The CJN Magazine: Rosh Hashanah 2022

The Canadian Jewish News The CJN Quarterly

Rosh Hashanah 2022 | Tishrei 5783

egold n i F i v with A

Shanah Tova!

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The Jerusalem Foundation of Canada wishes you and your families A sweet and healthy New Year and

Shana Tova

Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion, thanks Canada for the warm welcome he received traveling across the country in June to visit Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Montreal and invites all of you to visit Jerusalem THIS year

5783 – ‫תשפ״ג‬

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What’s inside 08

Shanah Tovah greetings from the Treasure Trove DAV I D M AT LO W

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A Peoplehood | Amiut Yehudit M U LT I M E D I A D O C U M E N TA RY W O R K BY M A R N I E S A LS KY

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Ellin Bessner’s Bat Mitzvah Beat (featuring Adam Sandler)

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Avi Finegold wants to help you experience Higher Holidays

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The CJN en français: Is the Benjamin Netanyahu era over?

ELIAS LEVY

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30

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Six of the top stories covered this summer on The CJN Daily

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Remembering a few honourable menschen who died in 2022

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Judith Kalman on writing under the influence of Irving Abella

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Rosalie Sharp on building a home at the Four Seasons Hotel

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Gary Topp’s cartoons about coming of age in Jewish Toronto

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Canadian.

Jewish.

Advocacy.

SHANA TOVA! As we look ahead to the New Year, we want to know the issues that matter most to you.

Tell us at cija.ca/you The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations across Canada.

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The Canadian Jewish News Yoni Goldstein CEO and Editor-in-Chief Marc Weisblott Managing Editor Lila Sarick News Editor Joseph Serge Copy Editor Michael Fraiman Podcast Director Etery Podolsky Art Director Sarah Zahavi Design Associate Grace Zweig Sales Director Kathy Meitz General Manager

Board of Directors: Bryan Borzykowski President Sam Reitman Treasurer and Secretary Ira Gluskin Mark Sherman Jacob Smolack Elizabeth Wolfe

For all inquiries info@thecjn.ca

Cover Illustration: Etery Podolsky Inside Photos: Shutterstock, Wikimedia Commons, Adobe Stock, Freepik Printed in Winnipeg by Kromar Printing Ltd.

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The blasts from our podcasts…

O

n a warm Toronto summer’s night, I met up with a visitor from Montreal: Rabbi Avi Finegold wasn’t hard to spot in the bar on Bloor Street—he was the guy in the back wearing a fancy hat. I could hardly compete with his style, but I tried.

An appreciation for headwear isn’t the only thing we share. Rabbi Avi (who cringes when people call him by more than his first name) and I share similar Jewish upbringings, a love of music, eating at greasy kosher restaurants and I even worked at Jewish summer camp with his future wife, Rabba Rachel Kohl Finegold, now the first Orthodox woman to serve as synagogue clergy in Canada.

But what’s bonding us today is a drive to seek out the cutting edges of Judaism, and speak out about the topics and issues that we all think about—but are usually afraid to say out loud.

In my opinion, there’s no one better in this country than Avi—who’s been hosting Bonjour Chai with Ilana Zackon and David Sklar, along with Melissa Lantsman before she left to become a member of Parliament—when it comes to talking about the issues that matter right now.

More importantly, you can tell what he’s talking about today will matter even more in five or 10 years.

Avi’s infectious energy is difficult for me to keep up with. So, maybe that’s why we had to find somebody who could match him when it comes to hosting podcasts:

Ellin Bessner debuted The CJN Daily in May 2021, and has hardly taken a breather since.

Every so often, though, she’ll take time to drive south from Thornhill, and walk and talk with me about her visions for our project. (Conveniently, these meetings come on the same day when she’s delivering food to one of her sons, who lives near me downtown.)

Ellin is always bursting with ideas—she sort of has to be in order to put out four new episodes a week. But to me, it’s her passion that has made The CJN Daily a success, which has been drawing over 30,000 listens per month.

The stories she tells range from inspiring to tragic, with breaking news about Canada and Israel, and chats with some of our greatest producers of culture.

What shines through, day after day and week after week, is her desire to share those stories with our community and beyond. She really cares—you can hear it in her voice.

Avi and Ellin have had a lot to say in the past year. In this issue, you’ll find some printed highlights of what they’ve primarily achieved in audio form. But, as you read this, the two of them are no doubt scheming their next big ideas.

So, excuse me while I try to catch up with them again.

— Yoni Goldstein

Bonjour Chai thecjn.ca/bonjour The CJN Daily thecjn.ca/daily More listening at thecjn.ca/podcasts

Treasure Trove | David Matlow

Dealing the cards that say Shanah Tovah

T

he custom of High Holiday greetings on paper originated in medieval Germany, then gained prominence in German-speaking countries in the second half of the 19th century—and it ultimately spread through North America and Palestine.

Cards were produced with images that depicted the vitality of Jewish life and the diversity of communities. The themes ranged from religious to humorous, pictures of food and paintings of landscapes, and historical to aspirational.

Shanah Tovah (literally “good year”) wishes were also increasingly leveraged to advance a bigger cause: The development of a Jewish homeland. These cards depicted leaders of the Zionist movement, towns that were being built in the land, a wish for those receiving the greetings to join in the unfolding miracle—and ultimately the fulfilment of the dream that was the State of Israel.

But all the cards share a common theme: Wishing the recipient a sweet new year.

While my personal collection is filled with treasures like these, they’re also just things. Life’s true treasures will always be family, friendship, health and peace.

Shanah tovah u’metukah. May the year ahead bring those treasures to all of you.

5709: A really good year!

The State of Israel was born when David Ben-Gurion read the Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948, an event depicted on this postcard shortly thereafter.

Don’t worry, be happy David Matlow is a partner at Goodmans LLP and the owner of the world’s largest private collection of Theodor Herzl memorabilia: herzlcollection.com

Rosh Hashanah 1939 started at sundown on Sept. 25, three weeks into the Second World War. Next to a drawing of Rishon LeZion—the Jewish farming community founded in Palestine in 1882—is a proclamation: “The illegal immigrants will immigrate. The builders will build. The defenders will defend.”

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Treasure Trove | David Matlow continued from page 8

The first Hebrew post A group of enterprising students at Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium school in Tel Aviv started a local postal service. For the price of a Jewish National Fund stamp, letters deposited in a blueand-white mailbox bearing a Star of David and the inscription “Hebrew Mail” would be delivered to their destination. The service operated during the High Holidays of 1913 and 1914 until Turkish authorities shut it down. This postcard from the fleeting project depicts King Saul and King David while extending wishes for a year of blessings and success.

All roads lead home This Shanah Tovah card mailed in 1899 depicts Jacob Street in Rehovot, a town founded a decade earlier by Polish Jews. Today, the population of this Israeli city is around 150,000.

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Treasure Trove | David Matlow continued from page 10

From Russia with love Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, died at age 44 on July 3, 1904. Two months later, an image of him in a top hat and tuxedo circulated on Rosh Hashanah postcards in Russia. (International postal laws didn’t allow messages to be written on the reverse side until 1906.)

“See you soon in our land” A family from Haifa extended greetings in 1935 with a wish for others to join them in Israel. The Hebrew year was 5696, which spells out tziru, which means “want,” an aspiration reflected in all these cards.

Find more from the Treasure Trove at thecjn.ca/treasures 12

THE ANNE TANENBAUM CENTRE FOR JEWISH STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO WISHES YOU AND YOUR FAMILY A YEAR FILLED WITH HEALTH, JOY, PEACE & LEARNING! WE THANK OUR SUPPORTERS AND FRIENDS

for helping us build a vibrant Jewish Studies program!

We thank our donors for endowing generous scholarships, including the Oscar Yolles Bursary in Jewish Studies and the Robert Ross Scholarship. With their help, our undergraduate students choose from 65 courses in Jewish Studies.

The Granovsky-Gluskin Graduate Program with 87 enrolled students is officially the largest Jewish Studies graduate program in the world.

Over 200 people attended our annual virtual Schwartz-Reisman Graduate Student Conference in Jewish Studies in 2022.

Over 2,500 people logged in to attend our 43 virtual events last academic year.

Thanks to the support of the Pearl and Jack Mandel Family Lecture, Tanenbaum Family Lecture, Halbert Lecture, and many others, we were able to learn from world-class scholars from Israel, Europe, and North America.

We are home to the joint Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Joanna Krongold, supervised by Professor Ayelet Kuper, is conducting cutting-edge research on antisemitism in health professions, education, and practice.

Join us in the new year for our exciting ATCJS 2022/23 Public Lecture Series!

Check our website for the

full event calendar!

Professor Jessica Goldberg (UCLA) held the Shoshana Shier Distinguished Visiting Professorship in the Fall 2021. She taught a course on Cairo Genizah.

Professor Tracy Lemos (Huron College) held the Gerstein Distinguished Visiting Professorship in Winter 2022. She taught a course on Violence in the Hebrew Bible.

Yiddish Graduate Studies is our fastest growing field, thanks to the generous support from the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies Fund, Himel Family Endowment, Disenhouse Family Fund, Waks Family Fund and the Menachovsky Fund.

Dr. Miriam Schulz, Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow, joined us for two years and conducts research on modern Yiddish anti-fascism.

SHANA TOVA!

The Ed and Fran Sonshine Endowment in Holocaust Studies, the Elizabeth and Tony Comper Holocaust Education Fund, and the Edward and Belle Freid Memorial Lecture continue to help us maintain meaningful Holocaust Education programming and support for our students.

Professor Anna Shternshis Director, Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies Email: cjs.director@utoronto.ca

www.jewishstudies.utoronto.ca Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies

A Peoplehood | multimedia by Marnie Salsky

Looking within to find a new Jewish view H

ow can you illustrate the complexities of something as nebulous as community? How do you reveal the heterogeneity of the lived Jewish experience? And how can these things be achieved using art as the mode of communication during a pandemic?

A Peoplehood | Amiut Yehudit is a multimedia documentary project that emerged from these questions.

It is a work designed to give audiences a space to contemplate the complex issues of Jewish identity— and the impact of hate.

Weaving together personal interviews, photography and media ephemera, the project examines Toronto’s contemporary Jewish community and the emotional impact of today’s insidious antisemitism.

The project is an intimate look at community by the community. With its non-linear narrative form, the centrepiece is a 22-minute, two-channel video featuring an interlaced series of interviews with individuals from the community as they reflect upon aspects of identity, pride, and trepidation. Alongside this, images of archival and present-day photographs and the invisible architecture of contemporary society (social media, email, newspapers) provide context for the lived experience of those photographed and interviewed.

I deliberately decided not to film or photograph my interviewees, with my hope being they would feel free to speak candidly knowing they were anonymous.

The interviews were examined for common themes as well as representation contrasting the impulse to view the Jews of Toronto as a group with uniform beliefs. Layering the voices together created a “cocktail party effect” that tells a story larger than any singular individual. By amassing multiple individual stories together, a more fulsome picture emerges.

A Peoplehood | Amiut Yehudit had a month-long residence in Toronto at Artspace Gallery at 401 Richmond St., followed by multiple showings at independent film festivals. The work earned an Award of Merit at the Best Shorts Competition, and Best Direction at the Toronto Documentary Feature & Short Film Festival.

Marnie Salsky’s fine art photography and site-specific commissions have been exhibited in galleries and can be found in private and corporate collections. She received her MFA in Documentary Media Studies from Ryerson University.

Shofarpalooza was a drive-in Rosh Hashanah celebration at Ontario Place, presented by the City Shul on Sept. 20, 2020. Despite the COVID restrictions that year, the community displayed its resilience in finding a way to celebrate the Jewish New Year.

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A Peoplehood | multimedia by Marnie Salsky continued from previous page

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The view beyond our screens My work was initially envisioned as a classic photo exhibition. Over time this form felt dry and static as the story I desired to show has a double helix—on one hand a portrayal of the complexity of a community celebrating its identity in many forms, and on the other, an exploration of the community’s reaction to the rise of antisemitism.

“If we want to know the unique experience and perspective of an individual,” wrote developmental psychologist Robert Atkinson, “there is no better way to get this than in the person’s own voice.”

Keeping this quote in mind, I revisited my project’s form. My interviews focused upon everyday life experiences and memories, providing an intimacy to balance my observational photography. The audience becomes witness to inner thoughts; lived experiences are communicated via words and through “the texture, timbre, rhythm and pace of the voices.” By incorporating the voice into my installation, a living “breath”was created in the space, which allowed viewers to “inhale” and process—both consciously and subconsciously.

A two-channel video structure is complex, one must pair visuals together to tell a story and pair visuals with audio.

I deliberately created combinations that at times support each other thematically while at other moments they are juxtaposed to create tension. This encourages the audience to engage in a process of actively perceiving on multiple planes versus reinforcing the human tendency of habitual seeing or knowing. n

THECJN.CA 17

Bat Mitzvah Beat | Ellin Bessner

Ellin’s virtual bat mitzvah bash

D

ecember 1974: I was the only girl in my Montreal day school class to have a bat mitzvah. I was 13.

It was held on a Saturday morning, complete with the chanting of the haftarah and my delivering a short devar Torah. Girls weren’t yet permitted to have their own aliyah at Beth El, so my father did it instead.

Back then, I thought I was a pioneer for women’s empowerment in the Jewish community. But, as I know now, I was really standing on the shoulders of the true pioneer: my own aunt.

Miriam Lieff was the first woman in Canada to have a bat mitzvah, in 1949.

