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Byline: Cynthia Ramsay

Multidisciplinary approach – When the Walls Come Down

Multidisciplinary approach – When the Walls Come Down

Racheal Prince, left, and Caroline Hébert in When the Walls Come Down, which is at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 8 and 10. (photo © iiiiportraits)

“I think the performance is a really fun way to learn a little bit about Deaf culture,” Caroline Hébert, the lead actor and inspiration for When the Walls Come Down, told the Independent. “I hope people can make the time to try something different and I look forward to meeting some new people at the Chutzpah! Festival.”

When the Walls Come Down (WTWCD) will see three performances at the Rothstein Theatre next month, as part of the festival. A collaboration from Vancouver’s Dance//Novella, led by Racheal Prince and Brandon Lee Alley, the work highlights moments in Hébert’s life, “shed[ding] light on stereotypes and difficulties faced by many Deaf Canadians and tell[ing] a story of resilience and love,” according to the press material. It is performed with movement, music, projections and lighting, and in ASL with English voiceovers.

“Racheal and Brandon and the WTWCD team have been learning ASL,” said Hébert. “It’s really inspiring to me to see a group of people who want to create an environment where we can share ideas and our culture. I want to participate in more collaborations as I continue my journey as a Deaf actor. This is my first time stepping into a leading role for a one-hour show. I think, at first, I wasn’t really sure if this is something I could do. Over time, I realized that I can do it, and I can connect to many different people through my art form.”

The creation of WTWCD began in 2020, said Prince and Alley, when “our curiosity led us to explore the fusion of ASL and dance, with a strong desire to collaborate with a Deaf actor and blend their creative ideas with ours. Caroline was recommended to us by Chis Dodd, director of SOUND OFF. What intrigued us further was her last name, Hébert, which happened to be the maiden name of Racheal’s grandmother. This unexpected connection felt like a sign. After a video-translated conversation with Caroline, we realized that she possessed a compelling story that needed to be shared, so we quickly chose her as the central character for the work.”

As for her decision to be that central character, Hébert said, “I was interested in trying something new and I thought why not!? I did dance a little when I was a child so maybe that was also part of the reason?”

WTWCD debuted as a live-streamed performance during the 2021 Vancouver International Dance Festival (VIDF), which made it “challenging for us to establish a direct connection with the audience and gauge their reception of the work,” said Prince and Alley. “However, we knew this work had the potential of uplifting and illuminating a traditionally marginalized community, so we kept refining and building upon our initial ideas.”

In 2022, they received an invitation to perform WTWCD in Edmonton at the SOUND OFF festival, the first time the piece was presented in a live setting. “To our astonishment, the audience responded with thunderous stomps and a standing ovation. It was truly incredible to witness the profound connection the work had with the Deaf community,” they said.

In addition to that positive reaction, the pair won the 2023 VIDF Emerging Choreographic Award. “To us,” they said, “this award emphasized the collaborative and harmonious aspect of the work’s creation, transcending our roles as individual choreographers.”

Both creatives multitasked to make WTWCD. Prince and Alley choreographed the work; they played a part in the storyline creation and development with Hébert and her daughter, Anna-Belle Hébert, all four of whom perform the piece; Alley composed the music and Prince did the costume and set design. Other key contributors are lighting designer James Proudfoot, assistant lighting designer Chengyan Boon, and mentors and coaches Chris Dodd and Landon Krentz.

“Being a contemporary dance company, one of our goals was to find innovative ways to convey the music to a Deaf audience,” said Prince and Alley. And it was Alley who “came up with the idea of using a playful animation to advance the storyline and evoke the emotional essence of the music.

“To realize this vision, we collaborated with the Vancouver Film School,” they said. “We pitched our ideas to them, leading to the organization of a competition involving five different groups. Each group listened to our concepts and then presented us with small animations. After careful consideration, we selected the group that we believed best captured the essence of the work and the nuances of the music. They went on to create the animations that will be showcased during the performance.”

Listed on Dance//Novella’s website are producer Jill Tao, designer/animators Kanako Takashima and Cecilia Cortes, animation lead Arturo Acevedo and storyboard artist/designer Heena Yoon.

An integral part of this project has been Anna-Belle Hébert.

“She is a CODA (child of Deaf adult), fluent in ASL, QSL, English and French,” explained her mother. “Anna-Belle understands who I am and the story I want to share because it’s partly her story too. In the beginning, I recommended that Racheal and Brandon reach out to Anna-Belle to see if she would like to join the process, which they enthusiastically agreed to. In the performance, she is my voice over actor, but has also been a huge part of the creative process. She really helps bridge the gap between our ideas and how they can connect to hearing and Deaf people at the same time.”

Both Prince and Alley talk about how much they have learned while creating WTWCD. “One significant revelation for us,” they said, “was the realization that ASL and English are two distinct languages. Initially, we attempted to transcribe everything in an effort to ensure clarity, but this approach only seemed to confuse Caroline further. With the guidance of a specialized ASL coach, Caroline developed a unique method for documenting the script on paper. This breakthrough allowed her to memorize and retain everything effortlessly while making it her own.”

Prince and Alley had nothing but good things to say about Hébert.

“Caroline is an incredibly generous and patient collaborator,” they said. “During our rehearsals, we frequently paused our creative process to listen to stories from Caroline’s life. Each story offered us a glimpse into the experiences of a Deaf child, mother and student, which ultimately became the core of our creative journey. The exchange of knowledge and personal narratives became the driving force behind our work, giving it profound meaning for our team.”

When the Walls Come Down is at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 8 and 10, at 8 p.m., and there is a special matinée for school groups grades 6 and up on Nov. 9, 11 a.m. (contact [email protected] for more information about that). The show runs 60 minutes with no intermission. For tickets, visit chutzpahfestival.com.

