their host.
Does this finding have any medical significance? To further investigate, the researchers looked at “jet-lagged” mice, whose day-night rhythms were altered by exposing them to light and dark at different intervals. The jet-lagged mice stopped eating at regular times, and this interrupted the cyclic rhythms of their internal bacteria, leading to weight gain and high blood sugar levels. To verify these results, the scientists transferred bacteria from the jet-lagged mice into sterile mice; those receiving the “jet-lagged microbes” also gained weight and developed high blood sugar levels.
The research group then turned to human gut bacteria, identifying a similar daily shift in their microbial populations and function. To conduct a jet-lag experiment in humans, the researchers collected bacterial samples from two people flying from the United States to Israel – once before the flight, once a day after landing when jet lag was at its peak, and once two weeks later when the jet lag had worn off. The researchers then implanted these bacteria into sterile mice. Mice receiving the jet-lagged humans’ bacteria exhibited significant weight gain and high blood sugar levels, while mice getting bacteria from either before or after the jet lag had worn off did not. These results suggest that the long-term disruption of the biological clock leads to a disturbance in their bacteria’s function that may, in turn, increase the risk for such common conditions as obesity and imbalances in blood sugar levels.
Segal: “Our gut bacteria’s ability to coordinate their functions with our biological clock demonstrates, once again, the ties that bind us to our bacterial population and the fact that disturbances in these ties can have consequences for our health.”
Elinav: “Our inner microbial rhythm represents a new therapeutic target that may be exploited in future studies to normalize the microbiota in people whose life style involves frequent alterations in sleep patterns, hopefully to reduce or even prevent their risk of developing obesity and its complications.”
Also participating in this research were Gili Zilberman-Schapira, Jotham Suez, Anouk Tengeler, Lior Abramson, Meirav Katz and Dr. Hagit Shapiro in Elinav’s lab; Tal Korem in Segal’s lab; Prof. Alon Harmelin, Dr. Yael Kuperman and Dr. Inbal Biton of the veterinary resources department, Dr. Shlomit Gilad of the Nancy and Stephen Grand Israel National Centre for Personalized Medicine; and Prof. Zamir Halpern and Dr. Niv Zmora of the Sourasky Medical Centre and Tel Aviv University.
Swiss Consul General Urs Strausak at the opening reception of the Carl Lutz and the Legendary Glass House exhibit, which features panel displays as well as various artifacts. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
He was the first Swiss national to be awarded the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem and he is credited with using his diplomatic privileges to save tens of thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust. However, an exhibit dedicated to him had eluded Vancouver – until now.
Last week, Carl Lutz and the Legendary Glass House in Budapest opened at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC). A partnership between VHEC, the Swiss consulate in Vancouver and local Jewish families, the opening reception on Oct. 23 drew a full house, with a wide range of ages represented, from Holocaust survivors to young children, who attended with their parents. Several volunteer docents were on hand to walk the public through the displays and take questions.
An example of the artifacts on display at the exhibit. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
Panels display various topics, including Jewish life in Hungary before the Second World War, the rise of Nazism and the Glass House, where thousands of Jews found refuge, as well as personal stories from the era. The exhibit, sent by the Carl Lutz Foundation in Budapest, is enriched by a companion exhibit that includes testimony and artifacts from local Hungarian Holocaust survivors, showcasing important themes relevant to Lutz’s environment and life.
Nina Krieger, VHEC executive director, said the exhibit demonstrates the complexity of moral decision making in a turbulent time.
“Alongside narratives of moral courage and rescue, we must recognize, of course, that these were the rare exceptions,” she said.
She went on to discuss the artifacts, which bring a direct connection between the era and a visiting audience.
“On display are materials that reflect a vibrant prewar Jewish life in Hungary – a cherished prayer brook and photographs of everyday life – as well as evidence of antisemitism and persecution,” she said.