And then my mother, Lois Lieff, had her celebration in 1951.

The whole family story around bat mitzvahs came to light as part of a podcast marking the 100th anniversary of the first bat mitzvah in North America.

March 18, 1922, was when Judith

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Kaplan, the daughter of a famous Reconstructionist rabbi, Mordechai Kaplan, was honoured in New York upon turning 12.

So, we found one of the newest bat mitzvah girls to join the conversation over Zoom.

Naomi Hochman is a Winnipeg teen who had her celebration delayed because of COVID, and we invited her to meet with my aunt and mother to share stories, and some advice. And in the end, we were all honoured when the family kindly invited us to virtually attend Naomi’s coming-of-age ceremony.

This story struck a chord with other Canadian women who wrote to us about their early experiences in the 1950s, including Judy Feld Carr and Donnie Frank. But we also heard from women who had their bat mitzvahs later in life. Sharon Young of Toronto did hers in the midst of the pandemic, at age 60.

We heard from the family of Ruth Miller, who did her ceremony at the age of 90 in

1996, at Temple Emanu-el-Beth Shalom in Montreal.

Shirley Segev of Congregation Darchei Noam in Toronto teaches women to have bat mitzvahs, but she has never felt she could have one of her own—even though many people have suggested she should.

That’s because she is a child of Holocaust survivors.

After the war, her parents were still persecuted for being Jews living in Romania.

Today, in her early 70s, Segev is convinced she might burst into tears on the bimah if she were to go through with the ceremony she never had.

Later, we profiled 80-year-old Ruth Cooperstock from Montreal, who had hers on June 15, 2022. She overcame the lockdown—not to mention losing her voice for four months—to prove to her children and grandchildren that it’s never too late to have a bat mitzvah. 

Shanah Tova!

Wishing you health and happiness for the new year.

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Bat Mitzvah Beat | Ellin Bessner

“It has been an interesting summer” — Rabbi Robyn Fryer Bodzin of Beth Tzedec

Searching for Adam Sandler at Beth Tzedec Congregation Y

Beth Tzedec’s rabbi emeritus @Ravbaruch

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ou Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah is the name of the Netflix feature that filmed around Toronto this summer.

The film co-stars Adam Sandler, his wife Jackie, his daughters Sadie and Sunny, and it reunites him with Uncut Gems costar Indina Menzel. Sarah Sherman, who’s been following in Adam’s footsteps on Saturday Night Live, plays the rabbi.

Fiona Rosenbloom wrote the 2007 youngadult novel on which the script was based.

But the absence of an invitation also applied in reality, as our attempt to join the extras at Beth Tzedec Congregation was turned down. Hollywood movies typically don’t want to be reported on while in production.

Still, a couple of rabbis got to show off their selfies, in line with everybody else who scored a shot with the star.

There were countless pictures of Adam Sandler strolling around Yorkville—including

one with the upscale downtown neighbourhood’s own local rabbi—at a Milestones restaurant in Guelph, Ont., and playing in a pickup basketball game.

Getting the scoop on the scenes inside the shul was a different matter. We had to stand at the parking lot gate, with paid-duty cops watching, and wait for whoever wanted to talk to us.

Rabbi Steve Wernick and shul liaison Daniel Silverman filled us in on the details surrounding scenes being filmed inside the sanctuary, like how older Torahs used in the movie were deliberately pasul. (Which means the scrolls have imperfections that exclude them from ceremonial use.)

And, after years of gathering dust, Beth Tzedec’s gift shop was restocked in order to serve as a backdrop.

We’ll be sure to check it out—maybe when we’re finally invited inside for a real bat mitzvah. 

From Prime Minister Justin Trudeau & Your Liberal MPs

Wishing you a healthy, happy, and sweet New Year!

De la part du premier ministre Justin Trudeau et vos député.e.s libéraux

Nous vous souhaitons santé et bonheur pour la nouvelle année!

‫שנה טובה‬ Hon. Omar Alghabra

Mississauga Centre

Brampton Centre

Shaun Chen

Paul Chiang

Shaun.Chen@parl.gc.ca

Paul.Chiang@parl.gc.ca

Omar.Alghabra@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Bardish Chagger Waterloo

Bardish.Chagger@parl.gc.ca

Shafqat Ali

Shafqat.Ali@parl.gc.ca

Scarborough North Markham—Unionville

Shana Tova

Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau Papineau

Michael Coteau

Don Valley East

Michael.Coteau@parl.gc.ca

Rachel Bendayan

Hon. Carolyn Bennett

Outremont

Toronto—St. Paul’s

Julie Dabrusin

Hon. Marc Garneau

Rachel.Bendayan@parl.gc.ca Carolyn.Bennett@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Karina Gould

Toronto—Danforth Notre-Dame-de-Grâce— Burlington Karina.Gould@parl.gc.ca Westmount

Julie.Dabrusin@parl.gc.ca

Marc.Garneau@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Steven Guilbeault

Laurier—Sainte-Marie

Anthony Housefather Mount Royal /

Hon. Helena Jaczek

Markham—Stouffville

Steven.Guilbeault@parl.gc.ca Helena.Jaczek@parl.gc.ca Mont-Royal Anthony.Housefather@parl.gc.ca

Yasir Naqvi

Ottawa Centre

Yasir.Naqvi@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Mary Ng

Markham—Thornhill Mary.Ng@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Rob Oliphant

Don Valley West

Rob.Oliphant@parl.gc.ca

Majid Jowhari

Richmond Hill— Markham

Hon. David Lametti

Hon. David McGuinty

LaSalle—Émard— Ottawa South Eglinton—Lawrence David.McGuinty@parl.gc.ca Marco.Mendicino@parl.gc.ca Verdun

Majid.Jowhari@parl.gc.ca

David.Lametti@parl.gc.ca

Ya’ara Saks

Hon. Judy Sgro

Francesco Sorbara

Judy.Sgro@parl.gc.ca

Francesco.Sorbara@parl.gc.ca

York Centre

Yaara.Saks@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Marco Mendicino

Humber River— Black Creek

Vaughan— Woodbridge

Sameer Zuberi

Pierrefonds—Dollard Sameer.Zuberi@parl.gc.ca

SPONSORED CONTENT

10 Years Young: the Azrieli Institute Looks Towards Its Next Decade

Institute Director Csaba Nikolenyi (left) interviewing author Yossi Klein Halevi (right) at the Gelber Centre

A

s it enters its second decade, the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies at Concordia University is well-positioned to play a leading role in this academic field which is growing internationally.

Unique in Canada, the Institute is a gold member of the Association for Israel Studies, one of only five university programs in the world to achieve that status.

Association president Arieh Saposnik said, in its first 10 years, the Institute and director Csaba Nikolenyi have become “key partners in expanding our disciplinary horizons and the international networking of scholars, playing a central role in helping to extend and deepen our understanding of Israeli society, culture, politics and history, and to place these in broad international contexts.”

Within Canada, the Institute has established Israel Studies as a desirable pursuit for students and scholars from a range of interests and backgrounds. The Institute was the first, and remains the only Canadian university, to offer a minor in Israel Studies.

“The success of Israel Studies programs requires not only scholarly and pedagogical excellence, but also a vibrant and dynamic engagement with the community at large,” said Nikolenyi.

Serving as a resource to the broader public is a pillar of the Institute’s mission. It collaborates with Federation CJA, the Jewish Public Library, synagogues and the annual Israel film festivals, for example, to co-sponsor lectures and cultural events.

The outreach goes beyond the Jewish community. The McGill-Queens University Press Series in Israel Studies, edited by Nikolenyi,

Concordia and Israeli students learning together at the Western Galilee College, Akko, Northern Israel

publishes works by international academics that reflect the field’s disciplinary and methodological diversity.

The Institute is committed to nurturing partnerships with other academic programs focused on a country or region, such as European Studies or Indian Studies. Creating frameworks for comparative discussions among scholars and students in other areas is essential to the further development of Israel Studies, Nikolenyi said.

Creating synergies with Canadian and Quebec studies programs is also a priority.

“There are so many common themes to build on: the role of religion in the public space, democracy, language, immigration, to name a few,” he said.

The Institute attracts Jewish and non-Jewish students from diverse backgrounds, whose majors are in a variety of subjects, such as political science, religious studies and even fine arts.

“Our classes provide an opportunity for multicultural exchange and learning,” Nikolenyi said, as do the summer programs in Israel.

“The minor in Israel Studies opened up the world of Israeli politics, culture and history to me; without the Institute, I would not be in Israel today,” said former student Noa Ogilvy.

“Undoubtedly, the academic connections the Institute forges between students and Israel positively impact the Jewish community. Equally importantly, the minor in Israel Studies attracts many students who are not Jewish. These same students, who leave the program with a greater understanding of the complexities of Israel in all her many aspects,

are a testament to how the Institute can serve as a bridge between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. Today, the Institute’s role in this regard is critical,” Ogilvy said.

A number of former students have continued with Israel Studies at the graduate level at universities in Canada and abroad. Some have moved to Israel to study or gain work experience. Others work at the Institute as research assistants.

Pascale Sicotte, dean of the Concordia Faculty of Arts and Science, said, “I believe the Institute is a shining example of what our faculty and Concordia are all about: working across disciplines to foster lasting and meaningful understanding and innovation for the benefit of society.”

As Arieh Saposnik affirms, this milestone anniversary is “indeed a moment for celebration.”

SCAN THIS QR CODE WITH YOUR SMARTPHONE TO VISIT OUR WEBSITE

Jewish Community Organizations, Synagogues and Schools wish

A HAPPY & HEALTHY YEAR 5783

Shana Tova!

Adath Israel Congregation Beit Rayim Synagogue & School Bernard Betel Centre Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Beth Sholom Synagogue Beth Tikvah Synagogue Beth Tzedec Congregation Canadian Friends of Ezrath Nashim - Herzog Hospital Canadian Friends of Hebrew University Canadian Friends of Yad Sarah Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel City Shul Congregation Beth Haminyan Congregation Habonim Hebrew Beach Institute & School Holy Blossom Temple Israel Bonds/Canada-Israel Securities, Limited Na’amat Canada Toronto Reena Temle Kol Ami Temple Emanu-El Temple Har Zion Temple Sinai The Song Shul

‫שנה טובה‬

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

May your New Year be sweetened with happiness and good health.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Discover the Difference at V!VA Thronhill Woods Retirement Community in Vaughan IRIS WINSTON, Postmedia Content Works Inc.

S

hae Eckler remembers telling a friend, after attending a B’nai Brith event at V!VA’s Thornhill Woods, that if she ever decided to move to a retirement community, this would be the one she would choose. “And now, here I am and I’m loving it,” says Eckler, who has been a resident for the last two months. “I’ve always been a social person and when I walked around with my three daughters, I knew this would work for me.” A Toronto District School Board employee until her retirement, she checked out some other communities before “taking the plunge” she says.

“There was no question about it. V!VA won.” Almost instantly, she settled into her spacious one-bedroom suite, decorated in her favourite colour of purple. Light and bright with large windows, her new home has plenty of room for her most-loved pieces of furniture, including a couple of special items that had belonged to her mother. “There are times when I just sit in my favourite rocking chair and look around the living room, just loving it,” she says. “I’ve settled in so quickly and it really feels like home.” She is equally enthusiastic about the chef-prepared V!VAlicious meals and the many other amenities that V!VA Thornhill Woods has to offer. “There are so many choices — two chef ’s specials at every meal — and if you don’t want either one, there’s a whole à la carte menu to choose from as well,” she says, adding that, to date,

V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community Member Shae Eckler enjoys a glass of wine in the Community’s on-site pub, Pints!

PHOTO BY V!VA RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES

she has thoroughly enjoyed every single meal in the dining room and every one of the snacks on offer 24/7. V!VA Thornhill Woods is like the other V!VA communities in terms of the high quality of the food, notes community relations manager Wendy Teperman, but, as the only one of the group particularly focused on catering to a Jewish demographic, it offers traditional Jewish-style food. For example, no pork or shellfish are served, and all meat is obtained from kosher butchers. “We also have two sets of dishes and do not serve meat and dairy on the same plate,” she says. “We have really traditional Jewish-style dining here.” As well as having regular visits from a rabbi, V!VA Thornhill Woods offers a full activity program designed to keep mind and body as busy as any community member chooses. Included on the list are aquafit programs in the saltwater pool and personalized fitness and exercise programs in the gym. “The exercise room is fantastic,” says Eckler, noting that the floor-to-ceiling windows bring the outside in even on winter days. Also on offer are computer classes, lectures, various types of entertainment, including a movie theatre and library visits, a bistro-style café, a pub (also given the “fantastic” nod from Eckler), raised gardens for any community members who enjoy gardening and a beauty salon. A shuttle bus is available for group outings and shopping trips, in non-pandemic times. V!VA Thornhill Woods has 134 suites varying from studios and one-bedroom suites to one-bedroom with den and two-bedroom suites in different layouts. Care levels range from independent to assisted living. The 28 assisted- living suites are located on a separate floor with its own dining room. All levels of care include three meals a day plus snacks and weekly housekeeping. But, emphasizes Teperman, V!VA Thornhill Woods “is not just bricks and mortar and beautiful furniture. It’s the people who live and work here. It’s about how they come together with like interests and backgrounds. They open their arms and their hearts. It’s so warm, like an extended family. Everybody cares and you feel the warmth as soon as you walk in.” “February 22 was our ninth anniversary,” she adds, “and I’m very proud to say that I have been here since the beginning.

