Everyone is welcome

VICKY TOBIANAH

On June 2, Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El celebrates its 150th anniversary with a day of festivities, including a reenactment of the original parade that marked the laying of the synagogue’s cornerstone on June 2, 1863.

“We’re very proud of being the oldest synagogue in Canada,” said Isa Milman, chair of Jewish Arts 2013, a yearlong festival established to celebrate this milestone. “It has been a synagogue that’s always been in use from 1863 when established until today. It’s only once in a lifetime that you get to celebrate 150 years of continuity.”

Milman’s connection to the synagogue goes back to its founders. When her husband was doing some research on Emanu-El’s establishment and the laying of the cornerstone, he came across news clippings with the names of participants in the 1863 event. To his surprise, one of them was his great- great-uncle, who carried some of the ritual objects during the parade, which started at the Masonic lodge, traveled to City Hall and then to the site of the synagogue.

“We’ll pick up the mayor at City Hall, who is going to join the parade,” said Milman about the upcoming reenactment. “There will be a band and everyone who wants to march is invited to march. Some people will be wearing costumes, just like they wore in 1863.” When they arrive at the synagogue, its doors will open, revealing an exhibition put together about the history of the Jewish community in Victoria.

“Lots of beautiful objects and artifacts and Jewish culture will be exhibited,” said Milman. “You’ll see the new chuppah that was designed and created by local women to replace the original chuppah that is very fragile and really can’t be used anymore. It was all hand-quilted by a dozen different women, myself included.”

The celebration that day continues with a gala dinner and dance, featuring keynote speaker Irwin Cotler. However, the festivities began earlier this year, with the arts festival hosting the play Ray Frank: The Girl Rabbi of the Golden West, the concert Hodaya! and an evening of music led by former congregant and choir leader Cantor Rob Menes. And there are several more events to come.

The congregation hopes that the gala and the arts festival will raise enough funds to restore the synagogue, which is succumbing to old age. “The building will fall apart unless we fix it and we really want to preserve it for another 150 years,” said Milman, who added, “It’s history, it’s honoring the past and at the same time working for the future because we want to preserve this wonderful heritage for our children and great-grandchildren.”

More about that “Girl Rabbi”

In 1895, Rachel “Ray” Frank – a Jewish religious leader from California – led the High Holiday services at Emanu-El, an Orthodox congregation at the time. Her story touched University of Victoria associate professor Jennifer Wise, who, in honor of Emanu-El’s 150th anniversary and UVic’s 50th, wrote Ray Frank: The Girl Rabbi of the Golden West. It premièred in April at the very same synagogue where Frank officiated all those years ago.

“I researched the events thoroughly. The story of Ray Frank’s two weeks in Victoria turned out to be even more amazing than I could have guessed,” said Wise. “She had a lasting positive impact on the community, and the country.”

Frank was born to Polish parents, who she later described as “Orthodox Jews of liberal minds.” As a young woman, she was a teacher at a public, non-Jewish high school in Nevada. She became interested in learning about the Jewish narrative, and how prejudice against Jews developed – which she would later talk about in her sermons, and write about as a journalist.

“She was deeply religious and passionately committed to Jewish issues and history, yet saw all theological differences as divisive and illusory,” said Wise. “For her, God is essentially Nature, something that all the peoples of the world worship equally and identically – or should, anyway.”

In the fall of 1890, Frank, then a reporter for a local newspaper, was sent to write about several new towns. When she arrived in Spokane, Wash., only to find out that despite the affluent Jews in that city, there was no synagogue, she was shocked. According to the records, the community was divided between Reform and Orthodox Jews, who would not worship together. Then, a community member agreed to arrange High Holiday services, with Frank giving a sermon. During that address, she encouraged the community to focus less on the halachic questions and instead overcome their differences to become a real community. She would reiterate this opinion throughout her years of lecturing, writing and teaching.

Frank practised what she preached. She became more than just a religious female teacher when she was hired as the rabbi of Emanu-El for the High Holidays.