“An 18th-century silver chanukiyah buried by Dr. Joseph and Anna Lövi in the basement of a neighbor’s home on the eve of their deportation to Auschwitz survived; its owners did not. The chanukiyah was retrieved in July 1945 and given to one of their daughters, Judith Lövi Maté. Judith and her infant son Gabor had found refuge in the Glass House, representing a local family intimately connected to Carl Lutz.”
Swiss Consul General Urs Strausak, whose participation helped make the exhibit possible, emphasized the need for education about the Holocaust in his country and around the world.
“The study of the Holocaust shows the danger of being silent in face of evil, and education is a tool to make sure atrocity will never happen again,” he said in his speech at the exhibit opening. He explained the place of Holocaust education in Swiss education, saying, “The topic of [the] Holocaust is taught within the context of history teaching and civic education. Some aspects of the Holocaust are also addressed in social science, religious studies and literature.” Switzerland joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to promoting Holocaust education and research, in 2004.
Asked about his connection to the exhibit, Strausak, who is a personal friend of Lutz’s daughter and current curator of the Carl Lutz Foundation, said it was an important event to reach out to the Jewish community and beyond and help support further communal education. Teaching has to start early, he said, and it is important to emphasize figures such as Lutz since he was more than simply a person who saved Jews. “He was a mensch and people need to have the courage to speak out [regarding evil],” he said.
Carl Lutz and the Legendary Glass House in Budapest will be at VHEC until Feb. 15, and is open to the public by donation. More information on the exhibit and becoming involved with VHEC can be found at vhec.org.
Gil Lavieis a freelance correspondent, with articles published in the Jerusalem Post, Shalom Toronto and Tazpit News Agency. He has a master’s of global affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
Michael Fish initiated a unique VSO-JFSA collaboration, which will see JFSA clients attend the symphony on Nov. 15. (photo from Michael Fish)
“There is a direct relationship between cultural experiences and good health. Whether it’s participation in the arts or appreciation for the arts, there is an emotional response for those who engage in these experiences,” said Joel Steinberg, president of Jewish Family Service Agency (JFSA).
Steinberg was offering this observation in the context of a unique opportunity that JFSA has to help 200 clients attend a special concert of music by Jewish composers performed by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) at the Orpheum on Nov. 15.
Michael Fish, who has been a board member for the VSO for four years, wanted to encourage more Jewish community involvement with the symphony.
“In an effort to promote the VSO, as well as bring our community more into the fold, I decided to try to do something special,” Fish told the Independent. “With the support of the VSO’s conductor and musical director, Bramwell Tovey, the VSO agreed to put together a concert of all Jewish composers that I could use as a vehicle for my goal.”
Fish continued, “I then approached Jewish Family Service Agency and asked if they would be interested in sending some of their clients to an evening of Jewish music with the VSO. Knowing that many of their clients would not have the means to purchase a ticket for themselves, I took it upon myself to raise the funds from within the Jewish community to make it happen. I was thrilled at the fantastic response.”
According to Steinberg, Fish has used his advocacy very effectively for JFSA. In addition to organizing this concert, Fish secured a full page in VSO’s Allegro magazine recognizing “Friends of JFSA,” thereby helping JFSA communicate its mission to VSO patrons.
“Many people do not realize that about 10 percent of our clients are non-Jewish,” said Steinberg. “They are mostly users of home support and counseling services, both of which are fee-for-service and help generate critical revenues for our organization to support our other programs. This is a great opportunity for JFSA to raise its profile in the general community while benefitting our clients.”
According to Alan Stamp, JFSA’s director of counseling, the agency sporadically provides “tickets for inclusion” to clients who are in need and who have identified an interest in the arts. The program is managed by JFSA social workers on a case-by-case basis. One of the challenges with the existing system is that tickets are often donated last minute by supporters of JFSA who realize that they will not be able to use them. It can be difficult to match tickets with clients, many of whom face mobility challenges, on short notice. This event with VSO is on a different scale.