I know many of the families. For instance, I have known Shae for many years. We went to the same synagogue, and she was an old friend of my aunt’s, who also lives here, and my mother- in-law.”

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Bonjour Chai | Avi Finegold

Hot takes in search of Higher Holidays The host of Bonjour Chai talks to three spiritual leaders in pursuit of something new

M

ost folks attending services at the Mile End Chavurah are the kind of people who swore that going to shul wasn’t the kind of thing they’d ever be voluntarily inclined to do.

But after someone convinced them to attend, they kept on coming back—and, soon enough, they were regulars.

That’s because Mile End Chavurah (MECh) isn’t a typical synagogue. They don’t have their own rabbi. They don’t even have a regular meeting space. Instead, the congregation hops from one community space to another, and sometimes a public park.

So, for a pre-Rosh Hashanah checkin—it’s what I do to keep the hot takes burning—MECh’s managing director was the kind of person I needed to catch up with for a sense of how groups practising Jewish religious rituals can rebound for the High Holidays of 2022.

Peter Horowitz told me about how these accidental attendees are attracted to the casual nature of the services: fewer rules, and kids free to run around a space that may have involved nothing more complicated than renting out a café.

No one scolds you if you come late or leave early. Don’t want to wear a kippah?

That’s OK, too. But equally crucial is that the service is led by laypeople putting their own spin on rituals that are familiar to many—but updated in different ways at MECh. For one thing, you won’t hear any sermons there at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Instead, the leadership team curates

28

Divrei Torah talks from members, who are asked to speak at specific points during the service. The results are often moving, and vastly different from rabbinical pronouncements from the pulpit. It’s like a close friend sharing something meaningful—that you can talk more about later.

I’m seeing great value in smaller communities that are built to be nimble.

They’re the ones who can be more responsive to the needs of the congregation. They’re more adaptable when new ideas arise. And they’re more capable of addressing challenges they inevitably face.

And it’s communities like these that I think are the future of Jewry, a topic we’ve been contemplating in new ways for the past 18 months at The Canadian Jewish News.

But the biggest challenge for us to overcome—on weekly episodes of Bonjour Chai and beyond—has been not being so

Canadian at this monumental point in time.

Rather than suffer from the usual dearth of creativity, envying other countries where Judaism thrives, we’re trying to look at what successful communities look like, so that we can foster more of them.

Just so you know, I’m not also a podcast host, I’m also a rabbi without a pulpit. I’ve dedicated the past few years to connecting more directly with people over ideas, which has involved multiple programs through the Jewish Living Lab: I might be based in my hometown of Montreal, but the digital content translates everywhere.

While I contentedly attend a very large establishment congregation—it helps to be married to a clergy member, not to mention live across the street—I’m seeing great value in smaller communities that are built to be nimble. They’re the ones who can be more responsive to the needs of the congregation.

They’re more adaptable when new ideas arise. And they’re more capable of addressing challenges they inevitably face.

To be fair, a meaningful service can be found in many traditional spaces. While some synagogues aren’t thriving, others are doing just fine, and with their walls one can find great leaders and engaged congregants who create meaning and community together.

And yet, we’re at a moment in time that can be harnessed now, or pointed to in the long lens of history as the time when the Jewish people of Canada dropped the ball.

I’m avoiding data to state my case. Numbers leave me glassy-eyed, not to mention

bored with reducing faith to descriptive statistics. I’d rather focus on what we can do based on what others are actually doing right—in order to develop it further.

I’m interested in Jewish mavericks and spiritual entrepreneurs who build communities.

Rabbi Yossi Sapirman is one such example. He left an established pulpit career to start Living Jewishly, an education initiative with a synagogue component. With his creative team, Dr. Elliott Malamet and Rabbi Rachel Rosenbluth1, they’ve been virtually teaching and holding services during the pandemic.

NuShul is launching this fall in Toronto as the first in-person iteration of what they’ve built. Rabbi Sapirman says he reached the limits of what traditional congregations were capable of, after having been shown all of the problems, but none of the answers.

For him, the establishment shuls have been about the what and how—but what’s missing is the why. Being meaningful to a new generation doesn’t mean remaking it completely.

But it doesn’t need to be approached as a throwaway exercise, either.

Rather, he’s creating something for Jews who tend to only participate a few times each year, yet are looking for inspiration to apply it to their life every day. The idea is to be “a phone charger for the soul” rather than instructing you on which apps to use.2 Living Jewishly isn’t looking to own a building. High Holiday services for NuShul are at the Symes event venue in the Junction, a westend Toronto neighbourhood which once had a significant population of Orthodox Jews. (The nearby Congregation Knesseth Israel, established in 1909, has occasional services in a building restored in the 1990s.)

And while he didn’t want to give too much away, Rabbi Sapirman promises that each section will be thoughtfully curated—to cut out repetition and the

feeling of wasted time. But he’s also focused on tradition and a belief that Judaism is interesting enough in itself. To him, there’s no need to borrow elements from Buddhism to be relevant to today’s Jews.

Meanwhile in Montreal, the Lev Shul is an evolutionary step from the city’s Open Shul, started by rabbis Schachar Orenstein and Sherrill Gilbert along with cantor Heather Batchelor. The two rabbis now see an opportunity to be more creatively experimental.

Rabbi Gilbert was trained in the movement known as Jewish Renewal, while Rabbi Ornstein—a colleague of mine for decades—defines himself as “traditionally trained” with similarly deep Renewal roots, but he’s now driven to do things that he couldn’t do in a formal shul setting. For them, if more people are drawn to Friday night services in a yoga studio, that’s what they’ll do.

Lev Shul was also still working out their High Holiday details at press time, but Rabbi Ornstein promises to nourish the physical, the emotional, the mind and spirit in what they call a Four Worlds Approach to “Davenology.” Moreover, he’s promising a uniquely Montreal mixture involving English, French, Hebrew, Yiddish and Spanish.3 Here’s the thing: None of these offerings seem personally appealing to me. For example, when I was introduced to the concept of “Embodied Judaism,” my response was that I practise Neck-Up Judaism.

But I also don’t need my form of Judaism to be the only form of Judaism. That could only be fatal for the future.

It also helps me appreciate those who are trying an approach that’s decentralized and anti-establishment, trying hard to forge a path that speaks to those who haven’t found it in communal structures. continued on next page

Avi Finegold

1. But she wants you to call her Rabbi Bluth.

2. This metaphor evokes something similar about Judaism that Dan Libenson, the founder of the San Francisco-based Judaism Unbound has been talking about for years. He says that Judaism can either be seen as an operating system (like Windows or Linux) or as an app that you use (like Facebook or Waze). Orthodox Judaism is clearly Judaism as an operating system. It governs everything that is done and adds a layer of meaning to daily activities. It’s why when Jews leave Orthodoxy they’re often baffled by the world around them. They’ve deleted their operating system but haven’t replaced it with anything else. Increasingly, the Jews that are turned off by synagogue life see Judaism as an app. When they want to do or feel something Jewish, they just open up the application to get their fix. But as app developers know, there needs to be some very strong incentives in order for users to keep opening the app. Otherwise, it tends to fall by the wayside—and gets deleted as soon as you run out of space.

3. What isn’t promised is a middle-finger salute to Premier François Legault.

THECJN.CA 29

Bonjour Chai | Avi Finegold

continued from previous page

These newer organizations are dedicated to moments rooted in curiosity. The curators are aware that social justice opportunities exist in many other spaces—and while they won’t turn their back in helping others, it’s also not the primary focus.4 What can and will draw people into Jewish life are values and ideas that are Jewish.

In these cases, it translates to prayer and speaking about God in a way that shines a light on how fearful others have become about the topic.

Doing this right means turning an organization into a community, with people coming from all walks of life—and across generations, rather than segmenting people by age, with the millennials in one room and the boomers in another.

The best thing that can come out of it all is people realizing that finding a diverse group of friends capable of coming to a consensus on prayer isn’t as hard as it seems.

Start with the occasional Friday night gathering. Decide which parts of the service are meaningful, and amplify those.

Spaces for creative expression in the services aren’t as elusive as you might think—even the most Orthodox observance has room for it, too.

Don’t walk away from the premise of prayer just because you don’t like the buffet.

Or, to quote Franz Kafka—in a parable that Rabbi Orenstein put in my ear: “Leopards break into the temple and drink all the sacrificial vessels dry; it keeps happening; in the end it can be calculated in advance and is incorporated into the ritual.”

The goal from the rabbis I spoke to isn’t to keep those spotted cats away—it’s to keep finding new ones to introduce to our temples.

So, going back to where we started in the Mile End, consider how that congrega-

tion ends their Yom Kippur services, which typically end in a blur as everyone beelines for the door to break the fast with their own circle of family and friends.

But at MECh, you’d be invited to their own circle for the closing Havdalah service with multiple candles and spices throughout the crowd. Index cards that participants fill in during the week since Rosh Hashanah contain scribbled thoughts of what they want to get better at. The bad habits they want to break.

Sins against God. Sins against the community. Sins against themselves.

And it all gets thrown into the fire.

I absolutely love this ritual because it’s a deep acknowledgment of our imperfections and our desire to improve, personally and communally.

If any of this speaks to you—or somebody you hand this magazine to—I encourage you to look out for the leopards as the Jewish year 5783 arrives for us all.

May this be the year that you write your own Book of Life—and connect to a creative Jewish community, too. n

Listen now: thecjn.ca/bonjour

4. Judaism focused on tikun olam (repairing the world) plays a role in these emerging communities. But helping others is also a universalist value, which doesn’t require a particularly Jewish expression. Consider how many social-justice opportunities exist in a secular context today.

30

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Élections en Israël: L’ère Netanyahou est-elle révolue ?

Entrevue avec l’économiste israélien Jacques Bendelac PAR ELIAS LEVY

B

enyamin Netanyahou est le premier dirigeant d’Israël à avoir forgé sa propre idéologie, le « bibisme », qui, en l’espace de trois décennies, a profondément transformé la société israélienne à plusieurs niveaux : politique, économique, social…

Dans un livre très fouillé, Les années Netanyahou. Le grand virage d’Israël (Éditions L’Harmattan, 2022), Jacques Bendelac retrace le parcours atypique de ce leader politique hors norme, qui détient le record de longévité d’un premier ministre israélien, et brosse un bilan des politiques, certaines très controversées, qu’il a mises en œuvre avec pugnacité.

Un livre qui arrive à point nommé alors que les Israéliens retourneront aux urnes cet automne pour la cinquième fois en l’espace de trois ans.

Docteur en économie, enseignant et chercheur, directeur de recherche à l’Institut israélien de sécurité sociale, à Jérusalem, Jacques Bendelac vit en Israël depuis 1983. Il est l’auteur de plusieurs livres remarqués sur l’économie israélienne, la société israélienne, les Arabes d’Israël et les relations israélo-palestiniennes.

Il a accordé une entrevue au Canadian Jewish News.

Dans la conclusion de votre livre, vous augurez l’émergence d’une ère post-Netanyahou (l’après-bibisme). L’actualité la plus brûlante en Israël – la fin du gouvernement de Naftali Bennett et la tenue de nouvelles élections le 1er novembre prochain – ne dément-elle pas votre postulat ?

Durant deux années entières, de 2019 à 2021, Netanyahou n’a pas réussi à

former une coalition qui tienne la route, ce qui a entraîné sa chute. Rien ne dit qu’il y parviendra en 2022. Mais surtout, Netanyahou devra comprendre que s’il ne réussit pas à réunir une majorité de 61 députés à la Knesset, il devra laisser sa place à la tête du Likoud et se retirer de la vie politique. Il n’est pas sûr que tous ses partenaires naturels, notamment les harédim, continuent de le soutenir s’il subit un nouvel échec. Selon des sondages récents, il lui sera difficile de constituer une coalition stable qui ait une durée de vie plus longue que celle du gouvernement dirigé par Bennett. Et n’oublions pas que le procès de Netanyahou (accusations de corruption et abus de pouvoir) est en cours et que son avenir politique en dépend.

On ne peut que regretter que l’enjeu des prochaines élections ne soit pas l’avenir d’Israël, mais l’avenir de Netanyahou !

« On ne peut que regretter que l’enjeu des prochaines élections ne soit pas l’avenir d’Israël, mais l’avenir de Netanyahou »

Vous expliquez à quel point les politiques conduites par Benyamin Netanyahou durant les quinze années qu’il a dirigé Israël ont profondément changé le pays. Ces mutations sont-elle la résultante d’une « Révolution Netanyahou » ?

Le pays a connu de profonds changements qui sont liés à son développement économique, à sa croissance démographique et à sa modernisation. En quittant le pouvoir en juin 2021, Netanyahou a laissé derrière lui un pays plus riche et plus moderne qu’il ne l’avait trouvé en arrivant au pouvoir. En réalité, les deux décennies de « révolution bibiste » ont aussi exacerbé certaines tensions sociales, notamment entre Juifs et Arabes, entre laïcs et religieux, entre riches suite à la page 34

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« Au lieu de réunir le peuple face à des enjeux cardinaux, le « bibisme » a accentué les divisions entre les Israéliens »

et pauvres, etc. Les mutations que le pays a connues ont été largement influencées par le mode de gouvernance mis en place par Netanyahou durant les années qu’il a passées à la tête du pays. La démocratie en a pris un coup parce que Netanyahou n’a pas hésité à mettre en œuvre des mesures populistes lorsque les contraintes de sa coalition l’exigeaient. Pour se maintenir au pouvoir, il a continuellement brandi des menaces existentielles, telles que l’Iran et les Palestiniens. Ses opposants politiques ont souvent été qualifiés d’ennemis, et même de traîtres. Au lieu de réunir le peuple face à des enjeux cardinaux, le « bibisme » a accentué les divisions entre les Israéliens. C’est bien dommage.

