The CJN Magazine Winter 2024-25

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COMING APRIL 2025

Yehei zichram baruch

Chag sameach

As the lights of Chanukah begin to shine, we are reminded of the power of hope, resilience, and unity This year, more than ever, our hearts are with our brothers and sisters in Israel.

The challenges they face are immense, but with our unwavering dedication to providing humanitarian aid, vital medical equipment, and mental health support, we can offer together a beacon of light in these difficult times.

May the miracles of Chanukah inspire strength and healing for all those in need, and may we continue to stand together as one people, bound by our shared values of compassion and care.

Wishing you a Chanukah filled with peace, warmth, and the hope of brighter days ahead

What’s inside

Contributors

Chloe Zola (cover, p22 and

32) is an American illustrator

living in San Miguel de Allende

Mexico whose work is often motiv ated by social justice

issues and current affairs.

Her interests include yoga, chocolate chips, and learning

Spanish at a glacial pace.

Ira Basen (p48) is a Toronto-

based writer and educator,

and a long-time CBC

Radio program producer

and documentar y maker.

Sports and Jews are two of his favourite topics, and

he welcomes any and all

opportunities to combine

the two

Sarah Mintz (p.32) is a graduate of the English MA program at the University of Regina. Her flash fiction collection handwringers was published with Radiant Press, and her debut novel, NORMA, is available now from Invisible Publishing (2024) Find out more at smintz carrd co

Correction: In the article “What Do We Mean by Zion?” (Fall 2024) we wrote that the organization T’ruah holds anti-Zionist views. While the network and the rabbis within it aim “to lead Jewish communities in advancing democracy and human rights for all people in the United States, Canada, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories” they do not, in fact, identify as anti-Zionist We regret the error, which was corrected prior to online publication

Our traditions are always evolving

For me, Hanukkah, like all major Jewish holidays, is primarily about family and tradition Growing up, the anticipation for the holiday was far greater than the feeling of any given gif t It was about the eight magical nights with my bubbe and zayde and spending time with my cousins and extended family not to mention what felt like an unlimited supply of latkes and sufganiyiot

Those traditions evolved as I was welcomed into my wife’s family Over the years, our families have expanded in size and shape, introducing new foods and new practices into our holiday celebrations

T h i s i s s u e o f t h e m a g a z i n e

f o c u s e s o n j u s t t h e s e k i n d s

o f c h a n g e s a n d a d a p t a t i o n s

o n a l a r g e r s c a l e : w e ’re d e l v -

i n g i n t o J e w i s h l i fe i n q u i e t e r

a n d m o re re m o t e p o c k e t s o f

t h e c o u n t r y. We ’re e x p l o r i n g

h o w p e o p l e h a v e a d j u s t e d

w h e re t h e re a re n’ t m a n y

o t h e r J e w s a r o u n d , e m b r a -

c i n g n e w w ay s t o c e l e b r a t e

t h e i r J e w i s h n e s s a n d f i n d i n g ,

i n t h e p r o c e s s , t h a t t h e y c a n

s o m e t i m e s b e t t e r c o n n e c t

w i t h t h e m s e l v e s , t h e i r c o m -

m u n i t i e s , a n d t h e i r re l i g i o n

C h a nge h as b e e n a t h e m e

at Th e CJ N re ce n t ly, to o We

h ave i n t ro d u ce d t wo n ew j o u r-

All this has been made possible by our dedicated and passionate audience, including our ver y generous donors Your suppor t ensures The CJN can continue to expand its coverage and that, in turn, is why we’ve been able to keep growing Over the past

n a l i s t s to ex p a n d o u r da i ly n ews c ove rage,

i n cl u d i ng a n e d u c ati o n b eat re p o r te r a n d

a Q u eb e c n ews c o rre sp o n d e n t We h ave

a l s o i n t ro d u ce d a m aj o r u p date to o u r

web s i te t h at m a ke s i t eas i e r to n avigate

a n d c reate s n ew o p p o r tu n i ti e s fo r yo u to e ngage wi t h u s d i re c t ly

