Jem Rolls’ The Kid Was a Spy is part of this year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival, which runs Sept 5-15. Other Jewish community members with shows include Rita Sheena, with Everybody Knows: Leonard Cohen Dance Theatre, and Theatre Terrific artistic director Laen Hershler and Susan Bertoia co-direct Proximity: The Space Between Us, which was co-created by an all-abilities cast. For the full festival lineup and tickets, visit vancouverfringe.com.
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Queer Jews are feeling isolated
Aviva Rathbone, chair of JQT Vancouver, finds hope in the fact that “[t]here are lots of people in the community coming together right now and finding connections to heal what they can in what is a very broken world and what is a very broken situation.” (photo from JQT)
Probably all Jews have experienced emotional and mental impacts from the events of Oct. 7 and since. For LGBTQ+ Jews, these effects are often magnified by the climates in their multiple communities.
JQT Vancouver (pronounced J-Cutie), a volunteer-run Jewish queer and trans nonprofit group whose mission is “‘queering’ Jewish spaces and ‘Jew-ifying’ queer spaces,” has released the results of a survey that indicates LGBTQ+ Jews are experiencing profound pain – regardless of where they stand on an apparently vastly diverse spectrum of opinions about the conflict in the Middle East.
Titled 2024 JQT Temperature Check Report, the document collates responses from 91 individuals, including narratives of their experiences, and the overview it paints is bleak.
“There are a lot of really sad commentaries,” Aviva Rathbone, chair of JQT, told the Independent. “A lot of the folks who responded to the survey are people who are really struggling right now.”
She cautioned that the survey may not include the perspectives of others who may be having more positive experiences.
“Some people are feeling really accepted into community right now, they are feeling like they found a place,” said Rathbone. “We didn’t hear from those folks, but that’s not to say that they don’t exist.”
The results are not surprising, she said.
“We knew people were struggling,” she said. “It was a surprise, I think, the depth of anger and sadness that was there.”
Fewer than half of survey respondents indicated that they felt safe and accepted in Jewish spaces and only about a quarter said they felt safe and accepted in queer spaces. Fewer still, 14%, said they felt comfortable in both.
Since Oct. 7, approximately half of respondents indicated that actions and/or statements of queer (57%) and Jewish organizations (51%) have had a negative impact on their mental health.
A majority (57%) of respondents indicated that their safety and security felt threatened since Oct. 7 because of their Jewish identity. More than two-thirds of respondents (68%) said they experienced antisemitism online or in-person since Oct. 7.
Much of the discomfort centres on divergent attitudes toward Israel and the war against Hamas, as well as opinions around the definitions of antisemitism and what some respondents describe as exclusivist attitudes in the Jewish community, often described as overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and in the LGBTQ+ community, described by many as unwelcoming to pro-Israel Jews.
One respondent said the Jewish community should “acknowledge that anti-Zionist Jews are still Jews and should be welcome in Jewish spaces” and that “queer Zionist Jews are still queer and should be welcome in queer spaces.”
JQT serves members who self-identify as Zionist and those who self-identify as anti-Zionist.
“When the mainstream Jewish community dismisses Jews who criticize Israeli actions, it makes me feel alienated from that community, more than before,” wrote one respondent.
Two among scores of examples illustrate the chasm between the narratives shared in the report. One respondent accuses “queers for Palestine” of trying “to turn Zionism into a dirty word” and making them feel “unwelcome as a Jewish Israeli in queer spaces when not hiding myself.” Another writer says, “It makes me unsafe when Jewish organizations […] make wildly racist statements about Palestine. Conflating Judaism with Israel makes it seem like I am complicit in this genocide.”
Said another respondent: “None of the synagogues or even [Jewish queer groups] have made any statements that humanize the struggle of non-Zionist Jews and how we’ve been systematically shut out of spiritual, social and cultural Jewish spaces for far too long. In fact, the current climate within these spaces promotes a pro-war and anti-Palestinian rhetoric that pushes me and my friends away from feeling security and belonging in our identities.”
The divergence in attitudes is typified by another survey response.
“People wearing an End the Occupation T-shirt or other such slogans signal to me that the wearers believe Hamas to be righteous rather than terrorist, that all lives are not equal, makes me uncomfortable, as does the aggressivity of protesters, including [queer groups that support] Palestine. Standing in solidarity with Israel and its absolute right to defend itself, while not recognizing the numbers of non-Hamas Palestinians killed and the living conditions in Gaza during the war is also not comfortable for me,” wrote a respondent.
If there is a clear takeaway from the study, Rathbone said, it can be summed up in one word.
“Empathy,” she said. “We have the ability to hold space for our own pain and anger and for other people’s pain and anger. I fully believe that humans are expansive and the Jewish community for sure is expansive and we have done this many times. We have been able to hold space for ourselves and for other people who are suffering, even when we don’t agree with them.”
Disagreements over politics, no matter how intensely and personally held, should not erase the empathy Jewish people have for one another, she said.
It is possible to have conversations across that divide, as JQT did recently in a “listen and be heard” event, facilitated by two professionals.
That event was part of a major mental health initiative in collaboration with Jewish Family Services, with funding from the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver, that was in the works even before Oct. 7. Among numerous projects rolled out in recent months addressing the challenges facing LGBTQ+ Jews is a 10-page resource issued last week, titled JQT Affirming Care: A Toolkit for Mental Health Providers. It was developed by care providers Hannah Zalmanowitz and Anat Kerelstein.