Paradoxalement, les politiques économiques très libérales menées par Benyamin Netanyahou sont synonymes de prospérité économique et de paupérisation des couches les plus défavorisées de la société israélienne.

Effectivement, ce paradoxe s’explique par l’idéologie ultralibérale que Netanyahou a calqué du modèle américain et appliqué en Israël, d’abord comme ministre des Finances, de 2003 à 2005, puis comme premier ministre, à partir de 2009. Le libéralisme absolu que Netanyahou a prôné et mis en œuvre s’est traduit notamment par la baisse des dépenses publiques civiles (les dépenses militaires ont continué de progresser), la baisse de la pression fiscale, les privatisations, le rétrécissement de la protection sociale, etc. Certes, ce libé-

34

Jacques Bendelac

ralisme a favorisé la prospérité économique du pays et élevé le niveau de vie moyen de ses habitants. Mais cette richesse n’a pas profité à tous les Israéliens. Certains se sont très fortement enrichis, alors que d’autres ont sombré dans le dénuement.

Le bibisme a construit une société de moins en moins solidaire et de plus en plus individualiste, tandis que la population qui vit en-dessous du seuil de la pauvreté n’a cessé de s’accroître.

Le chapitre que vous consacrez à la diplomatie durant l’ère Netanyahou nous laisse dubitatif. Vous faites fi des percées diplomatiques spectaculaires réalisées par Benyamin Netanyahou auprès de puissances émergentes, la Chine, l’Inde, le Brésil… qui ont depuis considérablement consolidé leurs liens économiques et politiques avec Israël.

L’ère Netanyahou a connu des avancées diplomatiques importantes, mais surtout

lorsque des intérêts économiques communs l’exigeaient. C’est le moins que l’on pouvait attendre du dirigeant d’un État qui n’a pas que des amis dans le monde et qui doit rechercher activement des partenaires commerciaux, ce que Netanyahou a très bien fait durant ses quinze années au pouvoir. Or, curieusement, il était plus facile pour Netanyahou de consolider les relations diplomatiques et économiques d’Israël avec des pays géographiquement très éloignés plutôt qu’avec nos voisins immédiats, totalement ignorés. Pendant une décennie, Netanyahou n’a pas rencontré le président égyptien. Par ailleurs, sous sa gouverne, la paix avec la Jordanie est restée très froide et les relations avec la Turquie se sont détériorées. C’est important d’avoir renforcé les liens avec un pays comme l’Inde, mais cela aurait été tout aussi utile de faire des efforts pour entretenir de bonnes relations avec nos voisins les plus proches. suite à la page 36

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suite de la page 34

Comment envisagez-vous les relations entre l’administration de Joe Biden et Benyamin Netanyahou, si ce dernier revient au pouvoir ?

Netanyahou n’a jamais entretenu de bonnes relations avec la Parti démocrate américain, ni avec son chef lorsque celui-ci était président (ce fut le cas avec Barack Obama). Lorsque Joe Biden a remplacé Donald Trump à la Maison Blanche en janvier 2021, Netanyahou était à la tête d’un gouvernement de transition. Le nouveau président démocrate américain a pris le contre-pied de la politique étrangère menée par son prédécesseur républicain.

La cohabitation entre Biden et Netanyahou n’a duré que six mois. Il a fallu attendre l’arrivée de Bennett, qui a rencontré Biden à Washington en août 2021, pour insuffler un nouvel esprit de coopération entre les deux pays. Si les désaccords subsistent sur de nombreux dossiers des relations israélo-américaines, le dialogue entre le Parti démocrate et les dirigeants israéliens a repris. Le retour de Netanyahou risque de remettre en cause les premiers acquis de Bennett. C’est bien dommage car Israël a besoin des États-Unis pour normaliser ses relations avec l’Arabie saoudite, pour élargir les Accords d’Abraham et pour former un front commun contre la menace iranienne.

Autant d’enjeux qui seront difficiles à réaliser si les relations entre Biden et Netanyahou restent tendues.

Vous êtes sévère à l’endroit de la politique menée par Benyamin Netanyahou dans l’épineux dossier israélo-palestinien. Les Palestiniens et le radicalisme de leurs dirigeants ne sont-ils pas à blâmer aussi ?

Les différences de vue entre Israéliens et Palestiniens ne doivent pas empêcher la poursuite du dialogue politique et de la coopération sécuritaire. Or, pendant onze ans, il n’y a eu aucun contact de haut niveau entre Israéliens et Palestiniens, un comble ! Il a fallu que le gouvernement Bennett se mette en place pour que le ministre de la Défense, Benny Gantz, rencontre le président palestinien, Mahmoud Abbas.

Netanyahou a totalement éludé le dossier palestinien. Un choix qui conduit à la mise en place progressive d’un État binational, donc à la remise en cause de l’État juif.

Même si les dirigeants palestiniens sont à blâmer – ce que je fais sans hésiter –, le rôle d’un chef d’État israélien est de trouver une solution au conflit afin de préserver le caractère juif et démocratique d’Israël. Ariel Sharon avait pris en 2005 une décision courageuse en se retirant unilatéralement

de la bande de Gaza. Aujourd’hui aussi, si une paix négociée n’est pas possible, il faut envisager des solutions unilatérales pour mettre un terme à ce conflit qui n’a que trop duré.

Quel avenir pour le « bibisme » ?

L’avenir du bibisme est derrière lui ! Même si Netanyahou revenait prochainement au pouvoir, il ne retrouverait pas la même force politique qu’il avait durant les années 2009-2021. Celle-ci va s’affaiblir, notamment parce que les partis du centre (droite et gauche) ne feront pas coalition avec lui et qu’en s’alliant à l’extrême droite, il n’aura pas une marge de manœuvre très large.

Son procès pour corruption l’a affaibli et ses amis politiques comprennent, même sans le dire ouvertement, que le Likoud aurait beucoup à gagner s’il était dirigé par un autre homme politique. Beaucoup d’Israéliens, même parmi ses partisans, sont persuadés qu’Israël peut continuer à vivre et à se développer sans Netanyahou !

Les années de « bibisme », caractérisées par un fort culte de la personnalité du chef, ont amoindri la démocratie israélienne.

L’opposition entre « pro-bibistes » et « anti-bibistes » a assez duré. Il est temps de revenir à une démocratie saine où la droite et la gauche seraient légitimes. n

Behind this story (in English) In an interview with The CJN, Jacques Bendelac, author of The Netanyahu Years: Israel’s Great Shift, retraces the extraordinary career of Benjamin Netanyahu, who holds the longevity record for an Israeli prime minister. As Bendelac explains, Israel changed in profound ways during Netanyahu’s time at the helm. Now, as the country heads back to the polls this November, the question on everyone’s mind is whether the “Netanyahu Revolution” has yet another chapter still to be written, or if Israel is ready for its post-Bibi era.

36

‫שנה טובה‬ ‫ומתוקה‬ WISHING YOU & YOUR FAMILY A GOOD AND SWEET NEW YEAR

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Where our story about El Al took flight

Israel’s flag carrier deciding to suspend its Canadian operations on Oct. 27 was one of The CJN’s biggest news items of the summer. Here’s how we got a scoop...

Tweeting the news Spotting a petition We noticed it making the rounds on social media with a growing number of signatures, but where was it coming from? Asaf Halperin is a Toronto insurance agent—and a fan of El Al’s security protocols— who caught wind of the news early. We found him, and he told us he was mostly wondering if El Al would change its mind if support was shown.

38

Digital stories from The CJN are usually distributed after we’ve produced a full report, but this one seemed like it was worth an early alert. News editor Lila Sarick handled the first story with the essential details. We followed up by asking questions about El Al’s motivation for ending the route, and found Halperin at home excited to share his perspective for a podcast.

Getting the lowdown While on-the-record comments from the company remained elusive, making it tough to report why the Tel Aviv-Toronto route was being cut, a company spokesman in New Jersey conceded a few thoughts. With airlines everywhere trying to get their sea legs back after the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a likely factor here. El Al would have preferred to maintain a presence in Canada.

Finding this family We talked to Reena Ostro, a Toronto woman whose family had El Al tickets for mid-December to celebrate her oldest son’s upcoming bar mitzvah.

When informed of alternative routes, they decided to cancel due to added expenses and complications. A shorter trip has now been planned via LOT Polish Airlines instead.

WEEKLY PRINTABLE EDITION

JULY 8, 2022 / 9 TAMUZ 5782

EL AL is flying away from Canada (but will it come back next year?) / page 6

Obituaries: Irving Abella and Sheila Goldbloom

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MONCTON

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McGill University's antisemitism probe findings

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MONTREAL

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Rabbi reflects on kidney donation to a stranger

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OTTAWA

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8:43

Faith and grief in a ballet by Avinoam Silverman

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9:19

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9:44

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CANDLE LIGHTING TIMES

Reaching an expert Fred Lazar, who teaches at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, had a different spin on these developments. While predicting the withdrawal would lead Air Canada to raise its ticket prices, he also predicts that El Al will notice the demand and return to the country it served for over 50 years—initially via Montreal, and later via Toronto.

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Printing the article The CJN produces a digest designed for reading on tablets or for printing out for Shabbat and the weekend. We put the El Al story on the cover of the July 8 edition, with a feature article that summed up everything we discovered. Tens of thousands of people read and listened to the kind of coverage that they couldn’t have found anywhere else.

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The CJN Daily | Ellin Bessner

The real rabbi who did Drake’s fake wedding T

he music video for “Falling Back” premiered on June 17 with the premise of the Toronto hip-hop icon marrying 23 women at once.

And he didn’t want to do it without a rabbi.

The call came to Rabbi Ari Sitnik, who drove downtown to the Fairmont Royal York hotel, and then pretended to pronounce them “husband and wives.”

It wasn’t hard to find him on the day it premiered, even as global curiosity grew over whether this guy was the real deal.

He is indeed a rabbi, ordained through the Chabad Lubavitch movement—although he has a day job in IT. He also has an accent from his birthplace of Brazil.

After following his bride to Toronto 26 years ago, he settled in the city’s Clanton Park neighbourhood.

And, a couple of times each year, he does some dabbling in show business.

It’s a hobby that found him contributing some shtick to an annual backyard wrestling fundraiser, Slammin’ for Shabbos, organized by Magen Boys Entertainment.

Two fellow volunteers, Adam Rodness and Stu Stone, got the gig

40

to produce a secret video shoot for Drake’s surprise summer album Honestly, Nevermind, which found him pivoting to more of a dancemusic singing style.

It was commemorated with a fantasy wedding that the Jewish rapper invited his mother to attend.

Rabbi Sitnik clarified that there was nothing Orthodox about the pseudo-ceremony. For starters, none of these 23 women were Jewish.

But the producers arranged for his own kosher catering to be delivered from uptown restaurant The Chicken Nest, and they adjusted the production schedule for him to appear on Sunday rather than Saturday.

Instead, he thought it was terrific that of all the clergy that could’ve been recruited for this role, Aubrey Drake Graham chose somebody Jewish.

Besides, their actual face-time was fleeting. The technicalities surrounding the shoot meant Rabbi Sitnik didn’t speak off-camera with the star.

But he knows what he would’ve said, given the chance.

“I would have asked Drake to put on tefillin.” n

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The CJN Daily | Ellin Bessner

Mr. Begin meets Mr. Bennett (thanks to Gabriel Emanuel)

Gordie Wiseman (a.k.a. Gabriel Emanuel) accepting the Prime Minister’s Prize from Naftali Bennett on May 12, 2022.

H

is mother wanted Gordie Wiseman to be a lawyer—just in case he needed something to fall back on if the theatre didn’t work out.

But the 92-year old Winnipeg matriarch was proud when Wiseman, a playwright (and lawyer—yes, he listened to her) won a prestigious prize from the Israeli government for his play about Menachem Begin.

Mr. Begin is a one-man show, with an actor portraying the life and career of Israel’s former freedom fighter-turned-statesman.

Begin, who died in 1992, served as the country’s sixth prime minister.

The play addresses how the right-wing leader made peace with Egypt in 1978 that resulted in the Nobel Prize. But it doesn’t gloss over Begin’s responsibility for the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Lebanon.

It also covers Begin’s origins as a Polish survivor of the Holocaust, to his years with the Irgun helping to kick the British out of Palestine, to the founding of the State of Israel.

42

“Frankly, I don’t think there would be an Israel if there wasn’t an Irgun that opposed the British and basically forced them out.

But history will judge that,” Wiseman told me during his summer visit with family—including his mother, Elaine.

The play debuted in 2013, in Hebrew. It hasn’t been performed outside of Israel–

yet. Hopefully, attention to the award will spark interest elsewhere, and perhaps a translation to English.

Wiseman thinks Begin’s legacy has lessons for current events in the Middle East.

“It took a right-wing, some would say extremist right-wing leader, to have made peace with Egypt, which was Israel’s greatest enemy and the most powerful of the Arab nations at the time,” he said, adding that the Arabs trusted Begin because he was a man of his word.

“All the ones who talked about peace on the left and from the Socialist leftist roots could never do that.”

With a dozen or more plays to his credit.