Th i s m agazi n e, to o, i s ch a ng i ng I ’ m

t h ri l l e d to a n n o u n ce t h at , as o f t h e n ex t

i s s u e, t h e p u b l i c ati o n yo u a re n ow h o l d -

i ng i n yo u r h a n d s wi l l b e a ri ch ly re p o r te d, b ea u ti fu l ly re d e s ig n e d m agazi n e c a l l e d

Scribe Quar terly Th e m agazi n e’s n ew e d i to r i n ch i ef, Ha m u t a l D ot a n, h as b e e n sp ea rh ea d i ng t h i s p roj e c t fo r wel l ove r a

As we light the candles this Hanukkah, may their glow illuminate not only our homes but also our hear ts and minds Let the flames inspire us to embrace change and ser ve to light the way toward a bright future filled with hope, resilience, and peace

he Canadian Jewish News

Editor in Chief Hamutal Dotan

Art Director Ronit Novak

Contributing Editors

Phoebe Maltz Bovy Avi Finegold

Marc Weisblott

Designer Etery Podolsky

The CJN

Chief Executive Officer

Michael Weisdorf

General Manager

Kathy Meitz

Advertising Sales Manager

Grace Zweig

Board of Directors:

Bryan Borzykowski President

Sam Reitman Treasurer and Secretary

Ira Gluskin

Jacob Smolack

Elizabeth Wolfe

MICHAEL WEISDORF, MBA Chief Executive Officer The

Cover: Illustration by Chloe Zola for The CJN

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A Happy He a lt hy

Ch a nu k k a h

Ch a g S a m e a c h

416 4 81 8 52 4

7 7 D u n f ield Ave nu e , Toront o , ON , M4 S 2 H 3

T h eD u n f ield . c om

M u s e u m o f t h e B

Museum of the Bible unveils world’s

“Oldest Jewish Book” in new exhibit

Th e M u s e u m o f t h e B i b l e i n Was h -

i ng to n, D C , h as u nve i l e d w h at i t

s ay s i s t h e o l d e s t J ewi s h b o o k eve r d i s -

c ove re d Acc o rd i ng to t h e m u s e u m ’s d ra -

m ati c cl a i m, t h e ti ny b o o k i s a rel i c o f a n

e ig h t h - ce n tu r y c ivi l izati o n o n t h e a n c i e n t

t ra d i ng ro u te kn ow n as t h e Si l k Ro a d, c re -

ate d by J ews l ivi ng as a m i n o ri t y a m o ng

B u d d h i s t s w h o r u l e d t h e B a m i ya n Va l l ey i n

m o d e rn - day A fg h a n i s t a n

Measuring approximately 13 centimeters by 13 centimeters, the book combines a variet y of texts writ ten by dif ferent hands, including prayers, poems, and what the museum says is the oldest known version of the Hag gadah, the central text of the Pas sover seder

Th e m u s e u m ’s cl a i m s rega rd i ng t h e

b o o k a re b as e d o n yea r s o f wo rk by a

tea m o f re s ea rch e r s ; t h e i r wo rk i s s l ate d to b e p u b l i s h e d i n a s e ri e s o f 1 0 e s s ay s i n A p ri l A n ch o ri ng t h e s ch o l a rly d i s cu s s i o n s u rro u n d i ng t h e b o o k i s a 2 0 1 9 l a b o rato r y te s t t h at u s e d c a rb o n dati ng to e s ti m ate t

in a cave near one of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas that were car ved into a mountain in ancient times and deliberately destroyed in an explosion by the Taliban in 2001, according to an ar ticle in The Free Press Sometime later, someone repor tedly tried without success to sell the book in Dallas, Texas. Then, following the 9/11 at tacks and the U S invasion of Afghanistan, the book’s tracks disappeared until 2012, when a rare book dealer photographed it in London The dealer, Lenny Wolfe, told The Free Press that he tried brokering a $120,000 (US) deal between a pair of private sellers and an unspecified Israeli institution, but that the institution turned down the of fer. Eve n tu a l ly, t h e G re e n fa m i ly, eva ngel i c a l C h ri s ti a n s b as e d i n O kl a h o

