Eldad Goldfarb, executive director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, and Jewish community member Shirley Barnett show off their “Labels are for Clothes” T-shirts. (photo by Leamore Cohen)
February is Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month and the shirts are available for purchase ($18) at the JCC. The message on the back of the shirts reads, in smaller print: “100% human / Treat with care and love / Learn before you assume / Do not separate / Do not label / #jccincludesme.”
Left to right: Ryan Beil, Megan Leitch and James Fagan Tait in Jitters. (photo by David Cooper)
Let’s hear it for the play-within-a-play, the vehicle that takes the audience from front-of-house to backstage dressing room, into the psyche of live theatre, chock-full of clever lines, employing slapstick that isn’t overdone and providing first-rate acting and laughs from beginning to end. Jitters is simply a great way to spend an evening.
Similar to Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, which ran at the Playhouse in 2004, Jitters – presented by Arts Club Theatre – follows the launch of a new performance (The Care and Treatment of Roses) from chaotic on-stage rehearsals to backstage conflict and confusion. But, whereas Noises relies on physical comedy, Jitters is more about the frailness and insecurities of actors, particularly Canadian actors who see the United States as a means to success.
In Jitters, the playwright, director and (almost) entire cast are hoping their play will be brought to Broadway by an American producer who may or may not be in the audience.
The play gets its name from opening-night jitters, as director George is doing his best to open Roses on time with the whole cast in attendance – not an easy thing to do when one actor ends up in hospital, another shows up drunk and a third simply walks out. Like a coach in the dressing room at half-time, George’s tactics include mollycoddling, pleading, motivating, scolding, ego-stroking, pacifying and all-around sucking up to get his actors in line. And each one needs a different kind of hand-holding.
Though she is fawned over as the star of Roses, diva Jessica (Megan Leitch) still has self-doubt, but George’s attempt to boost her confidence falls on deaf ears. “You look gorgeous,” he tells her in dress rehearsal.
“Liar! I look like a Barbie doll for octogenarians,” she hisses.
And, in a hilarious moment, George asks, “Can we discuss this like adults?” she answers, “We aren’t adults; we’re actors.”
Then there’s Phil (James Fagan Tait), the neurotic shlemazl who starts every sentence with, “I don’t want to burden you,” before complaining about his wardrobe, his hairpiece, his life and the fact that there is no prompter (as he tends to get ulcers at the thought of forgetting his lines); Patrick (Robert Moloney), the acrimonious, jealous co-star who would rather be a big fish in Canadian theatre than risk failure on Broadway; and Tom (Kamyar Pazendeh), whose novice uncertainty is a refreshing contrast to the other actors’ cynicism. Tom is going to be a great actor because “he’s got the right combination of empathy and self-absorption.”
Meanwhile, the playwright Robert (played by Jewish community member Ryan Beil – a dead ringer for Eric Idle in this role) is a nervous wreck, wincing and arguing every time his script is changed to indulge the actors.
While Jitters doesn’t highlight physical comedy, as seen in Noises Off, the verbal jousting is far better. The script pillories the treatment of Canadian actors (“Where else can you be a top-notch actor all your life and still die broke and anonymous?”) but it also examines the complexity of the characters who one moment are insulting and backstabbing each other and the next moment hugging in understanding.
The neuroses, capriciousness and insecurities of the actors allow for wonderfully fun performances, but I didn’t find the quality equal across the board. I thought Tait’s hapless encounters and expressive reactions stole the show, while Leitch seemed to be overplaying the part she’s supposed to be overplaying.
Final kudos must go to the set design. The stunning detail of the dressing room after the 360-degree turn of the stage before the second act was so unexpected, it actually drew applause from the audience, which I have rarely seen.
Two jittery thumbs up.
Jitters runs at Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage under the direction of David Mackay (who, by the way, also starred in Noises Off) until Feb. 25. For tickets, visit artsclub.com.
Baila Lazarusis a Vancouver-based writer and principal media strategist at bailalazarus.com.
In the book Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs and Hope on the Urban Frontier, Michael Ableman shares the story of how Downtown Eastside residents helped create Sole Food Street Farms. (photo by Michael Ableman; Street Farm [Chelsea Green, 2016])
In his book Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs and Hope on the Urban Frontier (Chelsea Green, 2016), Michael Ableman shares the inspirational story of how residents in one of the poorest urban areas in North America – Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – helped create Sole Food Street Farms.
Ableman has been a leading voice in the organic sector for 45 years and is the owner of Foxglove Farm (an organic 120-acre plot of land on Salt Spring Island), an author and a public speaker.
“I became incredibly impassioned by the power of food and farming to heal the world, to change people’s lives, to reconnect them,” Ableman told the Independent. “I came to see farming, not as the industrial activity that it had become since World War Two, but as a community venture to be shared by everyone participating.
“I think that has formed all my endeavours, all the projects I’ve done, all the work I’ve done – not all successfully … but it’s a function of being 63 years old … that you begin to recognize the importance of talking about those areas where you fall short … because, it’s a lot more informative than patting yourself on the back.”
Ableman responded to a call for strategies to help transform the Downtown Eastside, which is the lowest-income community in Canada, “with the highest rates of intravenous drug use perhaps in North America … mental illness, open prostitution,” he said.
“I agreed to come to a meeting with a number of social service agencies on the Downtown Eastside who wanted to come up with some creative ideas. They had access to a half-acre parking lot next to one of the dive hotels. And, you know, one meeting led to the next and, before you know it, I was directing and envisioning the birth of this amazing social enterprise that we started … which became Sole Food Street Farms.”
Now, after seven years in operation, the farm’s four-plus acres on pavement is producing 25 tons of food annually, employing up to 30 people, and is having a profound impact on people’s lives, as well as on how urban agriculture is perceived.
