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November 26, 2004
Library celebrates 10th year
Anniversary dinner will honor the visionary who got it off the
ground.
JANNETTE EDMONDS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
The Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library is about to have a birthday
party and, to celebrate 10 years of servicing the community, a dinner
will be held next month to honor the woman whose vision it was to
get the project off the ground.
Rita Weintraub, chair of Friends of the Library, was the driving
force behind the library, along with the late Sophie Waldman, who
chose to honor her husband's memory by donating the major funds
to the project. Weintraub is passionate about the connection between
Jews being "people of the book" and the love of reading.
"There is an ongoing influence of books in our culture in general
and Judaism specifically," she said. "The love of books
is important in furthering our culture and educating our young people
in the richness of Judaism, the variety in Judaism and the ongoing
issues that arise. Books provide a variety of opinions and that
is one thing Jews have – a variety of opinions.
"It is a living library," she said proudly of the Isaac
Waldman. "It is not just a collection of books. There are study
groups going on, there is warmth and friendliness and wonderful
volunteers. We also provide a home for books that people have a
hard time giving up. It's another function of the library."
Weintraub is still a hands-on part of the library, phoning each
person who donates a book to personally thank them, and taking part
in the fund-raising telethons where, she said, people are always
thanking the library for its good work. She is happy to have the
community be so involved, both as donors of money and books, but
also as volunteers, with more than 20 regulars who are organized
by Betty Divinsky.
The library has lived up to Weintraub's expectations.
"It has the technology, it has the old and new – a wonderful
collection of videos, DVDs and CDs, but also wonderful Talmuds and
research material."
A bookish history
Weintraub seems to have always been involved with books. After she
and her husband, Marvin, whom she married in 1948, moved to St.
Catharines from Toronto in 1950, her love of books and belief in
having Jewish books available moved her to set up a synagogue library
there in 1955. She used her research and experience to teach other
synagogues in the area how to set up their own libraries.
Moving to Vancouver in 1959, she became active in Beth Israel Sisterhood
and eventually was appointed chief librarian at the small Jewish
Community Centre library. It was one room on the ground floor but
she had a dream of something bigger. When plans for an expanded
JCC came out in the fall of 1991, she responded immediately to the
possibility of including a revived and enlarged Jewish public library
in the new centre.
With the help of Waldman, the library was formally opening on Nov.
15, 1994, with Israeli author Amos Oz as featured speaker. Rabbi
Yosef Wosk was on hand to affix the mezuzah to the door frame and
he will again be on hand in December as honorary chair.
Looking to the future
Karen Corrin has been the librarian at Isaac Waldman for nine years
and exudes a passion about the place, proudly showing off the children's,
adult fiction, magazine, video, talmudic, Judaic and Hebrew fiction
sections, and the reading room.
"The most important thing for me is that we are developing
according to what people are needing," said Corrin. "I
want people to let us know if they want a certain book or want to
do research. We are a resource. We started out with approximately
2,500 items and about 200 people a month coming through. Now we
are up to about 15,000 items and about 1,200 coming in and out."
As a half-time employee, along with half-time library technician
Kelly Rae, Corrin also works for the Richmond public library and
the Langara library. She said she keeps an eye out at the other
libraries for items the Isaac Waldman may need, pointing to several
new "spinners," which hold paperbacks, that she got "for
a very good price." She is happy about the increasing usage
and also that the library is now online. This was her goal for the
10th anniversary.
"My next goal is getting the word out and promoting what we
have here. We are doing more partnering with the community now that
we are more established and people know about us."
She hopes the library will be able to extend its hours in the future
and, looking about the library, with men playing chess, young people
on the computers and children and parents reading together, she
said, "it was very visionary of a lot of people to create this."
The Dec. 9 dinner to honor Rita Weintraub will be chaired by Leyla
Sacks and will feature Montreal author and literary critic Joel
Yanofsky. His recently published book, Mordecai and Me, chronicles
his fascination and obsession with writer Mordecai Richler, and
recently won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for memoir/biography.
Tickets for the dinner are $72. For more information, call the library
at 604-257-5111, ext. 249.
Jannette Edmonds is a freelance writer living in North
Vancouver.
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