The CJN Rosh Hashanah 2023

The Canadian Jewish

Happy New Year

& Shana Tova from Jerusalem!

Honourary Patrons: The Koschitzky Family

Event Co-Chairs: Warren Kimel, C.M. and Debbie Kimel / Lewis Mitz and Wendy Posluns

Dinner Co-Chairs: Wendy Eisen, C.M. and Elliot Eisen

Gala Committee:

Stephanie Abrahami, Elliott Eisen, Wendy Eisen, C.M., David Golden, Gary Grundman, Debbie Kimel, Sarena Koschitzky, Sarah Krauss, Lewis Mitz, Joel Reitman, C.M., David Rosenbaum, Renee Rubinstein, Carol Ryder, Judi Shostack, Doron Telem

Honouring the memory of Julia Koschitzky z”l

What’s

THE BACK

Contributors

Shlomi Amiga (p.14) is a commercial and editorial photographer whose work has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Report on Business, Broadview, Chatelaine and more. When not producing work for clients, he enjoys documenting serendipity on the streets of Toronto and beyond.

Ellin Bessner (p.34) launched The CJN Daily podcast in May 2021, which she hosts in tandem with reporting breaking news and writing personality pro les. She previously worked for CBC and CTV, taught journalism at Centennial College, and is the author of Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II

Ron Csillag (p.78) joined The Canadian Jewish News in 1984, le in 1986, returned in 1990, le in 2006, returned in 2017, retired in 2020 and retired again in 2021. He’s now reporter emeritus who appears on The CJN Daily’s “Honourable Menschen” feature to discuss recent obituaries of great Jewish Canadians.

The Canadian Jewish News

The way we wear a new year…

There was a strict dress code at my high school. And the code was even stricter for me.

Marc Weisblott

Managing Editor

Phoebe Maltz Bovy

Senior Editor

Ronit Novak

Art Director

Etery Podolsky Designer

Sarah Zahavi Design Associate

Lila Sarick

News Editor

Michael Fraiman

Podcast Director

Grace Zweig

Sales Director

Kathy Meitz

General Manager

Board of Directors:

Bryan Borzykowski President

Sam Reitman Treasurer and Secretary

Ira Gluskin

Jacob Smolack

Elizabeth Wolfe

For all inquiries info@thecjn.ca

With the participation of the Government of Canada.

Students at our all-boys yeshiva had to wear kippahs, of course, but also collared shirts, khakis or dress pants—no jeans allowed—and formal shoes (sneakers were forbidden). I could live with most of that, to be honest: there was plenty of room to play with colours up top, and the style guide didn’t say anything about the bagginess of your khakis, or how low on the hips you could try to keep them (hey, it was the mid-’90s).

Besides, it was a massive improvement over the dress code at one of the elementary schools I went to, where collared shirts could only be worn in one of three colours: white, blue and, for some reason, yellow.

But there was one high school dress rule I could not, would not, abide by. You always had to have your shirt fully tucked into your pants.

To my teenage self, this was the height of fashion faux-pas (again, the mid-‘90s). Tucked-out meant nothing less than freedom, tucked-in was how people like my dad looked when they left for work and synagogue.

The tuck was the line for me.

It was probably the least-enforced rule of the dress code anyways, far behind the holy triumvirate of collar, crease and sensible shoes. Lots of kids paid little attention to the tuck rule, shuffling down the hallway with their shirt tails flying, daring the principal— the enforcer of the code—to make them tuck it in. Many of them got away with it.

And yet, you’d have five untucked guys walking together, and the principal would only notice one of them.

Why did he pick on me? It became a bit of a joke among my friends. There might have been a few reasons, but I was actually a pretty good kid—and he definitely wasn’t mean or vindictive.

Years later, my mother admitted she had spoken to the principal just before the beginning of Grade 9 and told him to notice when my shirt was untucked. That explanation made a lot more sense.

After high school, I was ready to bust out. I got obsessed with rare Japanese jeans

for about a decade. I spent too many hours in online style forums sharing poorly lit pictures of the latest cuts and fabrics from obscure mills, then months trying to track down one of the pairs that made its way to North America.

I also got big into hats, which were another no-no in high school. And then, for a bizarre few months, I worked as the editor of a fashion magazine.

I don’t generally see many connections between Judaism and fashion. There are lots of Jewish designers, of course, but not much in the way of Jewish design, outside of the Orthodox world. I don’t even know what that would look like, but I’d like someone to try and figure it out.

Still, I like to get something new for the High Holidays. It doesn’t have to be big, like a suit or anything—just one item that puts me in the spirit of the season. And preferably that no one else will be wearing.

But in the end, it’s often hidden under the season’s must-have accessory for Ashkenazi Jews looking to display a deeper link to the liturgy. And it’s a cotton robe.

Now that I think about it, the stark white kittel, in its elegant simplicity, might represent the height of Jewish fashion. It makes you look like an angel. Wearing it, you kind of even feel like one.

When I put on this kittel—as I did at my wedding, during the High Holidays and at the Passover seder, and eventually when my time comes to an end—I know something life-changing is about to happen.

And the best thing of all? You don’t need to tuck it in.

— Yoni Goldstein

Yoni Goldstein

CEO and Editor-in-Chief

Cover photo: Naomi Harris

Printed in Winnipeg by Kromar Printing Ltd.

Cottonbro Studio/Pexels

Jennifer Podemski on living at the intersection of Anishinaabe and Ashkenazi

The producer of Little Bird talks with Rivka Campbell about how her heritage informs her creative work

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL EHRENWORTH EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

On May 28, at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Rivkush host Campbell spoke with the filmmaker and actor about her childhood in Jewish Toronto and her newest project, a six-episode show, produced by APTN and Crave, about an Indigenous child adopted by a Montreal Jewish family.

Rivka: Jennifer is a wonderful blend of Ashkenazi Jewish and Indigenous Anishinaabe, on her mum’s side. And Jennifer has been in the biz for like 30 years, which I find just mind-blowing, in film and television.

Jennifer: I know, because I look 30.

Rivka: Well, I figure you started when you were like five. And for the last 25 years you have been creating and producing your own stuff with your company, RedCloud Studios. I want to kick it off by delving a little bit into who you are, because you’re this blend of two distinct cultures. How was that as you were coming up in this world?

Jennifer: I grew up at Bathurst and Wilson. My father is in Toronto, Saul Podemski. My aunt, Rachel Katz Podemski. My daughter, too—she came later, but more importantly, grew up at Bathurst and Wilson. So this is my area.

Being here, to share this story, this is very full-circle for me today, which is excellent, especially because I’m trying to do a lot of full-circle moments. I just turned 50 and I think it’s great to do full-circle moments at those milestones.

I think I had a an identity crisis for a long, long time until I felt my true power as a storyteller and recognized the power of using your voice and sharing what’s on your mind to express the things that are inside of you in a way that could potentially be a bridge-building experience.

I was surrounded by Jewish people my whole life, and just always got the looks, because I think there was this idea that I didn’t belong. But on the flip side of that, I went to Hashomer Hatzair Camp Shomria from Grade 7, and that’s really where I found my place as a burgeoning activist.

So growing up and having that influence really informed the person that I became. Also, it’s my grandfather’s birthday today, Joe Podemski. He would be 101. He just passed away a year and a half ago. But he was the ultimate philosopher, a Holocaust survivor from Lodz, always interested in

deep political conversations about identity and all kinds of things.

Rivka: So, kind of hardcore Jewish. Okay, so what about your Indigenous side?

Jennifer: So again, growing up here, we were here, I guess until Grade 1, and then we moved to Vancouver to be closer to my mum’s family. So I did have a very immersive experience living in that world. I think the ultimate reality was that my parents’ relationship—sorry, Dad, just live on a podcast—my parents’ relationship was challenged, and I think there were cultural barriers and addictions issues and all kinds of different elements and variables. So nowhere was comfortable.

I wasn’t comfortable over there. I wasn’t comfortable over here. It’s hard to see your family fall apart when you’re a child, and also be sort of caught in an identity thing.

in my career has been really hard, emotionally. Except for one short documentary about going back to Lodz, Poland, with my grandfather, I’ve only ever made Indigenous content, and it’s always been super heavy. Even when you try to do comedy, it intersects with the reality of the current situation that we’re in.

So when this project came to me, it was 2015, and it was just a pitch. I had known that there was a group of kids that were, when they were taken, were sent through Jewish Family & Child Service in Montreal, because a lot of child-welfare agencies got this catalogue. And the catalogue, when you see it, it looks like a catalogue that’s selling children.

Rivka: Yeah, I got kind of stuck on the word catalogue.

Jennifer: It’s a terrible reality, but it was marketed. It was a program out of Saskatchewan. The program was called “Adopt Indian and Métis” and it was designed to continue the removal of Indigenous children and filter them through the child-welfare system, which was newly created at the time, in the ’60s, so that the provinces would absorb the cost of foster care.

So then when we came back, we started going to the Native Centre in Toronto, which was a very important thing, because that was all I had. I didn’t have any Indigenous friends—I had my sister. We explored our identity together. I don’t know if it would have been the same without her.

My sister Tamara is five years younger, and then I have another sister, Sarah, who’s 10 years younger, but it was mostly Tamara and me growing up together, fielding and navigating the complex middle part of always being different.

Rivka: Because it is complex, and it’s wonderful that you had a support system in your sister. But let’s fast forward through your life. Tell us about Little Bird. What brought you to that decision to produce it? Because it’s a tough, hard story.

Jennifer: I’m used to doing tough, hard stories. It seems like everything that I’ve done

This program that started in Regina created these catalogues with pictures—and we do tell part of that story in Little Bird—and Jewish Family & Child Services got one of these. That’s why there’s only a handful, as far as I know from all the research we’ve done, like 28 people that were adopted at that time who were raised in Jewish homes in Montreal.

The production company came to me, Resolution Pictures from Montreal, and said, We’re interested in making a show about this concept of an Indigenous girl adopted into a Jewish home. Because of your background, we thought maybe this would be something that you were interested in.

And anyone who makes television knows that once you say “yes” to making a show, you know that you’re giving at least five to 10 years of your life to make it. In Canada, you usually go through several years of development, and most of the time, a show doesn’t get made.

So I did say yes. I was only in foster care for a few weeks, as I understand it. But I was very compelled to tell this story because I had known that nobody else had done it. And I also, really badly, wanted to tell a story

“I wanted to tell a story that was at the intersection of Jewish and Indigenous identities. Who else knew all of that information like I do?”

that was at the intersection of Jewish and Indigenous identities. Who else knew all of that information like I do?

Rivka: You’re the perfect fit.

Jennifer: I’m like two consultants in one. So I wanted to humanize this story. I wanted to take the opportunity to explore the connection between these cultures in a way that would uplift the Jewish values that I was raised with and honour my Jewish legacy, and also honour my Anishinaabe legacy.

Rivka: I don’t know if I want to use the word

Esther is really a culmination of a lot of people’s stories. And although we only had three actual advisers with us the whole time, I had maybe 20 advisers that I worked with throughout the process who helped to inform her perspective and a lot of the PTSD that we were showcasing for her.

I really wanted to create Esther’s mom, Golda, like my grandfather. You have to be a very open-minded, very special human being to have the storyline that Golda has. I didn’t expect my grandfather to pass away, to not see this. But that was created for him, to see that he was always one for a very difficult conversation and to argue it out, or debate it

of residential school, although there were things prior to that.

I am a second-generation residential school survivor. Both of my grandparents went to residential school in Lebret in Saskatchewan. And terrible things happened at residential school. By design. Many survivors that we speak to—because I’ve worked a lot with survivors in my storytelling work—call it a children’s prison, and some call it an extermination camp, because they were killing children. And we know that now, because—we always knew it—but we know it now because of all the children’s bodies being found. And then the last residential school closed in 1996. So we’re not very far removed from that dismantling of families.

The reason that Indigenous people represent the lowest outcomes when it comes to health and education, and the things that most of us take for granted, is because they’re still living very much in a colonial, violent state with very few rights. And that legacy continues.

I don’t have the answers to how that is going to end, but I know a lot of it has to do with voting. I know a lot of it has to do with support and allyship and the education system. Because I don’t think we’re going to raise a very good generation of children if we don’t start figuring out ways to address some of the more devastating social realities, especially for Indigenous people who are at the lowest outcomes of all people, but for everybody.

Rivka: So, what is your challenge to those of us here? What do you wish to see?

parallel, but there are similarities between you and the main character of Little Bird, whose adoptive name is Esther Rosenblum, but was born Bezhig Little Bird. You are the grandchild of Holocaust survivors?

Jennifer: Of one Holocaust survivor.