Format ImagePosted on October 12, 2023October 12, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Performing ArtsTags ASL, Brandon Lee Alley, Caroline Hébert, Chutzpah!, dance, Deaf culture, Racheal Prince, Rothstein Theatre
Vazana at Chutzpah! Fest

Vazana at Chutzpah! Fest

Nani Noam Vazana performs at the Rothstein Theatre Nov. 11 as part of this year’s Chutzpah! Festival. (photo from NaniMusic.com/ProLadino)

Gracing the cover of this year’s Chutzpah! Festival guide and posters is Nani Noam Vazana. The Amsterdam-based musician is one of the only artists in the world writing and performing new songs in Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish. The JI spoke with her when she last came to Vancouver, in 2017, and did so again, ahead of her Nov. 11 Chutzpah! show at the Rothstein Theatre.

“The concert in Vancouver is a part of my international Ke Haber tour that will take me through 15 countries,” said Vazana. One of the highlights of the tour will be a concert at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, she said, “where I’ll have the honour of documenting my new Ladino songs for libraries and universities all over the world and make them available for Ladino research.”

The tour features mostly songs from Ke Haber but will also include “some traditional Sephardic songs and surprise covers – different to each show!” she said.

Ke Haber incorporates a millennial’s perspective – hers – into the writing of songs “in an old, almost extinct language,” she said, explaining that “Ladino is a language of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages (Spain and Portugal of our days). My grandmother has roots in Portugal and she and her family sailed to Morocco from Porto in the 1400s. That’s where she grew up and where my parents were also born.

“In the ’50s, both my parents’ families immigrated to Israel and my father wanted to leave the past behind so he actually forbade us to speak Ladino at home,” she continued. “The only times I had contact with the language was when I was left alone with my grandmother. It was the language of witchcraft and mystery because she would only use it to speak to me in secret and tell me magical fairy tales that I actually thought she made up herself, because nobody else knew them. We sang songs in the kitchen while cooking, and it was all seeping in through the senses, very inviting and very curious.”

Vazana’s grandmother passed away when she was 12 years old.

“One of my first memories is of me and my Nona (Grandma) sitting at the kitchen table, peeling beans and singing ‘Los Guisados De La Berendjena,’ a song about seven recipes for eggplants. She hardly spoke Hebrew and my father forbade us to speak Ladino…. But, it seems, you carry this love subconsciously in you wherever you go, because, 15 years after my Nona passed away, I visited Morocco for the first time and heard people on the street singing the same lullaby she used to sing to me when I was a little girl. All of a sudden, those forgotten kitchen songs came alive and I started a long journey searching for songs and melodies that led me to release my traditional Ladino album Andalusian Brew. Sometimes, all it takes is just a sound or a scent and you’re transported to a life you’ve forgotten.”

After performing traditional repertoire for a few years, Vazana felt a yearning to write her own songs, and she dove into an exploration of the language. “I visited a scholar in Leiden, who showed me a lot of texts at an ancient Jewish library, but I wanted more,” she said. “So, I dug deep into medieval poetry and started learning the rhythm of the stanzas. Based on existing rhythmical formations, I started writing my own lyrics in Ladino, concerning questions we ask ourselves today, and, I must admit, I found a lot of correlation between where we are now and the medieval Iberian population.”

Vazani described Ke Haber as “an album of new songs that sound old, or maybe the other way around.”

“There are songs in the album that speak about female empowerment, like my song ‘No Kero Madre,’ a mother-daughter dialogue about the will to break free from the arranged marriage tradition and marry out of love,” she explained. “What a lot of people don’t know about Ladino is that it is a matriarchal language, so the relationship between mother and daughter is put on a pedestal, as the highest form of love in existence.

“In my song ‘Sin Dingun Hijo Varon,’ I describe the transformation of a transgender teenage girl who wants to be recognized as a boy. The father tries to kick her out of the house but the mother steps up and accepts her child as a boy.

“My song ‘Una Segunda Piel’ is about a Sephardic retirement ritual where your family and friends sow around you the shroud of the dead! You lie down in a cocoon, meditate and think about the troubles you want to leave behind. When the cloth is done [with], it goes into the cupboard, symbolizing all your troubles, and you emerge from it as if shedding your skin. That’s why the title is ‘Una Segunda Piel,’ which means ‘A Second Skin.’

“For my song ‘El Gacela,’” she said, “I composed music to an ancient text by Shmuel Hanagid, which is a love poem between two men. When the song was published, some people claimed that I was ‘outing’ the Jewish saint, but I think if he already published this work, he was out in the first place.”

The recording of Ke Haber, which started in London, England, in 2020, was complicated by COVID.

“I had to figure out a creative way to finalize the project, so we started recording remotely,” she said. “That’s really hard, because programs like Zoom have latency, so you can’t really record with other musicians simultaneously. We had to overdub – can you imagine playing music when the band is not in the same room? We all came to the studio whenever we were able to travel from Columbia, Chile, the Canary Islands, Bosnia, Israel, India, the Netherlands and Poland! That’s why the album is also a colourful tapestry of musical traditions and cultural aspiration from all over the world.”

While COVID was a quiet time touring-wise, “it was also a turmoil of creativity,” said Vazani, “because I just couldn’t sit still at home and wait for the world to pass by. So, I broadcasted house concerts every week, learned to edit video and record sound, which led to facilitating multicam broadcasts for other artists, such as the West East Orchestra.

“I also started doing voiceover gigs, overdubbing cartoon characters for animation and narration for documentaries and commercials. I also dabbled in emceeing when hosting online events and I hosted my own weekly podcast, interviewing [professionals] from the music industry about tips for emerging musicians.”

She received offers from music colleges and music industry conventions worldwide and hosted masterclasses and panel discussions for more than 30 institutions. “Eventually,” she said, “I was commissioned by the Dutch national TV broadcast NPO to create and host my own television series that will start airing in 2024.”

In addition to all that, Vazani teaches at the London Performing Academy of Music and the Jerusalem Music Academy, and is chair of the Amsterdam Artist Collective. She is also a guest lecturer at Codarts University, Rotterdam.