Carmel Tanaka, executive director of JQT, said the toolkit, which Jewish trans or queer people can give to healthcare providers, as well as friends or anyone else who might benefit from a deeper understanding of their experiences, is a direct response to expressed needs in the community.
“We kept hearing that one of the barriers to receiving mental health support was linked directly to the lack of provider knowledge, training and competence around working with Jewish queer and trans people,” Tanaka said. “So, we created this educational toolkit aimed at reducing the burden on JQTs of having to educate their mental health providers on their lived experiences and mental health needs.”
Along with the Temperature Check report, Tanaka said, the toolkit provides tangible evidence of both the challenges and steps to improving the isolation and difficulties faced by affected individuals.
“I just really hope that leaders in the Jewish community, as well as leaders in the queer community, do take a moment to seriously read this so that they can better understand why we are doing this and why there is a need to support our community,” Tanaka said, adding that JQT continues to remain open to those who are on a spectrum of opinion on Israel and Palestine. “It really hurts to not be included in Pride events or in queer spaces, to not feel included in Jewish spaces. It’s an impossible situation to feel like you don’t belong.”
Even amid a plethora of discouraging responses, Rathbone said there is reason for hope.
“I don’t want folks to read it and to become really depressed and hopeless, because there are lots of ways to find hope,” she said. “There are lots of people in the community coming together right now and finding connections to heal what they can in what is a very broken world and what is a very broken situation. That also gives me hope, to watch people recognize that they can come together in community and do their part to heal something.”
Enjoy Bach with a twist
Alon Sariel is Early Music Vancouver’s artist in residence for this summer’s festival. (photo by Suzette Vorster-Van Acker)
‘We are thrilled to offer audiences an adventurous program of some of Bach’s seminal works, but with a twist,” said Early Music Vancouver artistic and executive director Suzie LeBlanc in a press release announcing this summer’s early music festival. “From traditional compositions reworked for unique instruments, such as mandolin and oud, to the introduction of vocal improvisation, inspired by Bach’s own customary practice of instrumental extemporization, Bach Untamed welcomes listeners to seek out new perspectives of Bach’s well-known and beloved classics.”
This year’s festival – which runs July 30-Aug. 8 at various venues – features almost 50 emerging and established early music artists from around the world, including mandolinist and multi-instrumentalist Alon Sariel, who is EMV’s 2024 Summer Festival Artist in Residence.
In addition to headlining two concerts – Alon Sariel: Plucked Bach at Congregation Beth Israel on July 31, in which he will premiere his own Bach-inspired Mandolin Partita, and EMV’s festival finale at the Vancouver Playhouse, which features the Canadian premiere of Amit Weiner’s 2019 reconstruction of Bach’s Italian Concerto – Sariel will perform in several other festival concerts, as well as teach a workshop on Bach for plucked instruments.
Sariel, who was born and raised in Beersheba, Israel, met LeBlanc at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, in the Netherlands, last fall.
“I was playing there with friends from Profeti della Quinta, an Israeli vocal ensemble based in Switzerland, who was already a guest of EMV in the past,” Sariel told the Independent. “Suzie and I had a chat and it turned out I had some very different programs to offer and that a residency could be a lovely idea to feature a few of those.”
Sariel’s first visit to Vancouver was more than 30 years ago, as a kid, with his family. He’s excited to return. He arrived July 24 and will be staying until Aug. 9 – “the final concert, Bach & the Mandolin, with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, is on Aug. 8,” he said.
“The program looks really splendid (a huge shout out to Suzie!) and I’m very glad and proud to wear the artist-in-residence hat this summer – can’t wait really!” said Sariel.
LeBlanc started the artist-in-residence program in 2021 “to create more exchanges between EMV’s guests and the local community.”
“EMV has under its wing a local baroque orchestra – the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, led by Alexander Weimann – and a Baroque Mentorship Orchestra Program (BOMP) at UBC for students and community players,” she explained. “In addition to his own concerts in the summer festival, Alon will collaborate with these ensembles, working with professionals, students and community players, going beyond concert performances and delivering a collaborative and educational experience.
“He will also lead a three-day course called ‘Unconventional Bach,’ which focuses on playing and arranging Bach’s works for different instruments,” she said, noting, “Alon is also a composer and his guiding principle is ‘giving new life to existing material, as well as creating completely new works.’ We’re excited to have an artist in residence who shares this philosophy with EMV and will be so present beyond the concert stage.”
LeBlanc described Sariel’s Bach solos on mandolin as “captivating and very personal.”
“He fully deserves his notoriety as one of the most versatile and gifted mandolin players, lutenists and ensemble directors of today,” she said.
A soloist, chamber player and artistic director, Sariel has performed more than 1,000 concerts in more than 35 countries, according to his bio. In his Plucked Bach recordings (Pentatone), he interprets Bach’s solo music and creates new arrangements for mandolin and lute, the baroque guitar and the oud. His album Telemandolin (Berlin Classics) was awarded an OPUS KLASSIK, making Sariel the first mandolinist to earn the honour. But the path to professional success hasn’t been easy and, said Sariel, “there are still many obstacles in the way of a mandolin player.”