Wiseman now lives and works in Had Nes, a small settlement in the Golan Heights. He is known professionally there as Gabriel Emanuel. It’s a nod to his late father Manny.

During the pandemic, he embarked on a new sideline as a singer/songwriter, following in the footsteps of brothers Bob Wiseman (the founding keyboardist for Blue Rodeo) and Ron “The King of Jewish Reggae” Wiseman.

His country-and-western-style songs are now on Spotify—where he discovered a fan club of about 100 people… listening in Norway. n

Ellin Bessner meeting Gordie Wiseman on the patio of Aroma Espresso Bar in Toronto’s Forest Hill Village on July 19, 2022.

www.robapp.com @robinsapplebyllp @RobinsAppleby

The CJN Daily | Ellin Bessner

ing around for five “Mosquitoes are fly u cide to land on yo de minutes until they ys sa u,” yo e they will bit and then, maybe, rse ho ite Wh in d o’s live Amir Dembner, wh car you get out of the e nc “O .

09 20 since n’t Did . s, like Kamikaze you have thousand ?” gh suffer enou the Jewish people

“When I came here, I dis covered all the lakes and the nature, and going on a hike for one or two day s and not meeting anyone, just you and the nature,” says Nicky Rosenberg, an electrica l engineer who left Isra el in 2011.

“Sometimes you meet a bear or a moose.”

Greetings from the Jews of Yukon N

owadays, seeing the Israeli flag and hearing Hebrew is a lot more common than you might expect North of 60. A sizeable number of Israeli expats are currently calling the rugged Canadian territory home.

Of the 38 current members of the Jewish Cultural Society of Yukon, 10 are Israelis.

And those who have survived a full year in the territory are considered a “sourdough.”

(Or, as they say in Hebrew, a “machmetzet.”)

Rick Karp and his late wife Joy were Ottawa natives who moved to Whitehorse in 1986 to open the first McDonald’s franchise in Northwestern Canada.

At the helm of the community since 1997, he’s welcomed the Israeli newcomers to a

44

region which has had a Jewish presence for about 125 years. When the Klondike Gold Rush began in 1896, Jewish prospectors and merchants flocked to the territory to seek their fortunes.

Over a century later, in 2014, the community restored a long-neglected Jewish cemetery in Dawson City, where five of those early adventurers were laid to rest. The Beth Chaim burial ground is now a popular tourist attraction—although that city has just a handful of Jewish residents today.

Karp now feels the timing is right to push Whitehorse to commit to observing the territory’s first-ever Jewish Heritage Month next May. n

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The CJN Daily | Ellin Bessner

N

Nick Yudell: A war hero’s art finds an audience (80 years later) 46

ick Yudell was a budding artist who took black-and-white photos of everyday life in Winnipeg during the 1920s and ‘30s, and in rural Manitoba, where he was raised in the province’s southern city of Morden.

But after enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940, he left his extensive collection of prints and negatives behind with family for safekeeping.

Yudell died in action during a bombing raid over German-occupied Tunisia in 1943. He was 26.

Now, thanks to art professor Celia Rabinovitch—a cousin who discovered the contents of Yudell’s collection in a box in her father’s basement—a major exhibit called The Lost Expressionist has been mounted.

It’s currently on display at the Manitoba Museum until Dec. 18, 2022.

As a military historian of Canada’s Jews in the Second World War—something I chronicled in my 2019 book, Double Threat—I’d always known about Yudell’s service. I’ve lectured about him to audiences around Canada. I had even travelled to the island of Malta to pay my respects at the memorial column in Valletta.

His name is engraved on the Air Force memorial column, alongside others who served in the Mediterranean Theatre but have no known grave.

After knowing only how he died, I was deeply moved to see his collection of personal photos—which showed me also how brightly and vibrantly he lived. n

S H A N A T OVA Chag Sameach from Amica On The Avenue and Amica Thornhill. We wish you and your family a Shana Tova.

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The CJN Daily | Ellin Bessner

Dan Markel’s mother fights for his memory T

he true-crime story of Canadian law professor Dan Markel’s murder-forhire is well-known across much of the United States.

He was executed outside his home in Tallahassee, Fla., in July 2014. It was part of a custody dispute with his former wife, Wendi Adelson, who wanted to move with the couple’s two sons to Miami.

Three assassins hired by the Adelson family have since been convicted; a fourth suspect—Markel’s former brother-in-law—is facing trial.

Ruth Markel of Toronto is the victim’s mother, who has a new book written from her own perspective, The Unveiling.

And her goal is to make fellow Canadians aware of how her son’s killing had a profound impact on his grieving family members. She wanted to answer questions that haven’t come up in other coverage.

“What is it like to be a homicide victim?

What does it feel like? What is the family going through?”

Aside from the tragedy of losing her only son, who was 41, the saga has resulted in Ruth—and Dan’s father, Phil Markel—becoming estranged from two grandsons.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law in June, which is named for Dan Markel.

It covers grandparent alienation in specific cases where one parent is convicted of murdering the other.

48

“What is it like to be a homicide victim? What does it feel like? What is the family going through? ” - Ruth Mariel

While it doesn’t help Dan’s parents at the moment, since their former daughter-in-law hasn’t been charged, Ruth believes the law had other personal benefits.

Lobbying for it gave her a purpose during the darkest days of the investigation and court proceedings—which are still going on.

The Unveiling was published by Simon & Schuster on Sept. 20. Promoting it provides yet another important focus for Ruth.

“The book doesn’t end the grief. The book is a way of finding some meaning.” n

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Honourable Menschen | thecjn.ca/lives

Lives recently remembered at The CJN RABBI BENJAMIN FRIEDBERG, 94

H

e came to Beth Tzedec Congregation in 1956, the synagogue’s first year, as assistant rabbi. Rabbi Benjamin Friedberg went on to serve pulpits at Or Shalom Congregation in London, Ont., the former Agudath Israel Congregation in Ottawa, and in Rochester, N.Y. before returning to Beth Tzedec as senior rabbi from 1974 to 1992.

Upon retirement, he was conferred the title Rabbi Emeritus.

He took over the spiritual leadership of Canada’s largest Conservative synagogue from Rabbi Stuart Rosenberg, whose contentious departure the year before and subsequent legal action threatened to split the congregation into two warring camps and which rankled the whole community for years.

Rabbi Friedberg’s appointment as Beth Tzedec’s senior rabbi “helped bring a

sense of security, strength and healing to the congregation after an extended period marked by factionalism and confrontation,” the synagogue stated in an online condolence following his death in Toronto on March 30.

He did not succumb to “pulpit chill,” his funeral heard, often speaking his mind regardless of controversy or pushback, and sometimes even chided his fellow rabbis for not being pro-Israel enough in public statements.

He was also a rarity in this country: A Canadian-born and bred pulpit rabbi.

An astute observer of human nature, Rabbi Friedberg believed that values and prejudices were different sides of the same coin.

“Prejudices are values we don’t like,” he explained. “Values are prejudices we do like.” n

RABBI DOW MARMUR, 87

T

he respected scholar and activist, who served for 17 years as spiritual leader of Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple, died in Jerusalem on July 17.

Known by congregants for a stentorian speaking style, perhaps acquired by serving pulpits in England, and for punctiliously starting programs on the precise stroke of their advertised time—to the consternation of latecomers—Rabbi Dow Marmur was a prodigious writer, teacher and advocate who lived his Reform Jewish principles by implementing initiatives at his temple despite early resistance.

His peripatetic life took him from wartorn Poland to Siberia, Uzbekistan, back to Poland, Sweden, England, Canada, and finally, to his beloved Israel. As his daughter Elizabeth eulogized at his funeral in Har

HaMenuchot, in the hills of Jerusalem, “my dad had an accent from no one place.”

She recalled an atypical father, one “with no discernible hobbies,” who didn’t barbecue or tinker in a garage. “My dad was a scholar, a mentor, a leader. My dad had presence and substance. He was as stern as he was soft. He was as demanding as he was forgiving. My dad wasn’t like other dads.

(He was) a workaholic and a homebody.”

Rabbi Marmur “was both traditionalist and pragmatist, teacher and preacher par excellence,” wrote the late Irving Abella in a brief history of Holy Blossom.

“His major concern was adult education—when teaching his congregants the value of Reform Judaism, his emphasis would be on the noun, Judaism, not the adjective, Reform.” n continued on page 52

50

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Honourable Menschen | thecjn.ca/lives continued from page 50

SHIRLEY GRANOFSKY, 98

W

hen she died on May 17 at the age of 98, the Toronto Jewish community lost one of its most generous benefactors.

And yet, she was in her mid 80s before donating to causes and organizations became a central focus in her own life.

Shirley Granofsky’s husband died when she was in her early 70s. And over the course of a nearly 50-year marriage—like many women of her generation—she generally deferred to him on financial matters, including philanthropic ones.

At first, she did not feel comfortable tak-

MAX EISEN, 93

H

e was a Holocaust survivor who wrote an award-winning memoir, travelled

SHEILA GOLDBLOOM, 96

S

he was confident that she was destined to make a contribution to society when she graduated from Mount Holyoke, a prestigious women’s college in Massachusetts, in 1947.

Unlike other elite schools of its kind at the time, Holyoke groomed its students to make the world a better place through real-life work, rather than finding a suitable husband.

Sheila Goldbloom, who died at age 96 on July 3, fulfilled that promise spectacularly over her long life, as a social work professor at McGill University and as a community volunteer, a term that does not begin to convey her ground-breaking services to a multitude

ing on those responsibilities.

“She was afraid. She was nervous. She never made those decisions. It was always my father who was the architect of their philanthropy,” said their daughter, Maxine Granovsky. “(My husband) Ira and I would talk to her, and it took years for us to convince her. ‘It’s OK mom, you can do it.’

“And then once she started, it was like a drug. It was like, ‘Oh my God, this is so amazing. It’s so wonderful. It’s so great.’

“We knew that she was probably going to leave some money in her will to charities.

And we said to her, ‘Mom, do it now, so you can see the difference you’re making. Why

wait until it’s too late and you’re gone?’

After many conversations, we would talk and leave it with her, she finally said, ‘OK, I’m ready.’” n

across Canada speaking about his experiences in Auschwitz and was a witness at the trial of two former SS guards. He died in Toronto on July 7.

Max Eisen’s memoir, By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz, was shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize in 2017. The book won the 2019 edition of CBC’s Canada Reads.

Eisen was born in Czechoslovakia to a large and well-off Orthodox family. When he was a teenager, they were deported to Auschwitz. He survived horrific conditions in several camps and a death march from Mathausen, Melk and Ebensee. He was liberated by the 761st Black Panther

Battalion of the United States in May 1945.

Only two cousins from his extended family of more than 60 people survived.

He came to Canada in 1949 as a displaced person and eventually started a successful manufacturing business. But he was best known for the passion he exuded while speaking to students, and in later years to law enforcement personnel, about his experiences in the Holocaust.

In 2015, Eisen and other survivors testified at the trial of former SS guard Oskar Groening, who was convicted of thousands of charges of being an accessory to murder. A year later, he testified again at the trial of Reinhold Hanning, who was also convicted. n

of educational, social, philanthropic and governmental organizations.

She was a mentor to generations of professionals and volunteers, especially women, and is credited with elevating the status and influence of the non-profit sector in Quebec—in both the anglophone and francophone communities.

Like her late husband Victor Goldbloom, she was, in her understated way, a bridge-builder between peoples of different faiths, languages and cultures. One of her causes in recent years was the restoration of the historic Christ Church Cathedral, acting as honorary co-chair of fundraising.

Goldbloom was one of the early champions of the McGill Middle East Program

for Civil Society and Peace Building, known today at the International Community Action Network (ICAN), which since 1997 has brought together Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians to improve the lives of disadvantaged people in the region. n

continued on page 54 52

Honourable Menschen | thecjn.ca/lives continued from page 52

BORIS BROTT, 78

MALCOLM LESTER, 83

B

F

JOE SEGAL, 97

HELEN WOLFE, 69

B

D

ringing high quality classical music to as wide a public as possible was his goal, never more so than since he became conductor and artistic director of the Orchestre Classique de Montréal, previously the McGill Chamber Orchestra, which his parents founded in 1939.

Montreal-born Boris Brott conducted on stages around the world, including Carnegie Hall and Covent Garden, before royalty and even a pope, and was also a composer and violinist.

He was artistic director and conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra from 1969-1990, taking it from an amateur ensemble to a professional one with a popular subscription season. Early in his career, Brott also conducted orchestras in smaller cities across Canada, and produced and hosted many radio and television programs on CBC. He was later founder and artistic director of the National Academy Orchestra of Canada and Brott Music Festival, both based in Hamilton, where he died in a hit-and-run accident on April 5. n

orn in Vegreville, Alta., he began his business career as a 14-year-old selling frozen fish door-to-door on his bicycle to make money after his father died.

Joe Segal served in the Second World War, after which he established an army surplus store in Vancouver, which evolved into the Fields department store chain with more than 100 locations across Western Canada.

Fields acquired a majority stake in Zellers in July 1976, which was followed by a reverse takeover. Two years later, when Zellers was sold to Hudson’s Bay Company, he became one of its major shareholders.

The billionaire businessman, philanthropist and Order of Canada recipient died May 31 in Vancouver.

Gary Segal’s eulogy found him recalling a valuable thought from his father: “Money is only worth something if you do something good with it.

Spend some on yourself, do some good for others while you’re alive.