In his book, Ableman tells the story of the people he is working with, how their lives are being affected, and how they work with municipal governments to do what had never been done before on this scale.
“It is my belief that the smaller production units, whether front or back yards, are actually incredibly important for our future,” said Ableman. “And, probably, in the end, my goal has always been to see individuals and families put farmers out of business, by growing for themselves. But, we have a long way to go. My goal is still very much focused on jobs and producing quantities of food.”
Every city has two main challenges if you’re going to attempt to do gardening or agriculture, he said. “Number one, the soils are either too contaminated to grow in or are paved over. And, number two, the value of the land is too high for landowners or municipalities to give up.
“We felt it was incredibly important in the enterprise we created in Vancouver to address those issues. So, we designed a very innovative box system and we had these boxes manufactured. The boxes are isolated from contamination or pavement. They have interconnected drains. They are stackable, nestable, have pockets for hoops, and are indestructible.”
Ableman said Street Farm is a “why-to” book, though they are “producing an actual tool kit, a companion to this book, the nuts and bolts of how we did it.” But, Street Farm, he said, “is a book that says, ‘Look, even under the worst circumstances, the poorest neighbourhoods, here is what individuals in a community can do to improve their lives and here’s how they did it.’ So, if we could do it here, you can do it elsewhere. We’re there to inspire people and make them understand that you have to do it in a way that addresses the particular needs of your community – the culture, economics, ethnicity. All those things have to be considered when setting something like this up – knowing who you are serving and why.”
Since the book came out, the project itself has evolved. In fact, Sole Food had to move their largest farm location a few months ago, which was a huge undertaking.
“When you write a book, the story is the story that existed at the time the manuscript was submitted and accepted by the publisher,” said Ableman. “But, nothing stays the same, especially in the work we do. Certainly, the individuals I write about, their lives have changed. We’ve learned more things … and we shift our systems accordingly. It’s really the wonder and beauty of agriculture, that it requires that each of us approach it with what I call a ‘beginner’s mind’ – never having a preconception, always being open to the moment. It’s a biological system, and requires a day-to-day, moment-to-moment response to that system. That’s the beauty, what we love about it – it always changes.”
He recalled, “For my bar mitzvah, the section of the Torah I read from was about the land of milk and honey. It was essentially about creating a fertile environment, abundance and nutrition from the land. At 13, the last thing I ever thought I’d be involved with was agriculture.
“If you really go back to the roots of our tradition – Judaism – we have strong roots in the land, strong agrarian roots. That doesn’t mean each of us has to be a farmer. What it means though is that we have a responsibility to create relationships and connections with those who are, and trying to do it well.”
It’s so much more than agriculture.
“While we generate $300,000 every year in products grown and sold,” said Ableman, “we still have to raise another $300,000 to support the social component of what we do – the trainings, taking people to the hospital, rain gear, literacy programs, meals. We are recognized as a world-class model. Participate in whatever way you can in your own tradition by supporting local enterprises trying to do the right thing.”
More about Ableman and Sole Food Farms can be found at solefoodfarms.com.
When she was Nova Scotia’s lieutenant governor, Myra Freeman opened up Government House to the public. (photo by Alex Rose)
When Myra Freeman (née Holtzman) was appointed lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia in 2000, she broke down two major walls. She was the first woman appointed to the position, and she was the first Jewish person appointed to the position. In fact, she was the first Jewish appointee to such a position in all of Canada, and the second in the entire Commonwealth of Nations (the first was former Australian Governor-General Zelman Cowen).
“It’s always been my family and my heritage that have defined me,” Freeman told the Independent in a recent interview.
Her Jewish values, she said, were put in place by her grandparents, who moved to Canada around the turn of the 20th century, and strengthened during her upbringing in Saint John, N.B., the city where her grandparents eventually settled. The Holtzmans were one of about 120 Jewish families.
Freeman went through the Canadian Young Judaea program. She said it nurtured seeds to give back to Israel, to give back to community and to help improve the lives of Jewry on the other side of the world. These lessons were echoed by her parents – her mother was a president of the local Hadassah-WIZO chapter and her father was very involved with their synagogue.
“Over the years, I’ve never really lost sight of the fact that I have a responsibility to the Jewish community, and I’ve always been proud of the things that I’ve done in my shul, in Hadassah, in United Israel Appeal,” she said, just the beginning of the long list of a life of involvement in the Jewish community. But, with that, she added, “the broader community was a huge part of my life as I changed careers.”
Myra Freeman (photo from Myra Freeman/Historica Canada)
Freeman’s first career was teaching, and she always thought it would be her only career. She loved working with students, helping them discover the joys of learning and the world around them. She encouraged students to step up and help others, to set an example by leading the way. She passed along lessons she had learned from mentors who had inspired her over the years. And, as she taught these lessons, she also took them to heart, becoming increasingly involved in community.
“And that’s when, in April of 2000, I received a call from the prime minister [Jean Chrétien], and he asked me to take on the responsibility as the queen’s representative in Nova Scotia,” said Freeman.
Aside from being the first woman and the first Jewish person to serve in the role, Freeman’s tenure as lieutenant governor, which concluded in 2006, will be remembered for some of her main initiatives, said Craig Walkington, communications advisor to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. For one, she focused on supporting education and childhood development. She also created a number of awards that recognized Nova Scotians who excelled in their fields, including writing, teaching and the environment.
“I think the one I’m most proud of is the Lieutenant Governor’s Masterworks award, which gives an opportunity for artists to showcase their creative talent,” said Freeman.
Walkington added that Freeman will also be remembered for opening up Government House, which is the lieutenant governor’s residence, to the public. It is the oldest vice-regal residence in North America – the cornerstone was laid in 1800.
