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Tag: Maiya Letourneau

Burying sacred books

Burying sacred books

On March 9, community members gathered to bury sacred Jewish texts at Beth Israel Cemetery. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

According to Jewish law, no sacred texts and objects are allowed to be thrown out. This includes anything with God’s name printed on it. These texts and objects must be buried in a respectful way,” explained Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel in an email to the Jewish Independent about the March 9 Genizah Project ceremony at the synagogue’s cemetery. “Since a burial spot is not always convenient, people store their sacred material in a special place called a genizah until they can be buried.”

A few months ago, Infeld received a phone call from Eugene Barsky, a librarian at the University of British Columbia. Barsky was looking for a place to bury a considerable number of sacred books that were beyond repair. Infeld “immediately said yes.”

“But I wanted to do much more than just bury the materials,” the rabbi said. “I asked if he would be interested in a community-wide program, and Eugene also agreed. After that, we sought other interested parties including UBC Jewish studies, Hillel BC, King David High School, Peretz Centre and the Waldman Library.”

Representatives of these organizations were present on March 9, including students from KDHS and UBC. Infeld spoke about how sacred objects and texts not only give Jews a connection to our spiritual existence, but a social connection as well.

“And, no matter what differences we may have as a people, we are brought together within a rubric of study, of prayer, all connected to the written word,” he said. “For us, as a Jewish people, the book is sacred. For us, as a Jewish people, study is a sacred task, a sacred opportunity. And so, it only makes sense that, when we have studied, have brought a book to its conclusion, that’s literally falling apart, we don’t just throw it away, but the book, or the sacred object, has become our friend and become part of us. And so, according to Jewish tradition, we bury it.”

Barsky highlighted one of the many books being buried: a Pentateuch (the Five Books of Moses) published in Furth, Germany, in 1805. “I wish we could preserve these books, but some of them are molding,” he said. “We have a preservation lab at UBC but they reviewed them and some of them just could not be preserved.”

Barsky asked two members of the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir – Stephen Aberle and Aurel Matte – to sing a couple of songs. The pair led “Hinei Ma Tov,” about how pleasant it is when sisters, brothers, all of us, gather together; and “Al Sh’loshah Devarim,” about the three things on which the world stands (Torah, divine service, acts of love) and by which the world endures (truth, justice, peace).

For UBC student Ellie Sherman, the burial ceremony was particularly meaningful, “as someone who spends every day reading more and more information, paying close attention to authors and narrators, and focusing on crafting assignments with correct references, to give credit where credit is due.”

She said, “The need for the genizah recognizes that the significance of words is beyond two-dimensional figures on a page, that the lessons we learn and the knowledge we gain from our books can be infinite, just as the meaning behind the words.”

Gregg Gardner, associate professor and Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at UBC, shared how the name genizah came about. “The ancient rabbis of the first centuries tell a story about a king,” he said. “The king’s name is Munbaz. This king travels to Jerusalem, where there is drought and a famine. To provide relief, Munbaz gives away his fortune to the needy. Munbaz bizbez, Munbaz spends. His brothers confront him and demand an explanation as to why he’s giving away the family fortune…. Munbaz says that he does not bizbez the fortune … but rather he ganaz the fortune, he stores it, he saves it…. Munbaz explains that, by giving your money to charity here on earth, you do not waste your money … you save it in the world to come, in the afterlife.

“The word genizah literally means ‘storing’ and, in doing so, it can denote hiding from view,” he said. “Ancient Jewish traditions going back to the first centuries, the Second Temple period, talk about hiding many things, even the holy vessels from the Jerusalem Temple, and there are traditions in which the word ganaz is associated with storing valuables.”

Gardner said, “We are here at a cemetery, essentially taking these books out of use, laying them to rest, and yet, at the same time, going back thousands of years, the genizah has been a story not only about death, but about Jewish life.”