If you put it under your mattress, your mattress gets lumpy.” n

54

or the last 14 months of his life, the renowned publisher was a regular participant in Jeopardy games at Terrace Gardens Retirement Residence in Toronto.

He was so dominant that the other residents wanted to ban him from playing.

Malcolm Lester died on April 1 at age 83. He was best-known for establishing Canadian publishing as a player in the industry, both at home and abroad, and for promoting Canadian Jewish literature, such as the 1982 book None is Too Many about the relationship between Canada and European Jews before, during, and after the Second World War. Lester grew up in Toronto and at one point was studying to be a rabbi in Cincinnati. When he fell sick with mononucleosis, his brother Brian drove through a snowstorm to pick him up and bring him home. During his convalescence, he realized his true love was publishing, so he decided to quit rabbinical school to pursue his passion. n

etermined. Indomitable.

A smasher of norms.

Definitely not shy.

People who knew Helen Wolfe tended to use the same words to describe her.

A teacher, writer, advocate and world traveller who had a lifelong physical disability that required the use of crutches, a scooter or wheelchair, Wolfe not only did not allow obstacles to get in her way, she seemed to relish toppling them.

“She grew up in a time when people with disabilities were segregated and of whom little was expected,” her death notice stated. “From childhood, she had a fierce determination to live life to the fullest. Helen upended social norms and surmounted obstacles which stood in her way.”

Wolfe died of cancer in Toronto on Aug. 17. She was 69.

Her last book is slated for posthumous publication next March. World Changers will comprise biographies of women from around the world who have done things that have transcended the norm. n

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Honourable Menschen | David M. Weinberg

Kurt Rothschild, 101: ‘The ultimate exemplar of selfless Jewish commitment’ K

urt Rothschild, who died July 17, 2022, at age 101, was one of the sharpest, most indefatigable, and loyal soldiers to have blessed the Jewish people over the past century. Hundreds of Jewish communal and Torah-educational institutions around the world benefited from his leadership and philanthropic activism.

A modest and diminutive man, Kurt was nevertheless a giant in stature, beloved and respected as few are in today’s Jewish world. He was a model of respect for and toward all Jews, a profound believer in Klal Yisrael—the unity of the Jewish people.

Born in Germany in 1920, his parents sent him to England in 1937. With thousands of other Germans, he was banished in 1940 to New Brunswick where Canada interned him for 18 months behind barbed wire. After studying electrical engineering in Ontario (where he had to repeat courses when he refused to write exams on Shabbat), Kurt began a business career, first in Montreal and then in Toronto, marked by scrupulous honesty alongside energetic leadership of the religious Zionist (Mizrachi) community.

As an Orthodox Jew, he believed in the importance of central involvement in community frameworks and institutions. This led him to

56

lifelong activity in numerous Canadian and Jewish non-profits.

He was instrumental in helping Jewish day schools across Canada access Jewish community funding and supported Jewish educational initiatives in former Soviet Union countries.

He and his wife of more than 70 years, Edith, made aliyah in 2012.

Kurt began to devote time and attention to young communities in Israel’s periphery, including towns established in the Negev where many of the Israelis displaced from Gush Katif by the Gaza withdrawal have sought to rebuild their lives.

Until COVID hit two years ago, Kurt, then well into his 90s, arrived daily at his World Mizrachi office in Jerusalem to make and field hundreds of calls. He was accessible to every leader across the ideological spectrum, including secular and haredi institutions. Here, he was completely colour blind.

When Kurt believed in a project, whether help for farmers or handicapped children, or construction of a new synagogue, he got it done.

Pronto, personally. He was the consummate man of action, eager to help and to see each project through. continued on page 58

In memory of

Kurt Rothschild, z’’l Our beloved

co-founder of The Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation, mentor, global Jewish leader, and philanthropist.

Through Kurt Rothschild’s work, countless lives continue to be saved, delivered, and changed, everyday, at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

On behalf of our patients, we thank Kurt for his generosity, compassion, leadership, dedication, and unwavering support.

Kurt was a one-of a kind person.

We will always honour his exceptional legacy.

The Board of Directors, and staff of The Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation

www.hospitalwithaheart.ca

Honourable Menschen | David M. Weinberg continued from page 56

Kurt was in direct contact with Israel’s leaders. He regularly faxed them his views and, from the late Shimon Peres to Benjamin Netanyahu, they almost always responded. Those letters focused on the importance of settlement throughout the land of Israel and the dangers of undue concessions to the Palestinians.

He also emphasized Jewish unity, which to Kurt, meant meaningful and respectful dialogue—and adherence to principled standards in matters like conversion and IDF service.

In short, nothing disturbed this diminutive – but titan—man’s focus on ensuring Jewish continuity through Jewish education and strengthening the State of Israel.

Kurt believed that Israel was nothing less than a nes min haShamayim, a Divine miracle, and he reminisced about dancing with joy in the streets of Canada upon Israel’s establishment in May 1948.

Kurt mentored me in Zionist activism, guiding me in professional positions at the Canada-Israel Committee (when he was president of the Canadian Zionist Federation), and at Bar-Ilan University.

I also was privileged to pray alongside Kurt on Yom Kippur at Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem’s Old City almost every year for the past 25.

I will forever treasure the meaningful conversations I had with this righteous man on the holiest night of the year.

To me, Kurt Rothschild stands as the ultimate exemplar of selfless Jewish commitment, Zionist steadfastness, and national unity. n David M. Weinberg is Israel office director of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

Canadian.

Jewish.

Advocacy.

Honouring Kurt Rothschild Z”L Kurt Rothschild’s remarkable legacy in the global Jewish community will be felt for generations to come as his impact has touched the lives of millions of Jewish people. He was a former Negev honouree and man of action, which was evident in his commitment to the community. JNF extends our heartfelt condolences to the Rothschild family. May they be comforted among all who mourn for Zion and Jerusalem.

Yeshiva University Mourns

Kurt Rothschild z”l Yeshiva University and its affiliates, the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and Canadian Friends of Yeshiva University (CFYU), mourn the passing of Kurt Rothschild. A Holocaust survivor, he served on the Board of RIETS and was a past president of CFYU. In 1997, Mr. Rothschild received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yeshiva University.

Together with his wife, Edith, Mr. Rothschild was a significant philanthropist, inspiring others to support the needs of World Jewry in Canada, the US, Europe and Israel.

CIJA mourns the passing of

Kurt Rothschild z”l Canadian.

Canadian.

Jewish.

Jewish.

Advocacy.

Advocacy.

Kurt Rothschild stands as the ultimate exemplar of selfless Jewish commitment, Zionist steadfastness, and Israeli national unity.

58

Heartfelt condolences are extended to his wife Edith and their children, Lenny and Esther, Michael and Chani, Naomi and Rabbi Nosson Weiss, and to the entire family.

May they be comforted among all who mourn for Zion and Jerusalem.

Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman President of Yeshiva University and RIETS

Rabbi Dr. Herbert C. Dobrinsky Vice President for University Affairs

Rabbi Stuart Haber National Director CFYU

Honourable Menschen | Ron Csillag

Irving Abella, 82: The historian who revealed why Canada kept Jews out during the Holocaust I

rving Abella, who with fellow historian Harold Troper, became a household name in Canada for his withering indictment of this country’s warera animus toward Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Europe, died July 3 after a long illness. He had just turned 82.

The title of Abella and Troper’s 1983 bestseller, None is Too Many, entered the Canadian Jewish lexicon as bywords for Ottawa’s dismal policy of barely admitting any Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and occupied Europe before, during and even after the Second World War. Contrary to some beliefs, the since-popularized phrase did not come from then prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King or the director of Ottawa’s immigration branch, Frederick Charles Blair, but from an unidentified bureaucrat who was asked by reporters in early 1939 how many Jews would be admitted to Canada, and then gave the infamous reply.

Though considered a compassionate and open country, Canada effectively shut its doors to Jewish immigration at the time, admitting a “paltry” 5,000 Jews between 1933 and 1948, Abella and Troper’s seminal book noted. Canada’s record was “the worst,” it boldly stated.

In 1968, Abella married Rosalie Silberman, who would take her husband’s name and go onto a storied, 17-year career as the first Jewish woman and refugee to serve as a justice on Canada’s Supreme Court. They were among Canada’s best-known Jewish “power couples.” She retired from the court last year, when she turned 75.

Irving Abella “was among the first generation of professional scholars to take up Canadian Jewish subjects, and his writings and findings left an indelible print on the now-mature and professionalized field,” lauded David Koffman, holder of the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry and an associate history professor at York University, in a tribute to Abella, on his 80th birthday.

“Abella is arguably the scholar with the largest imprint on Canadian Jewish studies.”

A professor of history at York University from 1968 to 2013, Abella helped pioneer the field of Canadian labour history. His published works included Nationalism, Communism and Canadian Labour (1973) and On Strike: Six Key Labour Struggles in

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Canada 1919-1949 (1974). He co-edited the volume The Canadian Worker in the Twentieth Century (1978).

In 1990, he published A Coat of Many Colours: Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada to accompany an exhibit of the same name that year at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa.

Abella served as president of the Canadian Jewish Congress from 1992 to 1995.

In 1993, he was inducted into the Order of Canada. “His writings and lectures have helped us to appreciate the rich and diverse roots of our country, and broadened our understanding of the contributions generations of immigrants have made to Canada,” the award noted.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and also chair of Vision TV. Abella will be remembered for both his scholarship and his community activism, said Ira Robinson, distinguished professor emeritus in the department of religions and cultures at Concordia University.

“As a scholar, he will be most remembered for None is Too Many, co-authored with Harold Troper. Clearly indicting the Canadian government of the pre-Second World War era with callousness (to say the least) toward Jewish refugees from Nazi domination hoping to come to Canada, None Is Too Many is one of the very few academic books that influenced Canadian national discourse and policy-making in the area of refugees.

“Abella was a Jewish community activist as well,” Robinson said.

“He will perhaps be best remembered for his leadership of Canadian Jewish Congress, but he was equally significant as one of the prime builders of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University.”

Author Franklin Bialystok recalled Abella as a “scholar, teacher and most significantly a mensch.”

“Irving took me under his wing, introduced me to scholars and historians, wrote to Oxford on my behalf where I spent a year on sabbatical, and ultimately was my supervisor for my doctorate, Delayed Impact: The Holocaust and the Canadian Jewish Community.

Irv was patient, and saw the thesis through its publication.”

Abella was born July 2, 1940. The couple has two adult sons, Jacob and Zachary, both lawyers, and several grandchildren. Funeral services were held July 5 in Toronto. n

IN HONOUR OF IRVING ABELLA z”l, an esteemed scholar, community leader, and longtime professor in the Department of History at York University’s Glendon College. Professor Abella had a tremendous impact on his students and made an enormous contribution through his many scholarly works and achievements, especially in the areas of Jewish Studies and Labour History in Canada, both fields that he pioneered more than forty years ago and that continue to thrive today. His extraordinary dedication to excellence in higher education and communal service spanned four decades, and his drive represented a passion for positive change that will live on for generations to come.

Called to Testify

Judith Kalman on writing under the influence of Irving Abella How the challenges that faced Jewish refugees took a different turn for one family who moved from Budapest to Montreal.

W

hen I heard about the death of Irving Abella, I happened to be reading a book called The Montreal Shtetl: Making Home after the Holocaust, by sociologists Zelda Abramson and John Lynch.

While my own family’s immigration to Montreal had come five years after the purview of their study, which covers the period 1946 to 1954, the same unwelcoming attitudes from the established Canadian Jewish community in Montreal toward the postwar newcomers had been felt by us on the other side of the city in a suburb singularly lacking in Jews.

We felt a mistrust from society at large, simply because we were immigrants.

While tensions between the second- and third-generation Canadian Jews and their newcomer counterparts characterized life in Montreal’s Mile End, I’m guessing they were part of a larger stance against foreigners that prevailed before pluralism came into our thinking as a nation.

Irving Abella’s passing on July 6 brought back memories of the landmark book he co-authored with Harold Troper: None is Too

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Many, which traced Canada’s immigration policy toward European Jews in the period 1933-1948. It felt like a shocking exposé when published in 1982. The policy had been to exclude Jews from Canada and it persisted long after the atrocities of Nazi extermination camps became widely known.

Canada’s official multicultural policy, which dates to 1971 and celebrates our ethnic and racial diversity, was a decade old and already established as a core piece of our national identity narrative when None is Too Many landed, a sharp reminder that multiculturalism had not been our ethos forever.

When my own family arrived in Montreal in January 1959, my father found a job in the schmata business on St. Lawrence Boulevard. English street names were still widely in use. My mother was hired as a teacher at a nursery school on Jeanne Mance— pronounced “Gene Manse” by those who lived in the area. The school was run by the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society. I attended for a year. My mother continued working there while she re-certified her Hungarian cre-

dentials in order to become a teacher in the public system. These limited points of contact were all we shared with the community described in The Montreal Shtetl. Even so, I don’t think there was a single page in the book that did not resonate with recognition.

The suburb I grew up in was outside the Jewish community, near the opposite end of the island. My family bought a house two years after we arrived in Montreal. Initially, we were the only Jews in the area. Once again, I was attending the same school in which my mother was teaching.

Some years later, the Jordans appeared. Mr. Jordan was Black and Mrs. Jordan Jewish.