“We call the Government House the ceremonial home of all Nova Scotians,” explained Walkington. “I think, for a lot of people, it was just this very big mansion on Barrington Street that they would drive by every day, and having it more accessible means that visitors and Nova Scotians can learn about the history of this province and the history of the people who worked and lived in this house.”
Walkington estimated that 14,000 to 15,000 people pass through Government House every year.
“We made it like our home. We had a kosher home, we had Shabbat, we had seders in there,” said Freeman of her time at Government House. “And I think one of the remarkable moments was we had a visit from royalty.”
When Prince Michael of Kent, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, visited Nova Scotia in 2002, he stayed overnight in Government House. He was scheduled to arrive around 4:30 on a Friday afternoon and Freeman had been instructed to show him to his room and then leave him be, but she had other plans.
“You can’t surprise royalty, OK? You cannot just throw something on them when they arrive,” she said. But, even so, “after I showed him to the room, I said, ‘Every Friday night, our family tries very hard to be together to observe the Sabbath and have our Sabbath meal. And we’ll be eating dinner at 7 o’clock if you would like to join us.’… He looked at me and he said, ‘It would be an honour.’”
Freeman said Prince Michael was attentive throughout the whole evening, as they sang “Shalom Aleichem” and as her husband made Kiddush. At the end, he told Freeman that, as a man in his late 70s, it was the first Shabbat dinner he had ever attended; he also said it was the highlight of his trip across Canada.
“It just goes to show that we take for granted … our heritage, and we might not observe it as much because we think it’s nothing, but to somebody else … he was so honoured to be a part of it,” said Freeman.
“Each of us brings to our communities our traditions and our culture, our heritage,” she said. “And we, as people of an ethnic background, like all other people of ethnic backgrounds, contribute and make Canada unique…. We care enough to participate and to become involved in community, and we give of ourselves. And, when we do that, we add diversity to the country and we enhance the social fabric of our countries.”
As Jewish community members, she said, “we have the responsibility to our home and abroad, because, really, our heritage is our strength, and we have to preserve that through our actions. We never lost sight that we have an equal responsibility to take our place in the secular community – in our city, in our province, in our country, and globally – because Canada afforded our grandparents a home and the opportunity to achieve.”
Alex Roseis a master’s student in journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax. He graduated from the same school in 2016 with a double major in creative writing and religious studies, and loves all things basketball, especially his hometown Toronto Raptors.
Morton Minc is Concordia University’s first jurist-in-residence. (photo from Morton Minc)
During his long career in the field of law in Quebec, Morton Minc has made several firsts. His latest – becoming Concordia’s first jurist-in-residence.
Born in Lublin, Poland, Minc came from a very religious, but also academic, family. His father was studying medicine in Paris when the Second World War broke out. The family made their way to Montreal and started over again, with only $17, provided by the Jewish community.
After graduating from Sir George Williams University with an arts degree, Minc went onto law school at the Université de Montréal, where he won several awards. He then joined a large law firm and eventually opened his own practice, specializing in general commercial banking law. He married his wife, Linda, and they had one daughter, Samantha (who is a vascular surgeon in the United States).
“I then was the first Jewish judge in the history of the municipal court of Montreal,” said Minc of his 1993 appointment. “Then, I was nominated as chief justice of the municipal court of Montreal [in 2009], and I was the first Jewish anglophone judge appointed to the municipal court in their history.
“When I became chief judge, I used the court in a different manner,” he said. “One part of the court was streamlining toward social justice programs, social justice courts and problem-solving courts, and the other was traditional justice. The aim of the social justice court is not only to identify an individual’s problem, but also to assist, rehabilitate and help him/her to find his/her way back into society … once they’ve completed the program set by the court successfully, and even decriminalizes their record when possible. In other words, they were charged with a criminal matter or with statutes where they had to pay all these fines … [and] we had made arrangements with an execution department of the city for them to get amnesty.”
Minc was responsible for initiating the program, including working with judges who specialized in mental health.
“We had Crown prosecutors who specialized in the mental health program and a defence lawyer full-time to assist the offender who had the mental health issue when he/she committed a crime,” said Minc. “These people worked not in a combative way, but it’s what we call, ‘participating justice.’”
Most judicial systems are considered adversarial, where the parties are in opposition to one another. But, in these social justice and problem-solving courts, he explained, everyone is working together on the same “side” toward the good of the person on trial.
“I was responsible for establishing the court for the homeless,” said Minc. “We had judges dedicated to the issue of homelessness, so we’d find the person a place to live if s/he had a mental issue, alcohol issue and/or drug issue…. We’d work toward resolving these problems. It wasn’t necessarily a problem of homelessness.
“We dedicated a court only for these social issues, so that they wouldn’t be in the mainstream of the criminal system … so that they would not be embarrassed; the homeless, they wouldn’t feel ill-at-ease. And, the same thing for mental health and domestic violence court…. I can tell you, the success rate was over 85%. It was a win-win situation…. We had a minister of justice coming to our court every year to see what we were doing in our social programs.”
Minc attributed his own compassion for others to his Jewish heritage and its tradition of involvement with and assistance for those who are less fortunate.
When it came time for him to leave his position, Minc – who said he is not a believer in retirement – was asked to meet with Concordia University president Alan Shepard, provost Graham Carr and the dean of the faculty of arts and science, André Roy. The trio invited Minc to join the history department’s Law and Society Program, and he accepted, becoming the first jurist-in-residence.
“My role, or the goal, is to help students, mentor students, on what they could do in the future, about law school…. You don’t have to necessarily become a lawyer, but to get a law degree, or become a lawyer,” said Minc. “There are all kinds of different other institutions you could work at and use your law background for.”