Prior to the drama of the lab’s result, the book had garnered lit tle interest in the decades since it was first found in Afghanistan A member of the countr y’s Hazara ethnic minority discovered the manuscript in 1997

l

el e d, “ E g y pt , c i rc a 9 0 0 C E ” A m u s e u m

cu rato r w h o was exa m i n i ng t h e b o o k rea lize d t h at i

The book will remain on display until mid-Januar y, af ter which it will be on view at the librar y of the Jewish Theological Seminar y in New York City

Historic Prague synagogue used for the first time since the Holocaust

For the first time since the Second World War, one of Prague’s most historic synagogues held a Jewish worship ser vice Kol Nidre, the introductor y ser vice of Yom Kippur ending a hiatus that lasted more than 80 years and encompassed both the murder and suppression of Czech Jewr y Originally erected in 1573 and rebuilt af ter a fire in 1694, the Klausen Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Prague’s Jewish Quarter and once ser ved as a central hub of Jewish life It’s known as the home of several prominent rabbis and thinkers, from Judah Loew a 16th-centur y Talmudic scholar also known as the Maharal of Prague to Baruch Jeit teles, a scholar associated with the Jewish Enlightenment movement of the 18th and 19th centuries

On Erev Yom Kippur, about 200 people poured in for a ser vice led by Rabbi David Maxa, who represents Czechia’s community of Reform Jews That community was joined by guests and Jewish tourists from around the world, according to Maxa He saw the moment as a sign of Jewish life resurging in Prague, describing it as “quite remarkable that there is a Yom Kippur ser vice in five historic synagogues in Prague ”

Under German occupation in Second World War, the Klausen Synagogue was used as a storage facility Although the Nazis and their collaborators killed about 263,000 Jews who lived in the former Czechoslovak Republic, they took an interest in collecting Jewish ar t and ar tifacts that they deemed valuable enough to preser ve The Jewish Museum

in Prague was allowed to continue storing those objects, and the synagogue became par t of the museum’s depositor y.

Af ter the war, there were not enough survivors to refill ser vices in the synagogues of Prague The countr y became a Soviet satellite in 1948, star ting a long era in which Jews were of ten persecuted and sur veilled for obser ving any religious practices. The last Soviet census of 1989 registered only 2,700 Jews living in Czech lands

“During Communist times, it was ver y difficult to relate to Jewish identity,” Maxa says “People who visited any kind of synagogue were followed by the secret police, and only af ter the Velvet Revolution in 1989 did it become possible for people to visit synagogues without the feeling of being followed and put on a list ”

Af ter the end of communist rule, some synagogues returned to use by the few who still identified as Jews Two of the six synagogues that still stand in the Jewish Quar ter now are in regular use as houses of worship But the Klausen Synagogue, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1982, remained par t of the Jewish Museum, hosting exhibitions about Jewish

festivals, early Hebrew manuscripts, and Jewish customs and traditions

Museum director Pavla Niklová says that returning the synagogue to use for Yom Kippur happened almost by accident. Maxa was asking if she knew about a space large enough to host his growing congregation, Ec Chajim, for the holiest day in the Jewish calendar: its own space, which opened four years ago, could not accommodate the expected crowds Since the museum had just taken down its exhibition in the Klausen Synagogue, she had an answer The clean, empty space was ready to be refilled with Jewish life

Visiting the synagogue just before Yom Kippur, Niklová said she was awed to see the building returned to its original purpose She hopes that it will continue to be used for large ser vices