Silkie Wong, who works in development and communication at JFSA, has been assisting the department’s director, Audrey Moss, with coordinating the project from the JFSA side. Wong noted that JFSA organizes transportation where possible to ensure that clients can attend, as some of their clients find it difficult to get out on their own. Wong pointed out why this type of event is important: “This is a unique and meaningful experience. Attending cultural events enables our clients to live life, not just survive it.”
Steinberg hopes this avenue for inclusion, initiated by Fish, will spur others to step up and bring such more initiatives forward. “We hope that we will have an ongoing partnership with VSO, and that more of our friends connected to other organizations will help us open more doors and build similar partnerships,” said Steinberg.
Fish considers this is a win-win situation. He is excited about the beautiful music that both JFSA clients and members of the greater community will share, as well as the concert’s potential to raise the profile of VSO in the Jewish community. He summed up by saying, “The musicians will be playing to a larger audience, JFSA’s [clients and] patrons will enjoy a great evening, and perhaps the VSO will pick up a few patrons along the way. What could be better than that?”
To learn more about this concert, visit jfsa.ca.
Michelle Dodek is a freelance writer and community volunteer living in Vancouver.
Julie Cohen’s The Sturgeon Queens is informative and delightful.
From the fraught origins of the state of Israel to what a possible peaceful future for Israel might look like, this year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs Nov. 6-13 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, should inspire even the most cynical. Documentary or narrative feature, there seems to be an underlying theme of hope. And who couldn’t use more of that. Here are reviews of a handful of films that the Jewish Independent was able to preview.
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Dove’s Cry (Israel) follows Hadeel, a 27-year-old Arab Israeli teacher, over the course of a school year as she teaches Arabic and Arab culture to a group of students at a Jewish Israeli primary school near Tel Aviv.
Dove’s Cry follows Hadeel, a 27-year-old Arab Israeli teacher, over the course of a school year.
The film begins with a school-wide celebration of Rosh Hashanah. Hadeel is cheerful, energetic and inspired. Her personality is electric and she connects easily with her students. The children vie for her to call on them in class, they are excited to be learning. Her Jewish co-workers seem to respect and admire her.
About a third of the way through the documentary though, a tearful Hadeel tries to process the racist outburst of one of her students, who calls her a “stinking Arab” after a disciplinary incident. Speaking to her family, Hadeel admits that this is the first time she’s experienced such overt racism in five years of teaching. Her shock and disappointment are palpable.
More significant, perhaps, are the casual, daily prejudices that Hadeel experiences, most often from her co-workers, the school’s administration and parents. And, however open the children, they know very little about Arabic, Islam, Christianity or Arab culture, and freely express their apprehension about Arabs, Arab neighborhoods and their fears around terrorism. Hadeel is patient, authoritative, good-humored and kind throughout. During a drill, a teacher asks Hadeel if she has a bomb shelter in her community; Hadeel reminds her that, of course, she does, that she is an Israeli, and faces the same physical threats.
There are stark reminders everywhere that Hadeel is creating a bubble of tolerance in her classroom and, perhaps, at the school, but not beyond that. “In the classroom, I teach one thing and, at home, they teach the opposite,” Hadeel laments. One of the central relationships in the film is with the principal, who reminds Hadeel of the limits of her program and often sides with the parents.
By the time Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut arrive, Hadeel expresses how torn she is about her position in the school and, by extension, in Israeli society. “Suddenly, I feel like I don’t belong to the place where I was born,” she explains.
Ganit Ilouz’s documentary is a sobering look at the strictures and complexities faced by Israel’s minority citizens. It is a potent reminder at how much better Israelis would be served if all citizens were conversant in Hebrew and Arabic and knew some basic facts about each other’s culture and customs. It’s something Jewish Diaspora communities should consider, as well. Hadeel’s name means “dove’s cry,” a fitting name for a woman tireless and steadfast in her pursuit of a better Israel.