In addition to introducing students to different aspects of law, Minc is helping students find ways to get involved in the legal system, using his vast knowledge and contacts.
“Perhaps Concordia will have its own law faculty one day,” said Minc. “My goal is to stimulate and excite students about the law – and it seems well-received.
“While Concordia doesn’t have a law school,” he added, “it offers students the option to minor in law and society, and to study issues like governance, crime, conflict and social justice from sociological, historical, anthropological and philosophical perspectives.”
Minc’s appointment as jurist-in-residence is for a two-year term and, while he hopes that his successor continues what he is starting, he is focused on doing what he can do now. So far, all of the events he has organized have sold out.
As example of the types of events he has put on, Minc hosted a fireside chat with now-Chief Justice Richard Wagner of the Supreme Court of Canada, on Nov 23. 2017. The talk covered Wagner’s journey to becoming a judge and what it’s really like to be part of the Supreme Court.
On Oct. 19 last year, Minc hosted an event on the legal and psychological implications of the maltreatment of children. A number of distinguished panelists took part, including Judge Patrick Healy (Quebec Court of Appeal) and Judge Martine Nolin (Court of Quebec, Youth Court Division).
Minc also mentored the Concordia Moot Law Society for a legal debate competition against other Canadian universities. He helped student delegates prepare legal arguments and taught them about legal jargon.
One of Ormat Technologies’ geothermal power plants. (photo from Ormat)
Could Israel be the country that finally puts fossil fuels to rest with the dinosaurs? “When we talk about killing fossil fuels, Israel is not yet seen as tops in the world, as we are in water or cyber technologies. But in each related niche – solar energy, battery technologies and electric car components – there is tremendous respect for Israeli companies,” according to clean-energy activist Yosef Abramowitz, aka “Kaptain Sunshine,” whose Energiya Global social development company is bringing solar power to Africa.
Two early solar-energy pioneers founded in Israel, BrightSource Energy and Ormat Technologies, are now headquartered in the United States with myriad international projects to their credit. BrightSource built the world’s largest solar electricity generation installation, in California, using nanoparticle coatings developed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ormat built one of the world’s first solar-power fields, near the Dead Sea, and is a leading geothermal and recovered-energy generation producer.
Although Israeli electric-vehicle (EV) network Better Place had great disruptive potential, its bankruptcy in May 2013 dashed those hopes. Yet Abramowitz believes the mega-fail led to something positive. “Better Place spawned a whole industry of 500 [Israeli] startups in the automotive sector, largely related to electric cars and the software and hardware that will kill the combustion engine,” he told Israel21c.
In 2011, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office launched its Alternative Fuels Administration and Fuel Choices Initiative, aiming to implement government policy and support for fuel alternatives research and industry that can serve as a model for other countries while helping reduce Israel’s dependence on oil for transportation. Since then, the number of alternative fuel research groups in Israel has grown from 40 to about 220 and the number of companies in this field to about 500. Globally, renewable energy is a $359 billion business. Here are 10 Israeli companies trying to accelerate the end of fossil fuels.
Aquarius Engines. The lightweight Aquarius engine has a single-piston linear engine. A cylinder moves the fuel from side to side to generate electrical current, much like sea waves can do through an up-and-down movement. A car fitted with the Aquarius engine would have a range of 1,200 kilometres per 50-litre tank, which would have to be filled every five or six weeks. Aquarius is working with Peugeot to test its engine in a concept car. The company also is developing a lightweight portable generator based on its technology.
Brenmiller Energy. Founded in 2012 in Rosh Ha’ayin, Brenmiller Energy has created products for renewable energy including a thermal storage system that hybridizes any power source – wind, solar, biomass, nuclear, natural gas – to provide reliable, clean energy anywhere. The B-Gen unit’s first cycle transfers the heat coming from different sources; the discharging cycle delivers steam on demand on a megawatt or gigawatt scale. Commercial projects are underway in several countries. Founder Avi Brenmiller was involved in solar power plant design in Spain and in the United States through the Israeli company Luz Industries, acquired by Solel and then by Siemens.
Doral Renewable Energy Resources Group. Doral, in Ramat Gan, was the first company to connect a solar photovoltaic (PV) system to the national electricity grid, back in 2008. Its several branches operate renewable energy projects (natural gas, biogas, wind, solar) throughout Israel, especially in kibbutzim in the periphery and in rural areas, including what will be the largest (170 megawatts) PV power plant in Israel. Doral recently entered a joint venture agreement with Invenergy, the largest privately held electricity producer in the United States. Doral is planning to introduce advanced means of electricity production, storage and smart-grid solutions to eliminate the need for external electricity suppliers.
Eco Wave Power. The Tel Aviv-based company’s proprietary technology extracts energy from ocean and sea waves and converts it into affordable, zero-emission renewable electric power. EWP has projects in various stages in the United Kingdom, Gibraltar, China, Chile, Israel and Mexico.
ElectRoad. Founded in 2013, ElectRoad of Rosh Ha’ayin develops underground electric coils that recharge EVs wirelessly as they travel. Copper-and-rubber electromagnetic induction strips are installed inside the asphalt and smart inverters are installed on the sides of the road. A coil unit is attached beneath any kind of EV to receive the power over a small air gap for safety. ElectRoad plans pilot projects on a short public bus route in Tel Aviv and in a European city.
Energiya Global. This Jerusalem-based renewable-energy developer will invest $1 billion over the next four years to advance green power projects across 15 West African countries. Energiya Global and its associated companies developed the first commercial-scale solar field in sub-Sahara Africa, in Rwanda, and broke ground on a similar plant in Burundi that will supply 15% of the country’s power. Energiya Global now has fields at various stages of development in 10 African countries.