“For any violinist, pianist, conductor, etc., there are many competitions which could serve as a jump step to a musical career – the mandolin has none,” he explained. “I attended several competitions which were open to all instruments and won them all and, even then, I kept getting lines like, ‘Thank you very much for getting in touch, we’ll contact you shall we be interested in the future.’ Booking agencies, record labels and concert halls can still be very suspicious when it comes to the mandolin, that’s why I feel a great responsibility in every concert that I play. It’s not only about me getting re-invited, but it’s about convincing this or that director and, of course, the audience, to give a chance to something new. The theatres could always go for another Rachmaninoff piano concerto or another Beethoven symphony, they don’t have to ‘take a risk’ with a mandolin player, that’s why I really have to stand out in my artistic profile in order to get the chance.”
LeBlanc first heard about Sariel from Renaud Loranger, the artistic director of the Festival de Lanaudière in Québec. When she met Sariel at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, she said, “Our meeting was very pleasant – his playing was fabulous – and I immediately saw that he would be a great and versatile artist in residence. Also, I knew that Vancouverites love the mandolin player Avi Avital, who has played many times in Vancouver. What perhaps they don’t know is that Alon has collaborated with Avi on a recording of Vivaldi’s concerto for two mandolins (Deutsche Grammophon, 2020). I hope all mandolin lovers will come out to hear Alon – he has brought to light many works for the mandolin from centuries past and commissioned composers to write new pieces for him.”
And to think that Sariel wanted to play the electric guitar when he was a kid.
“I wished to learn e-guitar, but I was much too young for that,” he recalled. “The director of the conservatory gave me a little basic test – I had to clap some rhythms and sing some tones, etc. She suggested I should take the violin, but I wasn’t excited. Then she said there’s also the mandolin – which I didn’t know at all – and that it’s in fact ‘very similar’ to the guitar, you hold it pretty much the same way, but the size would be perfect for an 8-year-old. She mentioned the mandolin orchestra and the fact it gets to represent the city occasionally, even abroad, so I agreed to give it a try and thought I’d shift to e-guitar later on. Very soon I forgot about the guitar and was all invested in the mandolin, I absolutely loved it!”
LeBlanc chooses EMV’s artists in residence “first and foremost for their great artistry, for their extensive knowledge of historical performance practice, and their ability to share their ideas and knowledge generously,” she said. Previous artists in residence have been Cree-Métis baritone Jonathon Adams (2021); Scottish Baroque specialists David Greenberg and David McGuiness, violin and keyboard (2022); and Catalina Vicens, keyboard and curator of the Tagliavini Collection of ancient musical instruments in Bologna, Italy (2023).
“It has been extremely rewarding to watch the program grow over the past few years, and hear the enthusiastic audience feedback to our different artists in residence,” she said.
For more information about and tickets to this summer’s festival, visit earlymusic.bc.ca.
Inclusion, but not for Jews
Simon Fraser University assistant professor Dr. Lilach Marom gave a lecture May 27 called Where is Antisemitism in EDI Discourses in Canadian Higher Education? How Did We Get Here, And How Can We Move Forward?
Prevailing trends in equity, diversity and inclusion on campuses and elsewhere often exclude Jewish people and discount antisemitism, according to a Simon Fraser University academic.
Despite extensive policies around racism, discrimination and related topics, many universities and academic organizations have no explicit references in policy to antisemitism, says Dr. Lilach Marom, an assistant professor at SFU, who focuses on anti-racism and inclusion in education with a focus on structural and institutional barriers to access.
“When we look at references to antisemitism and Jewish identity across EDI policies and action plans, we see that there is not much reference,” she said during a lecture May 27 that was part of Diverse Approaches to Research in Education, a seminar series co-hosted by Faculty of Education’s Research Hub and the Research Advisory Working Group. For example, resources from the Canadian Association of University Teachers include a self-identification survey, but under the category of race and ethnicity, there is no option to select “Jewish.”
In addition to Jewish identity, the experiences of Jewish people with antisemitism are often not specifically addressed. “Sometimes, it is not named when there are other forms of oppression and racism that are named,” she said.
EDI stands for equity, diversity and inclusion (in the United States, Marom noted, it is reordered as DEI). Equity, she said, is the removal of systemic barriers and enabling all individuals to have equitable opportunity and access to benefit from higher education. Diversity is about the variety of unique dimensions, identities, qualities and characteristics individuals possess along with other identity factors. Inclusion is defined as the practice of ensuring that all individuals are valued and respected for their contributions and are supported equitably.
EDI has become the prevalent framework to address issues of social justice and equity in Canadian higher education, said Marom. Fully 90% of higher educational institutions in Canada reference EDI in their strategic planning and 91% have an EDI task force or are developing one, according to a Universities Canada survey of members in 2022.
Marom sees a number of reasons why antisemitism is excluded. Antisemitism is often categorized as religious-based discrimination, which reclassifies it outside the realm of anti-racism.
“Jewish people see themselves as a people, which means they have shared culture, language, history, religious texts and rituals,” said Marom. “But, within the North American context, Jewishness is conceptualized as a form of religion.”
This is specifically the case in Canadian law, where antisemitism is categorized under religious discrimination and reported under hate crimes motivated by religion.