She enjoys being active – “for the mind and the soul to stay agile, we gotta train them,” she said. “This is my mental gym.”

And she’s not that interested in achievements, she said, though she has garnered several awards. “I am interested in being on the road as much as possible with my music,” she said. “This translates in my mind into happiness, and that’s not a fleeting experience, it’s a state of existence.”

To support Vazani’s music and receive content in return – all the music she has released, for example, and exclusive meet-and-greet sessions – readers can join her music family at nanimusic.com/family. For tickets to her performance at Chutzpah! and the whole festival lineup, visit chutzpahfestival.com. The festival runs Nov. 2-23.

Format ImagePosted on September 22, 2023September 21, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories MusicTags Chutzpah!, Judeo-Spanish, Ke Haber, Ladino, Nani, Nani Noam Vazana
VIFF films explore humanity

VIFF films explore humanity

Filmmaker Sam Green will narrate live his documentary 32 Sounds, which is part of the Vancouver International Film Festival. (photo by Catalina Kulczar)

“There’s a thing in documentary filmmaking where, after you’ve done an interview with someone, you need to get what’s called room tone,” shares director, writer and editor Sam Green in his film 32 Sounds. “Room tone,” he explains, “is basically just sitting still for about 30 seconds or so and recording the sound of the room; this can help out a lot with editing later. I’ve been making films, which is kind of just marveling at people in the world, for 25 years now, and there’s always something odd and wonderful about this moment. An interview takes a person to other times and places and, now, they’re just here in the present, sitting with the sound of the room.”

Watching some of his interviewees, as they struggle or embrace sitting in silence for a few seconds, is one of the many highlights of Green’s latest documentary, 32 Sounds, which screens Oct. 5, 7 p.m., at the Vancouver Playhouse, as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s specialty program VIFF Live. New York-based Green will be in town to narrate the screening in-person, and audience members will be given headphones to wear, to help make the experience as immersive as possible.

The film premièred in January 2022 at the Sundance Film Festival. It exists in three forms: one as described above, but sometimes also with live music by composer JD Samson, who wrote original music for the film; another designed for an immersive at-home experience; and a theatre version without the in-person performance aspect. Watching the film at home without headphones was not ideal, but it was still enjoyable and mind-opening. There are parts where it would have added understanding and had greater impact to have heard something in only the left ear or only the right one.

32 Sounds is not just auditorily stunning but a visual pleasure, and intellectually stimulating, as well. Though there are explanations of how humans hear and how sound affects our bodies, the documentary is more philosophical than scientific. It presents concepts like the idea that all the sounds that have been made in the world should still be out there somewhere, “tiny ripples vibrating,” as contemplated by mathematician Charles Babbage, who is credited with having invented the computer, in the 1800s. If we had the right device, mused Babbage, we should be able to listen again to every joke, declaration of love or angry word ever uttered, narrates Green. “The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered,” wrote Babbage in 1837.

In 2022, Green wrote: “I’ve made many documentary films over the years, and each one has changed me in some way, but none as much as the film I just recently finished called 32 Sounds. The film weaves together 32 different recordings as well as images, music by JD Samson, and voice-over to create a meditation on sound. Or, put a different way, the film uses sound to consider some of the basic features of our experience of being alive: time and time passing, loss, memory, connection with others, and the ephemeral beauty of the present moment.”

From the sound of a womb, to a cat purring, to fog horns, to a man who captures the sound of bombs landing nearby as he’s recording his music, Green masterfully takes viewers (listeners) on an emotional journey. We get to see how movie sound magic is made by foley artists like Joanna Fang. We meet sound and visual artist Christine Sun Kim, who talks about the deaf community, as well as hearing people’s perceptions of her work. Edgar Choueriri, professor of physics at Princeton, plays part of a tape he made for his future self when he was 11 years old. And we get to know a bit about composer and academic Annea Lockwood, 81 at the time of filming, who had been recording things like the sound of rivers for more than 50 years. Lockwood fundamentally changed how Green thinks about sound, especially a point she makes in the film: “There’s something I started writing about a year ago: listening with, as opposed to listening to,” she shares. “And it’s my sense that, if I’m standing here, I’m just one of many organisms that are listening with one another within this environment … we’re within it and we’re all listening together, as it were.”

32 Sounds has much to recommend it, including the chance to get up and dance, if you choose, when Green pumps up the volume on Sampson’s music, so you can “feel the sounds in your whole body.”

Accepting oneself

image - William Bartolo as Daniel, left, and Daniel Gabriel as his secret lover, Isaac, in a still from Cut, which is part of VIFF’s International Shorts: Nothing Comes Easy program
William Bartolo as Daniel, left, and Daniel Gabriel as his secret lover, Isaac, in a still from Cut, which is part of VIFF’s International Shorts: Nothing Comes Easy program. (image from VIFF)

Sound that you can feel in your whole body plays an important part in the short film Cut by Samuel Lucas Allen. In what may – or may not – be semi-autobiographical, Cut tells the story of Daniel, a high school student who tries to hide his Jewishness and his queerness. At key moments, the original score created by Sam Weiss thrums with tension, underscoring Daniel’s inner conflict.

Despite being somewhat heavy-handed – there is nothing subtle in this film, perhaps because it is only 19 minutes long – Cut is interesting, well-acted and put together. It opens with a Chassidic man holding a rooster, then shows Daniel cutting his hair, which falls onto a copy of Merchant of Venice, from which the teen will eventually have to perform, by memory, Shylock’s “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” speech. Daniel’s room has drawn images of men on his walls, in various poses, apparently his own work.

The film defines its three main elements: kapparot, as a “Jewish ritual where a chicken is blessed and slaughtered in the place of a person, to atone for their sins”; tefillin as a “pair of leather boxes containing portions of the Torah, worn by Jewish men in their morning prayers”; and cut, “a slang term for circumcision, the surgical removal of the foreskin, usually performed for religious reasons.”