H2 Energy Now. This company is building a prototype battery-free solution for storing and increasing the usability of alternative energy from intermittent sources – sun and wind – to meet times of peak demand reliably. Radio waves separate water into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombine them in a fuel cell when energy is needed. As last year came to an end, H2 Energy Now was in the finals for several contests and was in talks with worldwide energy corporations. In addition, the company was one of four winners of the AES Corporation’s 2017 Open Innovation Contest, held in Washington, D.C., for designing a ceramic drone enabling unmanned inspection solutions for extreme heat environments in the global power industry.
New CO2 Fuels. Founded in 2011, NCF is raising funds toward a working model of its technology to transform two waste streams – industrial water and carbon dioxide – into a hydrogen-carbon monoxide synthetic gas, which is then turned into liquid fuels, plastics and fertilizer. The conversion process is fueled by concentrated solar energy or byproduct heat from the industries themselves. NCF signed a cooperative agreement with Sinopec Ningbo Engineering to address carbon dioxide pollution in China.
Solaris Synergy. Based in Jerusalem, Solaris Synergy developed a solar-on-water power plant that converts a water surface into a cost-effective and reliable solar-energy platform. Solaris and Pristine Sun of San Francisco received a BIRD grant to collaborate on a utility-scale floating PV solar energy system to be installed in California. In October 2016, Solaris installed a 100kWp Floating PV system on a reservoir in Singapore. Recently, Solaris formed a partnership with Electra Energy to plan large projects in Israel.
StoreDot. Electric vehicles can never be mass marketed unless they have batteries that store a charge longer, weigh less and charge up faster. StoreDot of Herzliya concentrates on fast charging. It is developing a pack for EVs comprised of hundreds of its proprietary EV FlashBattery cells. Together, the cells take only five minutes to charge fully and provide up to 480 kilometres of driving distance. In addition, FlashBattery is environmentally safer than a lithium-ion battery, using organic compounds and a water-based manufacturing process.
Israel21cis a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.
המיליארדר הקנדי היהודי-קנדי בארי שרמן (77) ואשתו האני (75) נרצחו בכוונה תחילה, ב-15 בדצמבר. כך נמסר ע”י משטרת טורונטו ביום שישי לפני כעשרה ימים והדבר הביא לקיצן את השמועות שהזוג אולי התאבד.
במסיבת עיתונאים מתוקשרת מאוד של משטרת טורונטו התקיימה עם עיתונאים רבים נוכחים, ודוברה הייתה סוזאן גומז (ממחלקת הרצח במטשרת טורונטו) שאחרית לחקירה. נמסר על ידה כי לאחר חקירה ממושכת שנמשכה שישה שבועות, הגיעו החוקרים למסקנה שהזוג שרמן נרצח. גופותיהם נמצאו ישובות בסמוך לבריכה במרתף ביתם והם נחנקו באמצעות חגורות.
המשטרה מנסה לפתור עתה את הסוגיה הכפולה החשובה ביותר: מה המניע לרצח של השניים ומי אחראי/אחראים למעשה החמור. במשטרה ציינו כי החקירה מתמקדת ביומיים האחרונים (13-15 בדצמבר) שקדמו למותם של השרמנים. במסגרת זו החוקרים מנסים ליצור רשימה של כל מי שהגיע לביתם של הזוג באותם יומיים. ואז לדבר עם כל אחד מהם (אם טרם נחקרו עד כה).
בחקירה המשטרתית הושקעו עד כה למעלה מאלף שעות, נחקרו והתקיימו ראיונות לקרוב לכ-130 עדים. וכן נבדקו עשרות ממצאים בהם מספר סרטי וידאו ומכשירים סלולרים (במקרים אלו המשטרה נאלצה לבקש את אישור בית המשפט לשים את ידה על החומר). משניסתיימה החקירה הארוכה בביתם היוקרתי של הזוג בארי והאני שרמן (שהוצע למכירה לאחרונה תמורת כשבעה מיליון דולר) הוא הועבר לידי בני המשפחה.
בני משפחת השרמן לא היו מרוצים מחקירת המשטרה כיוון שלא הביאה לתוצאות עד כה, ולאור השמועות שהוריהם התאבדו. לכן הם שכרו חוקרים פרטיים שהגיעו לאותה מסקנה כי הזוג נרצח. לדעת החוקרים הפרטיים יותר מאדם אחד היו מעורבים ברצח.
אחד מחבריו הוותיקים של בארי שרמן אמר בראיון לתקשורת, כי המשטרה לא מצאה סימני פריצה בביתו, כיוון שכל מי שהכירו אותו היטב ידע, כי הוא היה פותח את דלת ביתו מייד וללא חשש לכל מי שהיה נוקש עליה. שרמן לא ראה שום סכנה שמאיימת עליו ועל אשתו.
שרמן הקים את חברת התרופות הגנרית אפוטקס שפועלת מאז שנת 1974. החברה מעסיקה כאחד עשר אלף עובדים ברחבי העולם, וההכנסות השנתיות שלה נאמדות בכמיליארד דולר. שרמן נחשב לאחד האנשים העשירים בקנדה והוא ממוקם במקום השתיים עשרה והמכובד ברשימה. הונו של שרמן נאמד בלמעלה מ-3.7 מיליארד דולר (אמריקני). הזוג עסק בפעילות פילנטרופית רחבה ותרם כספים רבים לגופים יהודים, לבתי חולים ועוד.