“She fulfilled the role expertly and to everyone’s tremendous satisfaction,” said Wise. “Her achievements, therefore, helped to make the idea of a female rabbi thinkable. She was a major pioneer in advancing women’s rights within Judaism – and it’s just amazing to realize that she did much of her trail-blazing right here in Victoria.”

That’s why Wise and director Liza Balkan wanted to share Frank’s story. And, just as Frank captivated audiences, the play they produced also has had an impact.

“The turn-out blew everybody away – and it was one of the most diverse audiences I’ve ever seen: many members of the congregation came to see the show, of course, but there were also many actors, directors, historians, members of the university community, ordinary

Victorians just interested in the story of Ray Frank,” said Wise. “I loved seeing how the experience of being in the play and creating these real-life Victoria citizens made the young actors in the cast all suddenly interested in the lives of their grandparents, and what they went through, and did, and thought.”

As a result of the success, the Harold Green Theatre of Toronto requested the script and has added it to their play roster for this spring.

“The theatre critic at the Coastal Spectator said the play made her wish she was Jewish. Other letters I received from theatre people said that the experience was ‘magical,’ exactly what one always hopes for at the theatre but rarely actually gets,” said Wise.

She also received many letters about the importance of the play’s message.

“You have written something so moving, such an important story for then and for now,” Barbara Poggemiller told Wise. “I truly believe this story needs to be told in as many places as possible ... to share the possibility for growth, for change and for women ... it holds such truth and that truth resonates ... as we could all feel last night.”

While Frank never became an official rabbi (in fact, she said she never wanted to become a rabbi), she was often known as “the Girl Rabbi of the Golden West,” as the play’s name indicates. She may have lacked the official title, but that didn’t stop her from touching communities across Canada and the United States.

“She inspired and empowered the women of Victoria’s Jewish community in 1895,” said Wise, “and inspired the women of Victoria all over again in 2013, when we reenacted her story in the synagogue this year.”

Jewish Arts 2013

“Another way we decided to honor and celebrate this anniversary was to present events – music, vocal, theatre and art – to showcase Jewish artistic endeavors and to invite the greater community to participate in it,” explained Milman about Emanu-El’s 150th anniversary and the idea behind the Jewish Arts 2013 festival.

“Lots of people in Victoria,” she said, “are curious and interested in the Jewish community but have never been in a synagogue, for example.” So, the festival committee invited Jewish and non-Jewish community members to attend Hodaya!, which means gratitude or thanksgiving. Hosted by Jo-Ann Roberts of CBC Radio’s All Points West, the March 23 concert was attended by 600 people.

“The events are designed to get civic groups and citizens to know each other, to break down the barriers so that people feel more comfortable and recognize each other, instead of staying in their little groups,” explained Milman.

After the citywide parade on June 2, the next event features the Seattle Jewish Chorale on June 16. Founded in 2008, the group is comprised of 36 people from a variety of religious and faith backgrounds. To commemorate Emanu-El’s 150th, they have created a program called “From Strength to Strength: Songs for the Journey” to honor all those who helped establish the synagogue. In 1863, there were only a few dozen Jewish families living in Victoria, so the broader community helped build the synagogue, which now has a congregation of 200-plus families.

According to the promotional material, “The chorale will take the audience on a journey through time and space, stopping to savor Sephardic melodies from Turkey and Yemen, Hebrew songs of awe and longing, as well as popular Yiddish-American tunes, and finish with a rousing new gospel-style version of ‘Hinei Ma Tov,’ the Hebrew classic about ‘how good it is to be together.’”

For details about the other Jewish Arts 2013 events scheduled for this year, see “A year of celebration” in this issue. Milman hopes the festival can continue planning events into 2014.

“The Jewish community of Emanu-El is very committed and engaged in the Greater Victoria community,” she said. “This has just been so great to see such a good response.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto and a recent McGill University graduate. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or by e-mail to [email protected].

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