It is mainly the Jewish aspect that Allen deals with in this work. Daniel is able to walk away from a gay slur, but not an antisemitic one, and, in the end, he is reconciled to himself and his Orthodox father by the mystical Chassidic man’s performing kapparot over him. We witness Daniel’s acceptance of being Jewish, but are left to wonder if he comes to accept his queerness, an aspect of his being that conflicts with Orthodox Judaism, though his soul would still be considered divine in religious circles, even if he engages in homosexual acts, which are prohibited by the Torah.

Cut is featured in VIFF’s International Shorts: Nothing Comes Easy, a program for viewers aged 18+, in which the films’ “protagonists discover that sorting out their lives can be much more difficult to achieve than they realized.” It screens Oct. 5, 6:45 p.m., and Oct. 7, 12:15 p.m., at International Village 8.

The Vancouver International Film Festival runs Sept. 28-Oct. 8. For the full schedule and tickets, visit viff.org.

Format ImagePosted on September 22, 2023September 21, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories TV & FilmTags identity, Judaism, LGBTQ2S+, Sam Green, Samuel Lucas Allen, sound, Vancouver International Film Festival, VIFF
Trio launches campaign

Trio launches campaign

Citizen West performs at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign launch Sept. 10, 7 p.m., at Congregation Schara Tzedeck. (photo from Citizen West)

The word “fun” came up more than once in the Jewish Independent’s interview with the three tenors who comprise Citizen West. The group will help launch this year’s Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign on Sept. 10, and the audience should expect a wide range of music, an abundance of positivity and a high-energy – and fun – performance.

Marc Devigne, Cody Karey and Omer Shaish are all accomplished musicians in their own right. Internationally renowned individually, together they have entertained audiences in more than 150 countries. With their multilingual repertoire, their message is that “we are all global citizens and, through music, we can connect with individuals of all cultures and backgrounds.”

“Music unites and connects us through harmony and a common rhythm and is spiritual in its nature,” Karey told the Independent. “I feel my most spiritually connected when experiencing a profound shared moment, and singing or performing from a stage, especially with such amazing company, really does that for me.”

Karey, who is based in Vancouver, explained how he, Toronto-based Devigne and Miami-based Shaish, came together.

“Citizen West is the product of all of us colliding at slightly different times over the last several years,” he said. “We all set out as solo artists and ended up having parallel careers. Initially, we were competitive rivals, but, as we all became connected and got to know each other, it was clear to us that we could really do something special if we combined our efforts and worked together. The three of us have been officially performing as Citizen West since 2020, but our individual connections and the idea of Citizen West go back years earlier. Our pianist, Trevor [Hoffmann], was instrumental (pun intended) in the earliest days of Citizen West as we developed our repertoire and arrangements, so this reunion performance alongside him will be a little extra special.” (Hoffmann is from Maple Ridge.)

While living in different places and following their own professional paths, Shaish said the trio see each other relatively often.

“We perform a lot as headliners on cruise ships,” he said, “so we get to sing together and travel the world together. It’s a lot of fun! The ships have brought us to some really interesting places, such as Alaska, Easter Island and even Antarctica. Those were great experiences to share with these two. We also perform on land, of course, and we come up with new repertoire all the time. We have four produced sets and, on top of that, we try to cater to our clients’ vision and needs.”

Regarding that, campaign director Gayle Morris shared with the Independent Federation’s vision of the Sept. 10 event. “This year, we wanted to try something fresh, drawing upon the incredible success and positivity of last year’s ‘Amazing Happens’ campaign,” she said. “We want our community to leave the evening inspired and excited by a creative approach to campaign opening. Citizen West are an incredible trio of tenors and a

pianist, whose extensive repertoire of music means there’s something for everyone to enjoy!”

When asked for a hint about the repertoire they will perform at the launch, Shaish said, “I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but I can say that there’s going to be a wide variety of genres, from classical music and Broadway to pop music, rock and even a splash of Hebrew!”

For Shaish, who is from Tel Aviv originally and grew up in Israel, this show will be special.

“Living in the U.S., I often find myself shifting between my roots (Jewish/Israeli music) and my other passion toward pop music and musical theatre,” he said. “I’m truly excited about this performance, because this is the first time that these two worlds collide.”

“There’s always so much more to learn, live and experience, and I feel that it’s with this outlook that Citizen West can explore and take stylistic chances with many genres,” added Devigne, who grew up in a small French community in Manitoba. Karey grew up in Fort St. James, B.C.

“There is a fraternal sense of camaraderie and connection when we work together,” said Karey. “Our slightly different quirks and styles complement each other well and create a compelling blend. The experience of being on the road is very different when you have good people to share that with. It’s also quite fun!”

Devigne echoed this sentiment. “There’s a sense of brotherhood that comes with being in a group,” he said. “It opens up more creative opportunities as an artist and brings more colour, layers and texture to songs. It’s a nice feeling to be on stage and know you have people you can rely on to support and elevate a performance. We feed on each other’s energy on stage and it makes for a great time. We draw inspiration from each other and I truly believe it lifts us all to be better artists and performers when we perform together.”

“I think it goes with the theme of this event,” said Shaish, referring to the Federation campaign launch. “We all discovered the ‘power of community’ or the ‘power of together.’ There’s something very special and powerful in sharing the stage. When the three of us blend with harmonies and our unique chemistry, it feels like true magic.”

The campaign’s opening event – “Celebrate the Power of Community” – takes place Sept. 10, 7 p.m., at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. It also features Eric Fingerhut, president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Federations of North America, as keynote speaker; Barak Loozon, strategic advisor to the office of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, speaking about Herzog’s dialogue initiatives; and campaign chair Shay Keil, a senior wealth advisor at ScotiaMcLeod and supporter of many Jewish community organizations and initiatives, sharing his story about how Federation campaign donors helped inspire his Jewish journey. For tickets ($18), visit jewishvancouver.com.