“I felt like the synagogue star ted breathing again,” she says

For many in Prague’s largely secular Jewish community, Yom Kippur is the single most impor tant ser vice of the year Even Jewish families that suppressed religious practices under Communism of ten passed on the memor y of Yom Kippur, says Maxa, who founded Ec Chajim in 2019, responding

to a growing number of people who sought to explore their Jewish roots The community currently has 200 members and adds about five more ever y month “Of ten, I meet people who simply want to learn about the culture, tradition and religion of their grandparents,” says Maxa. “They say, my grandmother and grandfather were Shoah sur vivors can I come and learn more about Judaism? We of fer a wide range of activities, including, of course, regular ser vices, but also educational courses to help these people reconnect with the tradition ”

Maxa, who himself grew up in Prague with little connection to his Jewish roots, wants to revive some of the rituals that threaded through Prague’s pre-war Jewish world including a tradition of organ accompaniment in the city’s synagogues Jewish organist Ralph Selig performed during the Kol Nidre service Like many of his congregants, Maxa has a family history that inter twines with the losses of the last century His father came from Prague and survived the Holocaust He does not know if his father visited the Klausen Synagogue, but he knows it was a familiar par t of his world “It means a lot for me that the tradition was not exterminated ” n

T H E C J N M A G A Z I N E I S R E L A U N C H I N G

The Klausen Synagogue in Prague dates back to 1694

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You were born into a Hasidic family, but your mother star ted withdrawing from that community when you were a young child What was that experience like? What was the transition point?

It was weird because we were living in a ver y Hasidic, Lubavitch area, obviously, but we were ver y much leaving that communit y or on the outs over the years I would say that we were somewhere in the middle. And this is just the theme of my life I’m an American ; I’m a Canadian I’m frum ; I’m not I’m a girl ; I’m not I’m always in the middle of so many things This was no dif ferent Looking back, I was still the most religious person at Bialik, but I felt not religious at all And it’s funny because in my life now, my girlfriend thinks I’m the most religious person she’s ever met She’s like, Well, you kiss the mezuzah For me it’s Obviously I kissed the mezuzah I’m not an animal I’m already doing gay I don’t need to play with fire any more than I have

I can empathize with that because I was on the flip side : I remember going to university and being the most religious one I wore a shirt and dress pants, because that’s what I wore that’s what I had I

“I’ ve always been a bit of a troublemaker ”

Avi Finegold talks to comedian and writer Robby Hoffman about identity, resilience, and living in between worlds.

didn’t have clothes. And then people would ask me why I was dressed for a wedding

Yeah, it’s so bizarre

Usually when I went to my friends’ houses in high school, they weren’t kosher at home but they would always have Wack y Mac or something for me Then, I think when I star ted losing my way or not being kosher anymore, it really rubbed them the wrong way I remember it was Pesach at Dawson C ollege (in Montreal) and I just had an exam an early eight o’clock exam It was over by 10 a m And I don’t know what came over me, but there was a McDonald’s acros s the street, and break fast was still being ser ved The allure when we were kids was huge all the non-Jewish kids had Happy Meals af ter school And I thought, I’d love to be happy My mother may have had meatloaf at home, which ended up being way bet ter for us long term, but I just wanted a nug get Af ter this exam, I was so depleted There was no kosher food around me I had no groceries at my apar tment I was in exam mode, star ving I’m like : McDonald’s breakfast And I broke my kosher-nes s I bought an Eg g McMuffin with bacon, with the hash browns, latkes, whatever I walked into the Dawson cafeteria and my friends who sud-

denly were the most pious people in the world when Pesach came around, not eating bread were there. I was unpeeling the wrapper and I remember my friend saying, “ You’re gonna eat that in front of me when it’s Pesach?” I said, “How many times have I come out to eat with you guys and I’ve ordered a garden salad, no dres sing, and you’re going to be high on your horse now.” And I had it, and it was unbelievable I had it ever y day for the next month, and it was just divine

The frum world, the religious world, doesn’t really have this notion of something like Rumspringa : go tr y thing s , and we know you’ll come back . It’s this straight and narrow path that, if you transgres s once, you’re done. And that’s not healthy because a boy who is told not to watch pornography because it’s the worst thing imaginable and then he sees one billboard of a woman in a bikini and he realizes that the lightning bolt hasn’t killed him yet. And so you figure, If I did that, I might as well do ever ything else Imagine if the attitude was : we don’t do these thing s ; if you think you want to do them, tr y it out for yourself and decide you can always come back