This creates a disconnect when it comes to EDI, said Marom. “In most cases, EDI typically does not centre on religious-based discrimination,” she said. “So those things are on the margins, they’re not core to the EDI discourses.”
Settler-colonialism and decolonization are core concepts in EDI discourse, which presents challenges around the way Israel and Palestine are considered.
“I’m worried about the new antisemitism that emerges at the intersection of anti-racism and settler-colonial discourses,” she said. “Both those discourses are insufficient and incomplete to understand Jewishness, the Jewish condition or the situation in Israel-Palestine.… They create this forced binary between Jewish people as the embodiment of white privilege and colonial oppression, and Palestinians as racialized and indigenous. I think this binary is not only inaccurate, it also feeds into new forms of antisemitism.”
Settler-colonialism is a leading framework for analyzing Canadian history, said Marom. Applying that framework to Zionism and the formation of Israel in a simplistic way overlooks the long and complex history of that land and creates a false dichotomy between Jewish people as the embodiment of oppression and Palestinians as indigenous, she said.
These constructions fail to acknowledge the historical, cultural and religious ties of Jews to the land dating back millennia. They also don’t acknowledge that there could be places in which there are coexisting claims to indigeneity in Israel-Palestine.
Meanwhile, the construction of Jews as white and privileged, she said, reflects a “legal and cultural whitening of Jews in North America.”
“This is not to ignore the fact that Jews definitely have gained some privileges from their ability to assimilate and integrate in this mainstream North American culture and those possibilities were not open to members of other racialized groups,” she said. “Jews have definitely gained some privileges from this ability. However, this also feeds into some antisemitic tropes or stereotypes – Jews as a ‘model minority’ or ‘super powerful’ – and have put them in a position that is not really in and not really out. These in-between spaces [mean] they can be targeted on one hand by conspiracies from the right like the Great Replacement Theory, but also pushed against from the left as an embodiment of white privilege.”
The construction of Jews as white overlooks the self-identification of Jewish people, she said, and it doesn’t recognize the diversity of Jewish people. While in North America many Jewish people are Ashkenazi, in places like Israel, the majority of people are from Asian, Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds.
“In critical discourses, we don’t talk about race as skin pigmentation nor as biological constructs,” Marom said. “We talk about it as a form of social construct. If you think about race as a social construct, looking at the history of Jewish people with marginalization, exclusion and genocide, they cannot be put aside from anti-racism discourses and be absorbed into whiteness.”
It is not useful, she said, to participate in “any form of oppression Olympics. But I think we need to acknowledge that antisemitism is not following the typical path of other racialized groups, where hopefully there is less exclusion and more integration with time,” she said. “With Jewish people, many times when they thought they were most integrated and most included, this is when they faced the most extreme forms of exclusion and marginalization.”
Marom clarified that discussion about antisemitism and the protection and safety of Jewish people should not be confused with “protection” from challenging ideas.
“We need to be willing to step into risky discussions,” she said. “But I think what EDI does is really talk about impact. It talks about how can we be engaging in those difficult spaces while still feeling that we are being seen as human, that we are included, that we have space. I speak only on my behalf [but] I think this is the case with many Jewish faculty that I know. I don’t think that this is the way many of us [have felt] since Oct. 7.”
There is a balance to be found between academic freedom and protection of minority communities, said Marom – but the approach to this balance when it comes to Jews and antisemitism seems different than in other cases.
“I just find it very peculiar that a lot of my colleagues who usually are very sensitive toward issues of inclusion and belonging all of a sudden become the strongest supporters of academic freedom when it comes to the issues of antisemitism,” said Marom. “Not that academic freedom is not important – it is really important – I’m just curious to hear how come it becomes so important now when the people in question are Jewish people.”
She also cited a seminar on antisemitism and anti-Zionism that was sponsored by about 40 organizations, most of them Muslim and Middle Eastern academic groups.
“This we would never see on other issues, in which people from the outside explained to people on the inside what they need to know about themselves,” she said. There were some Jewish speakers at the event, she noted, but they came from a very specific ideological perspective.
“I’m not saying that they are not legitimate,” she said. “I’m not even saying that they’re not important and I don’t think that we need to define who is in and who is out to speak on behalf of the Jewish people – there is enough space in the world to speak. But I am worried for the tendencies in progressive circles to adopt those voices and put them in and check the inclusion box, because that is not how we do inclusion in any other circles.”
The principle of “nothing about us without us,” the idea that no approach toward a group should be adopted without the full and direct participation of the affected people, should not be overlooked when it comes to antisemitism, she said.
A video of Marom’s full presentation is available at youtu.be/FQbGiySUetM.
JACS and JFS integrate
Jewish Addiction Community Services (JACS) and Jewish Family Services (JFS) have accepted bylaw changes allowing for service integration, in order to expand addiction support and services within the Jewish community.
“JACS and JFS have a long history of collaboration in serving our community, and it just made good sense to form an even tighter relationship that leverages the relative strengths of each organization,” said Howard Harowitz, JACS board chair. “This move is driven by a shared commitment to improving service delivery, integrating substance use services with other supports, and utilizing the established expertise of both agencies.”
The strategic rationale behind this integration is clear: combining resources will enhance service effectiveness and accessibility, ultimately creating a more significant impact. This aligns with JFS’s long-term vision of becoming a leader in social services.