Rivka: And Bezhig’s mother is a Holocaust survivor. So tell me, is she a particular person? How did she develop?

Jennifer: She was created. The basis for her was me. When you create characters, it comes from a very personal place. So that started with the most personal stuff that I could share about myself with my writing partner, Hannah Moscovitch, and Jeremy Podeswa, and days and days of talking about that.

out, and see all the sides and the perspectives. He was very into survival. And to be into survival like he was, you have to find a way through stuff. So that was like Golda. A lot of my mother is in it. A lot of my own grandparents are in it. So it is a personal story that actually has nothing to do with me, if that makes sense.

Rivka: It makes perfect sense. At the end of the first episode, there is a notation that kind of blew my mind. “There are more Indigenous children in custody today than ever.” And I just stopped and thought, how?

Jennifer: So today we call it the Millennial Scoop, because there are more children in care today than ever before. And it is a direct connection to the impact mostly

Jennifer: You see it a lot in Saskatchewan, because there’s a very rich Jewish community and a very rich Indigenous community— often you’ll see those two peoples partnering to make social change.

So I guess the call to action would be to lean towards being an ally and finding your common values towards dismantling systemic racism, because it does start in education, it does continue into the workplace, and into other sectors.

The thing that I’ve learned through my Jewish value system is, for me, it’s always to find the answer, to do what’s right and what’s good for the whole community. And what’s right for the whole community means that you can’t leave anybody behind. Because that’s how bad things happen. n

This conversation has been edited. To hear the full interview, visit thecjn.ca/little-bird

Little Bird tells the story of the Sixties Scoop children—with a Jewish twist. Airing on Crave and APTN Courtesy: Bell

Who is Rivkush?

Meet the woman changing perceptions of Jewish identity one podcast at a time

AJew of Jamaican descent, born and raised in Toronto, Rivka “Rivkush” Campbell is among the country’s foremost community builders for Jews of Colour (JOCs). As the founder of the organization Jews of Colour Canada, as well as the director of a documentary on the same subject, she has been a candid and vocal activist for Jewish diversity and inclusion, appearing in the media, synagogues, and events as a sought-after expert and speaker. Part of her mandate includes opening new avenues for dialogue with the mainstream Jewish community, sharing stories and perspectives to illuminate the broader Jewish public on what life is like as a JOC trying to fit into predominantly white Jewish spaces.

“We want to live in a world in which our Jewishness thrives,” Rivka says of her work, “a world where we can be

appreciated as leaders within the Jewish community; a world where our identities as people of colour are supported by Jewish communities that are committed to fighting racism, supporting inclusion and promoting Jewish diversity.”

Rivka is also the sole Canadian recipient of the inaugural JewV’Nation Fellowship from the Union for Reform Judaism, and is currently the executive director at Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto.

Her podcast with The CJN, Rivkush, now in its third season, and sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, is the world’s only podcast dedicated to highlighting the stories of fascinating JOCs: activists, artists, rule-breakers and change-makers.

Over the years, Rivka has sat down for deep dives with prominent Canadian JOCs such as Devyani Saltzman, the founding

curator of Toronto’s Luminato festival and a past director of public programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario; lawyer and wouldbe leadership candidate for the federal Conservatives Joel Etienne; and J-Rob, a punk rocker, poet and video game streamer in Montreal.

However, her show also has an international mandate. She’s interviewed Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College and the daughter of acclaimed civil rights activist Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in a live podcast taping at Limmud Toronto. Other guests have included award-winning chef Michael Twitty, comedian Rain Pryor (daughter of Richard), and controversial Israeli columnist Hen Mazzig. n —Michael Fraiman, director, The CJN Podcast Network

Listen to the archive at thecjn.ca/rivkush

Photograph by Shlomi Amiga exclusively for The Canadian Jewish News

Rivka Campbell recording Rivkush at the Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto, June 2023

Federation CJA, in conjunction with the Jewish community Foundation, provided $1,013,850 in funding for food security to help support vulnerable households over the High Holidays and Passover holiday period. This increase in investment towards food security programs to local impact partners helped support 9,215 household interactions over the 2022/23 holiday period allowing families to celebrate with joy and dignity. STAND

הנש Shana Tova

Hon. Omar Alghabra Mississauga Centre Omar.Alghabra@parl.gc.ca

Shafqat Ali Brampton Centre Shafqat.Ali@parl.gc.ca

Rachel Bendayan Outremont Rachel.Bendayan@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Carolyn Bennett Toronto—St. Paul’s Carolyn.Bennett@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Bardish Chagger Waterloo Bardish.Chagger@parl.gc.ca

Shaun Chen Scarborough North Shaun.Chen@parl.gc.ca

Paul Chiang Markham—Unionville Paul.Chiang@parl.gc.ca

Julie Dabrusin

Toronto—Danforth Julie.Dabrusin@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Karina Gould Burlington Karina.Gould@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Steven Guilbeault Laurier—Sainte-Marie Steven.Guilbeault@parl.gc.ca

Anthony Housefather Mount Royal / Mont-Royal Anthony.Housefather@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Helena Jaczek Markham—Stouffville Helena.Jaczek@parl.gc.ca

Hon. David McGuinty Ottawa South David.McGuinty@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Marco Mendicino Eglinton—Lawrence Marco.Mendicino@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

Ya’ara Saks York Centre Yaara.Saks@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Judy Sgro Humber River— Black Creek Judy.Sgro@parl.gc.ca

Francesco Sorbara Vaughan— Woodbridge Francesco.Sorbara@parl.gc.ca

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

Wishing you a healthy, happy, and sweet New Year! De la part de vos député.e.s libéraux Nous vous souhaitons santé et bonheur pour la nouvelle année!

Toronto’s newest museum opened June 9, on the Sherman Campus, in Bathurst Manor, the neighbourhood where many survivors rebuilt their lives after the war.

Toronto Holoc

The museum is divided into four distinct halls that document the rise of modern antisemitism, the Holocaust and its aftermath, as well as the lives of survivors in Canada after the war. Artifacts, often donated by survivors in Toronto, explore the wide range of experiences, including a concentration camp uniform and a Torah rescued during Kristallnacht. The forest room is a contemplative space in the midst of the galleries that displays the names of family members who died in the Holocaust.

aust Museum

The 10,000-square-foot museum was designed for a time when the numbers of survivors is dwindling and intolerance is rising. It relies heavily on technology. Eleven life-size video monitors present over 200 minutes of testimony, telling survivors’ stories. Students, the majority of visitors, will be able to take a tablet-based tour that uses Augmented Reality to bring artifacts and documents to life.

Holocaust museums enter a dynamic new era across Canada

The art and science of preserving survivor stories for future generations

In addition to Toronto’s new Holocaust museum, three other centres in Canada— in Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver—are also either being renovated or completely redesigned. All of the museums were initially spearheaded by survivors, who wanted a place to memorialize their loved ones and to teach younger generations.

The museum redesigns now contemplate what is being called the post-survivor era, when survivors won’t be able to tell their first-hand stories of the horrors of the Shoah. Museums are also grappling with how to teach about genocide in a time of increasing Holocaust denial.

Montreal

The most ambitious project is the only museum which won’t be on a Jewish community campus. The Montreal Holocaust Museum, scheduled to open in the fall of 2025, will be located on St. Laurent Boulevard, close to other museums and in the heart of what was once an immigrant Jewish neighbourhood.

It will be by far the largest in the country, at 45,000 square feet Architects were selected

in an international competition and construction is expected to start this fall, said Julia Reitman, chair of the capital campaign.

The $90-million project has received contributions from provincial and federal governments as well as the Azrieli Foundation. About $10 million, which will include an endowment, still needs to be raised.

The new building will have a “Dimensions in Testimony” installation, a project by the USC Shoah Foundation, that lets people pose questions to survivors, prompting real-time responses from pre-recorded videos. The first French-language testimony of a Montreal survivor using this technology will be in the museum.

The facility will have space for permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as a gallery designed for children and families to open discussions about racism and antisemitism.

“We were looking for a temporary exhibit space to be able to refresh the exhibit space, to bring in exhibits from elsewhere and also to be able to talk about other genocides elsewhere to put it into a present-day context,” Reitman said.

The old building received about 25,000 visitors annually, but was so busy that some groups had to start at the end and work toward the front of the space. That provided a disjointed experience. The new building hopes to see about 100,000 visitors a year. With 14,000 artifacts, the largest collection in the country, curators will still have to make decisions about what to exhibit. However, the prize of the collection, a tiny heart-shaped birthday card made clandestinely in Auschwitz, will still be at the forefront of the museum.

Winnipeg

Winnipeg was the first centre to complete its $200,000 renovation, re-opening its 1,100-square-foot space in January.

The Heritage Centre of Western Canada was stripped to the walls to rebuild, with a greater emphasis on life before the Second World War, antisemitism in Canada and the accomplishments of survivors in Canada, said executive director Belle Jarniewski. A large image of Auschwitz that used to dominate the back wall of the museum

has been replaced with a projection of the names of the 1,050 Holocaust survivors who settled in Winnipeg.

“We wanted to pay tribute to the survivors and a picture of Auschwitz doesn’t define them,” Jarniewski explained. “Certainly, some of them were in Auschwitz, but it doesn’t define the broader experience of survivors. Moreover, we wanted to pay tribute to these courageous people who started new lives, who came here, after having lost so much.”

The refurbished centre puts a new emphasis on the richness of prewar life. Displayed in a large case are a family tree that dates back to 1760, a Talmud printed in the 1800s, and an accordion that was passed down by a French family of entertainers. All the centre’s artifacts were donated by Manitoba residents.

Like all the museums, the Winnipeg centre emphasizes technology, including an interactive table that has stories, maps, photos and short videos about 24 survivors, developed by Yad Vashem in Israel and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The advantage of the device, which is also used by the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, is that it can be updated to reflect the latest knowledge about the Holocaust, Jarniewski said.

The centre is also where researchers can tap into the 55,000 testimonies recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation. Most poignantly, it holds interviews recorded with local survivors, first in the 1980s and then updated, as they aged and were able to reflect more deeply on their experiences.

“It’s so important,” said Jarniewski, “because almost of them are now gone.”

Vancouver

Vancouver’s museum’s redevelopment is part of the massive JWest project that will see new facilities for a Jewish community centre, a school, and housing.

Plans are still in the early stages and architects and exhibition designers have yet to be selected, but the centre will more than double in space, from its current 4,000 square feet to about 9,000 square feet, said Nina Krieger, executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

She anticipates the new centre will open in about three years. A budget for the project has yet to be announced.

Currently, the centre only has space for visiting temporary exhibits. The new building will have room for a permanent exhibit that introduces the history of the Holocaust and integrates the stories of local survivors. Space will also be available for temporary exhibits that explore new themes.

Robert Krell, a child survivor from Holland who has been deeply involved in Holocaust education in Vancouver, was interviewed and filmed for the Dimensions in Testimony project.

As the last of the country’s centres to redesign its space, Vancouver’s is learning from the other three museums, Krieger said. Each centre draws on local stories but they share similar challenges in the post-survivor era.

“In the span of 11 days, the Vancouver community lost three Holocaust survivor speakers,” Krieger went on. “It just really underscores the urgency of documentation and collections initiatives involving eyewitnesses and the importance of our work, which we know sadly is more relevant than ever due to the mounting antisemitism and racism and xenophobia, that we witness globally and across Canada and in all the regions that the centres operate in.” n

LILA SARICK

Architectural design of the new Montreal Holocaust Museum

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

Freeman Family Holocaust Education Centre

Rabbinics of Clothing

A couple of Orthodox rabbis discuss the Jewish notions of sartorial selection

Rabbi Mordechai Torczyner, who spent the past 14 years in Toronto, recently recorded a series of lectures dedicated to fashion topics like the history of Jews in the garment business, the concept of having a specific synagogue wardrobe, and how clothes create a mood. Rabbi Avi Finegold, host of the Bonjour Chai podcast for The CJN, has significant style-related opinions of his own. And so, they got together to contemplate the concept of Jewish fashion sense. Listen to more of their conversation along with links to Rabbi Torczyner’s entire seven-part “Jews and Clothes” seminar at thecjn.ca/fashion

Finegold: Despite the doom and gloom about assimilation, we’re probably living in one of the least assimilated periods of all time. The ability to have loose ties with the Jewish community exists: you can go to shul if you want and then leave and go live your life—however you want. This idea has only existed for the past century or so, and I think clothing enables it, because we’re not forced to have a Jewish wardrobe. What happens when you’re no longer forced to wear specific clothing?