Richard Menkis, associate professor of medieval and modern Jewish history at UBC, picked up on this last aspect. During the planning for the burial, he said, there was a feeling towards solemnity, even mourning. But, he said, “there was a whole other sensibility that we could be bringing to it.”

He spoke of the Jews of Algeria, who would place items wherever they could around the synagogue and “several weeks later, they would carry them, the books, the other objects, in sacks. They’d escort them to the cemetery and bury them and, on that day, there would be a feast and special hymns for the occasion. There were similar customs in the community in Morocco of Meknes.

“The Sephardic Jews of Jerusalem had a custom of placing sacred objects and texts in the walls of the synagogue and, every three to seven years, would … joyously take them from the synagogues to a special section in one of the cemeteries in Jerusalem.”

The joy would come, said Menkis, from knowing that “the respect and honour that they were giving to these items would bring down upon them a variety of divine segulot, a variety of blessings. For some, it might be, we can call down rain. For others, it might be to prevent a plague.”

Menkis said, “I embrace the Genizah Project as the moral opposite of a horrible feature of modern life – the book burning. While the book burning denigrates ideas and discussion, the genizah shows reverence for ideals and aspirations.”

Those gathered were reminded of this reverence by Rabbi Kylynn Cohen, senior Jewish educator of Hillel at UBC, who led the service by the gravesite. As in the burial of a human body, she said, it is up to us to do the carrying when a person – or, in this case, the books – cannot go forth themselves.

Everyone helped transport the books from the chapel to the gravesite. Maiya Letourneau, head librarian of the Waldman Library, held up a book with gold embossing, another with lace embroidery. She said, “When we’re thinking about the memories that books create and the importance that they have in our lives, as a librarian, it can be really, really hard to take a book out of the collection, but it’s part of maintaining a healthy library, it’s part of making sure the library is useful for years to come, and it’s just an important part of what we do.”

After those gathered recited the Kaddish d’Rabbanan, the prayer that is said whenever a minyan of Jews finishes studying, Rabbi Stephen Berger, head of Judaic studies at KDHS, spoke about the class he brought to the ceremony, which has been studying Malachi, the Book of Kings. “It’s not just that we study to know,” he said. “The studying itself, opening the book and learning the book is a religious act in Judaism. And that’s why we treat it so carefully and so succinctly and sanctify it…. All these acts [serve to remind us] this is who we are, and we should live up to the title of the People of the Book.”

BI Rabbi Adam Stein concluded the ceremony with Eitz Chayim Hi, which most congregations sing when putting the Torah scrolls back in the ark at the end of a Torah service. It describes the Torah as a tree of life.

Format ImagePosted on March 24, 2023March 22, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags Adam Stein, Aurel Matte, Beth Israel, books, Ellie Sherman, Eugene Barsky, genizah, Gregg Gardner, Hillel, JCC, Jonathan Infeld, Judaism, KDHS, Kylynn Cohen, Maiya Letourneau, Richard Menkis, Stephen Aberle, Stephen Berger, UBC, Waldman Library
Settling in at Waldman Library

Settling in at Waldman Library

Maiya Letourneau has been head librarian of the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library since last November. (photo from Maiya Letourneau)

Maiya Letourneau, head librarian of the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library in the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, has always wanted to work with books. “I grew up in Winnipeg,” she said. “My mom worked in a bookstore, and I always liked books.”

Letourneau received a bachelor’s degree in education before completing the two-year library program at the University of British Columbia last summer. Since November 2021, she has been head librarian at the Waldman.

“When I learned about the job at the JCC library, I was excited,” she told the Independent. “I often went to the JCC in Winnipeg as a child, and to work at the JCC in Vancouver felt like a great opportunity to reconnect. And to work with books was all I wanted.”

Before she started this job, Letourneau worked as a student librarian at UBC and as a teacher-librarian at the Vancouver School Board. “A teacher-librarian is a great job,” she said. “You teach the children how to use a library, both its paper and its digital resources. I worked with the elementary school children. We had story times often, and I taught them how to ask questions about the stories we read.”