– BL
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At the centre of Hanna’s Journey (Germany/Israel) is Hanna, a smart, driven woman. We first meet her in a waiting room with several other candidates for a job. As one exits her interview, obviously disappointed, Hanna follows her into the bathroom to find out what type of employee the company is seeking. When she finds out that grades alone won’t be enough, that the company wants someone who’s also dug wells in Africa or is an “eco-freak,” she lets down her hair, removes her lipstick and earrings, and undoes the top button of her blouse. When one of the interviewers notes, “this resumé doesn’t wow me with its diversity,” Hanna lies to them, saying that she only just received her acceptance to go work in Israel with people who have mental disabilities. If she provides them with proof, she has a great chance at getting the job.
At the centre of Hanna’s Journey is Hanna, a smart, driven woman. Here she is seen with Itay – someone to love or hate?
Problem: Hanna’s mother, who runs a social-service nonprofit that sends young Germans to Israel, won’t fake the letter. Solution: Hanna actually goes to Israel, both to work at a village for those with mental disabilities, and also to spend time with a Holocaust survivor.
“In Hanna’s Journey, I’m attending the question [of the] impact the Holocaust has for Israelis and Germans of the third generation, how the shared past is affecting our lives up to today and inseparably connects us,” writes Julia von Heinz in her director’s statement. “The mixture of fascination and disgust which forms the German-Israeli relations, the neurotic, gets symbolized by my film’s complicated love story.”
In the film, Hanna leaves behind her businessman boyfriend Alex. Their relationship seems solid. Certainly no one in the nonprofit’s house where Hanna is billeted will threaten it, as Carsten is gay and Maja is not only unfriendly, but a full-on antisemite. However, Itay, the social worker at the village is another story. The antithesis of Alex, he is not so fond of Germans, at least at first.
During her time in Israel, Hanna discovers much about herself and her family, in particular, her mother, with whom she doesn’t get along. It turns out that the survivor who Hanna visits knew her mother.
Billed as a romantic comedy, Hanna’s Journey is more contemplative than funny and even the romance part is questionable. It’s really a drama, touching on many important topics and allowing various complexities to remain unresolved. The acting is strong, the script is compelling, and it’s a movie that should be taken seriously.
– CR
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Even if you’ve read Russ & Daughters: Reflections and Recipes from the House that Herring Built by Mark Russ Federman (click here for the review in the JI), Julie Cohen’s The Sturgeon Queens (United States) is informative and delightful. For whatever reason, the story of Russ & Daughters never fails to captivate.
Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper are the fourth generation of the family to run Russ & Daughters. The family’s business story is told in The Sturgeon Queens.
Joel Russ came to New York from Germany in 1907. He joined his older sister and started working right away to contribute to the family income. He married Bella in 1908 and, in 1913, the first of their three daughters – Hattie, Anne and Ida – was born. In 1914, he opened his first store, on Orchard Street. In 1920, he moved it to Houston Street and there it has remained, joined in 2014 by a new family restaurant, Russ & Daughters Café, located on, appropriately enough, Orchard Street.
Cohen’s documentary came out during the store’s centennial year and it features interviews with the two surviving “sturgeon queens,” Hattie Russ Gold, then 100, and her sister Anne Russ Federman, then 92. Mark Russ Federman, who ran the store from the 1970s until 2008, and his daughter Niki Russ Federman and nephew Josh Russ Tupper, who now run the store, are interviewed, and longtime employee Herman Vargas is also featured.
Other interviewees include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Morley Safer and Maggie Gyllenhaal, as well as chef Mario Batali, as an example of how the customer base has expanded beyond the Jewish community, and writer Calvin Trillin, who’s written stories inspired by Russ & Daughters and wrote the foreword to the book Russ & Daughters. Narration is provided by a table-full of longtime (from one since 1929 to one since 1976) customers, with other historical and family and business information provided by the family interviewees. The use of animation, music, archival photos and film clips all add to the quality of the documentary and the credits are especially cute: they indicate when the film’s major makers’ families each came to America from a wide range of places around the world.