I never thought that God was mad at me I just always felt God kind of liked me for whatever reason I don’t think he was thrilled with all my decisions, but He maybe thought, Eh, what are you gonna do? My friends were really judgmental, but I never at any point thought that I was wrong If there’s a God, I feel like He’s cool with me I don’t believe that there’s a God necessarily, but I do believe there’s obviously something, there’s greaterness than us Whatever the powers- or energies-that-be are, I feel it as a protective layer But I could be wrong, you know? I just think that if you step into it, it can be nice If you don’t, that’s also cool I got good at not listening to the noise as much, and maybe that’s why I do what I’m doing

Do you consider yourself par t of the larger community of off- the -derekh people?

No Nobody wants to be defined anymore I’m kind of that way with communities. The trans community, the queer community, the Jewish community, the off-the-derekh community It’s fine if you want me in your community. I wear glasses ; there are the people with glasses There’s a community for ever ything. I’m in and not in ever ything. I’m going to break the rules

The identity thing is interesting to really wrap your head around.

People really want to claim you. I think I noticed it as you get bigger and bigger, as you do more and more, people start to want to claim you. I’m for everyone, but I really just belong to myself

You really lean into the Holocaust jokes in your comedy. What is it about the transgres sive humor that appeals to you, that works for some people and really doesn’t work for others?

I don’t know what it is I think it’s a mat ter of taste I happen to have an appetite for dark I grew up in a house and on playgrounds where we said the hardest, meanest, worst things to each other in a fight I developed a skin for it But some people don’t have the taste, they didn’t develop that skin, they don’t need it, they don’t like it There are a million reasons why it’s not somebody’s taste I don’t mind if somebody’s of fended by something; that’s their prerogative I personally don’t think being of fended is the worst thing I think being hungr y is, I think

being poor is Being of fended, to me, is not that bad I think being of fended might teach you that you feel something or you’re passionate about something I grew up in a family where there were already nine siblings I didn’t have the luxur y to be of fended I could be wrong, but I think censorship or the idea of being of fended for me feels more like a rich thing than it does a poor thing I was so comfor table living in a house with people who were so dif ferent We had similarities and we had dif ferences and we would fight like craz y And then, at the end of the day, it would be lights out, we have to go to sleep I didn’t have my own room to go to I think if you’re a rich kid, you go to your room I had to sleep with these people I really disagreed with I got comfor table being uncomfor table and I think people who are comfor table in ever y facet of their lives they’re not comfor table being uncomfor table I’m fine to be uncomfor table. Of course, I prefer being at the Rit z I prefer a nice bed, but I’m totally comfor table on the couch.

You can’t cancel your sibling .

My brother, he doesn’t love gay people. He calls me and he goes, They’ve got these agendas. I said, “You know I’m gay, right? You’re talking to a gay ” And he replies, “Well, not you. You’re my flesh and blood. I’d take a bullet for you ” What am I going to do, cut this guy of f? He’s my brother. I love him, he loves me There’s no cut ting of f in a poor family. He wouldn’t understand if I said, “Don’t call me ”

So how do you write something that is of fensive but doesn’t get too of fensive?

I don’t think of anything like that I just think about what I think is funny I’ve always been a bit of a troublemaker In school, I was a troublemaker I’ve always wanted to get a reaction of any kind I think I was blessed with that The first thing I heard from the first show I did is that I have a unique voice I heard about my voice even before I knew about it I think that is due to the fact that I sit in so many middles I’m always the window looking out, whether I’m poor looking at the rich, whether I’m Canadian in America, whether I’m a girl with a boy-ish disposition I’m always looking in, I’m always sitting on the fence n

This interview has been edited and condensed T H E C J N M A G A Z I N E I S R E L A U N C H I N G I N A P R I L 2 0 2 5

Impac tTO—more than the sum of it s par t s

Itstarted with a ballroom, 43 executive directors of Toronto Jewish organizations, and 187 local philanthropists

This describes the first ImpactTO event, which brought together many Jewish Institutions.

