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September 24, 2010
Community celebrates
Pre-Chanukah concert covers generations.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Next month, the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation and the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver are presenting what they hope will become a new community tradition: Unite2nite, a pre-Chanukah celebration of Jewish music and culture.
The inaugural concert will feature well-known New York-based cantor and performer Sol Zim. He has written hundreds of popular melodies and arrangements, and he often highlights a children’s choir in his concert performances. For Unite2nite, he will sing with choirs from King David High School, Richmond Jewish Day School and Vancouver Talmud Torah, as well as the Vancouver Jewish Men’s Choir. He will be accompanied by musicians led by Gordon Cherry of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
The idea originated with Serge Haber, president of the Jewish Seniors Alliance (JSA). He wanted to do something similar to what JSA had done several years ago with its Bubbe and Zayde event, which honored community parents and grandparents.
“The money realized by the creation of this event after expenses was put in a fund that would be used to give back to the community, with thanks for supporting the efforts of JSA to help seniors to help seniors,” explained Karon Shear, JSA coordinator. “Since this was about five years ago, JSA thought that it was about time to do another event. It so happened that we were aware of the wonderful talents of Sol Zim and the fact that he is a great name both as a cantor and as an entertainer.... With this in mind, we (Serge) approached the Louis Brier Foundation and the Jewish schools to create an event where the city would unite and benefit from a cultural and entertaining event. A committee was formed and generated the program as Unite2nite. It is hoped that this celebration will further help the community unite with a Jewish theme and celebrate the coming holiday of Chanukah.”
Haber told the Independent that his initial idea was to have a small concert in one of the synagogues as a thank you to the community for supporting JSA, but he realized that he needed more support on the selling and fundraising side. “So I thought and I thought and I thought, I need some partners.... I wanted to have a good representation of a cross-section of our seniors, as well as the young – generation to generation.” So he approached the Louis Brier and the schools. With more organizations on board, the project grew larger, and now also includes Vancouver Hebrew Academy.
Dvori Balshine, director of development of the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation, said that VHA head of school Rabbi Don Pacht approached her with his school’s interest in participating in some way. Since VHA is Orthodox, they won’t have a choir singing – as boys and girls will be performing together – but they will be making two of the eight candles of the chanukiyah that will be onstage at the concert; the other schools will also make two candles each. VHA students will participate in the event itself by helping usher guests to their seats.
About the concert, Balshine explained that the choirs will be singing music arranged by Zim.
“If you can visualize the stage,” she said, “we’ll have the candles that were done by the students in the back, we’ll have the orchestra of 10 musicians sitting on the stage. The concert will start with the beautiful silver chanukiyah on a stand and with everybody having a medley of Chanukah songs, the men’s choir and all the schools together.... Then the choirs will go down. Sol Zim will have short interlude with the men’s choir, then the men’s choir will sing on their own and then Sol Zim will do his concert.”
She said, “We feel that something like this is reflecting the community, and that’s why we are involved.... By doing something like this, it’s showing unity. It’s showing participation.”
Unite2nite chair Marie Doduck, who has been an active volunteer for much of her life, stressed, “To live in a community is to partake in the community: you must involve yourself in the community. This pre-Chanukah concert is to bring the community together, the old people and the young people ... in celebration of the light.”
“The idea of having a community-wide celebration for Chanukah – the Festival of Lights – truly symbolizes the light, the goodness, that shines within the individuals and individual organizations of our community,” said Rebecca Coen, head of school, Richmond Jewish Day School. “By bringing together these organizations, we are able to celebrate the fact that we are all working to build our community – person by person – together.”
Dan Shmilovitch, executive director of King David High School, said, “The event name goes to the essence of King David’s involvement in this event.” He spoke of how Unite2nite is bringing so many organizations “together in partnership to celebrate and collaborate.” He added, “Hopefully, this will be only the beginning of many more instances of community organizations partnering to succeed.”
Rabbi Matthew Bellas, school rabbi at Vancouver Talmud Torah, said this “is exactly the kind of event that we jump at being able to participate in. From just a participation point of view, being invited by Sol Zim ... to sing onstage with him was kind of the entrée, but because our mission statement as a school is to be a community school and that this is intended to be community-unifying event around the holiday of Chanukah, it’s a very natural fit to be active and participating and helping lead the way with it.”
Bellas has been on the organizing committee since the beginning. He said, “Chanukah is one of the holidays that is most celebrated around the Jewish community and how often does the Jewish community really get together in this kind of a way? I grew up in Vancouver, so I can safely say, very seldom.... It touches every potential member of the Jewish community in Vancouver and to be able to participate in that kind of event, it should be exciting, it should be motivating. These are difficult times and it’s nice to be able to find an event that can lift you up spiritually.”
Bellas concluded, “My family is a four-generation-in-Vancouver family. My grandparents live here and my children are now being raised here, so this kind of multigenerational event that is for everybody and it celebrates what we stand for as a Jewish community, with the aged and with the youth, it means something. We need to do more of it, and any event that can bring together the major Jewish day schools of the city, no matter what size we are, is important and worthwhile and we should do more of it.”
Unite2nite will take place at the River Rock Casino Resort Theatre in Richmond on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m. Early bird tickets are $35; after Nov. 1, admission is $40. To reserve a seat, call 604-261-5550.
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