אחד מהעיתונאים החוקרים את פרשה מטעם הרשת הטלוויזיה הציבורית הסי.בי.סי. ציין, כי לשרמן היו אויבים רבים בתחום יצרניות התרופות, כיוון שחברתו חתכה מחירים ופגעה קשה בהכנסותיהן. במקביל היו לו סכסוכים רבים עם בני משפחה שונים, ובעבר הוא נתבע על ידי אחייניו בטענה שגרם להם נזק של כמילארד דולר בהתייחס לאפוטקס. הם הפסידו במשפט ואולצו לשלם לו כשלוש מאות אלף דולר.
ללא קשר לפרשת הרצח, גם כן באותו יום שישי (של ה-26 בינואר) הודיע נשיא ומנכ”ל אפוקטס ג’רמי דסאי, על התפטרותו. זאת לאור התביעה שהוגשה נגדו ונגד החברה, בגין קבלת סודיות מסחריים של חברת טבע גנריקה (בעלות חברת טבע הישראלית). בתביעה נאמר כי סמנכ”ל רגולציה לשעבר של טבע גנריקה ברינדר סנדהו, ניהלה קשר רומנטי ולאחר מכן הפכה לבית זוגתו של דאסי. במסגרת היחסים ביניהם היא העבירה לו את המידע המסחרי החסוי של טבע גנריקה.
Ezralow Dance’s Open comprises many themes. (photo by Angelo Redaelli)
Los Angeles-based Ezralow Dance kicks off this year’s Chutzpah! Festival at the Rothstein Theatre Feb. 15 with, appropriately enough, a work called Open, for its embodiment of myriad ideas and ways in which to express them.
Chutzpah! also features a range of creative expression every year, with performers from around the world in dance, comedy and theatre. As has become tradition, the Jewish Independent will highlight several of the performances prior to the month-long festival. This week, we focus on dance, speaking with Daniel Ezralow, as well as Israel’s Roy Assaf.
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“Open is a testament to what I believe,” Daniel Ezralow told the Independent in an email interview. “When my wife (who collaborated with me) and I were thinking of a title for the show, we played around with a lot of options, but when we came up with the one word Open, it expressed everything that I wanted to say. Be open, open yourself, open to others, open your eyes, open your mind, open your heart and stay open to the world in many senses.
“It was a way of saying, leave your judgments at the door and try, just try, to be open-minded. I find that we are so full of judgment, many times we fail to see the beauty of what is so simple and directly in front of us. I am constantly attempting to open my mind and receive what comes to me. There is a wonderful concept, ‘to want what you get, not get what you want.’ I think Open has something to do with this.”
In his work, Ezralow is certainly open to new ideas and a wide variety of media. In his 40-some years in dance, he has performed with several companies, co-founded others and choreographed for numerous groups around the world, including Batsheva Dance Company, Paris Opera Ballet, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Atlanta Ballet. He choreographed the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics and Cirque du Soleil’s Love. He has created for dance festivals, Broadway shows, gymnastics competitions, television, film, commercials and other corporate projects, awards programs, pop star performances and music videos. The award-winning choreographer, director and multimedia artist has a vast and eclectic resumé, to say the least.
“I remember as a child always asking my father ‘why?’ I asked him why about just about everything. There is no question I am naturally curious,” said Ezralow. “I was once working with Chaim Topol on a project in New York City and we were in a taxi together. I asked him why – why does he work, why does he do the things he does? I’ll never forget the response he gave me. He said, ‘Curiosity.’ At that point, I understood that was the same thing that made me do the things I do. My mother always encouraged me to ask questions and to do what I believed in. I do lose myself in creations, but usually it is not an escape. In my best moments, I also try to live life like a creation and lose myself in it.”
In looking at his body of work, it’s hard to believe that Ezralow didn’t take a formal dance lesson until he was in his late teens, when he was a biology student at University of California, Berkeley.
“Dancing chose me so strong, I had little choice to shy away from it,” he said of his change in career direction.
“At the time, I was deeply disappointed with the American medical system. I felt it had nothing to do with helping people and was mostly about a hierarchy to achieve a status of life. The system was very closed to acupuncture, Eastern ideas and anything alternative. At the time, this made me feel that it was really askew and not for healing and helping people but rather for diagnosing, medicating with pills and cutting in surgery.
“Hopefully, this has changed and we are now entering a period of truer possibilities,” he said. “I just saw a wonderful documentary titled Heal, which delves into the human possibilities to heal ourselves. This is the kind of medicine I would like to get involved with. I also feel that the work I do is healing – dance is healing!”
About his goal as an artist, he said, “As I have grown, I have shed some of my desire to be a performer/exhibitionist and have been humbled with age, which has allowed me to dig deeper to understand that all I ever really wanted was to make people happy. Happy can mean crying, happy can mean laughing, happy can mean many things to me. I really just want to help people to be inspired to live another day of their lives on this planet.”
Ezralow’s father’s family came to Los Angeles via Winnipeg, of all places.
“My grandfather ran from the Russian revolution to Canada and settled in Winnipeg, where my father was born, who was one of a family of five. My grandfather was a carpenter,” he explained. The family moved to Los Angeles, he said, “probably because my grandfather saw there was opportunity. They settled in Boyle Heights, the poor Jewish area of L.A., and he began building houses. One by one, he would build a house, sell the one they lived in and move to the new house. I took a tour of Boyle Heights with my father before he passed away and he pointed out all of the homes my grandfather built and the family had lived in.”
According to the Jewish Journal, Ezralow’s parents met in Los Angeles; his mother was born in Poland, but the family emigrated when she was quite young.
“My mother grew up a Sabra in Palestine, before the declaration of the state of Israel,” he said. “All of my family on her side are still in Israel and I would travel every other summer with my family to Israel, so I am connected by heritage to a people I know intimately from my entire childhood. This has given me a sense of Jewishness as natural and surrounding me.
