Readers, young and old, welcome

CYNTHIA RAMSAY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

The 19th Annual Cherie Smith JCC Book Festival opens Saturday night and continues for five literary-packed days at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. Opening night features award-winning authors Nancy Richler, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Aryeh Lev Stollman. And the event continues in that vein, with 27 accomplished writers taking part. Here is a glimpse of the festival's offerings.

Holocaust writings

The book launch of Tapestry of Hope takes place Nov. 16. Editors Lillian Boraks-Nemetz and Irene N. Watts, publisher Kathy Lowinger and contributors Claudia Cornwall, Seymour Levitan and Robbie Waisman will be on hand to present this first Canadian anthology of Holocaust writing for young people.

Comprised of poetry, short stories, plays, firsthand accounts and survivor statements, Tapestry addresses different aspects of the Holocaust: hiding from the Nazis, living in the ghettos, surviving the concentration camps, resistance and life after the war. The list of contributing writers also includes Leonard Cohen, Mordecai Richler, Leo Lowy, René Goldman, Kathy Kacer, Karen Levine and many others. Some of the material is new work, some is excerpted from well-known published writing. The book includes a time line of events, from 1933 to 1945, and a list of recommended reading, with books suitable for younger readers marked.

The writing styles and topics are so diverse that this anthology encompasses a broad range of perspectives. The uniqueness of the contributions is illustrated by Cohen's "All There is to Know about Adolph Eichmann":

"EYES:........................................................................Medium
"HAIR:.........................................................................Medium
"WEIGHT:...................................................................Medium
"HEIGHT:....................................................................Medium
"DISTINGUISHING FEATURES ................................None
"NUMBER OF FINGERS:...............................................Ten
"NUMBER OF TOES:......................................................Ten
"INTELLIGENCE:.....................................................Medium
"What did you expect?
"Talons?
"Oversize incisors?
"Green saliva?
"Madness?"

Bagels for Hashem

Teacher and author Aubrey Davis will share fun and thoughtful stories with young festival-goers Nov. 17. No doubt, they will be as wonderful as his children's book, Bagels from Benny.

Based on an ancient Jewish folk tale from Spain, Bagels is about Benny, who loves to help out at his grandpa's bakery. He sweeps the floor, dusts the shelves, puts the cookies and cakes on the shelves and the buns and bagels in the bins. People love Grandpa's bagels and they thank him profusely for making them. When Grandpa asks them, "Why thank me?" Benny is intrigued. Grandpa explains to Benny that they should be thanking God because the bagels are made with flour that comes from wheat, that comes from the earth, that comes from God. This knowledge sets Benny on a mission to thank God and, in doing so, Benny unwittingly makes the world a better place.

The illustrations by Dusan Petricic make Bagels from Benny a must-have for anyone with young children.

Revisiting Proust

Jeanne Proust's diary entry for Thursday, Oct. 17, 1895, begins:

"I worry about these medications on which Marcel relies so much. He is back on his feet today, but only after dosing himself repeatedly with Trional. It is saddening since he returned from Brittany in excellent health. But with the return to Parisian air and that whilrwind of activity – checking final proofs for the story that is to be published next month and getting in touch with all the friends he had not seen over the summer – it was only to be expected that he would fall ill within a matter of days. I am so disappointed that all the good work the summer had achieved is so quickly demolished by his unwillingness to work on things at a measured pace."

Actually, this is the fictional journal of Marcel Proust's mother, one of the three women depicted in Kate Taylor's debut novel Mme. Proust and the Kosher Kitchen. Taylor has been the theatre critic of the Globe and Mail since 1995, she has contributed to other publications and radio broadcasts, and she has published Painters, a biography of Canadian artists written for children. But Mme. Proust reads like the work of a well-established novel writer.

Best described as "sophisticated," Mme. Proust brings together the lives of Jeanne Proust, Marie, the contemporary translator of her diaries, and Sarah Bensimon, a wife and mother in Toronto who came to Canada at the age of 12, the only member of her family to escape Nazi-occupied France. They each have to deal with their love for and expectations of family and friends, their heritage and their place in society. It is a compelling book from which Taylor will read Nov. 19.

Glimpse of army life

David J. Mendelsohn was born in South Africa. Influenced greatly by Habonim (The Builders), the Zionist youth movement, he made aliyah at 17 years old. He and his older brother, Steve, had decided that this is what they wanted to do; Mendelsohn went first to Israel, Steve came a year later and their parents joined them as well, to keep the family together. And so begins Mendelsohn's account of his years in the Israel Defence Forces, a story that he tells with energy, humor and sensitivity in Guns & Bandages: A Combat Medic in Israel's Army, 1961-1978.

In the army for 17 years, as an infantryman and combat medic, Mendelsohn was on the front lines during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Given that, one might assume that Guns & Bandages would be a tough slog to read, bogged down with gruesome details or tales of battle to which an average civilian could not relate. But Guns & Bandages is the opposite. While Mendelsohn evokes some of the horrors of war – there are a few graphic parts describing soldiers being wounded or killed – he writes more about life, his experiences, ideals, friendships and family.