Format ImagePosted on September 1, 2023August 29, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags annual campaign, Citizen West, Cody Karey, fundraising, Gayle Morris, Jewish Federation, Marc Devigne, music, Omer Shaish, philanthropy

Kalla’s toxic new thriller

“I see how it looks…. Just another teen suicide. Or maybe an accidental OD. Another addict who fooled his parents. No…! I know my Owen…. Never, never, never….”

image - Fit to Die book coverThis is the reaction of Owen’s mother – who happens to be a U.S. senator – to her son’s death in Daniel Kalla’s latest thriller Fit to Die (Simon & Schuster Canada). L.A. detective Cari Garcia initially writes off the reaction as a mother ignorant of her child’s drug use, and bristles against the political pressure to determine the young track star’s cause of death. When she learns he died from ingesting a capsule that contained 2,4-Dinitrophenol, or DNP – used as a fertilizer, pesticide or explosive, but also abused by people to lose weight – she becomes more motivated to solve the mystery, in part because of a tragedy in her own past.

Meanwhile, here in Vancouver, toxicologist Dr. Julie Rees is dealing with a mysterious increase in deaths among bodybuilders, finding out that DNP is the cause. Then, a famous pop star and social media influencer dies in her penthouse, showing the same symptoms. And the co-owner of a wellness centre with locations in Los Angeles and Vancouver dies of a similar overdose. All the cases are connected and the L.A. and Vancouver police and medical personnel have to work together to find out who’s behind the influx of DNP on the market.

Like all of Kalla’s books, Fit To Die is an intriguing read, suspensefully written. While I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I have his other thrillers – it was somewhat repetitive and the main characters’ backstories didn’t ring as true to me – I still wanted to know whodunnit. I also value having learned about the real-life issue of toxic diet pills and gaining some insight into body dysmorphia and eating disorders. I trust Kalla’s facts, as he is not only a writer, but an emergency room physician and a University of British Columbia clinical associate professor. He was kind enough to answer some questions via email.

JI: There are some Jewish-sounding surnames in the novel. In what ways does your being Jewish enter into your novel writing?

DK: Well, in this case the Hertzberg-Davis Centre is the real forensic lab for the LAPD. So that made it easy. I couldn’t remove the Jewish influence in my writing even if wanted to, which, obviously, I don’t. I’ve written a historical trilogy, The Far Side of the Sky, that is explicitly a Jewish story. In thrillers like Fit to Die, I don’t consciously think about my background or religion, but there is no doubt it influences the writing.

JI: Do you name characters after friends, or sometimes offer naming opportunities for charity auctions or the like?

DK: Haha. I learned early in my writing career to never name a character after a friend. It only ends badly. I’ve never auctioned off a character name for charity, but I would love to. It can be agony finding the right character name. Why not outsource it?

JI:  This is your 10th thriller. How has your writing style and/or process evolved since your first one?

DK: I hope I’ve learned from some of my past mistakes. Paradoxically, it gets easier and harder. Easier in the sense that I’m more confident in my voice and the nuts and bolts of my storytelling. Harder in that I’m more critical of my writing and fear becoming derivative in my stories. But the one thing that keeps me going is my enthusiasm for telling a new story. I think I’m more passionate than ever.

JI: From the several thrillers of yours that I’ve read, your topic choices are timely and coincide with current events. The medical side, you’ve got covered. But what are some of your sources for other aspects? In this book, for example, how the dark web works and even the pop culture aspects, including language, like “partizzle”?

DK: I obviously have a huge advantage with respect to the medical background, but that’s only a part of it. As you point out, this story – about a (real) and deadly diet pill that is marketed online to the most vulnerable and amplified by toxic social media – took some intense research. I had to learn all about body dysmorphia and immerse myself in the TikTok culture, which explains some of the Zoomer slang one of the character uses, like “partizzle.” I was lucky to have a local VPD superintendent help guide me through the logistics of what an investigation into this kind of complex online conspiracy would look like.

JI: Where do you find time to write?

DK: For me, it’s never about the time. I’m lucky to work in the ER, which is shift work, but I think I could find time no matter what my day job was. For me, it’s all about momentum and inspiration. When I have those, I find the time. When I don’t, free time doesn’t help.

JI: What part of your soul does writing feed?

DK: Not to sound overly melodramatic, but it kind of feeds my core. Medicine does, as well, but in a very different sense. I find purpose as a doctor, but I find my passion as a writer. I can imagine retiring one day from medicine, but I can’t imagine not writing.

JI: Can you speak about the process of getting a book from idea to publication?

DK: The challenge of transforming the kernel of an idea into a publishable novel always seems insurmountable from the outset – this book particularly. I wanted to build a compelling mystery and resurrect some characters from a past novel (The Last High) and introduce new ones, all while tackling a highly sensitive yet vitally relevant topic: how the toxic diet culture and social media prey on the most vulnerable. I like to think I met the challenge, but, of course, that’s for each reader to decide.

Posted on September 1, 2023August 29, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories BooksTags Daniel Kalla, dieting, eating disorders, fiction
About the Rosh Hashanah cover art

About the Rosh Hashanah cover art

I spent hours online trying to find a suitable piece of art for this year’s Rosh Hashanah cover, then even more hours for what I might do myself. I really wanted to include a shofar in whatever I did, as a call to hope and action, for myself as much as anyone else.

I stumbled on artist Yitzchok Moully’s Elul Shofar Art Challenge (moullyart.com). Moully’s work is bright, colourful, full of life. As I mulled it over, I received an email from local artist Merle Linde, who generously created art for the JI ’s Passover cover this year and for last’s year Rosh Hashanah issue. She sent me an emotionally charged piece lamenting the countless trees that have been destroyed by wildfires. The base painting was an acrylic pour, and I spent several fun hours learning about and practising the technique, deciding it wasn’t quite what I wanted for my shofar blast.