Torczyner: The historical contention that this is new in our time is interesting, but I feel like there is a phenomenon like that in Roman times, when you had that option of being out and yet in. I wonder whether that’s something one would do for oneself, or the people around you. In other words, you’re not fooling anybody by adopting the clothing. You’re talking about a world where, as you said,

somebody is able to be in and out. I think of clothing much more as what somebody puts on to convey a message. And the message can be one of affiliation. Or it can just as easily be something that somebody puts on in order to convey disinformation. Do you know what I’m saying?

Finegold: You’re speaking about camouflage, right? Is clothing a camouflage or is clothing an identity?

Torczyner: My thinking on this is shaped by the fact that for much of our history, it hasn’t been an advantage to convey Jewish identity. We tell a convert to Judaism that this isn’t a fun group to be joining. There are a lot of challenges there. A person who dressed Jewishly was not generally doing so in order to receive social advantage.

Finegold: Nowadays, there’s a social advantage to being able to go back and forth. If I’m visiting Toronto, I can make a choice to put on a knitted kippah and fit into the crowd at [modern Orthodox synagogue] Shaarei Shomayim. And I can take that off and put on a velvet yarmulke and go to [more traditionally Orthodox] Shomrei Shabbos and feel like I’m more on the inside over there. And that clothing enables you sometimes to identify with the in-group.

My first year in Toronto in 2009, I delivered a series of classes called “Tzibburology,” It was the study of what it takes to create Jewish community and the functioning of Jewish community. And part of it was sparked by the

PHOTOGRAPHY BY COTTONBRO STUDIO / PEXEL

“The way in which we signal our Judaism using clothing says something. Am I trying to be part of your group or not? Clothing functions in that way more often than we realize.”

work of a sociologist named Rich Sosis, who did a lot of work on the sociology of Jewish communities, for example kibbutzim in Israel, And he writes about the concept of costly signaling, which is an idea that when you identify as a part of a particular group based on a behaviour that comes with a cost, then people in the group are more apt to trust you. So you could think of that in terms of somebody who’s wearing a heavy black material during the summer must be a believer. I can trust this person. He’s for sure part of the group. Somebody who wears a kippah to take a subway ride through a dangerous part of town, you’re more apt to think, yeah, he’s probably really in this, or he wouldn’t be doing that. There’s an element of dress that convinces you—because it has a price to it.

Finegold: I was at a couple of haredi weddings recently, and I realized that my dress automatically brands me as an outsider even though I grew up in those communities. I’m not putting on the tie that everybody else would expect me to wear or changing my fabric yarmulke for a velvet one or one that’s three sizes bigger in order to signal to the in-group that I’m part of them. I’m signalling that this is who I am now, and that’s how I live. The way in which we signal our Judaism using clothing to whatever other groups are there often actually says something. Am I trying to be part of your group or am I specifically trying not to be part of that group? Clothing functions in that way more often than we realize.

And I find that fascinating. It goes to something very personal. I know you’re not someone who dresses extravagantly—you have a very specific wardrobe. While I’m not saying that you fit this stereotype, there is the image of the schleppy rabbi that exists, often because of what they’re wearing. Where do you think this idea comes from? Because it seems like, on the one hand, it makes perfect sense. I’m spending time studying and preparing sermons. I don’t have time for my clothing. And yet rabbis are often poised and have a demeanor that signals something. When you look at the priests in the temple, why do you think that rabbis got to the point where it’s a point of pride to say they don’t think about their clothing?

Torczyner: The Talmud emphasizes that a Torah scholar is required to be careful in the sense that if there’s a little bit of food that gets on their garb, they’re actually liable for death. And while that language is hyperbolic, there’s a sense that you have to dress in a

way that respects the Torah that you represent. We generally assume it has to do with wearing clean, respectable clothing, and going beyond that manifests a certain concern for worldliness which is considered somewhat improper. There’s a Midrashic line about Joseph in the biblical story that he was playing with his hair—kind of curling his hair—and it was a demonstration of immaturity. The idea that you’re gonna try to keep up with trends says, well, your values are in the wrong place. Why is that what you’re focusing on?

This isn’t at all my philosophy. Mine is just that I don’t have the head space to keep up with the different things. I tried years and years ago. I tried to learn how to match ties to striped shirts and I couldn’t do it.

Finegold: I think about this a lot because I care about clothes. I also remember that when I was the rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal I wore canonicals. On the one hand, it covered up everything that I was going to wear that

Shabbat until kiddush, by which point everybody’s made up their mind about how they feel about me based on the sermon. On the other hand, wearing a robe and a special hat really imparts leadership, and the type of clothing that you wear creates a reality, the world approaches you in a certain way.

I think that rabbis would want to approach their day-to-day interactions in some specific fashion. And, until recently, a rabbi that wasn’t wearing canonical clothes in the streets was considered untoward. You were supposed to be presenting as a rabbi. I have a hard time figuring out why rabbis say, I’m going to be presentable, but I shouldn’t be regal. I’m not saying that people should be flashy, but I’ve always wanted to have a day-long seminar for rabbinical students to explain to them, this is how you dress. This is how to pick out a suit, even if it’s a plain navy suit. This is going to affect how you are perceived. What to wear to a funeral, what to wear to a wedding, when you should wear a tuxedo to a wedding when you shouldn’t.

I find that rabbis often lay these by the wayside.

Torczyner: You’re making an interesting point in this distinction between attractive clothing and regal clothing, because I think there’s a lot of room for that distinction. Pursuing attractive clothing in a rabbi would actually worry me. I’m a child of the end of the 20th, beginning of the 21st century. And, unfortunately, I’ve seen scandals from time to time. And I would worry a little bit if I saw that there’s a rabbi who’s so concerned about the attractiveness of his appearance.

Finegold: There’s an entire Instagram account that got turned into a book called @PreachersNSneakers. It’s about this phenomenon in the evangelical Christian world, preaching while wearing these thousand-dollar shoes.

Torczyner: You also have Talmudic examples of this—including some that go in the opposite direction: Rabban Gamliel II was around in the period of the destruction of the Second Temple. He’s the one the Romans saved as the descendant of King David. He’s the political leader of the Jews. If you disagree with him in the rabbinic world, you’re toast. Rabban Gamliel gives instructions that when he passes away, to bury him in plain white canvas or linen. At the time, it had become very expensive for people to dress up the bodies of their loved ones when they passed away. The Talmud even records that they reached a stage where people were abandoning the body because they couldn’t afford to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak, on the burial.

And Rabban Gamaliel says to bury him in plain clothing so that everybody will then

have license to do that. And that has become Jewish tradition. Jewish tradition is plain shrouds, not to dress people up in fancier suits than they ever wore in their lifetime. So we have that as a very specific model of demonstrating humility. Granted, it’s in death, at which point what people think of him doesn’t really matter anyway. But that’s an iconic image of how rabbis approach clothing. We have discussions about rabbis respecting their clothing.

Finegold: The famous one about the rabbi picking up the hem of his garment when passing through a thorny area because his skin could heal, but the clothing can’t…

Torczyner: You’re talking about Abba Chilkiah. Another one is a rabbi who calls his clothing mechubadai: that which honours me, or is honoured of me. And so he was

“There’s a sense that you have to dress in a way that respects the Torah that you represent. We generally assume it has to do with wearing clean, respectable clothing.”

also very careful in terms of the way that he handled the clothing.

We also look at the quality of clothing for prayer in a unique way. Both in terms of having special clothing for prayer. But also, when you come to pray, if it’s a time of trouble and suffering, you’re supposed to specifically dress down. Whereas if it’s a time when things are good, then you dress in a more regal way, to reflect that. It becomes a religious identification. We’re getting a little bit away from your point about how rabbis dress, but I think there is the sense of clothing as a communicator.

There’s a classic Talmudic idea about the soul, where they talk about a person’s responsibility to make sure that that one enters the next world ready to answer to God. And the phrase that’s used in the Hebrew is, Bechol et yihiyu begadach levanim: At all times, your clothing should be white. They talk about a servant who’s been given clothing by his master, and he never wears it, because he wants to return it clean at the end. He doesn’t know what day the master is going to demand it of him.

Finegold: You brought up the type of clothing that one wears during prayer. I find that the people that focus on this a lot, especially in the Orthodox community, suffer in that time from what I would refer to as the triumph of halachic formalism. This idea that if you’re wearing shorts and a tank top, It’s all of a sudden regal clothing so long as you throw a jacket and a hat on top of it. Clothing ends up a crutch.

Torczyner: It is silly, the formalism of a jacket being worn and therefore you’re wearing something nice doesn’t take away from the fact that it doesn’t do the job. You haven’t convinced anybody that it’s respectful. You can’t make a pretense of it any more than when it comes to prayer. If a person says, well, I’m going to say the words really loudly and forcefully, but my head is completely somewhere else. The fact that you said the words loudly and forcefully doesn’t make it a better prayer. So, if you’re dressing with a jacket on, but everything else about your outfit says the beach, it’s just like the prayer that’s loud and forceful, but has no thought behind it.

Finegold: I was thinking about how uniforms sometimes come into conflict with the Talmudic idea of tzniut—how everybody is supposed to be dressing modestly when you’re wearing a uniform that doesn’t necessarily fit

in with the rest of what the world is wearing at the time. You’re supposed to not draw attention to yourself as a Jewish individual because of your clothing. And yet, the haredi community dresses in a very specific uniform that really makes themselves stand out when they are out in the world.

Torczyner: But what you’re dealing with is the question of competing values. Fundamentally, I have one value that says, don’t attract attention. I have another value that says, stand apart from a community whose values you don’t share. Don’t present yourself as though you are part of a group that you shouldn’t be a part of. So it could be that I would blend in well walking down the street if I were wearing what they wear. But there will be a price that comes along with that, that maybe is an unacceptable price. It’s not a sole value. It’s part of a constellation of values.

Finegold: If a fashion designer invited you to inspire a clothing collection that reflected Jewish values, what would you suggest they do?

Torczyner: Tzniut should be one of them. This idea that I’m not showy, that I don’t exist for public consumption, is definitely a value— not just because of its close association with clothing, but just in general. I think the world needs more privacy. Respect is also a value that the world needs. And if that can be expressed in clothing, all the better.

I wonder about clothing that’s supposed to carry a message in the most literal sense. Someone wears a dress to the Met Gala that has a slogan on it, or a T-shirt with a slogan on it, or Melania Trump with her raincoat that said, “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” I wonder if people should wear clothing with bumper stickers. Maybe magnets more than bumper stickers. You don’t want to be stuck with it.

And there should also be something that says I don’t take myself that seriously. That’s another value that you have within Judaism. We’re supposed to take our responsibilities seriously, but not to take ourselves that seriously—to understand that we’re a work in progress. If that could be conveyed also by one’s clothing, I don’t know what it looks like, but it’s a value the world needs. n

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From covering catwalks to conquering cancer

Legendary fashionista Jeanne Beker on how she’s living her best life now

By Ellin Bessner for The CJN Daily

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NAOMI HARRIS EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH

Jeanne Beker comes on our Zoom call with a wide smile and a friendly hello, sporting a black-and-white polka dot blouse and silver jewelry. I couldn’t see what designer clothes she was wearing from the waist down, but at the time, it didn’t occur to me to ask her.

Truth be told, I was a little nervous to interview her, because she’s one of Canada’s most iconic and beloved broadcasters, with a career spanning nearly half a century. She helped pave the way for generations of Jewish journalists like who came after her. Women who weren’t all blonde hair and perky noses. Women like me.

Beker, 71, was doing an interview for The CJN Daily from her Northumberland County farmhouse east of Toronto dubbed Chanteclair, which she bought in 2000 after a divorce from former Toronto radio personality Bob Magee.

The wall behind her is adorned with a caricature of Beker in her younger years, showing striking, oversized eyes and her trademark long, black hair and bangs. She has short hair now after her breast cancer treatment and the bangs are different, but Beker still uses that image as the profile photo on Instagram

And while other high-profile Jewish Canadian women in broadcasting have survived breast cancer in recent years—including Dr. Marla Shapiro and Sandie Rinaldo—they weren’t as public about their odyssey.

Beker’s social media audience has nearly tripled in the year since she decided to go public and to use her high profile to document the diagnosis. The posts started right after the fateful phone call from her doctor in June 2022, after a routine mammogram found a mass in her breast.

“And it was, like, the biggest shock of all because my mother never had breast cancer, my sister didn’t have breast cancer. (She doesn’t know if her grandmothers did, since they were murdered in the Holocaust.)

Beker credits her late father Joseph’s unwavering wartime attitude for helping her get through it. He survived serving in the Polish army, internment in the ghetto, and later, being on the run with his bride, Bronia. To evade the Nazis, her parents hid in a series of attics, and sheltered in earthen bunkers beneath farms. His daughter could feel him whispering

in her ear.