Chaim Rutman, the visionar y behind this gathering last spring, had one clear goal: fostering collaboration and weaving together the Jewish organizations across the GTA

“It was like being on an escalator,” says Maidy Ehrlichster, Team Lead at ImpactTO, “for ward movement was unavoidable. There was a room full of lit-up people turning their ideas into buzzy progress. ” Patrons and community activists who had vague, undefined objectives suddenly found fertile ground to nurture those objectives into something sturdy And alive “All people passionate about ser vicing the Jewish community and inspiring the next generation of heritage builders were there. It was delicious!”

The problem ImpactTO comes to solve is one that’s familiar to most everyone across Jewish communities-exhausted money veins and ever-expanding demands. Previously padded budgets no longer cover the steady increases of the past few years

The prototypical Jewish donor is a formidable force within our communities.

Eager to help, passionate about Jewish preser vation and galvanized by a sense of mission, they’re not

afraid of writing big cheques to meet big needs. But following the complexities of each institution’s particular cash leaks is time consuming

“Before ImpactTO, many organizations within the Jewish community were working in silos, struggling with similar challenges - rising costs, inefficient marketing, and limited access to resources, ”

says Aubrey Freedman, Steering Committee Secretary of ImpactTO.

“Executive Directors faced increasing pressure to sustain operations, but there was little collaboration between institutions, which limited their ability to leverage each other’s strengths.”

That was the pre-Impact landscape. But the terrain is changing.

As a collective of 43 organizations, ranging from food banks to financial aid, from heritage building to community centers, from childcare to hospice, ImpactTO brings these separate orbits together to create a Venn diagram of more efficient and effective solutions

“Our mission is to strengthen the Jewish community by fostering collaboration, pooling resources,

and ensuring institutions can thrive,” Aubrey explains.

The nuts n ’ bolts of the operation?

• negotiating better ser vice rates

• marketing

• health and life insurance policies for community workers

• grant writing

• endowment infrastructure

• collaborative new projects

“Too many institutions expressed frustration over missing out on government grants with their low ROI to justify using already strained resources, ” says Chaim.

A new gateway for patrons looking to revitalize the historic kehillah in its modern manifestation, ImpactTO is flush with promise

Aubrey pitches the long game.

“The Jewish community thrives when we work together. We can’t afford to let institutions struggle when collective action can provide strength, efficiency, and long-term sustainability.”

It’s all about streamlining.

And Jewish continuity

“Now more than ever, it’s essential that we unify to support one another and build a stronger, more resilient community.”

Where the Hear t Is

The typical Jewish experience is conventionally understood to be an urban one but many Jews, by choice or circumstance, live outside of Canada’s big cities In this collection of essays and interviews, we explore what it means to live, Jewishly, in unexpected places

Make yourself

There are as many ways to live Jewishly as there are places Jews choose to live in

at home

Minyan on the Mira, a 1995 documentar y about the Jewish community of Glace Bay, N.S., tells the stor y of a group of Jews who “made wine from water ” In the opening minutes, we hear about how they arrived, mainly from Russia at the turn of the twentieth centur y, not knowing the language and with lit tle to their names, and built a thriving Jewish community.

This was a stor y that repeated across Canada and, in many cases, decades later led to the same predicament: a group of residents, content with their lives and the town they grew old in, facing the reality of their community in decline, their children and grandchildren having moved to the big city, the minyan unable to sustain itself Many of these communities are gone or barely hanging on. And yet, not all Jews feel the gravitational force of city life There are some Jews who still stay in their small communities simply because they prefer it Others star t out in big cities but find themselves eventually living far from them moving for work or a par tner or out of a taste for a quieter life

In the course of making decisions about where to move to and where to stay, many of these people contend with what Judaism has to say about living in community Should a Jew move to a small town if an oppor tunity arises, even if there aren’t other Jews there? How small is too small? If you star t out in a small town, should you move to a larger one to find Jewish connections? What values come into play when thinking about these issues?