I eventually came across creativejewishmom.com, the site that inspired my 2020 Passover cover depicting the Israelites (made of corks) crossing the Red Sea, who made a second appearance for Passover 2021, participating in Zoom seders. This time, it was a Tashlich picture made with yarn, coloured paper and felt marker that caught my eye on creativejewishmom.com. Inspired, I made the JI masthead out of yarn and ink, and created the shofar and the hand holding it – I wanted there to be a human presence, as we are critical to any change, for better or worse.

image - JI Rosh Hashanah 2023 coverThe middle section of the page eluded me for days, and I tried various things that just didn’t feel or look right. Thankfully, a middle-of-the-night couple of hours resulted in the finished cover, albeit with some tweaking in Photoshop. It ended up being more cheerful than I was intending. I am happily surprised at my latent optimism, and hope that readers also find it uplifting.

Posted on September 1, 2023August 30, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Celebrating the HolidaysTags art, High Holidays, Merle Linde, Rosh Hashanah, shofar, Yitzchok Moully

VHA’s new principal

“Children want to be heard and validated for what makes them unique at all ages, just like us adults. The old adage that children should be seen and not heard is exactly the opposite of what we need from kids today,” Ellia Belson told the Independent.

photo - Ellia Belson, principal of Vancouver Hebrew Academy
Ellia Belson, principal of Vancouver Hebrew Academy (photo from Ellia Belson)

Belson is the new principal of Vancouver Hebrew Academy. She comes to VHA from King David High School, where she was the director of Jewish life, and has also taught at Vancouver Talmud Torah. “The experience gives me insight into the learning process and what motivates children to learn at different stages of their lives,” she said. “While a child in Grade 2 will be motivated by classroom activities, by the time they are 11, they are already starting to differentiate themselves from their parents and looking for ways to express their individuality.”

Belson takes over from the team of Ian Mills, Shannon Brody and Rivki Yeshayahu, who supported VHA while the school “looked for a principal who can lead an Orthodox Jewish school in such a unique city as Vancouver,” said Leslie Kowarsky, VHA board president. Prior to this trio, Rabbi Barak Cohen was principal for a year, after having taken the helm from Rabbi Don Pacht, who served as the school’s head for 17 years.

“We are thrilled to have secured Ellia Belson as our new principal,” said Kowarsky, noting that Belson has a master’s in special education from the University of British Columbia. Belson attained her teacher certification and bachelor’s from Simon Fraser University, and her resumé also includes Judaic studies for teachers from Bais Rivkah Seminary and Touro College in New York and Hebrew University in Israel, as well as other education training. In addition, she has more than 10 years’ experience at Energex Energy Management Systems Inc., a company started by her husband Rami.

“She is a Vancouver native, and many of our families remember fondly that her father, Sol Pavony, was himself the founding principal of what was then Vancouver Torah Academy,” said Kowarsky. “Mrs. Belson is already hard at work and is available to any prospective parents seeking an Orthodox Jewish education for their child.”

Belson’s education philosophy is focused on student-centred and inclusive learning.

“Students need multiple modes of learning to stay engaged and motivated. By providing students with multiple avenues to the curriculum and by offering choices, students feel a sense of control over their learning,” she explained. “For instance, a student might choose to read a storybook, a news article or a Gemara text to express their analysis on how one’s actions will have consequences. Then, they might choose to express this through writing, art or a PowerPoint. By recognizing a child’s individual learning style and offering different ways to access the information, you can provide opportunities for enrichment and academic achievement.”

For the coming year, Belson said the focus will be “on increasing our school spirit and joy for learning. We will be offering a new Judaic curriculum for Hebrew and Torah learning. We will be implementing a social-emotional program for all the classrooms, with opportunities for teacher growth through additional professional development. In addition, classes will enjoy extra teacher supports for those who need it.

“We want to emphasize the positives of our Judaism through experiential learning while keeping parents in the loop with consistent streams of communication coming home,” she said. “Our view is that a child’s academic and social learning happens as a team, which includes parents, students and teachers. We need to work together to reach our goals.”

VHA is also working towards expanding its existing daycare to open spots for infants and toddlers, “as there is a huge demand,” she added.

Belson’s ties to VHA are many. As Kowarsky noted, Belson’s father was the first principal of VHA’s predecessor, Torah Academy, which was started under the auspices of Rabbi Yitzchok Wineberg, head of Chabad Lubavitch BC.

About that family connection, Belson said, “It is an incredible feeling of responsibility to our VHA community. He was my mentor in every way and my inspiration for what a person should be. Humble, wise, attentive, full of love for every person – he was a true educator and authentic to his beliefs.”

While Belson herself was too old to attend VHA by the time it started – she attended VTT as a child – all four of her kids attended VHA.

“Each of our Jewish schools has a lot to offer our children and each has its own emphasis and values,” she said. “At VHA, the feeling is for living a Jewish life that is accepting of who you are no matter where you come from, your socioeconomic status or your level of religiousness. At VHA, the emphasis is on being your best self, with kindness to others and a cultivating a strong Jewish identity. Having a place to be accepted, whether Orthodox or not, was very important to me then and now.

“VHA has historically been a school known for its academic excellence and many of its alumni are, today, successful doctors, lawyers, teachers and rabbis. I took on this position,” she said, because “having no Orthodox school for our children would have far-reaching consequences to our wider Vancouver Jewish community.”

Belson concluded, “I’m excited and positive about contributing to VHA’s sense of excitement for learning. I think we have a bright future and an opportunity to implement modern teaching strategies within our ancient traditions.”

Posted on August 18, 2023August 17, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags education, Ellia Belson, Judaism, Leslie Kowarsky, Vancouver Hebrew Academy, VHA

Seeking institutional change

“I think what we should all take away from this incident is that we need to move closer to the institutions and find ways to move forward that are more inclusive and diverse,” Maytal Kowalski told the Independent.