Shelley Jordan was in my cohort in high school and her little sister in my mother’s kindergarten class. There were a number of Jordan siblings between them whose hair ranged from dark brown to rust—but the little one in my mother’s kindergarten stood out for her puff of bright red hair styled in an Afro. As if this hair and creamy mocha-coloured skin weren’t already exotic to our white, Anglo and French-Canadian

Judith Kalman with her older sister Elaine, mother Anna and father Gustav, in a photo taken before they emigrated from Hungary.

suburb, the Jordan children turned out to be Jewish to boot.

Through their very genes, the Jordans seemed to me to stand for a kind of multiculturalism we were just starting to aspire to; only a multicultural society would fully embrace them.

Why did my family live in the east end when my father continued to work in the very heart of the Montreal shtetl? The answer lay in the path of life taken but my mother’s sister and brother-in-law who had immigrated in 1953, and subsequently sponsored our move to Canada.

Their reaction to the trauma of the Holocaust trauma was to convert to Christianity and keep their Jewish background secret. Out of a sense of family feeling, intensified by the vast number of family members lost in the war, my parents wanted to live near them in the east end.

By one of those ironic twists of circumstance, my father found a job in the predominantly Jewish clothing industry on the most Jewish commercial street in Montreal through my uncle, who owned

“If we’d been worth rescuing, I puzzled as a child, why did we have to continue hiding our Jewish identity in Russialinked Hungary? Why did we have to hide it for the short time we lived in England after the Hungarian Revolution?

And why did we have to be circumspect about being Jewish in Canada to protect my aunt and uncle’s secret? ”

and operated three ladieswear shops. He positioned my father at the epicentre of the Montreal shtetl, while expecting us to keep his family’s secret. My uncle even sent a considerable amount of money to Israel, using my father as his conduit. People are full of contradictions. The human psyche is complex and conflicted, and all of us probably say one thing while doing another, at least on occasion.

Each interviewee in The Montreal Shtetl dwells on a particular contradiction.

The existing Jewish community provided generous financial support to postwar Jewish immigrants, but were unwilling to accept them socially. During a time when social assimilation by immigrants to North America was greatly encouraged, the immigrants were perceived as risky by the already established Jewish community, as though they would all be sent back to square one socially.

As far back as I can remember, I have known that most of my parents’ large families died because of the Nazis. And I picked up early on that the Jews of Europe continued on next page THECJN.CA 63

Judith Kalman at the Ville d’Anjou house where she grew up after moving to Quebec. continued from previous page

had been liberated from the east by the Russians (I was born in Communist Hungary) and from the west by the Allies.

If we’d been worth rescuing, I puzzled as a child, why did we have to continue hiding our Jewish identity in Russia-linked Hungary? Why did we have to hide it for the short time we lived in England after the Hungarian Revolution? And why did we have to be circumspect about being Jewish in Canada to protect my aunt and uncle’s secret?

Today, residents of this country are taking a more candid and often painful look at their own history. This re-evaluation is most prominent in our relation to Indigenous people, but it is happening in other ways, such as remembering the unidentified immigration agent who said, “None is too many.”

After the war, quotas restricted Jewish admission to McGill University, much as they had in Hungary where my father and his brother were among the handful of Jews admitted to the Academy of Agronomy in the city of Debrecen. Jews were also restricted from bars, restaurants, hotels, clubs, and, along with Blacks, in the surrounding Laurentian resort. These social and racial prejudices proved stubbornly tenacious.

When I’m asked, somewhat skeptically, how it could be true that my aunt and uncle chose to hide their Jewish roots, and that

64

my cousins persist in their fear of disclosure to this day, I point out that there was no welcome mat for Holocaust survivors who arrived the 1940s and 1950s.

Jews left violent persecution behind to arrive into social silence and shunning.

The war in Europe was something no one in the community wanted to discuss. It was unpleasant.

For my cousins, the legacy of silence continues to make it taboo. If my parents mentioned the war years during a dinner party with my school colleagues, they felt it was a social faux pas. That memory still chafes.

In 2015, I was in Germany to participate in the Nazi war crimes trial of Oskar Groening, who was charged with aiding and abetting the murder of over 300,000 Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz, among them members of my parents’ families. Of the 55 co-plaintiffs, 21 were Canadian. Journalists from all over the world packed the courtroom. Not a single one from Canada.

I was thrown back to my parents’ faux pas. Was dwelling on the Holocaust unfashionable again?

As a child I used to accompany my father sometimes on the long bus ride from our suburb to downtown, and he would recount stories from before the war. Because we embarked at an early stop, we’d always get a double seat. As the bus filled up, other riders had to stand. The largely French-Canadian passengers looked down on us at the sound of my father’s foreign syllables.

I sensed suspicion and distaste, a misapprehension I tried to shield him from by steering our talk from Hungarian to English.

When you’re not wanted, how long before you’re really let in? n

Called to Testify: The Big Story in My Small Life by Judith Kalman was published by Sutherland House in May 2022.

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Me & Issy

Rosalie Sharp on building a home at the Four Seasons Hotel The wife of Isadore “Issy” Sharp recalls their first three properties in a new memoir

I

n this, the year of the pandemic, Issy has been rooting around in his past to understand his success. Why did he never have a fear of failure? What were the way posts? Recently Issy’s high school friend Herb Noble came to dinner bringing a binder full of items describing why Isadore was the most popular kid at school.

This was a shock to Issy, who has never had, he says, any “ego.”

Why was it that the principal of Forest Hill Collegiate Institute asked him to be the spokesperson to garner student support for an indoor skating rink? And the day my father locked me out, Issy instinctively acted responsibly by speaking to him immediately and making such a winning case, maybe because his parents taught him to do what needed to be done as soon as possible. Issy credits this visit to my father as another of the landmarks for his success that he’s just dug up from his youth.

It took five years of begging, borrowing, and debating, to produce the first hotel, which happened only because of Issy’s persuasive charisma, which to him is a mystery he’s trying to figure out now that there is a lull. Perhaps it’s his self-confidence just short of loftiness rather like Lil Sharp, or maybe it’s the low-key appeal that makes him so likeable. Sometimes while we were driving around the city, instead of paying attention to the road, he would be craning his neck out the car window, looking for possible sites. Now he had two jobs: building apartment towers all day, and at night sitting at a typewriter in our spare room with one finger pecking out proposals for hotels on various sites he had on hold. These three-page prospectuses would then be packaged in a colourful cardboard folder, and the next hurdle was to find investors. So Issy would park himself regularly on the doorstep of Cecil Forsythe, of Great-West Life Insurance, and pester him for money. After three years of proposals, Forsythe — who of course had taken a liking to Issy — finally caved in and pledged half the financing. With the promise from the trades to hold off on their pay, and with $90,000 each from Issy and two partners — his brother-in-law Eddie Creed and a friend, Murray Koffler. Another friend, Wally Cohen, to his everlasting regret, failed to invest.

Isadore was up at 6 a.m. and on the job. He would help his construction workers with menial jobs, and I remember him walking along planks in the air with no safety net. There was a camaraderie between him and the merry band of Italian and Polish workers who called him “Mister Issy” and appreciated his fair-mindedness. One of his workmen, Ciro Rappachietti, recounts that God sent him to Mister Issy because he got off the bus at the construction site of

2515 Bathurst St. when he noticed men were still working in the rain and not only was he hired but became an overseer. Isadore, the construction boss, was so handsomely athletic and dapper even in his work clothes. His arms were tanned below rolled-up shirt sleeves, and his body was hard from the physical work he enjoyed. His lean torso rivalled Michelangelo’s statue of David and, I blush to say, still does. How did I end up with a guy in construction wearing rubber boots when my other boyfriends had been lawyerish shirt-and-tie types? Not to mention that Issy modelled clothes for Simpsons department store every Saturday when he was the “Simpsons rep,” the photo with this title on the inside cover of the school magazine. The Toronto radio station CKEY interviewed him at the time, and the announcer afterwards said: “Isadore, you have the right voice and delivery for radio—you should consider a career on the air.” And at age 90 he still has the deep resonant voice and the power to keep an audience in his thrall.

The Four Seasons Motor Hotel on Jarvis Street was born, opening March 21, 1961, with little fanfare. Not likely a good location because Jarvis Street was the centre of the red-light district. But later it was to develop that at any location where there was a Four Seasons Hotel, the surrounding real estate tripled in value, so the hookers moved to another street. I could have made my fortune by buying the next-door piece of land in 40 countries. The Jarvis Street hotel became the hangout for the literati from the CBC-TV early headquarters across the street, and soon was the place to be seen because it was modern and fresh unlike the ancient monster hotels like the Royal York and the King Edward. Thanks to Issy’s vision, probably influenced by his mother planting all the gardens around their real estate, the building surrounded a garden courtyard with pool and café so sheltered that guests might imagine they were swimming in the tropics.

One day a tall willowy girl with long blond Lady Godiva hair walked through the lobby and out the doors to the courtyard, shedding her clothes as she strolled to the swimming pool and dove in naked. She swam the length of the pool and back, picked up her clothes, and walked out and across the road to the CBC building, still naked. The next day the press noted the incident titled “the Naked and the Fled.”

The second hotel, the Inn on the Park, was conceived in 1961. On a summer’s day we drove up to the corner of Eglinton Avenue and Leslie Street in Toronto, to a hilly meadow of tall grass. “Here,” said Issy, “is the site for the second hotel. What do you think?” continued on page 70

68

“I remember the disquieting thought that if this new venture failed, we might have to sell the house and move to a three-room flat—in fact, our house was the collateral for the loan. But I kept my fears to myself.”

- Rosalie Sharp

Isadore and Rosalie Wise Sharp, 1965.

THECJN.CA 69

continued from page 68

The Inn On the Park in Toronto was designed by architect Peter Dickinson to resemble a Star of David from the air.

There was not another building in sight, trucks were turning in to a municipal garbage dump across the road, and just then a CPR freight train roared by the property. I thought, “What can he be thinking? Real hotels are always downtown, usually handy to the railway station, and have regal names like Royal York, King Edward, and Prince George.”

At the time, there were no rural hotels other than beer halls like the Jolly Miller, and I could not imagine why any hotel guest would choose to sleep in suburbia. I remember the disquieting thought that if this new venture failed, we might have to sell the house and move to a three-room flat—in fact, our house was the collateral for the loan. But I kept my fears to myself. In this case, as usual, his suburban hotel was a roaring success. It’s amazing how many times he has been right, even up to the present.

The Inn on the Park had Issy’s same garden concept but on a huge scale. The courtyard was about 300 feet long with two swimming pools, a wooden bridge over a duck pond, and mature trees bordering a wide meandering path that encircled the courtyard. This walkway became a skater’s road in winter. The complex included a tennis court, gym, and three restaurants. The Inn on the Park became such a smashing success that Americans came there for long-weekend vacations. I remember there was often a row of orange Detroit licence plates in the lot. Our family of six would go on a Sunday, change into our swimsuits in Issy’s office instead of a guestroom, and spread a towel on the grass to leave the chaise lounges for the guests.

One night at the Inn on the Park there was an incident following an Italian wedding in the Trillium banquet room. At the door stood a seven-foot 900-pound art nouveau bronze statue, Bellona, the

Goddess of War by Jean-Léon Gérôme. When she was displayed in 1893 at the entrance to his Paris exhibition, it caused a sensation. Her ivory teeth were bared in a scream, her jade eyes wide in terror, a giant cobra in silvered bronze wound about her body. Issy had acquired her for a song when she didn’t sell at an auction in the ballroom. The morning after the wedding—behold, Bellona was missing her head, so sadly, her body was moved by four men to a storeroom. Flash forward three months to New York when I’m taking my usual stroll down Madison Avenue past a shop, the Volpe Gallery (which turned out to be Tod Volpe’s family), and I stop dead in my tracks. The head of Bellona on a base is centred in the window.

I went in and asked the price and must have said something suspect and they said, “Sorry, it’s not for sale.” Tod Volpe later served 28 months in jail, having scammed some high-powered clients like Jack Nicholson and Barbra Streisand. So one wonders about the wedding. The body of Bellona is now in the Art Gallery of Hamilton in southern Ontario. Isadore had finally, after much coaxing, sold the headless body to Joey Tanenbaum who had a new head made up, rather different than the original, and donated Bellona to the museum. The night detectives have many such movie-making tales to tell of the goings-on at our hotels. *** The third hotel, in London, England, was the beginning of the big time.

It’s always been something of a mystery to Issy that he was so trusted and respected by strangers like Sir Gerald Glover and the McAlpine family during the acquisition of the London Hotel. Issy had no wherewithal, just his personality. He travelled back and forth across the ocean for four years until he convinced the McAlpines continued on page 72

70

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Issy and Rosalie, September 6, 2021.

continued from page 70

to give him that deal. Because he sold them on his plan to convert their proposed 320-room hotel to 230 while paying them the same rent, they called him “the crazy Canadian.” Bucking the naysayers is a lonely responsibility that Isadore often experienced as a CEO. On his fifth trip over Sir Gerald asked: “My dear boy, would you come over for lunch to meet the Duke of Westminster and the McAlpine board?” So Issy took the red eye yet again, and in his jet-lagged condition submitted to the friendly interrogation of the grandiose Brits. Their upper crust jargon would have been clearer, says Issy, if only they had subtitles across their chests. Questions about Canadian politics were challenging, but he passed the test as Sir Gerald later said, “My dear boy, I knew you would do well, and please bring your wife over next trip.”