The great Jewish sage Hillel, in The Say-

ings of the Elders, writes that we should not separate ourselves from the community

This is, arguably, the conventional view in the modern world as well : Jewish life is best lived when we are together, and easiest to maintain when the critical mass you get in cities allows for robust institutions, ser vices, and synagogues

On the other hand, tradition also gives us

models of rabbis living in isolation Notably, we have the stor y of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who, fearing for his life because of a decree against him, hid in a cave for 12 years and did nothing but study Torah and eat from a carob tree that was growing at the cave’s mouth (Sometimes, you really just need some peace and quiet to get your book finished )

A more ambitious way of framing your thinking about where to live: What do you need to grow?

Living a full Jewish life is no dif ferent than making any other significant decision about the structure of our lives Just as there is no universal answer to the question of what career to pursue or which par tner to set tle down with, there is no single way to approach how to live as a Jew Contemplating a move to a small community, or whether to stay in the one you’re already in, requires self-awareness most of all. Do you need access to kosher restaurants? An in-person daily minyan? A Jewish day school?

As Rabbi Rachel Isaacs put it to me, “If you expect a catered Kiddush ever y Shabbat, or if your solution to Shabbat morning kids’ programming is to just hire a Jewish educator, then you might not be cut out for a small community.”

Isaacs should know: in addition to being the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Water ville, Maine, (total population: 15,828) and a professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College, she runs the Center for Small Town Jewish Life, an organization devoted to providing resources to Jews in isolated communities across America

A more ambitious way of framing your thinking about where to live: What do you need to grow?

Rabbi Falik Schtroks and his wife, Simie Schtroks, have been the Chabad emissaries in Surrey, B C , for the past 30 years They say that, in small communities, ever y person becomes impor tant and “ever y Jew becomes one let ter in the Torah ” As Rabbi Falik put it, there is no stagnation in human life; you either grow as a person and as a Jew or you are in decline For some people, becoming an identifiable, and even essential, par t of a social fabric the way you can in a small town but not a large city can be a tool for grow th Others will miss the social dynamics inherent to larger communities,

The Montefiore Institute was built in the 1910s near Sibbald, AB. In 2008, long fallen out of use, it was relocated to Calgary’s Heritage Park

Beth Israel, in Edenbridge, was completed in 2008; it is believed to be the oldest surviving synagogue in Saskatchewan.

which can provide some momentum for individual practice, and as a result feel their Judaism atrophying.

One way to start gaining insight into these questions is realizing whether you are the type of person who takes an active role in community or your disposition is more introspective, your relationship to Judaism more personal and directed toward God and spiritual matters. Both types can thrive in small communities—it’s just a question of how you approach it. Rabbi Zolly Claman recently took a position as the rabbi of Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem in Montreal, Que., but he arrived there via Edmonton, Alta., (Jewish population: 3,515), where he served the Orthodox community. Claman appreciated living in this kind of setting.

While urban centres have their merits, he says, “What you lose out on is just that purity of the lone Jew trying to reach out to community, to spirituality, to God, to Torah, to good deeds. And to me, that’s kind of the balancing act between the two options.”

Similarly, Isaacs says that, before she moved to rural Maine, she was used to going to synagogue, getting what she needed from the shul and the community, and then going home again. When she arrived in Waterville, she was inspired by how much everyone was actively taking part and making Shabbat and holidays happen.

It’s important not to go in with illusions, however. Both the Schtrokses and Claman point out that families with children can face particular issues. If kids do not have other Jewish friends, they can start to feel isolated and uncomfortable with their Judaism.

“You can’t replace the Jewish educators and the atmosphere of Jewish education and Jewish peers,” Claman concedes. Schtroks told me that it was much, much harder to raise his kids in a small community than it was to fundraise the entire budget of his organization.