“This integration aligns with our strategic vision to enhance our service portfolio and provide more holistic support that meets the needs of our clients,” said Tanja Demajo, JFS chief executive officer. “We are excited to embark on this new chapter of community service together!”
This integration will provide the community:
• Increased accessibility to addiction services for clients and their families.
• Enhanced capacity to serve a greater number of individuals in need.
• A holistic approach to addressing clients’ diverse needs.
• Greater community awareness of where and how to access addiction services.
For more on the resources and services JFS provides, visit jfsvancouver.ca.
– Courtesy Jewish Family Services Vancouver
RJDS and JFS grow together
The JFS Moishe Farm Project garden at Richmond Jewish Day School. (photo from RJDS)
Richmond Jewish Day School and Jewish Family Services have embarked on a new initiative, the JFS Moishe Farm Project. At the back of the school, there is now a garden, growing a variety of fruits and vegetables, such as squash, butternut squash and zucchini. The project aims to increase food security in the Lower Mainland by providing fresh produce to RJDS families and JFS clients.
Food security is an essential aspect of this initiative. It means that all people, at all times, have access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food that meets their dietary needs and preferences for an active and healthy life. With prices of fresh food and produce increasing, food security has become an increasingly difficult goal to achieve. Ensuring access to fresh and healthy produce is a fundamental part of this project.
Teaching students about proper nutrition and its effects on learning, brain function and mental health is essential. Proper nutrition is not just about having enough food, it’s about having the right kind of food that fuels bodies and minds. A balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables can significantly enhance cognitive function and overall well-being. By engaging in this gardening project, RJDS is not only providing fresh produce but also educating students about the importance of nutrition, sustainability and community involvement.
Larry and Marcy Vinegar and Glenn Laufer donated the ground cover and irrigation system for the garden, Daniel Garfinkel donated the seeds and plants. Volunteers have planted, harvested and coordinated this project and helped the school use its land to produce and give back to community in sustainable and helpful ways. Through this objective, RJDS students and community can see firsthand the fruits of their labour and understand the value of hard work, patience and teamwork.
RJDS is planning various activities and workshops around the garden. Students will participate in planting, tending and harvesting. They will learn about different fruits and vegetables, their nutritional benefits, and how to prepare the produce in healthy and delicious ways. These activities will be complemented by lessons on the environmental impact of food production and the importance of sustainable farming practices.
The long-term vision for this project includes expanding the garden and increasing the variety of produce. RJDS hopes to eventually supply a significant portion of its community’s fresh produce needs and possibly even create a surplus that could be shared with other organizations.
This project is more than just a garden. It is a symbol of RJDS’s and JFS’s commitment to the community’s health, well-being and future. By working together, a sustainable, healthy and connected community can be created.
– Courtesy Richmond Jewish Day School
Music for better world
Novelist Milan Kundera said of Jews in the 20th century that they “were the principal cosmopolitan, integrating element in Central Europe: they were its intellectual cement, a condensed version of its spirit, creators of its spiritual unity. That’s why I love Jews and cling to their heritage with as much passion and nostalgia as though it were my own.”
I love reading these words, it helps me keep my head up. And motivated. I think of them often as I work on two major concerts which celebrate multiple aspects of Jewish heritage and history, the devastating impacts of hate, and the need for more love and compassion in the world today.
You may remember my last endeavour, Project Tehillim, which was about the salvation of the Bulgarian Jews during the Second World War. (See jewishindependent.ca/music-to-say-thank-you.) I grew up in Bulgaria and, while I never experienced the antisemitism, I knew about it from history books. This is why I am shocked and horrified at what is going on around the world, including here in Vancouver. One of my friends said: “The evil is shocking. The willingness of this evil to parade itself is even more shocking.”
I can only respond with what I know best: the power of music and art. The arts have the incredible ability to affect people more profoundly than plain facts. It is personal stories, artistically presented, that have an emotional impact.
I am the artistic director, with fellow pianist Jane Hayes, of Yarilo Contemporary Music Society, which is dedicated to high-quality professional music performances. The Yarilo ensemble has performed in Zurich, Moscow, Sofia and Tel Aviv, and the society has commissioned a number of Canadian composers: Jocelyn Morlock, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Jordan Nobles, John Burke, Colin MacDonald, Michael Conway Baker and Farangis Nurulla-Khoja. We work with members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and we collaborate with Leslie Dala, the conductor of the Vancouver Opera and the Bach Choir.
Because government and other funding for the arts is in huge decline, I am turning to you, my fellow Jewish community members, for help in realizing Yarilo’s next project: Compassion Above All.
The first concert of the project, To Hope and Back, is a chamber music event that will take place this year on Nov. 10, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., at Orpheum Annex. The budget is $10,000.
To Hope and Back is based on the book of the same name by Kathy Kacer, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. The book tells the story of the SS St. Louis through the eyes of two children on board the ship that sailed from Germany in 1939 carrying nearly 1,000 Jewish refugees and was refused the right to land by every country, including Canada, forcing it to return to Europe, where many of the passengers were murdered in the Holocaust. The November concert will include two child actors reading excerpts from the book and Kacer has confirmed that she would like to come for the event from Toronto. It will include the music of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Iman Habibi and Gheorghi Arnaoudov. Steve Reich’s work, “Different Trains,” includes archival recordings from the trains going to Auschwitz.