– CR
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The Jewish Cardinal (France) by Ilan Duran Cohen is based on the true story of Jean-Marie Lustiger, born Aaron Lustiger, a Polish Jew who converted to Catholicism at age 14, during the Holocaust. When we meet him in 1979, he is a vicar in Paris who is being promoted to bishop of the city of Orléans – the location of his conversion and where he was hidden during the war.
The Jewish Cardinal by Ilan Duran Cohen is based on the true story of Jean-Marie Lustiger.
A temperamental and intense man, Lustiger causes a stir when he tells a reporter that he remains a Jew, he is Jewish and Christian, “like Jesus,” he says defiantly. He is “convinced that God has willed” his nomination. “I am a provocation that compels reflection on Christ,” he says, without a hint of irony.
The more we learn about Lustiger, played by a magnificent Laurent Lucas, the better we understand his fervor to reconcile his identities and make peace with his few remaining family members, including his father.
Lustiger has advocates in the Church, but also detractors. Though Pope John Paul II is a robust supporter and promotes Lustiger to archbishop of Paris and then, finally, to cardinal and trusted papal advisor, there remains a tension between the two men. (There are several wonderful scenes of Lustiger’s audiences with the Pope, who is deftly – at times, sinisterly – played by Aurélien Recoing.) Lustiger’s relations with the Jewish community are strained and we see Lustiger harassed by antisemites who accuse him of defiling the Church.
After a group of Polish Carmelite nuns establishes a convent at Auschwitz (not incidentally the site of Lustiger’s mother’s murder), he is asked by the Jewish community and the Pope to negotiate a solution. Many viewers above age 35 will remember the convent and the turmoil it caused for nearly a decade until it was removed in 1993. The film captures the politics and nuances of the incident with terrific results.
Throughout, we sense Lustiger’s confusion over how to balance on the edge of Jewish-Catholic relations, once he loses some of his hubris, that is. On a visit to Auschwitz, he can neither say the Lord’s Prayer nor Kaddish for his mother; when his father passes away, he’s distraught, unable to fulfil his promise to say Kaddish.
Lustiger died in 2007 of lung and bone cancer. Kaddish was recited at his funeral outside the entrance to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
– BL
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Israeli Shaul Cohen and Palestinian Nizar Ahmad cooperate in a joint business venture in Under the Same Sun.
For the dreamers of the world, there is Under the Same Sun (United States/Israel/Palestine), written by Yossi Aviram and directed by Sameh Zoabi. The film starts in a mockumentary style, with all hell breaking loose. The media has discovered that Israeli Shaul Cohen and Palestinian Nizar Ahmad are cooperating in a joint business venture to bring solar energy to West Bank villages, and all the talking heads have their opinions about it.
The film then jumps back a year to a meeting in Marseilles, where Shaul approaches Nizar about the project. From this point to near the end, it’s a regular movie, progressing linearly through time, from the project’s genesis, the difficult search for investors, the effects of the venture on their respective families. Skepticism, anger and obstacles must be overcome. We learn more about each man as each confronts their own prejudices and fears. And all looks lost until Nizar comes up with the idea of using a Facebook campaign to create a groundswell of public opinion that will force political leaders to make peace – and, hence, let their energy project proceed. If only social media were so powerful.
Under the Same Sun is crazily optimistic. With solid acting all round, good pacing (helped by Hilal Zaher’s score) and well-written dialogue, it is a thoroughly enjoyable way to conclude a film festival.
– CR
For showtimes and the full festival schedule, visit vjff.org.
Israel’s L-E-V is at the Playhouse Nov. 14-15. (photo by Gadi Dagon)
It feels like it’s all been leading up to this. In 2009, Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company performed at DanceHouse. In 2013, Norway’s Carte Blanche brought Corps de Walk, a work commissioned from former Batsheva dancer and choreographer Sharon Eyal and her partner Gai Behar, to DanceHouse. And, in two weeks, Eyal and Behar’s own troupe, L-E-V, will be at DanceHouse to perform House, a piece originally imagined for Batsheva.