Kowalski was fired from her marketing and communications role at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver on July 25, the day after she disagreed with Federation chief executive officer Ezra Shanken at a meeting that included seven people from Federation and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and 25 to 30 members of UnXeptable, a group started by expat Israelis who oppose the Israeli government’s proposed judicial reforms. Kowalski recorded both the gathering, even though attendees were asked not to, and her dismissal. She shared the recordings with the Independent and other Jewish media. The story was broken by Haaretz, and followed by a piece in the Canadian Jewish News. As they did for the Haaretz and CJN stories, Federation declined to comment when contacted by the Independent, responding: “We cannot comment on individual employee matters due to privacy considerations.”

“I chose to approach Haaretz [first] and specifically Judy Maltz because, while this specific story is Vancouver-focused, this is an incident within a broader context of diaspora Jewish institutions throughout North America, and that’s a subject area that Maltz covers,” said Kowalski. “I didn’t want to single out Vancouver, because this is a systemic problem within our institutions, and my hope was, through Haaretz, maybe someone in

Edmonton or Winnipeg or Phoenix would read it and feel brave enough to come forward with their own story, or feel compelled to push for positive change within their own Jewish federation.”

Kowalski, who describes herself as “someone who really cares about the future of our Jewish institutions and the role they play in our Jewish community,” said a lot of the support she has received “explicitly or implicitly calls for progressive Jews to distance themselves from the institutions, and I want to say to those people that I think that’s the wrong approach.”

Both New Israel Fund of Canada and JSpaceCanada – on whose boards Kowalski sits – have supported her and, she noted, “if you look at how both of those organizations addressed the situation overall, they have talked about how we need to work together as a diaspora Jewish community to do better and be better.”

She said, “I know people will probably expect that I’ll distance myself from the community, but I’m going to do the opposite. I’ve been pushed out by the community before – I am the child of an intermarriage, and my mother’s partner after her divorce was also not Jewish, so I’ve only known being an intermarriage kid, and that was more contentious within our institutions back when I was growing up than it is today.

“But I’ve always stayed connected and, while they can knock me down, I’ll always get back up. Because building strong diaspora Jewish communities is important to me, and if I choose to walk away in defiance now, then it allows a system of discrimination to persist…. I hope that, if someone is reading this and also feels that we need to work for change, that they reach out. Maybe we can have these conversations within our shuls or other spaces that are open to it, and talk about how we use this story as a catalyst for change. If someone is planning to donate to this year’s annual campaign, they should ask about what concrete steps the Federation is going to take to make those changes.”

Born in Winnipeg, Kowalski’s family made aliyah in 1994. She lived in Israel until she moved to Toronto to pursue a degree at York University. “I lived in Toronto until March 2021, at which point my husband and I moved to Vancouver,” she said. “I have always worked in marketing and communications in the nonprofit/charity sector, and was with the Vancouver Foundation prior to coming to the Federation.”

She was with Federation for just under a year, having initially applied for a job with Federation’s Connect Me In team. “I had worked at the Miles Nadal JCC in Toronto early in my career and really loved working in my own community and I wanted to get back to that,” she said. “I was already very involved in other Jewish organizations on a volunteer basis and wanted to also be involved professionally.”

About recording the July 24 meeting, Kowalski explained, “I recorded or transcribed incidents that I felt could become contentious later on, since I didn’t have any workplace protections such as a union, so I felt I had to find means to protect myself.”

Parts of the two recordings have been cited in both Haaretz and the CJN, including that Kowalski was accused of “screaming” at the UnXeptable gathering. In the dismissal meeting, Becky Saegert, vice-president, marketing and communications, at Jewish Federation, says: “So, I heard last night that the registered speakers were passionate and articulate and compelling and my understanding is that you didn’t register as a speaker, but that what happened is that you interrupted our CEO and began, as several people have characterized it to me, and used the words, ‘began screaming,’ and then only stopped when asked by the moderator to sit down.”

Listening to her remarks, Kowalski does interrupt Shanken and speaks with emotion, but she doesn’t seem to be screaming, and she stops speaking once she has made her point, which she does in less than a minute. For Kowalski, that her manager told her several people had characterized her remarks as “screaming” was particularly important.

“It’s like that quote, she said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ It’s so hurtful to me to know that all those people were good people who did nothing in this situation, which allowed for this deceitful narrative about my actions to be cemented. So, I think this should also be a learning moment where we ask ourselves, when we see something happening in our community that is wrong or unjust, what action will we take?”

Posted on August 18, 2023August 17, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags employment, Israel, Jewish Federation, Maytal Kowalski
Educating differently

Educating differently

Ada Glustein’s passion for learning and teaching shines through in her self-published memoir Being Different. (photo from Ada Glustein)

Duke’s father would beat him. Tien, a refugee from Cambodia, had witnessed unimaginable violence. Louise was in and out of foster care because her father had drug addictions and her mom was emotionally unstable.

These are just a few of the countless children Ada Glustein encountered in her time as a teacher. Many of her young charges – she taught kindergarten mostly – faced harsh conditions at home and adult-sized problems. She shares her and their experiences with kindness and compassion in her memoir Being Different: From Friday Night Candles to Compassionate Classroom, which she self-published last year. She dedicates the book to her “parents, grandparents and ancestors whose struggles and strengths brought them to Canada, where at last they found their place to call home.” She also writes, “To my children and grandchildren, whose journeys bring the hope for a future of respect, social justice and belonging for all.”

While Glustein was born and raised in Ottawa, her Jewish Orthodox grandparents and parents came from Russia, from an area that became Ukraine. Part 1 of Being Different – Where I Am From: Stories of Home and Community – is about Glustein’s family and her early years. “Though my parents considered themselves to be modern,” she writes, “to me they seemed to live in a world caught between the old and the new.”

From her perspective, her father believed she asked too many questions and her mother fretted too much over her safety. But they came from a different time and place, more traditional and more dangerous. “My family comes from a place where the grass is greener somewhere else. Any place that is not Eastern Europe, not within the Pale of Settlement. Any place to leave behind the pogroms and the poverty, the losses of children who died in childbirth or wasted away from consumption. I do understand the silence,” she writes.