“His motto? ‘Don’t be afraid and never give up.’ And that’s totally what saw him and my mother through the war.”

Beker says she also drew inspiration from people who reached out to share how breast cancer had impacted their lives—including when the endings were not so happy.

“Whether it was their journey or their wives or their sisters or their mothers, but all of them were really giving me that whole cheerleader boost,” she says. “They were all saying, ‘You’ve got this, just keep going, it’s gonna be OK.’”

And in mid-June 2023, after a year of undergoing surgery, chemotherapy, the resulting hair loss, and side effects from the cancer fighting drugs, Beker was hooked up to an intravenous machine at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto for her final infusion of Herceptin.

She dutifully documented her appointment on that day— and, although it was a little hokey, Beker gamely stepped up to ring the clinic’s treatment bell (literally, a bronze bell) to mark the end of that stage of her cancer journey.

“I’m going to miss all the angels here, but in the meantime, I’m going to celebrate!” she exclaimed to her 55,000 social media followers.

Beker handles all her own postings, too. She kicked off this summer by jetting off to Scotland, visiting friends in Calgary, and hanging out with her musician daughter Joey O’Neil, who lives in Dawson City, Yukon.

Joey crocheted the red string bracelet which her mother sports on her left wrist, under her watch. It’s an ancient Jewish tradition designed to ward off bad luck. Beker kept it on throughout her cancer journey: her two daughters wear their own.

A similar talisman became part of her daily wardrobe when Beker was pregnant. (Bekky O’Neil, the older sister, lives 15 minutes away in Roseneath, Ont.).

“My mother insisted that I tie a little red ribbon on my bra strap, which I wore the entire duration of both pregnancies.”

Beker hosts a weekly fashion program Style Matters on the TSC home-shopping channel across Canada. The eighth season begins

“My dad always said to me ‘It’s very important how you dress because that’s the first thing that people see about you and that’s how they’re going to judge you right off the bat’.”

Makeup and hair by: Genny Rovito

this fall. But she became a household name through Fashion Television, which originated with Citytv Toronto in 1985, and aired in more than 100 countries. The show morphed into its own specialty channel until Bell Media pulled the plug on the franchise in 2012.

But for 27 seasons, she flew around the world with camera crews to cover the fashion business: attending the runways of Paris and Milan to nab exclusive, behind-the-scenes interviews with top designers including Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino and supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford.

Beker also curated and launched her own fashion lines, edited fashion magazines, mentored up-and-coming Canadian designers and wrote a handful of books. Designers created special outfits for her.

But she also credits her late mother’s prized turquoise-coloured Brother sewing machine for launching her on the road to international fame. It showed up at the family home in 1959, as a gift from her father when they moved into Toronto’s Bathurst Manor neighbourhood. From then on Bronia made all the family’s clothes.

Inspired by designs from Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines, Beker’s mother would head down to Spadina Avenue to pick up fabric at a store called Stitsky’s—which was perfectly fine for the mod styles dreamed up by Jeanne and her sister Marilyn.

These sartorial skills also came in handy for her first TV news job as an entertainment reporter in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

“I haven’t picked up a needle and thread like that in years,” she laughs.

But it wasn’t only her mother’s fashion sense that propelled Beker into the world of designer samples and look books. It was advice drilled into her by her father. After the couple settled into their new Canadian home, Joseph Beker ran a slipper factory in Toronto.

TOP: Peak shoulder pads at FT: June 30, 1989; BOTTOM: Jeanne behind the runway: Sept. 14, 1994 Keith Beaty/Toronto Star/Getty Images; Bernard Weil/Toronto Star/Getty Images

“This has become a whole other arena for me, a whole other way of lending my voice to something that could really help save lives, and certainly grow awareness.”

“My dad always said to me ‘It’s very important how you dress because that’s the first thing that people see about you and that’s how they’re going to judge you right off the bat’. So he was very, very adamant about always telling me that I should look my best.”

Jeanne Beker is one of approximately 40 percent of Canadian women who have dense breasts. But she was not aware she had them. As a result, following current provincial medical recommendations, she went for mammograms only every couple of years.

“It has nothing to do with the size of your breasts. Like a lot of people think, ‘Oh, you’ve got big boobs, you’ve got dense breasts.’ It has nothing to do with that. You could have very small breasts and they could still be dense.”

Since her own diagnosis, Beker has become a spokesperson for several breast cancer awareness groups and charities, including Dense Breasts Canada, and the breast cancer campaign called Be Your Own Breast Friend by the lingerie chain La Vie En Rose. Later this fall, on Oct. 21, she’ll be honoured at the Princess Margaret Hospital’s One Life fundraising gala in Toronto.

“I’m still very much working and doing all the things that I love career-wise, but this has become a whole other arena for me, a whole other way of lending my voice to something that could really help save lives, and certainly grow awareness,” she says.

And while continuing to deal with related health issues from the cancer, such as energy loss and being monitored for any side effects on her heart, she’s now admittedly living her best life. She enjoys spending time in the country, walking her dog with her partner Iain MacInnes. She also helps Bekky sell produce and greeting cards at the weekly market in Coburg.

And when her TSC show took its summer hiatus, Beker doubled down in the writing of a new memoir, slated to be published by Simon

and Schuster in November of 2024. This book will be about the stories behind some of her favourite designer clothing pieces. She’s worn a lot of them over the years. The closets of her principal residence in Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood remain “stuffed” with items. While she used to donate regularly to the Hadassah-WIZO Bazaar, and supported fundraisers for cancer charity Gilda’s House—corralling celebrity friends to make their own donations, too—she hasn’t culled her collection since the pandemic. The release of her next book might be a motivator to put a few items on display.

Beker promises her next memoir will tell the story about the black velvet bell-bottom pants she wore to an interview with Madonna, only to arrive and discover the pop star was wearing the exact same ones.

There will also be a section about one of her mother’s beloved party dresses from the 1970s, which had been sewn by a professional dressmaker. Decades later, Beker wore that same dress to a bar mitzvah and danced the night away.

“I was just overwhelmed with joy thinking about how many horas that dress had seen.” n

“Quick and easy! Now if only we could do something about these dowdy blue hospital gowns… “: June 5, 2023

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Cameron Stephens Mortgage Trust (CSMT) was created in 2019 to offer institutional and private investors the opportunity to invest in a diversified portfolio of primarily first mortgage

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1. Statistics Canada – Population Projections for Canada (2021 to 2068), Provinces and Territories (2021 to 2043) – August 22, 2022

2. CMHC – Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages: Estimating what is needed to solve Canada’s housing affordability crisis by 2030 – June 23, 2022

Please note that this investment is only available to those who qualify as accredited investors under applicable securities laws.

Kippur Slippers

How to adorn your toes on the Day of Atonement

AND COMMENTARY BY NAOMI HARRIS EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

Have you ever wondered why on the holiest of days we also get to wear our comfiest of kicks? The concept was certainly not for comfort—in fact, just the opposite. On the Day of Atonement, the Torah commands us to afflict ourselves and refrain from certain luxuries such as eating and drinking, washing or anointing our bodies and even marital relations (as if you need more of an excuse than having skipped bathing). We take it for granted that leather shoes were once the epitome of comfort and hence the custom of wearing shoes made of synthetic materials. Today, running shoes and slides are often more comfortable than their leather predecessors, especially with the advent of vegan options. Here are a few recommendations of kosher-yet-relaxed footwear for Yom Kippur. So, whether you opt for sneakers, flip-flops, slippers or Crocs, this is the one day of the year you’re expected to wear the sweatpants of footwear in shul.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographed at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue in Toronto.

What goes better with your kittel than the iconic Adidas Stan Smith?

Don’t be fooled by this timeless sneaker, the vegan upper and rubber outsole is made of 50 percent recycled materials: stylish and good for the planet as well.

Front row seats (left to right):

Crocs Classic Clog in Lime Punch personalized with food-themed Jibbitz; every mayven knows that the New Balance 574 Core is the only way to go; why wear Converse when you can wear the Comme des Carçons Play collaboration; Uggs Scrunchta in Sunny Yellow sports textile upper with sheepskin insole (there’s always one in every crowd).

Nice Jewish girls pack a little something to break the fast, and wear Uggs Sport Yeah slides, pictured here in Dragon Fruit.

Sephardis know that pomanders (clove apple) stave off hunger pangs, revive those feeling faint and pair well with Converse Chuck Taylor

All Star high tops in classic red. (Use oranges or lemons depending on colour coordination).

Kachol ve’lavan… wear Israel proud with Adilette Aqua Slides in Solar Blue/Cloud White. Invented by Adidas in 1963 for footballers to ease tired feet, imagine how good they’ll feel while saying the Amidah.

On’s Cloud 5 Push running shoes, seen here in Fiji Rose, signature speed lacing system is perfect when feeling faint from fasting. The Swiss make good chocolate, watches and now running shoes.

Every big macher knows New Balance 574 are the official sneaker of old Jewish men, and Yom Kippur is the best night to buy Israel Bonds. With rising interest rates, get some for the grandkids!

WISHES YOU AND YOUR FAMILY A YEAR FILLED WITH HEALTH, JOY, PEACE & LEARNING!

We taught more than 1000 undergraduate students and o ered over 65 courses in Jewish studies. Our students are supported by generous scholarships, such as Oscar Yolles Bursary in Jewish Studies, Robert Ross Scholarship, and Kideckel Robbins/ Harry & Sarah (Sadie) Kideckel Memorial Scholarship in Jewish Studies.

e robust Granovsky-Gluskin Graduate Program has over 70 enrolled students, and is the largest Jewish Studies graduate program in the world.

anks to the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies Fund, Himel Family Endowment, Disenhouse Family Fund, and Toronto Workmen’s Circle Foundation, our Yiddish Graduate Stream continues to grow and thrive.

We hosted 36 hybrid events during the last academic year, with more than 2700 attendees in-person and online. anks to the support of the Pearl and Jack Mandel Family Fund, Tanenbaum Family Fund, Halbert Fund, and many others, we engaged with world-class scholars from Israel, Europe, and North America.

SHANA TOVA!

Professor Anna Shternshis Director, Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies

Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies

Picturing Jew-ish Re ecting on how we saw ourselves onscreen in the 1990s

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy

Like many millennials, I miss the 1990s. Doubtless many GenXers do too. It was a prosperous time, one before smartphones, when it was still possible to go out and have fun without photographic evidence of said fun reaching the wider world. People interacted in person and were not online all the time, suggesting that one another “touch grass.”

The clothes were better (fast fashion had yet to tank garment quality), as was the music. It was an era of greater geopolitical peace. A less identity-aware time, for better and worse, but on the whole a more placid one. These were the years before 9/11, and the ensuing wars, not to mention the ensuing thing where you’re stopped from bringing guacamole on an airplane because this count as a liquid.

Meanwhile, the horrors of the two World Wars were long enough in the past that it really did feel possible that life was going to be, on the whole, pretty good. The Cold War had ended. Americans’ optimism levels were, per Gallup polling, higher than in 2022, and trending upwards. Further fueling 1990s nostalgia in the 2020s is the knowledge of all that would come in the decades that followed: Trump, Covid, and the ubiquity of social media. Even those of us who didn’t relish every bit of the 1990s (i.e. who were in middle school for much of them) may see positives in retrospect.

And calm times tend to be good ones for a certain group of people who are often scapegoated in more tumultuous ones. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about Jews.

A 2022 Anti-Defamation League report offers a clue as to why Jews might yearn for decades of the recent past: “In 2021, ADL tabulated 2,717 antisemitic incidents across the United States. This represents a 34% increase from the 2,026 incidents recorded in 2020 and is the highest number on record since ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.” While it is not possible to quantify exactly how antisemitic any particular era (apart from Nazi German, of course) felt—and while there will always be regional variation—some data suggest that global antisemitism began rising around the year 2000, or the start of the Second Intifada, and then into the so-called War on Terror.

This is in keeping with my own memory of that period, which is that while antisemitism certainly existed in the 1990s, circa 2000 is when it shifted from a phenomenon of oldschool xenophobes to something tied up, in the mainstream, with people’s interpretations of world events. It was possible, in the 1990s, to see antisemitism as something on its way

out, in a way that would not have been in 2004, and that really wouldn’t have in 2022.

The 1990s were also a deeply Jewish moment in popular culture. We were everywhere in sitcoms—Friends, Mad About You, Seinfeld. The 2000 movie Meet the Parents, wherein Ben Stiller is a Jewish man marrying into a non-Jewish family, was a critical and box office hit. (It’s close enough to the ‘90s to count, in my books.) Even Frasier, a show about gentiles, was chock-full of explicitly and ambiguously Jewish love interests. (Bebe Newirth as Lilith, sultry even in pleated khakis, the ones that recently came back into style: #goals.)