“In Los Angeles, as well,” he continued, “there is a very strong and permeated Jewish community, which I grew up in and was a bar mitzvah. But, after that, I felt that there was too much dogma in religion. I have worked many times with Batsheva in Israel and still have a deep connection to everyone. I am sometimes sad to see what is happening with the conflict there. But I feel a strong sense of Jewish humanity in my soul. It is something that is universal and not selective to one religion.”
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Roy Assaf Dance’s Six Years Later. (photo by Costin Radu)
Roy Assaf is both creator of and a performer in the two award-winning pieces he is bringing to the Chutzpah! Festival, starting Feb. 22.
“I dance in both works, the duet Six Years Later and the trio The Hill,” he said in an email. “Back in 2011 and 2012, when these works were created, it felt perfectly natural for me to choreograph and to dance the work at the same time. Nowadays when I create, it is not at all the obvious choice.”
Assaf was born in Israel, and dance has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. About 15 years ago, he started working with Emanuel Gat, initially as a dancer, then as an assistant choreographer. Assaf’s first choreographed work, in 2005, won two awards at the Shades in Dance competition in Tel Aviv. In 2010, he worked with the Noord Nederlandse Dans company in Groningen, Holland, creating for them a work called Rock.
“I was invited by their artistic director, Stephen Shropshire,” said Assaf about that commission. “The amount of trust that Stephen gave me while working with his company strengthened my belief in myself that I could and should keep making pieces.”
Since then, Assaf has created or co-created works for many other companies, including two full-length pieces supported by the Intima Dance Festival, a work for L.A. Dance Project for the Biennale de Lyon, a collaborative piece for the Royal Swedish Ballet, and a piece for the Gothenburg Ballet. This past fall, he began creating 25 People, working with third-year Juilliard students in New York City, where he was on faculty for a semester, which he is resetting with dancers in Israel.
For Assaf, dance is not simply art for art’s sake.
“I would like to give people room to imagine,” he said. “It’s certainly not about distracting people – I really hope we are in the business of encouraging or facilitating engagement in one’s own life. What a pity it would be if dance principally served to distract or disconnect someone from his or her experience. Please do come to a performance and be fully yourself there – see what you see, recognize what you recognize, run with your fantasies, meet your uncomfortable places.”
The duet Six Years Later explores the relationship between two people who have come together after having been separated for a long time, while The Hill is a commentary on war, based on the Hebrew song “Givat Hatachmoshet,” about a particularly devastating battle that took place during the Six Day War in 1967, a battle that Israel won but with great losses.
Despite the different subject matter, Assaf has described both pieces as having a lot in common.
“They share a spine, in terms of physical material,” he explained. “If you look closely, you may discover that they are both dealing with much of the same movement – but that the same movement has undergone a very different treatment in each work. You might say they share a point of origin, but parted ways in their process. Each work followed a path to its logical conclusion. Both, however, deal with the story of human touch: its effect, its consequence.”
For all of the Chutzpah! dance offerings and the full festival schedule, visit chutzpahfestival.com.
Holocaust survivor David Ehrlich speaks on Jan. 25. (photo by Pat Johnson)
David Ehrlich grew up in a small city in Hungary, sleeping in the kitchen of the family’s three-room house – “not three bedrooms, God forbid, three rooms” – and it was through the kitchen curtains early one morning that he saw three bayonets before he heard a knock at the door.
“I opened the door, they came into the kitchen and they said to me in German – there were two Hungarian gendarmes and one German soldier or officer or whoever he was – ‘I want you to bring in the family into the kitchen.’”
Young David gathered his parents, sister, three brothers and grandmother and they assembled in the kitchen, where they were told to be on the street in 30 minutes to prepare for deportation to a work camp.
Ehrlich shared his story Jan. 25 at a commemoration marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day (which was Jan. 27). The afternoon event, which took place at the University of British Columbia, was presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Hillel BC, the department of Central, Eastern and Northern European studies at UBC (CENES) and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, with support from the Akselrod family in memory of Ben Akselrod.
After two weeks in a makeshift ghetto on a local farm, the 7,000 Jews were forced onto trains, said Ehrlich. Seventy people were pushed into each car.
“These were not cattle cars,” he clarified. “I wish they had been cattle cars because [cattle cars] are ventilated.” There was one little hole at the top of the car, covered with barbed wire, and a child would occasionally be lifted up to look out to see if the signs outside were in Hungarian, German or Polish.
“But, soon enough, the train stopped,” he said. “They opened up the door … and there were some signs and some smells and some visions that I’ll never forget as long as I live. The place had electric lights … barbed wire all over in all directions.
“Little people – I thought they were little, but they were prisoners – came up to the train and said leave everything there, stand in line, five abreast. And we did that and walked over to this man with a stick in his hand and he was doing the selection. Who is going to live, who is going to die.… They played God. About 10 minutes or so later, we were separated from our family.”
While he was receiving his uniform, Ehrlich got his first lesson in what this place – Auschwitz – was all about.
“Did you say goodbye to your family?” the man asked Ehrlich.
“I said, why should I? I’m going to see them probably this afternoon. He said, while you were taking a shower, your family was gassed and, while we talk here, their bodies are probably being burned in the crematorium.”
Ehrlich’s brothers were almost immediately sent on to Melk, a sub-camp of Mauthausen, in Austria.
Because Hungarian Jews were among the last to be deported to the camps, the Soviet army was already advancing from the east by the time Ehrlich arrived at Auschwitz and the prisoners were sent on a death march westward. He, too, ended up in Melk and found someone from his hometown who knew the fate of his brothers. They had been sent to the hospital a few days earlier. Ehrlich knew that the hospital was a farce and that being sent there meant certain death.