“But I also understand the richness of life’s difficult experiences and their inevitability. To allow those experiences to touch me, even to hurt me, helps me to live a full human life, to live with the reality of how things are.”

Part 1 of Being Different is about Glustein’s efforts to understand her place and who she is within her family. Part 2 – Where Do I Belong? Lessons at School – takes that exploration of identity and differentness into the broader world, where Glustein has to confront Christmas plays, lecherous older men, peer dynamics and a mix of teachers with different approaches, among other life lessons. In Part 3 – Becoming a Teacher: Finding My Way Home – we see how Glustein translates what she has learned into being an educator. And, honestly, if only every teacher could be like Glustein – not because she is perfect, but because she cares, and is continually learning.

Glustein graduated from Ottawa Teachers’ College, completed her bachelor of education at the University of British Columbia and her master of arts at Simon Fraser University. She taught for many years – in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver – and also became a faculty associate and sessional instructor at SFU, where she taught teachers. After she retired, she became a member of two writing groups and has had several of her works published. Being Different won a silver medal for Canada-West Region, non-fiction, in this year’s Independent Publisher Book (“IPPY”) Awards, and deservedly so.

Being Different is charming and heartbreakingly honest, written in short, crisp chapters, giving it a sense of immediacy. It is a call for all of us to be more patient with one another, to keep an open mind and to understand the impact our actions have on other people, especially children. In her openness about her own imperfections and missteps, Glustein is also asking us to be kind to ourselves. A more accepting and inclusive world begins with us, after all.

Being Different will be engaging to any reader – it will foster many a childhood memory – but should be a must-read for anyone interested in becoming an educator. It is available on Amazon.

Format ImagePosted on August 18, 2023August 17, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories BooksTags Ada Glustein, Being Different, culture, education, teaching
A hippie homesteader in B.C.

A hippie homesteader in B.C.

“When I came to Galena Bay, I had been afraid of many things,” writes Ellen Schwartz in Galena Bay Odyssey: Reflections on a Hippie Homesteader (Heritage House Publishing Company, 2023). “Of the physical work I would have to do. Of trying new things I have never done before, like gardening and building and raising animals. Of living in isolation. One by one, I had attempted these things, and I had survived. I had even mastered some of them. Those fears had fallen away.”

This paragraph comes as Schwartz is atop a hill, “too scared to move,” and her skis start sliding. She survives the “ungraceful and disastrous” run, even pushes through a second one. But she can’t keep her vow to never to do that again because, in the 1970s, she lived in such a far-flung place that skiing was a necessary mode of transportation, not just a leisure activity.

It is easy to see why Schwartz chose to write a memoir about this period of her life. Born into a middle-class family – her father an internist-turned-cardiologist, her mother a teacher before becoming a stay-at-home mom to Schwartz, her younger sister and brother – and raised in New Jersey, Schwartz went to university in Chicago. There, she did all you might expect a young person with the new freedom of being on their own to do. And then some, as it was the late 1960s. She writes openly about her experiences with drugs and having sex for the first time: “I figured Ned was The One. I imagined that we’d go through our four years [at school] together and eventually marry.” That didn’t happen. Nor did Schwartz go on to lead the conventional life she imagined for herself at the time.

Instead, she went to join a close friend at a farming commune in Pennsylvania, the members of which ultimately wanted to move to British Columbia. Not intending to stay longer than summer break, Schwartz fell in love with one of the commune’s founders and, well, ended up in British Columbia with Bill, who would become her husband. The group didn’t last long, but the Schwartzes are still together, though no longer in Galena Bay, which is in the West Kootenays. They now live in Burnaby.

The young urban-raised couple faced many challenges homesteading, and Schwartz has many stories of taking on the unknown, whether it be camping along the route across the continent to British Columbia, building their own cabin (including chopping down their own trees), growing their own food, raising a child in a remote area (their second would be born in Vancouver), etc., etc. Not to mention finding work that would sustain them physically (keep them housed, clothed and fed), if not spiritually. She shares the details of her hippie days matter-of-factly, with humour and with the perspective of reflection. For example, after recounting her parents’ muted reaction to her and Bill’s homemade home, she offers potential reasons for their lack of enthusiasm.

image - Galena Bay Odyssey coverSchwartz’s unique history encapsulates the overarching idealism of many in her generation. Her grandparents were “impoverished Jewish immigrants who had fled the hardships and pogroms of Lithuania and Poland” to give their kids a better life in the United States, so their grandchildren also were well set up for material success. The grandchildren – Schwartz and her peers – had an idea but no real understanding of the sacrifices that had been made to achieve the comfortable lifestyle they rejected, because of the racial and social inequality they saw around them, the environmental degradation and the war in Vietnam.

“Bill and I, part of the first wave of baby boomers, were in the privileged position of having enough education, enough wealth and enough leisure to be able to criticize our parents’ lifestyle,” she writes late in the memoir. “We were well-off enough to be able to turn our backs on materialism. We were prosperous enough to indulge in idealism and, idealistically, to define an entire new set of values. (At the time, I didn’t appreciate the irony.)”

But her desire to make the world a better place was – and is – genuine and remains a guiding force. Schwartz, who was a teacher for many years, began her subsequent career writing educational material. We find out in her memoir that the first fiction story she sold was released in 1980. She is now a celebrated children’s author, with almost 20 books to her credit directed towards younger readers, ranging from picture books to novels for teens to a couple of non-fiction publications. She is also a freelance writer and editor.

Galena Bay Odyssey is a wonderful glimpse into an integral part of Schwartz’s life. It also offers insight into North American hippie culture and the strength and ingenuity required to live in an out-of-the-way place like Galena Bay. That the “action” takes place in British Columbia will make the memoir of even more interest to local readers.

Format ImagePosted on July 21, 2023July 20, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories BooksTags British Columbia, Ellen Schwartz, environment, Galena Bay Odyssey, history, homesteading, immigrants, memoir, social commentary, writing

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