The big one, though, was Fran Drescher’s The Nanny, which ran from 1993 to 1999. It was the rare show told completely from a Jewish perspective. By this I mean that the

ing that even if some elements of the past are appealing, we are nevertheless fortunate to live in the times we do. Uncomplicated nostalgia, the carefree kind, was for other people, for members of groups that had not been genocide victims, enslaved, or otherwise mistreated on a grand scale. (Louis C.K. had a (pre-cancellation) 2008 comedy routine about how a time machine to the past would be fun for white people but not Black ones. So too for Jews. Fond as I am of the décor on Poirot, you won’t catch me wishing I lived in the 1930s.

Are the 1990s, perhaps, the first exception to this longstanding rule? Is part of their nostalgic appeal that they were they better for Jews than today? While it might seem that the decade was on the whole superior, a closer look at some of the Jewish pop culture of that era complicates matters. We were everywhere, but not openly everywhere. Coded, hinted-at Jewishness could make it in the mainstream, whereas explicitly Jewish content remained—or creators and gatekeepers feared would remain—too niche.

I think of the unspoken quasi-Jewishness of Seinfeld, which read as super-duper Jewish… to Jewish audiences. Mainstream viewers were none the wiser, unless they happened to catch one of the few episodes where Jewishness explicitly came up.

gentile characters are portrayed as having strange gentile ways: being uptight, drinking more than Manishewitz, wearing too much beige. It is they who are the oddities, from the show’s standpoint. The Jewish characters represent not ethnic curiosities but familiarity.

And we had, in Monica Lewinsky, a Jewish headline-news story that, while upsetting in what it said about the state of sexual misconduct, had nothing to do with antisemitism. If anything, the problem was that the gentile leader of the free world loved her a little too much.

The 1990s is not the only era to be the object of Jewish wistfulness by any means. There is, for example, the longing for the shtetl, or at least the Fiddler on the Roof version thereof, as representative of a lost form of Jewish authenticity. And nostalgia for the Jewish delicatessen—see David Sax’s 2009 book, Save the Deli—involves poignant taste-memories of a New World but still distant (mid-century, roughly) Jewish existence.

As a general principle, Jewish nostalgias have always been tinged with an understand-

Indeed, something curious happens when you stop and think about the iconic Jewish film and television characters of the 1990s. If you start—in the most innocuous way possible—making a list, you soon discover that a number of these fictional creations are… not actually Jewish.

Jerry Seinfeld, the person as well as the sitcom character: both Jewish. No doubts there. But George Costanza? He was portrayed by a Jewish actor, but as written in the show, the Costanzas are Italian-American, religion unspecified. The most we learn about George is that his faith of origin is not something he’s attached to. We learn this in the episode where he converts to Latvian Orthodoxy, for a woman he’s involved with, giving as his reason, “I like the hats.” It’s an intensely Jewish intermarriage plot—Estelle Costanza’s metaphorically tearing her hair out in strongly New York-accented English—but Jews go unmentioned.

Yet George is coded as Jewish. He is a prototypical nebbish, a neurotic over-analyser whose parents (briefly) move to Florida. And as viewers of Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000 and ongoing) can hardly miss, George is something of an alter ego of Seinfeld creator Larry David, whose Jewishness is not up for

We were everywhere, but not openly everywhere.

debate. The “Larry David” character on Curb (a fictionalized version of the real person) is basically who George would be if he were successful.

Then there’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the actress who played Elaine, who comes from the same Dreyfus family as Alfred Dreyfus of the Dreyfus Affair. Her character reads as Jewish to anyone familiar with the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the likely background of a white woman with curly dark hair and friends like Jerry and George. Elaine is totally Jewish. Until, of course, you remember that there is a plotline surrounding her “shiksappeal”—an exploration of the (purported) phenomenon of Jewish men being attracted to non-Jewish women. (Who were these fictional Jewish men of 1990s Manhattan, whose quest for a distinctly non-Jewish woman led them to Elaine? It made no sense!)

Then there were the “JAPs,” like “shiksa” a term now viewed as a quasi-slur, but that was common parlance in the 1990s, as well as a definite on-screen type. The characters one thinks of as Jewish American Princesses were not necessarily Jewish.

To take another example of a female character whose Jewishness was more subtext than text: Rachel Green from Friends, portrayed by non-Jewish actress Jennifer Aniston, is not outright describe as Jewish, but ticks so many boxes (the love of shopping, the Long Island nose job childhood, the orthodontist fiancé named Bernie Farber, the name) that she hovers in that same Schrödinger’s Jew zone, Jewish and not at the same time. Thus the Hey Alma article headlined, “Is Rachel Green Jewish?” Or, indeed, an identical Vulture headline.

A casual viewing of the show makes clear that Ross and Monica are Jewish (their father is, and there are the occasional references to their own Jewishness), but where Rachel is concerned, does not spell it out. Nor do statements from behind the scenes. Per co-creator David Crane, “‘In our minds I guess [Rachel] was Jewish,’” which is not the unequivocal statement it might seem. Intent is not everything! Nor is the 2014 tweet from someone identifying himself as a former Friends writer that Hey Alma treats as definitive: “Rachel is Jewish. I think.” A lot of thinking and guessing going on.

The ultimate, though, would have to be Cher Horowitz, the protagonist of 1995 film Clueless. Cher with her shopping bags, Cher with her wealthy lawyer father, Cher with her daddy’s-girl naiveté (trying to seduce a gay male classmate), and—hard to miss—the last name “Horowitz”: she was surely as Jewish

as they come. Right?

While Silverstone herself is Jewish (as all the circa-that-era articles about how did you know that some Jews are blond? Reminded us), as is movie creator Amy Heckerling, not to mention her handsome if quasi-incestuous love interest played by Paul Rudd, Horowitz was not an explicitly Jewish character. Thus the Jewish Chronicle headline, “Cher Horowitz is not Jewish.” But is that definitive? The source is a JTA interview in which Heckerling says Clueless was not meant to be “a Jewish story,” but rather a retelling of Jane Austen’s

identity conversations, a character having a Jewish vibe but not actually being Jewish would make no sense. In the 1990s, ambiguous, hinted-at, now-you-see-it-nowyou-don’t Jewishness was everywhere, and even greeted as a sign that we’d arrived. Like coded gayness, coded Jewishness was the best anyone could hope for, at least from mainstream entertainment. It implied a society where one could be too gay or too Jewish, which is to say, a society rife with prejudice. This sort of evasiveness about Jewish identity would never happen on screens now.

there are different types of prejudice. My sense—backed up by the initial reception of the Seinfeld pilot (“too New York, too Jewish,” according to an exec)—is that Seinfeldian reticence, Jewishness-wise, was more about trying not to confuse viewers with particularity that might go over their heads, than with a fear that if people took George Costanza to be Jewish, this would empower antisemites. Put another way: if Seinfeld were too distinctly Jewish, it would not only repel the haters of urban Jews, but would also simply not reach as many non-Jewish viewers as it would if it kept the specificity under wraps. They might pass on a Jewish sitcom not because they necessarily disliked Jews, or doubted that New York Jews could be real Americans, but because they didn’t think it was intended for them. The show itself took the stance that antisemitism was a thing of the past, mocking Jerry’s Uncle Leo for his paranoia, seeing Jew-hatred everywhere. It’s hard to imagine a show doing this in an era when virtually every Jewish communal institution devotes itself to ending Jew hate.

If the 1990s were hazy about the Jewishness of their Jewish pop-culture characters, they were all the more so about the very existence of non-Ashkenazi Jews and Jews of Colour. It might surprise you (or not, depending your own Wikipedia usage) to learn that Jerry Seinfeld, unlike his television counterpart, had a Syrian Jewish mother.

And if you really want to get into the weeds of invisibly Jewish Seinfeld trivia, which I think I have by now established I do: Brian George, the actor who played Babu Bhatt, the Pakistani restauranteur who calls Jerry a “very bad man” in scenes whose racial sensitivity was a bit lacking even by 1990s standards, was “born in Jerusalem to Jewish parents of Lebanese, Indian, and Iraqi descent, who had immigrated to Israel.”

novel Emma in then-modern-day Los Angeles. Horowitz, per Heckerling, is based on “‘the daughters of people in show business in L.A.’” Does this make her a non-Jewish character, case closed? Or merely a Jewish-coded one?

It is easy to miss the forest for the trees in this discussion and to find oneself trying to ascertain which of these characters is or isn’t Jewish per the show’s universe. For one thing, there is not always a consistent answer, regarding Jewishness or any other trait. (Does Frasier Crane drink beer or is he too snooty for that? Cheers and Frasier offer different answers.) What actually matters, I think, is the way in which this nebulous category of coded Jewishness functioned.

In 2023, a time characterized by forthright

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is definitively about Jews, though some non-Jewish casting choices have caught flack. Broad City depicts Abby and Ilana going on a Birthright-style trip to Israel. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does not leave viewers—even those unfamiliar with star and creator Rachel Bloom—wondering about Rebecca Bunch’s Jewishness. A musical sitcom with a song called “JAP Battle” does not leave the viewer guessing the protagonist’s origins. Nor, for that matter, does the movie title Shiva Baby, a buzzy 2020 comedy, inspire Jewish journalists to investigate whether this is or is not a film about Jews. While coded identity always speaks to a sense that society is not ready for (aka is bigoted against) members of a particular group,

The 2020s can be a sanctimonious time, an era in which the humorless-on-both-sides battle between ‘woke’ and ‘anti-woke’ dominates cultural conversations. A hyper-focus on identity, across the political spectrum, has not necessarily translated to friendlier times for marginalized people. If we are living in great times for feminism, how is abortion newly illegal in much of the United States? If things have never been better for the LGBT community, what’s with the intensity of rightwing transphobia and resurgent homophobia, not to mention the hostility to drag?

But I will say this for our times: I think audiences of today would be ready for a Jewish George, a Jewish Rachel, and even—why not?—a Jewish Babu. 

CHW (Canadian Hadassah-WIZO) empowers women and children by supporting education, healthcare, and social services across Israel and Canada.

row, left to right: Gila Martow, Ward 5 Councillor; Chris Ainsworth, Ward 4 Councillor; Rosanna DeFrancesca, Ward 3 Councillor; Adriano Volpentesta, Ward 2 Councillor; Marilyn lafrate, Ward 1 Councillor

Second row left to right: Gino Rosati, Local and Regional Councillor; Linda Jackson, Deputy Mayor, Local and Regional Councillor; Steven Del Duca, Mayor; Mario Ferri, Local and Regional Councillor; Mario G. Racco, Local and Regional Councillor

Banned books, rogue rappers, and a ham sandwich on lard bread

Phoebe

Maltz Bovy on the trending topics of the year 5783

PHOTOILLUSTRATIONS BY GLUEKIT EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

Since starting at The CJN in September of last year, I’ve been covering the culture from a Jewish lens, in my column and on the Bonjour Chai podcast. When I sat down to think of what this past year will be remembered for, here’s a smattering of what I came up with.

Whither the secular Jew?

This year saw a crisis in Israel over the role of Orthodoxy in the state. Demographically, Haredi Jews have a certain undeniable advantage. This does not stop the likes of billionaire philanthropist Michael Steinhardt—cofounder of Taglit-Birthright Israel—from asking less-observant Jews to please have more babies. Nor does it prevent the more liberal denominations from welcoming the children of intermarriage, thereby adding to the ranks of, if not fully secular Jews, non-Orthodox ones, Jews who come from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. In any event, the days of cultural Jewishness as bagels and Woody Allen movies are—for a variety of reasons—

long gone. North American Jews battled it out amongst ourselves over Jewish authenticity and belonging. Rightwing American commentator Ben Shapiro called Vermont senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders “approximately as Jewish as a ham sandwich topped with shrimp on lard bread.” Is Sanders less of a Jew than the more observant and more pro-Israel (though Sanders is not anti-Israel) Shapiro? Or, as some would contend, is it in fact Sanders who exudes Jewish authenticity from every Brooklyn-accented pore, and Shapiro, darling of the small-c conservatives, who fails to measure up?

We at The CJN had our own lively debates in this area. On Bonjour Chai we brought in legendary American Jewish journalist and podcaster Mark Oppenheimer, formerly of Tablet and its Unorthodox podcast, to discuss his argument that the secular-but-curious should give Jewish practice a chance. Indeed, with our weekly podcasts, Avi Finegold and I bring secular-observant dialogue into the

Ye, Sanders, Shapiro, Steinhardt

Canadian Jewish conversation. Though our numbers may be dwindling, secular Jews are still kicking around, podcasting (if not praying) with the best of them.