Well, with the deal still unconfirmed after four years, we both came and visited with Gerald and Sue who by now had become friends, having visited Toronto. We had a lunch at their country estate, Pytchley, the typical patrician mansion overlooking the commoners in the nearby village valley. Issy asked Glover, while standing in the garden overlooking a vast velvet lawn sloping down to a curved dark umber stream, cut as if with a knife into the green

72

of the hill, “How, Sir, do you keep the lawn so perfect?”

“No trouble at all my dear boy, you merely cut it every week for 300 years.”

I admired Lady Sue Glover, who ran a home for unwed mothers and then placed the babies in good homes. Amazingly for me, who can’t ride a horse, I watched her canter away side-saddle into the distance on a black horse.

This reminds me of a story about Issy and a white horse. It was at dusk after a few glasses of wine at a friend’s farm. Five of us were standing at a split rail fence admiring a group of grazing horses.

Someone said, “Is, I bet you can’t ride that white one bareback.”

Of course, he immediately straddled the fence and climbed on. Off they went but the horse was not pleased and decided to gallop off to the barn. “Oh no.” The upper half of the barn door was closed.

I covered my eyes in fright, but through my fingers, I saw the most incredible sight. While the horse was in full gallop, and just before he reached the barn door, Issy swung his leg over and jumped off the horse and remained standing, a vision which I never forget.

But back to the Glovers. Later that day, we visited their London townhouse off Park Lane where we faced a three-fork dinner and wondered about the extra spoon. When the dessert of gooseberry tart and clotted cream arrived, I watched, while I used my fork, the other guests used a spoon as well, which I quickly picked up. Ever since that moment, Issy always insists on both spoon and fork as if “to the manner born.” After dinner when cigars were passed in the drawing room, Issy said, “No thank you,” but when the waiter offered me one, I said, “Yes, thank you” and held it aloft until he came round with the lighter to which I said as I put the cigar in my purse, “I’ll keep it for later” as the crowd burst out laughing. Issy told me afterwards he wondered jokingly whether the “yes” cigar meant a no-cigar deal.

Finally, the deal was done somehow, and the hotel was readied for the big opening party with the royal guests of honour, Princess Alexandra and Sir Angus Ogilvy, who I was seated beside at dinner.

From then on, because of Issy’s stature, I always draw the most important man in the room as dinner companion, including Pavarotti, Abba Eban, and Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia. I’m told I’m good at this job, although in truth I’m a closet loner. I’ve enjoyed this year of solitude during the pandemic—so few demands for wit and charm and social responsibility, although when it’s required, I do my duty happily. n

Excerpted and adapted from Me & Issy by Rosalie Wise Sharp. © 2022 by Rosalie Wise Sharp. All rights reserved. Published by ECW Press Ltd. www.ecwpress.com

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The Back Pages

Gary Topp’s cartoons about coming of age in Jewish Toronto The graphic novel memoir Topp: Promoter Gary Topp Brought us the World was inspired by cartoonist David Collier’s friendship with the man who hired him as a busboy in 1979 at The Edge, a punk rock nightclub in Toronto.

Four decades later, their collaboration was published

by Conundrum Press at the peak of the pandemic. The book renewed attention to how Topp went from running repertory movie theatres to introducing the city to a few hundred of the most influential musicians in history.

Before all that, Topp was born into the typical life of a Jewish baby boomer—until he started catching the bugs that defined a career of cultural curiosity. The story begins with memories like these: 80

Eighty-one Whitmore Avenue was

the original address of our family home in northwest Forest Hill: Old Forest Hill Road crossed Eglinton and continued northwest one block to Hilltop, where the name initially changed to Whitmore. We lived three blocks west, a half block beyond Glenarden. The map on the right shows the area in 1935, as the neighbourhood was being developed. My parents were involved in the “Stop the Spadina” movement, even though our house was meant to be spared from the bulldozer, three east of the expressway that never was.

It’s still standing.

Ted Cole was one of the sons in the

Coles bookstore chain. Bruce was the other. We all went to Camp Tamarack, the Jewish cub and scout summer camp near Bracebridge. Ted turned me on to folk music, which kickstarted my interest in alternate, rebellious culture. I owe Ted so much. Ted eventually founded Camp Walden where my son had life-changing experiences as well. (But the two never met.)

West Prep was the public school I attended in the late ’40s and early ’50s, with a predominantly Jewish population. It was a wonderful experience despite the authoritarian principal, Mr. Salmon.

Every winter, boards went up in the playground and an ice rink was created. It didn’t get much better for a kid. Our kids attended West Prep in the 1990s. But the neighbourhood was changing and a huge portion of Jewish children stopped registering. One neighbour told me emphatically, “I’ll never send my kids there!”

continued on next page

THECJN.CA 81

The Back Pages continued from previous page

Beth Sholom was our

local synagogue. My dad and his siblings were responsible for one of the original stained glass windows, with an image of Moses visible on Eglinton Avenue. I remember my dad going to the artists regularly to proof the colours. I never found the synagogue a happy place. We had to attend classes five days a week— which meant I missed the chance to play in the West Prep floor hockey league.

Jewish Vocational School is where I ended

up being sent as a result of not, in the least, being interested in the Forest Hill education system. My head was wrapped around music, pop art, pot and protest: Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Andy Warhol and John Coltrane were sweeping me away. Going there was an attempt to figure me out, and tell my high school principal (who reminded me of Hitler) what I actually wanted to do with my life. The answer, after a week of testing, was “disc jockey.” I was now, officially, a true freak of nature.

And the assessment was correct. Within a decade, I’d be promoting bands like the Ramones, the Police and the Dixie Chicks—and even Ofra Haza from Israel.

continued on page 84 82

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The Back Pages continued from page 82

Bob Dylan turned 80 last year. I was be-

yond lucky to have caught him in 1960, when he was barely known. I was 16; he was 21. When his first album was released, it sold poorly. I loved it.

One Sunday afternoon, as I was blasting it in my bedroom, the neighbours called the cops. I was disturbing the peace with that horrible voice. He changed my life.

CHUM once banned me from winning radio contests, because I was so good at it. My mom, a staunch supporter of me despite my bad marks, placed a call to Civil Liberties. I was reinstated.

But they brought in new criteria for contest qualifiers. You can thank me for that one!

The Rolling Stones was a band I heard for

84

the first time on Fairleigh Crescent. I’ll never forget that moment, nor Rochelle Bernstein. I saw them three times in 1965-66. The concerts never sold out. Their appearances were my first riots. You could say I was experienced at an early age. continued on page 86

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The Back Pages

Gary Topp’s phone book (1976-1992)

The Garys was the name of the concert promotion company I started with Gary Cormier. We caught fire and our phone lines started ringing off the hook.

The shows are now a distant memory, but I stored this evidence for 30 years in a shopping bag from Lox, Stock & Bagel—a defunct Toronto restaurant located near where I grew up.

It’s a worn and overweight checklist from the punk and new wave era, which has always reminded me of Claes Oldenburg’s artwork, Floor Burger. And now I can boast that both these pieces have been on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

(The book was part of a recent exhibition, I Am Here: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces.)

Inside, you’ll find Beth Sholom under the Bs, Ramones under the Rs, and the

86

Police and Prince under the Ps. Prince’s phone number was procured at a time when he was still so unknown that I couldn’t get him booked on the bill

of the first Police Picnic in 1981. Sting’s manager thought Prince was trash.

It’s one of my biggest regrets to this day. n

Thank you The Jewish Foundation of Greater Toronto, UJA’s Julia and Henry Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Education, Toronto’s Jewish Day Schools and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation thank the donors who have made lasting commitments to strengthening our Jewish day schools by making endowment gifts through the LIFE & LEGACY™ program. Your gifts are a commitment to the future vibrancy and vitality of our community.

14 Jewish day schools participate in the LIFE & LEGACY™ program: Associated Hebrew Schools, Bialik Hebrew Day School, Bnei Akiva Schools, Eitz Chaim Schools, Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School, The Leo Baeck Day School, Montessori Jewish Day School, Netivot HaTorah Day School, Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School, Robbins Hebrew Academy, TanenbaumCHAT, Tiferes Bais Yaakov, The Toronto Heschel School, Yeshiva Darchei Torah.

Marcy and Leonard Abramsky • Amos and Danielle Adler • Rosanne and Steven Ain • Manny and Laila Alter • Raphael Alter • Victor and Ilana Arrobas • Avraham Arrobas • Menahem Azulay • Gail Baker • Greg Beiles and Yael Schacter • Yehuda and Rachel Belzberg • Ney and Mercedes Bendayan • Moshe Bendayan • Yaakob Bendayan • Yehoshua Bendayan • Moses Bendayan • Esther Berglas • Robin and Shaya Berglas • Laura Levin and Ren Bicholz • Frances Bigman • Marc Bissell and Morli Shemesh • Elana and David Bitton • Martin Day and Martina Borchardt • Rabbi Eliezer Breitowitz • Robyn Buchman • Rabbi Dr. Rafi & Risa Cashman • Bialik Class of 2022 • Yael and Oz Cohen • Shmuel and Jana Cohen • Sara Cohen • Laurie and Michael Davis • Noah and Talia Dimaond • Rahn and Tania Dodick • Eli and Ahuva Edell • Noam and Caroline Edell • Denise and Leon Elmaleh • Naomi and David Elmaleh • David Fenig • Dahlia and Arie Fisher • Michelle Freedman • Lori and Steve Frenkiel • Rabbi Avi and Ruchama Friedman • Rabbi Avraham Gislason • Allan Goldstein and Michelle Glied-Goldstein and Family • Jonathan Saguy and Lesley Glowinsky Saguy and Family • Robin and Tim Gofine • Shawn and Helene Goldberg • Daniel Rabinovitch and Liann Granovsky • Rabbi Seth and Leba Grauer • Dr. Robert Grossman • Rabbi Jarrod and Carmela Grover • Faigie and Mordechai Grunwald and Family • Arielle Berger and Daniel Held • Steven and Barbara Held • Hartley Hershenhorn • Sam and Nancy Ifergan • Roberto and Shoshana Israel • Jacob and Sheryl Jesin • Estate of Faye Kaplan • Mordechai and Orah Katzman • Dr. Lee-Ron & Scott Kaye • Moishe and Miriam Kesten • Barbara and Raymond Kives • Arin and Michelle Klug • Justin and Melissa Kramer and Family • Jessica Kronis • Elaine and Barry Kuretzky • Brenda and Brian Lass • Ezra and Reena Lauterpacht • Sara and Hartley Lefton • Eli Leibowitz • Dr. Jonathan and Meredith Levy • The Libin Family in Memory of Beryl Libin Libin • Netanel Lichtenstein • Rabbi Mordechai and Ariella Loiterman • Ellen Ostofsky and Stephen Lokash • Regina and Eduardo Lulka • Howard Lyons • David and Reagan Macklin • Michael and Ruthie Mammon • Paul and Jodi Mandel • Naomi Rifkind Mansell & David Mansell and Family • Elliot and Stephanie Marer • Shoshana and Evan Mazin • Israel Mida • Debbie Milner and Uliano Muzzioli • Jodi Mindel Tanenbaum • Heidi Brown and Adam Minsky • Joanna Lambert and Daniel Naymark • Marvin and Roberta Newman • Mark and Sheryl Nightingale • Barry (Dovi) Nussbaum • Dr. Sari Kives and Allen Ohana • Elaine and Benny Osher • Elana Paice Lidsky and Brian Lidsky • Howie and Devora Paskowitz • Alan and Pamela Perlis • Jeremy and Hadassa Pertman • Tami Moscoe and Eric Petersiel • Aaron and Amy Platt • Moishe Posner • Dovid and Deborah Posner • Yackov Rand • Joyce and Aaron Rifkind Charitable Fund Rifkind • Benjy Cohen and Jane Rimmer • Ellen and Jack Rosen • Karen Rosen and Mark Opashinov Rosen • Haim and Ruth Rosenblum • Shragee and Didi Rosenzweig • Tova and Ashley Ross & Family • Stephen J. Roth Fund • Alexander and Alexandra Rotman • Jonathan and Talia Rubin • Eli and Renee Rubinstein and Family • Chaim and Tami Rutman • Martin and Gayle Sable Charitable Fund • Talia and Noam Samson • Jack and Marla Samuel • Aryeh and Chana Samuel • Amy Ballon and Ian Schnoor • Elli Schochet • Mayeer Pearl and Stacey Shein • Dr Yehudi z’l and Ruth Shields • Marjorie and Jerome Shore • Sendy and Ariella Shorser • Ora Shulman • Jeff and Marcia Shumacher • Jay Silver and Mara Cole Silber • Leah Silber and Adam Levy • David andJanis Spinner • Matthew Stein • Liane Stein • Shawn and Debbie Stern • Ronnie and Shana Strauss • Claire Sumerlus • The Howard and Carole Tanenbaum Family Charitable Foundation • Joanna Grossman and Shawn Tock • Jeff and Nicole Toledano • Michael Tozman • Lior and Tamara Velichover & Colodny • Howard and Nancy Wasserman • Rochelle and Robert Waxman • George and Florence Weinberger • Leiby Weiss • Tanya Werger • Mitchell Marcus and Orrin Wolpert • Lori and Larry Wolynetz • Samantha and Rafi Yablonsky • David Young • Avishay and Sarit Yurovitch Madar • Evan and Ashley Zaretsky and Family • Ilan Zor • Maya Zor • Sharon and Bob Silberstein • Robert Silberstein • Laura Levin and Ren Bucholz

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR LEGACY, PLEASE CONTACT ROBYN BUCHMAN AT RBUCHMAN@UJAFED.ORG

‘22

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