The way the New Years were

KATHARINE HAMER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

I remember, as a child, the family celebrations, usually at my Great Uncle Abel's place out in the UBC Endowment Lands. My grandmother was one of eight children, and my siblings and I spent holidays with what seemed like hundreds of second and third cousins. On Chanukah, each of us got at least one present from a distant relative who really had no idea what to buy. (Yes, it's true, Supertramp is making a comeback now, but to a pre- cocious 10-year-old, they were the antithesis of cool.) Together, we searched Uncle Abel's expansive house for matzah on Passover, bargaining for money or dolls; and we shared the measured ritual of Rosh Hashanah dinners.

Back then, it seemed like it was all about family. Now, so many of the family figureheads have passed away or grown foggy with age and their children and grandchildren have moved to other cities. Like a lot of people of my generation, I've led a pretty peripatetic lifestyle, moving around a lot, focusing on my career, and spending more time with friends than I used to do with family. Of course, there's still a feeling of ceremony and tradition on Rosh Hashanah, but for longtime members of Vancouver's Jewish community, family was always what threaded the holiday together.

These days, Larry and Lorna Krangle live in North Vancouver with their Bichon Frise named Bubby. Both remember the way holidays were centred around the family home when there was only one synagogue, the Schara Tzedeck, down at Heatley and Pender, when Vancouver's Jewish community was mainly in the east end. The Krangles both grew up in Kitsilano, which was a long way from the synagogue at a time when few people had access to a car.

"You had to get around by streetcar," recalled Larry Krangle. "The shul being down on Heatley Avenue, it was very difficult for a lot of people to get there. So a lot of people did their celebrations at home. It was a whole different ballgame in those days.

"Our family would get together with friends and everything, we'd have big celebrations, a big dinner on Rosh Hashanah. Getting the families together and doing the readings and dinner afterwards, it was a more social thing, really," Krangle said, adding that even services would be held in the home. "It would be a whole evening, it would start late in the afternoon and go on till fairly late in the evening. As a kid, it would be a lot of fun. We were joking and eating and you had two days off school.

"Today, on Rosh Hashanah, we spend all our time in the shul. We didn't in those days, because it was just virtually impossible. But my father being in the clothing business, we had all these travellers in from out of town, and they would be invited over for dinner during Rosh Hashanah. We always had people in the house, always, and it was fun. It would always end up like a big party after dinner, it would be a real social thing. It was a good time, it was a very good time."

Like Minnie, his wife of almost 65 years, Solomon "Pucky" Pelman was born and raised in Vancouver. As youngsters the two lived a block and a half away from each other in the East End. Pucky's parents were Russian, Minnie's were Polish and Lithuanian, and like many parents of the day, both sets were very religious.

"She was more religious than the rabbi," Minnie Pelman said of her mother. On holidays, "it didn't matter how sick she was, she would stay all day at the shul. Sometimes she would faint dead away, but she stuck it out. She's what you call obsessive. Obsessive about religion, definitely."

There were family rituals they enjoyed more. Minnie Pelman always got a new dress for the holiday and her husband remembers how before Rosh Hashanah, he and his brothers were taken to Arnold and Quigley on Granville Street for new suits.

"Know what we liked?" he confided. "The suits had an all-day sucker in the pocket."

At Pucky Pelman's family home, there were two living rooms "and a table that went the whole length. It was always at our place, because we had a home that could accommodate everybody."

"Everybody dressed in their best clothes," said Minnie Pelman. "All the women, of course, all helped in the kitchen.... It was a happy time because we would get together with the family. It's all family, that's important. The kids were really excited about it, they looked forward to it. I knew we'd get a new dress, and it was just being together, together as the family."

Now, said Lorna Krangle, families are "here, there, everywhere. Our kids are all dispersed."

Even if the scope of Rosh Hashanah celebrations has changed today, how ever you welcome the holidays and no matter with whom you spend them, one thing remains the same: it's a time for reflection and new beginnings.

"It's the day of atonement," said Minnie Pelman. "It's renouncing your sins. It's just like the Catholics, except we don't confess. Perhaps we confess to ourselves. And we just think over the things that you wish you hadn't done all year and it will be a better year. And that's very important. Trying to be a better person, that's what it's all about."

Katharine Hamer is a freelance writer living in North Vancouver.

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