The end of antisemitism?

Antisemitism the term was coined in the 1880s; antisemitism the phenomenon predates it by millennia. People have been hating Jews since there were Jews, and we have been defending ourselves for just as long. But 5783 was a banner year for the phenomenon of fighting antisemitism. Having largely dispensed with their preoccupation of getting Jews to marry in mainstream and more obscure Jewish

institutions switched gears and went all-in on ending “Jew hatred.” Seemingly every social media post from a community organization is about this fight and how one can contribute to it, financially or otherwise. Come to this rally! Or, more often, Boost this message! The sense of urgency is palpable.

There has, in fairness, been a bunch of Jew-hatred to address. Kanye West (“Ye”) brought antisemitic ranting to the mainstream in a way that felt, if not historically unprecedented, then still an ominous revival. Pro-Israel Jewish students worried about cancellation (with Jewish students often assumed to be pro-Israel unless they specified otherwise), while visibly Jewish people of all ages have risked physic-

How relevant are kings and queens to Jewish happiness?

al assault. The problem itself is real, and often poorly addressed within a contemporary progressive identity politics framework, with its emphasis on being materially disadvantaged or visibly racialized. If the idea is to fight privilege, what do you do with a form of bigotry that so often manifests itself as accusations of privilege? In EDI-type contexts, antisemitism is sometimes ignored, and—per David Baddiel and others—not seen as counting. Some of the specific instances causing concern—an allegedly swastika-shaped New York Times crossword puzzle, or a new British Telegraph logo resembling a Nazi flag in colour scheme—have been overblown, but others have not. As for whether the answer is for Judaism to be subsumed into a fight against antisemitism—not in any practical danger of happening, but the message that’s sent when so many communal organizations post and email incessantly on that topic—that is less straightforward. Does better funding for anti-antisemitism campaigns meaningfully reduce the number of attacks on Jews? Seemingly not, as the emphasis on antisemitism in messaging has coincided with year after year of unprecedented antisemitism headlines. Does raising awareness of historical mistreatment of Jews automatically translate to less of the same? As Dara Horn argued in The Atlantic last spring, when all that people learn about Jews is the various ways we’ve been murdered over the millennia, this does not lead to a populace that’s especially informed about Jewish life. Holocaust denialism is a problem. So, too, are modern-day Nazis who see an upsurge of Hitler references on social media as a good thing.

New monarch on our money

It was a big year for the British royal family, which as Commonwealth sorts meant a tangentially big one for Canadian Jews. Queen Elizabeth II died, her legacy merged in many minds with that of the whole previous century. King Charles is no longer just a type of spaniel. And then there’s Prince Harry. Oh, Prince Harry. Is he a maligned hero or aggrieved influencer? Have we forgiven him for dressing up like a Nazi at a party that one time? Do we still care about his quasi-exit from the royal clan and now flailing efforts to build a multipronged, multimedia bridge-burning campaign? His ghostwritten memoir, Spare, sold like whatever is the British version of hotcakes. (Tepid scones?) Harry’s ego aside, the royal pomp and turmoil revived the question of how relevant kings and queens and the like are in today’s world. Are they a throwback to pre-meritocratic times? Or are they all that stand between Canada and—horrors—the American way?

Where do Jews stand in relation to royalty? There were court Jews, back in the day, not that my own peddler ancestors had anything to do with all that. The absence of royals has not, historically, indicated that a particular government will be favourable. But a hereditary system of power will be less meritocratic—and thus less inclusive to Jews. In any event, Britain’s Chief Rabbi was given accommodation to walk to the ceremony (it was on Shabbat), an event that also included other faith leaders from outside the Church of England, and the coronation led to the creation of a new Canadian crown, devoid of previous religious symbolism. Not as Jew-friendly as replacing the crown with a kippah, say, or with one of Mayim Bialik’s iconic hats from the 1990s sitcom Blossom, but a welcoming gesture all the same.

Modest-chic has a moment

In Vogue, the writer Mattie Kahn coined a term no one was expecting: Torah-teacher aesthetic: a no-frills, muted-colours style in which the hemlines are long, as are the sleeves, and the shoes—like the rest of the outfit—are “sensible.” Alongside coastal grandmothers, Jewish day school teachers are now, apparently, fashion inspiration.

In one sense, modest fashion is neither new nor specifically Jewish. Religiously observant women of all faiths—as well as secular women not keen on baring their midriffs—have demonstrated that style can include a bit of extra fabric for ages. If all that’s meant is that midi skirts are having a moment, this is not, on its own, earth-shattering.

But Kahn argued, convincingly, that the whole look of a somewhat prim Orthodox Jewish woman can now be seen on mainstream runways, and on influencers who are not themselves observant Jews, or Jews at all. She distinguishes between Torah-teacher aesthetic and things like the prairie dress revival, which was frillier and girlier.

As a fashion development, long denim skirts being the hot new thing felt both empowering and confusing to the Jewish women who grew up wearing these clothes whether they wanted to or not. Indeed, the more clothes-conscious among the former Jewish day school students often discard such garments the first chance they have. So how odd for the very same looks to now be the height of chic!

But it’s not only former Jewish day school students ambivalent about the calf-length skirt trend. For Jewish women who’ve never been in such settings, a skirt like this makes us look Orthodox. Which is a fine thing to be, but if you’re not, it might very well not be the message you want to send.

Books on the bonfire

There is a mood of book-bans afoot. Censoriousness is the vibe across the political spectrum, but in the US, right-wing bans run rampant, with content relating to race and gender the primary targets. Free speech group PEN America spoke out against the removal of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s landmark book, Between the World and Me, from a South Carolina high school curriculum, on the basis of its anti-racist content. Jewish books are well-represented among banned content. Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, about the Holocaust, had too much nudity (mouse nudity?) for some in Tennessee and Missouri. In Florida, meanwhile, a graphic novel based on Anne Frank’s diary was apparently too homoerotic. (The Anne of this book expresses a rather tame sexual desire that would involve the removal of tops.)

All of this has implications for free expression generally, but also for the teaching of Jewish history and literature specifically. If you can’t discuss bigotry—or even mention nudity—it gets rather difficult to teach the Holocaust, or indeed any number of historical and presentday conflicts. If young people can’t learn about humanity’s worst moments, how will they know not to repeat them?

Politics are the new religion

The culture wars wage on, dividing populations in North America and beyond. There are truckers who hate Trudeau. There are traditionalists who love Trump. There are new editions of old books— famously, ones by Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie — being issued with sanitized language to avoid using words like fat, and Elizabeth Gilbert decided to postpone publication of her latest novel, which is set in Russia, indefinitely. Who your friends are, what music you listen to, even which light beer you drink, has become a statement about which political team you’re on. A sports analogy is called for, then, or maybe a religious one. Has politics replaced faith? Clearly not, but for some, politics definitely seems to function as a religion, bringing meaning and community as well as an opportunity for ostracizing heretics. Thus, the “freedom” team’s frequent references to witch-burnings.

The specific cause at the centre of culture-wars discussions has varied over the years. For a while, starting in 2017, with #MeToo, it was feminism. Then the vibe shifted and in 2020-2021, following

the killing of George Floyd, #BlackLivesMatter became the message. While people are still arguing about racism and sexism and let us not forget the various intersections of the two, the bigger issue these days would appear to be transgender rights.

Yes, brains bigger than mine have broken over the topic of transgender people, what their deal is, and where they came from (for even though they existed before five minutes ago, they were less in the news). Are they the frontier in a post-gender utopia, an existential threat to feminism as we know it, or just people trying to go about their lives — lives that have been saddled, by others, with tremendous symbolic significance?

The past year, then, saw debates about who gets to participate in women’s sports, and about which authors are too transphobic to appear at a library. It also saw anti-trans legislation in the United States, and pushback to drag queen story hours in southern Ontario. Some posed sensible-sounding questions about youth gender medicine, while others decompensated over the fact that young people today are dyeing their hair purple. (They’ve been doing so for decades, but apparently neon hair now reads as a stance in the culture wars. I can’t keep up.) Everyone will go on talking about trans people, often to the detriment of actual trans people, until cultural preoccupations, as they always do, shift to the next topic.

The rising price of... everything

There was a time not that long ago when, if someone told me I’d be spending $10 on bread, I’d have said that this loaf better have been personally baked by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and autographed by my favourite actors. Yet I now regularly tap my credit card for this amount, for a loaf that, while on the large side, has no special features worth highlighting.

People of all ages have become the elderly person who cannot believe coffee no longer costs a nickel, because the cost of everything seems so untethered what it was even a year ago. Lunch at a barebones restaurant is $15 before tax and tip. Rent for a one-bedroom Toronto apartment is, at the time of my writing, approximately ten trillion dollars. Whatever you want to blame it on—inflation, continued supply chain disruptions, or rapacious supermarket magnates— everything costs like three times what it feels like it possibly would. Meanwhile, incomes have not tripled. These developments have led some to food banks, others to vegetarianism, and others still (ahem) to the nihilism of buying the nice cheese regardless.

Cost-of-living increases have had a disproportionate impact on many Jews. If you want to live in a larger Jewish community, you’re effectively restricted to these higher-priced residential areas. When the price of groceries goes up, that of kosher food shoots higher still. And for the subset of Jews for whom continuity is a major concern, there are one or two implications there as well. The age keeps creeping up at which it becomes financially plausible for a young or not-so-young adult to live independently. A trend towards adulthood starting later seems at odds with a more-Jewish-babies mission. One can rail against intermarriage but this will do little to address the fact

that 45-year-olds are living in their parents’ basements for lack of other options.

The office you never leave

The pandemic brought with it the work-from-home revolution. While plenty of people (emergency room physicians, delivery workers, etc.) did, unavoidably, continue doing their jobs in person throughout, white-collar office workers s were first forced into, and then discovered that they often enjoyed, the home office. Gone were the openplan offices where every birthday was acknowledged with cake and the after-work happy hours with colleagues. The time had come to put up a shower curtain room divider between yourself and whoever you lived with, and hope the blurred-background Zoom function obscured the reality of your living situation.

In the pauses between more existential concerns, many began reflecting on what the post-pandemic future would look like. Would downtowns survive? What would come of office buildings? Who would buy the rayon business suits, the $14 prepackaged salads? But also: What would come of sick days once staying home was the default? Would the parents of young kids appreciate the ability to work from home, or be too busy clamouring for irl childcare? How would things go for people with office-requiring jobs but no quiet space to work?

Remote work seems like it will stick around in many sectors—at least in part, at least for a while. A lot of people seem to like it, and it allows employers to hire from a larger geographic pool. But the longer-term impact on how we live remains to be seen. It’s not clear if people will still meet friends and maybe even spouses through professional networks that exist solely on Zoom and Slack.

Also unclear: whether white collar work will survive the arrival of AI. If a computer can play the role of lawyer, designer, or accountant, that’s going to more drastically alter the future of the labour market than where any of us have parked our laptops. n

Balancing remote work with the rising cost of everything

a Happy New Year

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For some, it is the relief and peace of mind knowing that their wishes are now recorded and will someday be honoured by their family. For others, it is to unburden loved ones of financial decisions at an emotional time.

For information on prearranged funeral services, please call us at

Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA (J FC mourns the passing of the beloved MIRA KOSCHITZKY z”l former Chair, Canadian Jewish Congress, National Executive and Ontario Regi on among many other leadership roles in Toronto, across Canada, and to the benefit of Israel and the global Jewish community

-UIA) ,

We extend our deepest condolences to her husband Saul, children David (S arena), Joel (Riva z”l), and Tamar (E ric Goldstein), grandchildren, and great-grandchildren May Mira’s memory be a blessing

Ariella Rohringer Steven Shulman Sarah Mali Chair, JFC-UIA CEO, JFC-UIA Director General, Israel

InLoving Memory

May the entire family be comforted among the mourners of zion and jerusalem

Canadian friends of bar-ilan university

mira koschitzky z"l www.cfbiu.org

UJA Pays Tribute To Mira Koschitzky z”l

Over decades of devoted Jewish community service, Mira built a legacy that will never be forgotten. She was a pioneering philanthropist who forged a new path for women everywhere, from serving as Chair of the National Executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress to her many leadership roles at UJA, Bnei Akiva Schools of Toronto, Associated Hebrew Schools of Toronto, and Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, among others. Her passionate advocacy for Jewish causes, love of Israel, and deep commitment to community inspired those around her. She will be deeply missed. May her memory be for a blessing.