In one instance, Mendelsohn relates an encounter during the Yom Kippur War, when his battalion had crossed the Suez Canal into Africa in order to hold the northern end of the enclave of land that Ariel Sharon's expeditionary force had captured earlier:

"It was really quite unbelievable ... in the first few weeks we were there, we had no fortified positions, no trenches, not even any sandbagged positions. The only thing that separated us from the Egyptian soldiers was a piece of white plastic marking tape lying on the ground – the kind of tape you might use to mark out a temporary soccer field in a park. We were so close to the Egyptians that in the quiet of the night, while guarding, we could hear them talking – we could even hear the noise of a match being struck. It is hardly surprising that the line was tense.... We knew how close they were to us, they knew how close we were to them, and we were both aware of our vulnerability. As a result, soldiers on both sides did not hesitate to open fire at anything they thought looked or sounded suspicious."

Mendelsohn, currently a professor of applied linguistics at York University in Toronto, will read at the festival on Nov. 17.

Poetry from the earth

The intriguing trio of insurance investigator/poet Wendy Morton (Private Eye and Undercover), world traveller/poet Rachel Rose (Giving My Body to Science) and visual artist/gardener/poet Liz Zetlin (Said the River, The Gourd Poems and others) participate in A Mini Poetry Bash Nov. 19.

Zetlin's poetry has won a Stephen Leacock Poetry Award and has been published in many literary magazines throughout Canada. In Zetlin's most recent compilation, Taking Root, memory, relationships, life, sex and death are the seeds that grow under Zetlin's nurturing, albeit at times harsh, hand. Her poetry evokes strong, not always pleasant, images and feelings. As much as we may try to deny our mortality and our connection to and dependence on nature, we are born, we struggle to live and grow, and we die, as does everything natural in the world. Zetlin brings this point home, at times compassionately, at times with stark realism. The following poem is from Taking Root:

Humus

on the ground
of the earth
hence physically
thence morally
lowly
whence humble
as in humdrum
close to humor
adopted from
the Old French
to be moist
as with tears
of laughter
succulent, juicy
akin to the
Sanskrit he sprinkles
and perhaps to the Old Irish
for urine
so you can see it's not just
a brown or black substance
resulting from decay
but an essence that urges
us to slosh about
laughing and crying and paying homage
to all the lowly things of
the earth
as in hollyhock
holstein
halibut
human

Love and friendly fire

The festival closing event on Nov. 20 includes the launch of Elana Dykewomon's Beyond the Pale and Allan Gould, author of more than 30 books, including Anne of Green Gables vs. G.I. Joe – Friendly Fire Between Canada and the U.S.

Beyond the Pale was first published in 1997 and is being republished this year by Raincoast Books because Raincoast believes that Dykewomon's historical novel deserves a wider readership. They are right.

Beyond the Pale is a wonderfully written novel about two women who, after experiencing the loss of family and home during the Russian pogroms of 1903, head to the United States. There, the new immigrants must fight different battles, including the struggle for workers' rights and the right to love whomever they choose. Family, tradition and faith play a large part in their lives, as expressed by Chava:

"I had such double feelings: I was sure that I sinned but not sure I believed in God. So if there was no God, what was the meaning of sin? If there was no Book of Life opened every year, did we have no destiny? Was it just an accident that Mama and Papa were in the wrong place in the wrong time? What about the real sins of the people who killed them? Could they get rid of a sin like murder just by emptying their pockets in the river [at Tashlich]? God took too long to punish murderers. It was no wonder human beings invented vengeance."

Gould's Anne of Green Gables vs. G.I. Joe also treats the topic of immigration, but with a comedic twist: "If you are a new immigrant to Canada, or the child or grandchild of one," writes Gould, "then you must remember why you chose this beautiful, spacious, tolerant land. You couldn't get into the United States, could you? Could you? ADMIT IT."

Gould mixes irreverant humor, serious facts and entertaining trivia in his book that highlights the differences between Canada and our powerful neighbor, the United States. He examines each countries' armed forces, airline industries, national sports and even our reactions to 9/11. He compares official symbols, national anthems, political leaders and much, much more. In a brief chapter on literature, Gould writes:

"Saul Bellow lives in Chicago, but he was born in Quebec, which makes him the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Carol Shields was an American-born Canadian, which made her the only Canuck to win the Pulitzer Prize. John Irving is definitely from New England, but he married a Toronto woman and has set parts of A Prayer for Owen Meany and Son of a Circus there. These three authors have been claimed by both countries; do they belong to them or us?"

An interesting question coming from Gould, who was born in Detroit but now lives in Toronto.

The festival runs from Nov. 15-20. Most of the events are free, however, tickets are needed for the opening, the Brunch with the Critics and the writing workshops with Karen X. Tulchinsky. For more information and to buy tickets, visit the JCC reception or call 604-257-5111. Closing night is free admission but tickets are required and can be reserved by calling Hadassah-WIZO at 604-257-5160.

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