The multiple-award-winning Eyal danced with Batsheva from 1990 until 2008, served as its associate artistic director from 2003-2004 and as house choreographer from 2005-2012. She began choreographing works for other companies in 2009, including Killer Pig (2009) and Corps de Walk (2011) for Carte Blanche. Eyal and Behar launched L-E-V in 2013, with musician, drummer and DJ Ori Lichtik an integral part of the creative team.
“I first saw the work of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar in 2011 at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival [in Becket, Mass.], and it was unlike anything else I have seen before – and I have seen a lot of dance,” said Jim Smith, producer at DanceHouse, in an interview with the Independent.
“When L-E-V had its U.S. debut, the New York Times referred to House as ‘a Hieronymous Bosch painting of an extraterrestrial rave.’ Visually, you can see these two very contrasting images at play together.
“I think the work being created by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar is very much of our time, as they appear to represent a cross-disciplinary confluence of movement, music, lighting, fashion, art and technology. And this very much appears to be part of the changing world around us.”
DanceHouse, which has “has taken on presenting larger scale dance works (i.e. larger number of performers and/or work requiring a significant level of technical support) that are recognized to be touring internationally,” presents “a mix of both Canadian and international companies and artists,” said Smith. “We are part of a larger national dance touring network that includes such organizations as Danse Danse in Montreal, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and Harborfront in Toronto.”
Before its arrival in Vancouver on this fall tour, L-E-V will have performed House in Mexico (Guanajuato, Mérida and León), Calgary and Ottawa. After Vancouver, it heads to Los Angeles.
The blurb on the DanceHouse website reads: “With a sensibility seen here in 2013’s Corps de Walk, House’s fiercely talented dancers move with expressive precision as they explore what a house truly is: a home, a club, an asylum, a way station.”
House was first commissioned by the Batsheva Dance Company in 2011. It has developed since then.
“Changes always happen in the piece; it can only be an eye, movement or breathing, but there will always be more layers and renewals,” Eyal told the Independent. “The work is dynamic and alive, so is the music. You can always grow and add a new dimension, it is our fun. It’s not like in a museum – the ones who make it are people and each moment they feel something new.”
A combination of “a lot of talent” and “exhausting work alongside endless happiness,” L-E-V is seeing success. “The company is currently touring many places in the world and receives recognition and a lot of love,” said Eyal.
“In terms of the dancers, we began with eight dancers and reduced it to six. Now we have become more exact and effective. The dancers are wonderful and do not cease to amaze, develop and become more sophisticated. Each one of them is a different star in heaven.”
“The opportunity to present the work of Eyal with her own company of dancers is a way of giving a great range of exposure to her for Vancouver audiences,” said Smith. “She is of a generation and stage of development in her career as such dance artists as Barak Marshall, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, Hofesh Shechter, and even Vancouver’s own Crystal Pite, all of whom are making big waves in the international world of dance, and all of whom have been presented on the DanceHouse stage in the past.
“In a relatively short time since leaving Batsheva, Eyal has enjoyed a meteoric rise both as a choreographer for hire and also with her new company of dancers, many of whom are ex-Batsheva dancers. In 2013, Eyal’s company made its North American debut [with House] at Jacob’s Pillow and this past summer was programmed at the prestigious Montpellier Danse festival in France.”
DanceHouse generally presents four productions a season at the Vancouver Playhouse and one in partnership with other presenters at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at Simon Fraser University, explained Smith.
“DanceHouse aims to reflect the range and diversity of the different stylistic approaches being seen in the development of dance as an art form. In many ways, we think about DanceHouse as providing a window on the international world of dance – with dance being a reflection on the world we live – like other art forms.”
House is at the Vancouver Playhouse Nov. 14 and 15, 8 p.m., with a pre-show talk at 7:15 p.m. For more information and tickets, as well as information on other DanceHouse offerings, visit dancehouse.ca.