םילשוריו ןויצ ילבא ראש ךותב םכתא םחני םוקמה Hamakom yenakhem etekhem betokh shaar avelay tziyon viyrushalayim

Mira Koschitzky, Toronto, 10 Sep. 1979. Photograph by Graphic Artists Photographers. Courtesy of Ontario Jewish Archives, fonds 67, series 27, file 439

Honourable Menschen:

Ilike the expressions on people’s faces when I tell them I write obituaries. They range from blank, to mildly interested, to a combination of alarm and bewilderment.

“Somebody’s gotta do it,” one man shrugged. Maybe it’s akin to saying you’re a mortician.

I then explain: These are not the smallfont death notices in the classifieds that are hastily assembled by the deceased’s loved ones or a funeral home, or both.

These obituaries are long-form accounts of lives I’ve written for The Canadian Jewish News and the paper that pioneered, in Canada, the full-page obit on a dedicated, ad-free page every day, the Globe and Mail.

Readers may also confuse obits for eulogies or tributes to the subject. While they tend to be flattering, they’re supposed to be warts-and-all portraits, combining the laudatory with the louche, written by a journalist who, ideally, did not know the deceased, or not very well.

Maybe writing obits is like whistling past the graveyard. Even so, the whole subject gives rise to black humour. “The first thing I do is check the obits page,” goes the old Borscht Belt crack. “If I’m not there, I get up.”

Or: Told that the legendarily taciturn U.S. President Calvin Coolidge was dead, Algonquin Round Table mainstay Dorothy Parker wondered: “How could they tell?”

One more: The late American comedy pioneer Jackie “Moms” Mabley made a career of celebrating the demise of her much-unmissed late husband. “They say you mustn’t say nothing but good about the dead,” Moms noted. “He’s dead. Good.”

These are the common japes of the “dead beat,” as it’s sometimes morbidly called—but the best beat on any publication, as obit writers routinely insist. In what other area can you switch gears and write about scholars, business moguls, athletes or scientists one day, and war heroes, academics, artists,

politicians or the odd scoundrel the next?

Properly done, obituaries are “biographical essays that set a life in context, pay tribute to achievements, and account for failures and faults,” as Sandra Martin, former full-time obit writer for the Globe, wrote in a collection of her best, Working the Dead Beat: 50 Lives that Changed Canada.

As far as The CJN goes, I’ve always felt that every Holocaust survivor whose life ends in Canada deserves a full obit. Of course, that’s not feasible, but many of the better-known figures who have passed over the last year have received the treatment.

I committed a basic faux pas when I wrote the obit for Holocaust survivor and educator Gerda Frieberg because I came to know her over the years. For reporters at The CJN, she was hard to miss.

Outspoken, gutsy and with boundless energy, Gerda, as she was universally known, came along just at the right time to chair the Ontario Region of the lamentably defunct Canadian Jewish Congress. A highlight for any obit writer was a specific event: The time she faced down Holocaust denying pamphleteer Ernst Zundel and neo-Nazi leader Wolfgang Droege. At Toronto City Hall, she strode up to both of them and uttered something in German. She then turned around to the press in tow and gave a line straight out of a Hollywood Western (and pure catnip for an obit writer): “I told them is no room for three of us here and I have no intention of leaving.” The two men strode away. Gerda died on Jan. 3 at the age of 97.

Any obituary recounting a Holocaust survivor’s rags-to-riches tale is bound to satisfy. So

Ron Csillag remembers some newsworthy Jewish Canadians who passed away from autumn 2022 through early summer 2023

Gerda Frieberg

Elliot Sylman/Toronto Holocaust Museum; Fedele Arcuri/March of the Living; iStock

it was when Saul Feldberg died in Toronto on Jan. 13 at the age of 87. Feldberg built Canada’s largest furniture manufacturing businesses, the Global Furniture Group and Teknion Corp.

His story was novel-worthy: He started sweeping floors in a small furniture business when he arrived in Canada as a teenager with his parents in 1953. Born in Poland in 1935, Saul’s mother saved his life by arranging for false documents and making the dangerous journey to reunite with his father in Russian-occupied Lvov.

“We were always running from something,” he wrote in his memoirs. “We ran from the bombs, from hunger, from the German army. We ran to survive.” Like many who shared his experience, he did more than merely survive.

Now and then, a family member’s eulogy is a nice substitute for a dispassionate obituary. So it was with community stalwart Mira Koschitzky who died on June 11, a few weeks shy of her 88th birthday. Koschitzky was born in 1935 in what was then the Czechoslovak Republic, her childhood cut short by the outbreak of war.

“In 1943, her parents placed her and her

younger sister Lily into hiding with a peasant couple who had worked with my grandfather prior to the war,” eulogized Tamar Goldstein, Mira’s daughter. “At the age of eight, Mira was separated from her parents and burdened with the responsibility of making sure her younger sister did not unwittingly reveal their Jewish identity when they were in hiding.”

The girls and their parents survived and immigrated to Toronto when Mira was 12.

“She was an ardent Zionist,” understated her daughter. With her husband Saul, Koschitzky would go on to volunteer for a slew of Israel-based and local Jewish advocacy and educational organizations, her name becoming virtually synonymous with

philanthropy and communal service.

Another child survivor of the Holocaust was Alex Buckman, a tireless educator and advocate for fellow child survivors who died in Warsaw on April 21. He was 83. In a poetic twist, Buckman was in Poland accompanying the Canadian March of the Living delegation when he died. He served as president of the Vancouver Child Survivors Group and had spoken to thousands of students in British Columbia through the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Born in Brussels, he was seven months old when Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940. At age two, his parents sent him into hiding, and he would find shelter in a dozen different non-Jewish homes. In his 2017 memoir Afraid of the Dark, Buckman wrote that he felt compelled to share his story for two reasons: “First, I want others to know the price of hate. Hate destroys the lives of innocent people. It breaks families apart and its effects are felt for a lifetime. Second, and most importantly, I share my story to honour the memory of my parents. Talking about our stories gives them a chance to live again and gives me the opportunity to remember them.”

“The rst thing I do is check the obits page,” goes the old Borscht Belt crack. “If I’m not there, I get up.”

Mira Koschitzky

Alex Buckman

Dubbed the “Elie Wiesel of Calgary,”

Sidney Cyngiser shared his story of tragedy and resilience with countless Alberta students and educators for decades, as our friends at the Alberta Jewish News noted in their obit. “He often said that he would retire when he reached the ripe old age of 100,” the story went on. “On June 27, Sid passed away at the age of 99.”

Born in Lodz, Poland in 1924, he and his father were forced into slave labour. Cyngiser’s father succumbed to starvation and overwork, but his son endured, surviving beatings, malnutrition, and disease. He was the sole survivor of his family.

A successful businessman and generous philanthropist, Cyngiser and his wife, Bronia, created scholarships devoted to human rights and funded the Holocaust Collection at the Mount Royal University Library.

Obit writers often reach for superlatives and found them in Michael Marrus, among the world’s greatest authorities on France during the Second World War. Also considered the dean of Holocaust scholars in Canada, Marrus, who died last Dec. 23 at 81, seemed the opposite of the dusty

historian. Always sartorially stylish, he was a piercing writer who co-wrote a history that revealed the extent of Vichy France’s com-

plicity in rounding up Jews, and which made quite a stir in France.

A University of Toronto professor for nearly 50 years, he also played a leading role in helping pry open the Vatican’s war-era archives on the Holy See’s record during the Holocaust. Bold and confident, Marrus was a natural subject, and the history teacher I always wish I’d had.

Writers on this beat have to become instant experts in the subject’s field—or at least good enough to sound credible. Roslyn Swartzman, a respected Canadian artist whose work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée des Beaux-Arts du Québec, died on Feb. 5 in Montreal. She was 91. Swartzman was primarily a printmaker but accomplished in painting, sculpture and

Sidney Cyngiser

Roslyn Swartzman

Michael Marrus

Marnie Burkhart/Here to Tell: Faces of Holocaust Survivors; iStock

drawing, often turning to the natural world as a theme. In abstract landscapes, she combined etching with her distinctive embossing, as our obit noted. An inspiring but tough mentor, she was a teacher and later head of the graphic arts department at the Saidye Bronfman Centre School of Fine Arts (SBC) in Montreal from the mid-1960s until 2006. She was recalled as a renaissance woman who loved life, lived intensely and dedicated her life to the pursuit and teaching of art.

Another can’t-miss obit was on businessman and philanthropist Leo Goldhar. Anyone born above his parents’ delicatessen and cigar shop in Toronto, a tough kid with a short fuse who never graduated high school but went on to fame and fortune, must be compelling. When he died on March 11 at 91, Goldhar was an icon in Toronto’s philanthropic community.

The street-smarts he earned early in life were deployed to build successful land development and construction businesses and advance an enormous array of charitable ventures. His crowning achievement was the Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus in Vaughan, a hub for the GTA’s growing Jewish community that Goldhar realized by tackling land acquisition, zoning and fundraising challenges. “He was a force of nature,” said his lifelong friend, Lionel Schipper. “Once Leo took something on, he was relentless.”

Sometimes, obit writers cannot avoid using a cliché. But in this case, it was true that Hamilton’s Rabbi Bernard Baskin was virtually a household name in Canadian Jewry. Rabbi Baskin served as spiritual leader at Temple Anshe Sholom in Hamilton, Ont. for 40 years and was a long-time columnist for The CJN. He died Jan. 18 at the grand age of 102.

Admiration for his staying power in the pulpit was outdone only by his voracious reading regimen. He wrote thousands of thoughtful book reviews for The CJN and other newspapers for over half a century. He delivered his annual book talks in Hamilton well into his 90s. When he moved into a Toronto retirement home in 2017, he continued giving book lectures, and his final talk was just three weeks before he died. He was indeed one of the People of the Book.

With the death of MP Jim Carr last Dec. 12 of multiple myeloma and kidney failure at the age of 71, Canada’s Jewish community lost a friend, advocate and supporter.

A descendant of Russian-Jewish immi-

grants, Carr, a one-time professional oboe player and journalist, served in the Liberal cabinet in two ministries. He was diagnosed with cancer the day after being re-elected in 2019. The year before, he’d led a mission to Israel to oversee the modernization of the free trade agreement between the two countries. “I’m delighted as (a) Jewish member of Parliament and as a Jewish member of the

cabinet to be here representing Canada,” he said at the time. Our obit could not but reflect Carr’s rare quality: A politician who was a genuinely decent guy, and who died too soon. A nice postscript: In a June byelection, his son, Ben Carr, replaced him as Liberal MP in Winnipeg South Centre.

Builders make for good obits; you can see their legacy every day, for free. The “two Jacks,” as The CJN obit combined them, played seminal roles in building modern Toronto, and died within days of each other in October 2022. Jack Diamond and John “Jack” Daniels were both Jewish immigrants, and both became architects—a field in which Jews of their generation were rare, as The CJN’s obit noted.

“He was a force of nature. Once Leo took something on, he was relentless.”

— Lionel Schipper

Leo Goldhar

Jim Carr Maccabi Tel Aviv FC; iStock

Diamond, who was just shy of his 90th birthday when he died, was born in South Africa into a family from Lithuania. His grandfather was murdered in a 1917 pogrom.

Daniels, who was 96, left Poland in 1939 at the age of 12, his family fleeing looming Nazism.

Diamond attained international acclaim on the design side, with numerous achievements in Toronto, including Holy Blossom Temple. Daniels was more the builder, the force behind the Toronto Eaton Centre and

Toronto-Dominion Centre. The two Jacks “changed the landscape of Toronto, literally and figuratively,” recorded our obit, “and leave an imprint that will last for generations.”

Winnipeg-born Ben Steinberg, who died last February at 93, was a musical jack-ofall-trades: Composer, conductor, organist, and music educator. He was a fixture at Toronto’s Temple Sinai, serving as director of music beginning in 1970 and then as composer-in-residence starting in 1996.

Steinberg’s prodigious output comprised sacred services; works for choir and/or soloist and organ or orchestra; a cantata; and instrumental works, including a suite for flute and string trio based on Israeli folksongs. Of Steinberg’s music, fellow composer Michael Isaacson wrote, “While conservative, pragmatic and always well-mannered, it is also gratefully mindful of its tradition in a deeply lyrical way.”

The two Jacks “changed the landscape of Toronto, literally and guratively, and leave an imprint that will last for generations.”

John “Jack” Daniels

Jack Diamond

Al Gilbert, C.M.; Diamond Schmitt; iStock

A few nal Menschen:

Mendelson Joe (born Birrel Josef Mendelson) in Toronto, was a complete artist, self-taught in music and the visual arts, who reveled in idiosyncratic paintings and sang folk-blues for decades. The ever-colourful artist died on Feb. 7 at the age of 78.