“That was probably my lowest point in the whole deal because I always felt that I’d meet up with my brothers someplace,” he said. “I did, only a week too late.”
As the Russians kept on moving westward, the Nazis marched Ehrlich and the others further, this time to Ebensee, Austria.
“One day – it was a nice sunny day – we went outside and the loudspeaker came on and the president of the camp said, I’ve got good news for you. I have received orders from the Reich that we are to take you into the mine and blow it up with you in it. But I’m not going to do that – that’s the good news. For the first time since I’m in the services of the Third Reich, I’m going to disobey this order.”
He told the prisoners that they were free. The next day, they heard tanks on the cobblestone streets.
“And a guy that was probably 20 years old – like a kid, he looked like me – got out of the manhole and said to us in Yiddish, ‘Ich bin ein Amerikaner Jude,’ ‘I am an American Jew.’”
After liquids, then vitamins, eventually solids, Ehrlich regained some of his health. After two months, he still weighed less than 100 pounds, but he was ready to go home.
“But going home for Holocaust survivors, whether it was to France or to Germany or to Poland, it was the same thing,” said Ehrlich. “Canadian soldiers, American soldiers came back from the war, they came back to their community, to their parents and to their country. We went back and there was nobody there. My sister [who had been liberated in Lithuania] was there but we lost everybody else.”
Ehrlich wasn’t going to stay behind the Iron Curtain. He and a friend wanted to see Paris, planning eventually to head for pre-state Israel.
“But, while we were waiting in Paris, there were rumours that Canada was looking for orphans to go to Canada,” he said. “I went to work as soon as I came to Canada. I was going on 19. I went to work and I’ve been paying taxes ever since.”
The story has a good ending, Ehrlich told his audience.
“I married a wonderful girl – she’s right here, the little grey-haired girl – 65 years ago and we’re still together and we brought up three wonderful sons.”
Rabbi Philip Bregman told the survivors: “We are tremendously aware of how precious you people are who lit these candles and came in today as personal witness.”
The commemoration also featured Prof. Uma Kumar, of CENES, who said the Holocaust is a contemporary issue because antisemitism is a contemporary issue. “For this reason,” she said, “it is everyone’s duty to reflect on what happened.”
Israel’s Ministry of the Diaspora recently announced what it calls the most advanced system of its kind in the world to track antisemitic content on social media.
The Anti-Semitism Cyber Monitoring System, or ACMS, can find relevant posts that are antisemitic (using the definition devised by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) on Facebook and Twitter in English, French, German, Arabic. It can see who posted and shared the comments. Other languages and social media platforms are expected to be added to the system as it progresses.
In a month-long trial run, the system identified 409,000 antisemitic posts by 30,000 individuals. Whether the system can or cannot catch every instance of antisemitism online is less significant than the fact that it is a tool to identify trends. In the trial, the system identified the world’s “most antisemitic cities” as Santiago, Chile; Dnipro, Ukraine; and Bucharest, Romania. Western cities that topped the online antisemitism list were Paris and London.
This is relevant research. It would be useful to know where Vancouver or Canada falls in such a ranking. That kind of information could help our community work with governments and other agencies to address the topic and devote resources to education and countering hatred.
But information is power. And power can corrupt. There is a difference between accumulating information that is (or can be) anonymized to allow for research into the topic. It is also fair to use such a system to identify individuals who should be reported to authorities for investigation for potential contravention of hate laws or for exhibiting potential for violence. But the words from Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry Naftali Bennett were not reassuring. According to the Times of Israel, Bennett said the system would expose online antisemites “for all to see.”
“The time has come to put a mirror in front of our haters and expose the ugly face of modern antisemitism,” Bennett went on. “From now on, we’ll know who every antisemitic inciter is.”
Anyone who has spent time online and confronted the sorts of nastiness that exists there might find a sort of satisfaction at the idea that some of the people who are purveying the worst Jew-hatred will no longer get off scot-free. But let’s take a step back.
It is one thing for an intelligence agency – or a responsible nongovernmental organization such as the Southern Poverty Law Centre – to accumulate information like this for the purposes of research, monitoring dangers and notifying appropriate authorities. It would be quite another if, as Bennett seems to suggest, a government (or other agency) were to make public an online database of people who express offensive or racist comments online.
There is a website called Canary Mission, which, according to its self-definition, “documents people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.”
The site is a compendium of individuals who have made comments online or been seen at events of various types and includes links to their LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages.
Some of the comments Canary Mission has assembled are indeed disturbing. “I swear if [a] Jew gets within 5 feet from me at the protest and says a word, straight murder,” one person wrote. “Ima kill a jew in a month,” wrote another.
There is also no doubt that, among these people, most of whom are university students, are some who have been drawn into anti-Israel movements and have made, as many of us do, occasional untoward comments on social media. It may be fine to call these comments out, but it is not acceptable to assemble in one place a group of people who vary widely – from those who should be reported to authorities for posing a danger to society to some who are probably legitimately attempting to make a peaceful political statement, however misguided we may think that message is.
This approach encourages vigilantism. It is the sort of tactic that has been used in the past by anti-abortion terrorists who have murdered or attempted to murder healthcare providers, including one right here in Vancouver who was shot through a window in his home.
Consider – and there is absolutely no reason to view this as far-fetched – that a website was set up to aggregate information about you, your parents, your children and anyone else you know who has traveled to Israel, donated to Zionist causes or attended pro-Israel events. There are a lot of irrational people in the world and a project like this could help them act out in potentially catastrophic ways.
Again, there is value and importance in accumulating this information. It should be shared with relevant authorities, including the universities, police, FBI, CSIS and so forth. But we should not be encouraging the public dissemination of this material. It is an extremely hazardous game.