The second concert, The Tale of Esther in Our Time, is a symphony music concert conducted by Dala, and it will take place in 2025, on March 29, 7:30 p.m., at Christ Church Cathedral. Its budget is between $60,000 and $80,000.
The featured work of The Tale of Esther in Our Time is Iman Habibi’s “Shāhīn-nāmeh,” which was nominated for a Juno and won the Azrieli Foundation award for Jewish music in 2022. Based on the poetry of 14th-century Judeo-Persian poet Shahin Shirazi, the composition depicts the tale of Esther and delves into the themes of love, spiritual struggle and devotion. “Shāhīn-nāmeh” calls out for love and compassion; it brings the heart of humanity into focus.
Also on the program will be Arvo Part (“Tabula Raza”), Peteris Vasks (“The Message”) and Kelly-Marie Murphy (“En El Escuro Es Todo Uno,” “In the Darkness We Are One”).
Please feel free to ask any questions. I will also happily take any advice for funding opportunities. Any donation, even the smallest one, is a great support, financial and moral.
For more information about Yarilo, visit yarilomusic.com. To donate, go to gofundme.com.
Name inspires artist’s work
Growing up in Vancouver during the 1960s and ’70s, I was the dancer, my brother was the guitarist and my sister was the writer, soon to blossom into a visual artist as well.
Devorah Stone, my sister, is one of the contributors to this year’s Calling All Artists exhibit, which opens at Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El on Aug. 26. Since the early 2000s, the mostly annual event has celebrated artists of many kinds – sculpture, ceramics, textile, poetry, mixed media, fabric, music – who offer their interpretation of a rabbinical or biblical text that they’ve studied with the synagogue’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Harry Brechner.
“This year’s theme is ‘animals’ and since my name means ‘Honeybee’ in Hebrew, I went with that,” Devorah told me. “The bees in my work are all hand-felted, a technique that involves pocking at wool and shaping the form. I decided to present the bees in circles because they are so crucial to the circle of life.”
The artists’ works are up for six months in the shul’s social hall. Devorah has been involved with the event for the last 10 years. Rabbi Brechner gives a lecture on the theme and how it pertains to Jewish traditions, sacred writings and thought once a month for five months before the celebration. This year, his teaching focused on the significant symbolic and ritual roles animals play in Jewish texts.
“I’ve learnt so much about both art and Judaism attending the rabbi’s lectures,” said Devorah. “Anyone can join … you don’t even need to be Jewish.”
The Calling All Artists project is run by self-proclaimed “den mother” Barbara Pelman. She said there is a chapbook written every year with an explanation of each artist’s creative process and a copy of that is given out to guests.
“In last year’s Calling All Artists, I did the kohain gadol’s (high priest’s) breastplate with references to all the various colour and gem stones as described in the Torah,” said Devorah. “The only difference was the mannequin I used was a woman’s so I pretended that there might have been female priests at the time of the Temple!
“I’ve also done a collage of a person wearing a tallit and the burning bush, a three-dimensional piece of the Rosh Hashanah dinner, and another collage on a wooden cradle of the story of Abraham and Isaac.”
Devorah has always been fascinated with art.
“As a child, there was nothing better than a box of crayons and endless paper,” she said. “I drew space ships, planets and alien worlds. I also drew castles and princesses. I loved it. My imagination had no limits.”
In her 20s, Devorah spent four years at the University of Victoria, earning a bachelor of fine arts. All the while, she felt inspired by Emily Carr and Indigenous art.
“I loved the way Carr personified nature and her magnificent trees,” she shared. “I marveled at the complexities, elegance and craftsmanship of the First Peoples of the land.”
Our parents also brought us up with a strong Jewish identity.
“Being Jewish, I was taken by the imaginative work of Chagall, his goats and houses and how everything seemed to be floating or suspended,” said my sister. “Later on, I began to be influenced by the school of Bauhaus design, especially Kandinsky, his calculated and yet whimsical designs.”
After Devorah moved to Victoria 20 years ago, she joined the Pandora Arts Collective Society. The group exhibits its works at the Little Fernwood Gallery twice a year and Devorah recently sold a painting there.
The collective is a community of people whose mandate is to facilitate and support mental health through the social and educational benefits of a free and welcoming creative arts space. The studio is open to everyone: professionals, students and beginners. The atmosphere is especially sensitive to people who are using art therapeutically. Devorah is on their board and has planned events for them in the past.
“We inspire and mentor each other,” she said. “I have learnt so much about art from that group. I’ve been introduced to many different kinds of art and artists, as well as being influenced by so many artists in our synagogue. The joke is that you can’t throw a rock without hitting an artist in Victoria!”
When she was living in and around Vancouver, Devorah brought up three children, two of whom live in the Lower Mainland. She visits all of us frequently and spends a lot of time on the ferry.
“I love doing fast sketches of the scenery as it goes by,” she said. “I also do fast sketches at outdoor concerts and festivals, which Victoria has so many of.”
Devorah uses pencil crayons, acrylic paint and watercolours, creates collages and sometimes three-dimensional art made out of whatever she can find.
“I love experimenting and I feel that all my art is influenced by being Jewish,” she said. “It all has a profoundly Jewish way of seeing nature and of being.”