Joseph “Jerry” Gross was among the thinning ranks of machalniks, volunteers from overseas who fought in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. He died in Montreal on Jan. 14 at the age of 96. Gross was among 268 Canadians, most of them Second World War veterans like him, who joined with natives of British Mandate Palestine in the fight to secure the nascent Jewish state. He was jailed briefly for refusing to fire on the Irgun arms ship, the Altalena. Gross explained the reason for his derring-do thusly: “Be a Jew— that’s it.”

“Lightning Lou” Billinkoff of Winnipeg, died March 14 at the age of 99 after a 10year sprinting career that saw him become the fastest Canadian man in the 90-to-94 and 95-to-99 age groups. At the age of 96, he ran 50 metres in 15.67 seconds, beating the 2018 world record in his category by

more than a second. “It surprised me,” he said of his late-stage prowess. “I didn’t know I could do it.”

Dr. Avinoam Chernick, a pioneering obstetrician-gynecologist and sex and relationship therapist, died May 8 in London, Ont. He was 88. Chernick fought for women’s rights and in the 1990s was among a handful of doctors in London who performed abortions, leading to the targeting of his family home and clinic.

Obit writers are sometimes perceived as ghoulish, as when they prepare an obit prior to the subject’s death. Daily newspapers do this routinely, putting advance obits “in the can” in case a prominent person passes unexpectedly. I was about to do just that when Monte Kwinter died on July 21 at age 92 before I could begin. A Liberal MPP for 33 years, he became the oldest representative at Queen’s Park when he was near 82. My fondest memory of Kwinter was when he publicly opposed his own Liberal government’s rescinding of the Equity in Education Tax Credit, a hugely popular measure that provided relief to parents of children in Jewish schools. His stance was brave, but Kwinter was eventually shuffled out of cabinet.

I’ll leave the last word to my favourite obituarist, the hugely-talented Margalit Fox, who has retired from the beat at the New York Times. Obits, she once wrote, are “the journalistic genre that, more than any other, deals in the very stuff of life.” 

“The journalistic genre that, more than any other, deals in the very stu of life.”

— Margalit Fox

Joseph “Jerry” Gross

Monte Kwinter

Squashhouse Media; Benjamin’s Park Memorial Chapel; iStock

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The district court in Tel Aviv:

Applicants:

1. Gerry Kolin

2. Joshua Kolin

Are represented by Adv. Eli Etgar, and/or Adv. Eran Heller, 35 Jabotinsky Rd., Twin Towers 2, Ramat Gan, ISRAEL 5251108

Phone: +972-3-6090903

Fax: +972-3-6090903

Email: office@etgarlaw.co.il

Court case no. 16743-11-12

Respondents:

1. Registrar of Companies and Partnerships

3 Hashlosha St., Tel Aviv

- V S -

Tel: *5601

Email: mishonline@justice.gov.il

2. Ehud Gera

32 Ben Yehuda St., Tel Aviv

3. Zimmerman

Notice of company revival and notification of a substitute invention to respondent 3

A motion was submitted on November 22nd 2022, for the revival of the company Traffic and Transportation Research Institute Ltd. (Israeli Company no. 510323835), registered address at 1 Rupin St., Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, within Court case no. 16743-11-12, which is conducted at the District Court in Tel Aviv, for the purpose of receiving funds deposited in the compensation Provident Fund. The applicants are the heirs of the late shareholder Jacob Kolin. The registered shareholders of the company are the late Kolin Jacob, Gera Ehud and Zimmerman. Since Zimmerman's details are unknown and the motion could not be delivered to him, this advertisement is a substitute for the motion's delivery.

An interested party in the motion, may submit to court a response to the motion, within 30 days from the date of publication of this advertisement (court recess days will be included in the number of days).

A copy of the motion can be obtained, free of charge, by a request to Etgar and Co. Law Offices, 35 Jabotinsky Rd., Twin Towers 2, Ramat Gan 5251108. Tel.: 972-3-6090903 Fax:972-3-6090916 Email: office@etgarlaw.co.il

Eli

Co.

Law Offices

Etgar, Adv Etgar and

Jeffrey L . C u mmi ng s

E vely n R . Schush ei m

Ho war d G. Coo p e r

Jeffrey H. B erli n e r

S ta n ley J. Wa x

E . Co u rt n ey Pet c h

Da n iel P. Coo p e r

Ashley Doidge

B er n ar d Buschk

Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University Appoints Randy Spiegel as New CEO

Randy will head up CFBIU, joining a global resource development team under the leadership of Dr. Sharon Goldman, VP of Development for Bar-Ilan University and the Canadian Board of Directors, chaired by Harold Spring.

“Randy’s extensive leadership experience in numerous Jewish not-for-profit organizations, combined with his thoughtful leadership style and success in the field of development, position him well for the CFBIU CEO role,” noted Harold Spring.

Bar-Ilan is Israel’s fastest growing university, ranked among the top universities in the world. Its emphasis on multidisciplinary and impact-based research, combined with its continued incorporation of Jewish values and Zionism, situates Bar-Ilan in a critical and unique space within Israel’s academia.

As CEO for CFBIU, Randy brings a successful track record raising millions of dollars for charitable activities, as well as working with hundreds of volunteers and community leaders. “This position is a tremendous opportunity to help grow an organization dedicated to providing outstanding education and research opportunities for both emerging and established scholars dedicated to having a positive impact on Israel and the world,” stated Spiegel.

Randy, who holds Masters degrees in Jewish Communal Service and Management of Human Services, joins CFBIU after a very successful 11 years as Executive Director of Beth Tzedec Congregation, North America’s largest conservative congregation, prior to which he served for eight and a half years as Executive Director of Zareinu Educational Centre, (now known as Kayla’s Children Centre).

To connect with Randy and learn more about Bar-Ilan University or to make a donation, please email him at randy@cfbiu.org or call him at 416-993-6746.

Wesee miracles happen every day at Yad Sarah. And we are committed to providing everyone in Israel with the medical assistance they need.

Yad Sarah provides rehabilitative equipment, alarms and monitors—either free or deeply discounted—that allows for recuperating at home. We also provide dental care, medical research and rehabilitative therapy. If you need crutches, wheelchairs, oxygen equipment, hospital beds or bassinets, one of our 107 branches can serve you. (We are a nonsectarian and non-governmental organization.)

Our latest initiative is a hotel for women who have experienced pregnancy loss through miscarriage or stillbirth, which can be a traumatic experience on par with going to war. Now, a recuperation hotel in Jerusalem will provide support, relaxation and validation outside of a maternity ward. The plan is to host 100 women a year, to cope with their loss, heal and find strength.

Within three days of word getting out about this initiative, 30 people contacted Yad Sarah about staying at the hotel, a solution previously unavailable in the country.

You can join over 7,000 brave “Nachshon ben Aminadav” and discover how we have assisted so many. Visit us, volunteer with us, or donate to strengthen the bond between Canadian Jews and our brothers and sisters in Israel.

Yad Sarah’s motto is “Mikol Halev” or “From the Heart,” because our hearts are overflowing with compassion and action, representing the best of Israel’s spirit, mutual support and community.

Your charitable gifts within Canada will also generate a tax receipt. I hope we can count on you.

Arlene Weisbart

Executive Director, Canadian Friends of Yad Sarah

Yad Sarah: Medical equipment loans and social services—to Israel with heart

Jewish Community Organizations, Synagogues and Schools wish

A HAPPY & HEALTHY YEAR 5784

Shana Tova!

Adath Israel Congregation

Beit Rayim Synagogue & School

Bernard Betel Center

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

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Canadian Magem David Adom for Israel

City Shul

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Congregation Habonim

Hebrew Beach Institute & School

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Israel Bonds/Canada-Israel Securities, Limited

Na’amat Canada Toronto

Reena

Reform Jewish Community of Canada

Temple Emanu-El

Temple Har Zion

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Temple Sinai Congregation

The Song Shul

Toronto Board of Rabbis

THE ELUSIVE ETROG

Jewish studies professor Joshua Teplitsky had his fascination with the etrog further sparked when he rummaged through some archives in Prague. A manuscript titled Documents Related to Acquiring Citrons for the Jewish Community revealed an early1700s merchant rivalry that culminated in one being sent to prison. Teplitsky, a Toronto native who now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, imagined there were more stories to be told about the application of this agricultural commandment—one of four species related to the autumn holiday of Sukkot—and the unparalleled sensory role it plays in practicing Judaism. The new book, Be Fruitful!, is lled with fragrant discoveries from his co-editors and contributors, with tales about how etrogim were sourced in the Diaspora (many a lemon turned up instead) and how the Torah commandment to use a pre etz hadar (“beautiful tree fruit”) has shaped Israel. This pictured container, from the Bezalel School of Arts and Cra s in Jerusalem circa 1920s, even incorporates an Islamic in uence. “What appeals to me most is the combination of aesthetic and observance,” says Teplistky. “How those binaries are all tangled up so wonderfully in a little fruit with so many timeless messages. And then, a er seven days, it withers away.”

Sukkot begins on the evening of Sept. 29, 2023.

Be Fruitful! The Etrog in Jewish Art, Culture, and History, edited by Joshua Teplitsky, Warren Klein and Sharon Liberman Mintz (Mineged Publishing House, 2022)

Bernie and Jennie Goldberger: Happier Here™ at V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community

and Jennie Goldberger are two of many happy Community Members at V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community. Bernie, a Bergen-Belsen survivor, moved to Canada with dreams of beginning anew. His successful career as a ladies’ coat manufacturer and real estate developer didn’t stop until his retirement. His wife Jennie, who was by his side all those years devoted her life as a homemaker and parent to their three children, five grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren.

The couple have been married for 70 years, and remain just as inseparable today in their spacious 1-Bedroom + Den Suite. They can often be seen together holding hands, wearing matching outfits and beaming jubilant smiles. The two were kind enough to share more about why they choose to make V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community their home - because they are Happier Here™.

Jennie recounts the day she decided that she would retire along with her husband: “I was done with cooking and housework and told Bernie I wanted to retire too! I said ‘I’m ready to move even if you aren’t!’” Bernie reluctantly agreed and after going to see other retirement homes they knew V!VA Thornhill Woods was their first choice.

Since moving in, Jennie is finally done with cooking and housework, and Bernie agrees “There are less things to worry about.” Where there is less to worry about, there is more to enjoy. Both Bernie and Jennie make full use of all the amazing amenities, events and programs that V!VA Thornhill Woods offers, noting that their social life is more vibrant than ever. In addition to traditional cultural events, V!VA Thornhill Woods features a full activity program for the mind, and the body. “We enjoy the concerts – especially the monthly Yiddish Café concerts – and art classes. The fitness activities like swimming and other exercise programs are great for mind and body, too.” With her new-found free time, Jennie has since become the unofficial photographer of the Community, taking photos of her fellow Community Members and gifting them printed copies. “Well, having other Community Members to talk to and relate to is crucial.”

The food was an important part of the decision to move in. V!VA Thornhill Woods serves the high quality of food that V!VA communities are renowned for, notes Community Relations Manager Wendy Teperman, and with traditional Jewish-style food prepared by a Red-Seal Chef. Pork and Shellfish are not served, meat and dairy are kept separate, and all meat is sourced from kosher butchers. “The food is quite good,” the couple share “and the servers are outstanding.”

That resounding acclaim extends to every Team Member at V!VA Thornhill Woods. “Having on-site doctors and nurses readily available is priceless and so convenient. The care from not just the Wellness Team, but from all of the Team Members is exceptional, and very heartwarming.”

V!VA Thornhill Woods has 134 suites varying from studios and one-bedrooms to one-bedroom with den and two-bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. Care levels range from independent to assisted living, with the 28 assisted-living suites on a dedicated 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, amenities, or suites. It’s the people who live and work here coming together with open arms and hearts.” Bernie, reflecting on his initial reluctance to move into a retirement community, offers a simple piece of advice to anyone thinking about doing the same, even if they are hesitant: “Do it! It was the right decision at the right time!”

All V!VA communities are pet friendly, have health professionals on site and offer respite and trial stays. The Canadian owned and operated chain has eight locations in Ontario. V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community is located at 9700 Bathurst St. in Vaughan. For more information, visit www.vivathornhillwoods.ca or call Wendy Teperman at 905-417-8585.

SHANA TOVA!

Wishing you a good and sweet year.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations across Canada.

OCTOBER 16-17, 2023 OTTAWA, ONTARIO

PRESENTED BY CIJA & CANADA’S JEWISH FEDERATIONS