Letourneau considers reading one of the highest needs and pleasures of any human being. “Not every school has a library,” she said, “but I think all schools should have one. It helps with students’ literacy rates. Reading helps kids down the road in their lives.”

Books have certainly defined her life. She reads a wide variety of genres and on a broad array of topics. She talks about books with shining eyes, like a person with a sweet tooth enjoying a selection of treats in a cake shop. “I’m reading a lot of the books from the Waldman Library. It is an amazing collection. I might not have a deep knowledge of Jewish literature yet, but I have a deep appreciation of it. It’s been great fun for me to read our books, to learn our collection.”

Her latest read was Gary Shteyngart’s Our Country Friends. “It was a bit humourous and very relatable,” she said. “The story was about COVID and the isolation we all experienced recently because of the pandemic. A wonderful novel.”

Passionate about her job, she not only wants to offer patrons the best books and movies but also to find great new material for the collection. “I often go to GoodReads to get a feel of what people are reading, but my main resource is the Jewish Book Council,” she said. “I regularly log into their website. Another resource is when people come in and ask about a book they want to read. Listening to our readers is paramount.”

Letourneau gives a lot of thought to improving everyone’s reading-related experience. “One of our programs involves authors visiting the library. Another is a monthly Jewish Book Club, led by the former head librarian, Helen Pinsky. We also have a grant for an iPad learning program – people could borrow an iPad from the library for several months, and our volunteers would teach them how to use those iPads to access the Waldman’s digital resources. We have over 600 digital books in our collection, and not all of them are duplicated in the paper format.”

Letourneau’s concern over library accessibility is profound. “During the pandemic, we were closed for several months,” she said. “Now, we are open, and more people are feeling comfortable coming to the library in-person again, but I want to do more, to bring books to the people, like bookmobiles. COVID taught us to look for ways to bring the books outside the library.”

One of the new ways to connect readers to books will be a cart the library ordered recently. “We are on the second floor of the JCC,” explained Letourneau. “Nobody is passing the library on the way to their meetings or the gym or the swimming pool. The library is not often a destination by itself, but our research suggests that people would be glad if the books came to them. We are going to have the library mobile book cart roaming around the JCC, in the atrium on the first floor or near the café. I’m sure it will increase our book circulation.”

She also initiated a major change at the Waldman: it is now free to access books, and not only for JCC members but for the general public as well.

“We have something they don’t,” she said, referring to most other libraries. “We offer Jewish authors and Jewish content the city public library might not have. It is especially important for newcomers to Canada. We have many Hebrew books and, when people just arrive from Israel, they want to read the language they know. Their children want the familiar language, as well, before they learn English. That’s why our Hebrew collection is so important.”

Letourneau is not alone in her dedicated work. She has the library’s volunteers to help her.

“The volunteers are the backbone of this library,” she stressed. “The credit goes to the previous librarians. They built such a great group of volunteers. Some of them, about 70%, are over 55, seniors who want to help for various reasons.

“Others are young students who want to learn how a library works. The Waldman is the best place for them. We are a small library and, here, they can learn every aspect and every task in a library, not just one activity, like shelving or front desk, which they might learn from a larger library.”

While many older and longtime users consider the library an access point to information, a quiet refuge and a serious place, she wants to add some new features to attract younger readers.

“I’d like to add a sense of playfulness for the kids,” she said. “Maybe some games, like Dungeons & Dragons. I’m thinking of ways to make the genre of fiction more visible on the shelves, too. There are some wonderful genres of books – fantasy and science fiction – by Jewish authors. Teenagers like those books.”

In general, Letourneau regards it as her duty to promote reading as much as possible and is willing to consider many possibilities of what a library can offer and be. “Whatever gets people reading,” she said with a smile.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on June 3, 2022June 1, 2022Author Olga LivshinCategories LocalTags books, games, JCC, Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, libraries, Maiya Letourneau, teens, Waldman Library
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