The best way to view Devorah’s art is through Instagram @devlovesart.
Cassandra Freeman is a journalist and improviser who lives in East Vancouver.
Art as a form of storytelling
Sarah Dobbs is the new manager of the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. (photo from Zack Gallery)\
The Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery has a new manager, Sarah Dobbs, who showed an early affinity for her chosen field.
“My first time as a gallery host happened when I was about 8 years old,” she told the Independent. “My father was a journalist and a travel writer, and we lived in many countries when I was young: Spain, France, Morocco. Everywhere, my parents took me to art galleries, and I loved it.
“In the 1960s, while we were in Mexico, we often went to the local market. My father bought colourful folk sculptures. It was long before they became popular, we started collecting them. After we returned to Toronto, my family decided to have an exhibition of our collection. I was there, too. I enjoyed talking to people who came to see the show. I told them stories about this sculpture and that one. I liked sharing another culture with the people in my city. This entire experience had a huge impact on me. Even though I was young, I realized that art was storytelling. Art reflects our understanding of people and cultures.”
After receiving her degree in art history from the University of British Columbia and a master’s of education from the University of Toronto, Dobbs worked in the art world for more than 30 years.
“I ran commercial galleries and public galleries,” she said. “In the mid-’90s, I opened my own gallery, where I displayed mostly abstract art. I love abstract. Anyone can read their own story in an abstract painting.”
One of Dobbs’s most interesting projects happened when she was the director of the Burnaby Art Gallery.
“Part of my job there was to increase our interactions with the community,” she
explained. “I started an outreach program for people who would never go to an art gallery on their own, specifically youths right out of jail. They were young. Most of them had yet to graduate from high school. We gave them disposable cameras and suggested they take photos of what was important in their lives (but not drugs). Then they would do collages of their photos and we displayed those collages in local bus shelters. Those collages reflected the teens’ lives, perhaps helped them to come to terms with it. The collages were also an opportunity for all of them to share their lives and their concerns with the wider public. I’m proud to say that all of our participants graduated from high school.”
Projects like this, integrating art and public awareness, have accompanied Dobbs throughout her career. From 2002 to 2008, she worked in Ireland, at the National Gallery of Ireland and at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
“We worked with hospital patients, but it wasn’t art therapy,” she said of that experience. “It was just doing art, participating. It reminded sick people of their healthy selves.”
Everywhere she has worked, Dobbs has helped people tell their stories through art, helped them deal with their suffering.
“In 2004, I was invited by a nurses’ charity to go to Sri Lanka for five weeks, to help the tsunami victims,” she recalled. “So many died there, children, old people. So much pain. I tried to do what I could to help, to ease that pain – I brought 98 kilos of art supplies with me.”
Later, in Kenya, she lived in a women’s peace-building village for a time.
“There were women from different tribes there, the tribes that were at war, that committed atrocities towards each other. But those women tried to build peace,” said Dobbs. “We would sit together and share stories. When women from different tribes saw similarities in their stories, felt their stories resonate with everyone, it helped in the peace-building process.”
Dobbs has curated about 200 art exhibitions. In her opinion, deep knowledge of the art world is only part of being a successful curator.
“Of course, you have to be passionate about art,” she said. “But you also have to be very organized. You need to be patient with the artists – they are very sensitive. Encouraging artists, especially young artists, boosting their confidence is paramount. It helps them tell their stories. And you also need to be aware of who is going to see the art – to keep balance between artistic expression and public understanding. Sometimes, the latter could be a challenge. Another ongoing challenge is convincing people that art has value.”
Those challenges can be exhausting, and even a successful art curator occasionally needs a break. Dobbs took such a break during the pandemic. The timing made sense, as most public spaces closed in 2020.
“For three years, I ran an integrated clinic, including traditional medicine, a naturopath, a massage therapist, etc. A break is good,” she said, “but I always come back to art. Sharing art with everyone is my joy.”
That’s why when the JCC announced that the Zack Gallery needed a new manager, she applied for the position.
“I have known about the Zack Gallery forever,” Dobbs said. “It is a wonderful place, a blend between a public gallery and a commercial art space. The gallery runs community exhibits. There is a theatre next door, which brings people in before the shows and during the intermissions. Children come in often. That is how art education starts for most of us, when a child wanders into an art gallery.”
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
Plays offer understanding, release
Dromio in The Comedy of Errors. Bard on the Beach runs into September. (photo by Tim Matheson)
Every day, we are bombarded with news about war, hate, crime, inflation, the list goes on. How to make sense of it all? Often, good theatre can provide deeper meaning and understanding of the world, or at least offer us a break from the world. Cue Shakespeare and his 400-year-old lens that is remarkably accurate in contemporary times…. And that takes us to Bard on the Beach.
Last issue, I reviewed Bard’s productions of Twelfth Night and Hamlet (jewishindependent.ca/bard-plays-with-tradition). This issue, I start with Measure for Measure, then move to The Comedy of Errors.
In Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, the Duke of Vienna has enacted laws outlawing sex between unmarried couples. He then leaves the city in the control of puritanical Angelo and disguises himself as a friar to observe what happens. A young man, Claudio, is prosecuted for the crime of impregnating his girlfriend and is sentenced to death. When the condemned man’s virginal sister, Isabella, a novitiate in a local nunnery, comes to plead for his life, Angelo is smitten. He offers to save Claudio’s life if Isabella will sleep with him. What a great platform to explore the male hierarchy, corruption, sexual predators, coercion and authoritarian control.
In the Bard production, director Jivesh Parasram has taken the story and, in an absurdist twist, made premarital dancing the offence punishable by death. The setting: the disco-crazed 1970s and ’80s, in the glitzy Club Europa. Act 1 opens with hooded monks frenetically dancing on a neon-lit dance floor replete with a disco ball, presided over by a silver-clad, fox-head-wearing DJ (Jewish community member Tal Shulman, who later does duty as the black-hooded executioner, Abhorson). The Duke (a superb Scott Bellis) rips off his monk robes to reveal a sparkly suit as he dances his way over to Angelo (a staid, suspendered Craig Erickson) and hands him authority over the city. The edict is given – tansen verboten (dancing forbidden) – but that does not stop an erotic pas de deux between Claudio (Jeremy Lewis) and Julietta (Tess Degenstein), leading to Claudio’s arrest and imprisonment.
When Isabella (Meaghan Chenosky) is told of her brother’s fate by Lucio (Karthik Kadam), she rushes to Angelo’s office. At first, she is rebuffed but then Angelo offers her Claudio’s life in return for a dance. She grapples with the request, wanting to save her brother’s life, but refuses, threatening to expose Angelo’s hypocrisy. His response: no one will believe her. Sound familiar?
To save Claudio’s life and retain Isabella’s chastity, a plan is hatched to switch Mariana (Leslie Dos Remdios), Angelo’s previous lover, to dance with the cad. A huge panda bear head is part of the subterfuge.
Meanwhile, there is a side story of two “dance hall workers,” who are worried about the morality laws and the impact they will have on their “business.” The pair become involved in the plot to free Claudio. For how it all ends, you’ll have to see the play.
Throughout the production, the foxy DJ pops up to play the hit tunes as the cast busts out into various, often raunchy, dance moves. Kadam also plays Master Kevin Bacon and performs some impressive footwork to the theme song from the movie Footloose.
The set is fab (thanks to designer Ryan Cormack), the costumes hip (credit to Alaia Hamer), the dancing energetic (kudos to choreographer Krystal Kiran) and the oldies but goodies nostalgia-inducing. If the opening night audience reaction is any measure of its success, Bard’s take on Shakespeare’s “problem play” is destined to be the hit of the season. It certainly will bring in a younger crowd.
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Playing on alternate nights with Measure for Measure (and with the same cast) is Shakespeare’s shortest work, The Comedy of Errors, about two sets of identical twins separated at birth in a shipwreck. Egeon (Bellis), a merchant from Syracuse and father of one of the sets of twins, has been arrested and sentenced to death in Ephesus for breaking a law that prevents people from traveling between the two cities. Seeking leniency, he tells the Duke (Degenstein) why he is there. Many years before, he had a wife and identical twin sons (both named Antipholus), who had identical twin servants (both named Dromio). During the shipwreck, he saved one son and his servant while his wife and the other son and servant were washed away. His Syracusean son, Antipholous, has taken Dromio to look for his lost brother. Now Egeon is looking for both his sons. A 24-hour reprieve is granted. Conveniently and unbeknownst to anyone, both sets of identical twins are in Ephesus. Of course, that sets the scene for confusion, mistaken identities, slapstick humour and hilarious miscues. There even is a goofy exorcism.
Director Rebecca Northan (who helmed last year’s Goblin Macbeth) has set the play in its proper period, ancient Greece. Once in the tent, you feel like you are in an open Mediterranean market with colourfully decked out vendors hawking their wares – silks, carpets, gold – mingling with the audience as they take their seats.
Northan has chosen to have one actor play both twins in a set, which can be confusing and will keep you on your toes. Lanky Antipholus (Lewis) wears a red and blue shoulder sash. When the red side is showing, he is from Syracuse; the blue, Ephesus. Meanwhile, diminutive Dromio (Shulman) also uses red/blue swatches to signal his identity. Shulman is very funny and his talent is evident as he frantically races around the stage, and in and out of the tent.
The main confusion surrounds the purchase of a gold chain that has yet to be paid for although money has been tendered. Where is the necklace? Who has the money? Who paid for what?
The second area of confusion is the relationship between Ariana (Chenosky), the wife the Ephesian Antipholus and her husband, who likes to “go out with the boys.” When she sends her servant to fetch him home and finds that he does not recognize her (wrong twin) and that he has fallen for her sister, Luciana (Cynthia Yusuf), she explodes. In all of this, Kadam, playing both a coquettish courtesan and an Urdu-speaking merchant, steals the show. I wish he had been on stage more.
As usual in any Bard comedy, all’s well that ends well and all becomes clear. Tying everything together is great behind-the-scenes work: the set (Cormack), costuming (Christine Reimer), sound design (Ben Elliott) and lighting design (Hina Nisihoka). My only complaint is that, as the actors did not have microphones, some of the dialogue is lost. And some of the shtick works and some does not, but it is in the name after all – a comedy of errors. Come early to take advantage of the artisan market set outside the performance venue.
For tickets to any of the four Bard productions, visit bardonthebeach.org or call 604-739-0559.
Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.