Cost is a consideration that swings in the other direction. Isaacs knows of more and more Jews who are being priced out of large urban centres and even formerly affordable suburbs and are finding themselves in small towns out of financial necessity. She sees a big part of her work as providing resources to those who do not have the finances to be big-city Jews. As she puts it: “Small town Jewish life is the frontier, not the periphery. These Jews have what to teach others who haven’t yet been hit with the affordability crisis.”

One of the most poignant parts of Minyan

on the Mira is an interview with the local Catholic priest; he observes that the Jewish community there is struggling without necessary support—the kind of bolstering that would be provided by a rabbi or cantor. His Jewish neighbours tell him that they’re getting by but, as he says, there is a difference between getting along and thriving, and that a community will be in decline if they cannot live with “the fullness of their faith.” This is particularly striking coming from a faith leader of another tradition, someone who understands the difficulties of maintaining religious observance in a small community but has the clarity of being able to witness this decline from a distance.

There is no single answer to the question of what kinds of places Jews should live in, and no single overarching value that can decide it. It very much depends on how you see and understand your Judaism. Can you see yourself as a representative of your traditions both to fellow Jews and to non-Jewish friends and neighbours? It’s easy to understand why a Chabad rabbi might frame someone living in a small community as being a representative of God and Judaism: they have a long history of being emissaries to their communities and likely assume that many other Jews can fit this model. But not everyone does.

At the very end of our conversation, Rabbi Claman pointed out that Hasidic masters had a history of occasionally going to small communities, generally incognito, and living in a private exile to see if they had what it took to be Jewish when no one else knew about it. That private trial was often what they needed to inspire them to further inspire others. The unnamed Catholic priest of Glace Bay said a very similar thing when he hoped that whatever the extant Jewish community learned from living in their own version of an exile could be put to use wherever their next stop might be.

Rabbi Moshe ha-Darshan, also known as the Kelmer Maggid, was asked if it is more praiseworthy to worship in a town that is primarily Jewish or non-Jewish. His reply, Rabbi Isaacs reminded me: if you live in a town that is primarily Jewish, you may go to synagogue because of social pressure and political gain. The Jew who maintains their commitment to mitzvot in a community that is not primarily Jewish, however, receives a greater reward because they are truly continuing to pray for the sake of God. There are opportunities to engage with your Judaism wherever you are. n

May this Chanukah spread joy and light to your family and Israel.

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Wandering Home

Finding tradition in broken Yiddish and moose-meat knishes

In the book Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer, the acclaimed Yiddish author tells the stor y of a Jewish man who visits the cit y of Vilna (Lithuania, not Alber ta) Upon returning from his trip, the man says to his friend, “The Jews of Vilna are remarkable!”

The friend asks, “What’s so remarkable?”

The man answers, “I saw a Jew in Vilna who schemed all day long about how to make money I saw a Jew waving the red flag and calling for revolution. I saw a Jew who was running af ter ever y woman I saw a Jew who was an ascetic. I saw a Jew who preached religion all the time ”

His friend asks, “Why are you are so surprised? Vilna is a big city There are many types of Jews ”

“No,” says the first man, “it was all the same Jew ”

Though amusing, Singer’s purpose in telling the tale was to of fer insight He noted that the Jew is so restless he is almost ever ything at once, at tributing this restlessness to a par ticular kind of intelligence that creates an energ y and manifests as a need to always be doing, planning, or pursuing with singular passion some abstract idea While a generalization, it doesn’t feel

untrue or at least it contains enough truth to make the joke work.

To pile commentar y upon commentar y (Talmudically, if you wish) , I would note that even as a collective, Jews are so restless they’re almost ever ything at once: the variety of language, lifestyle, class, ideolog y, and religiosity among Jewish people is such that it can feel reductionist to make any generalization about our co-religionists.

Singer’s stor y, then, works as an obser vation even without the punchline Indeed, by ruining the joke and turning it into a prompt for commenting broadly about the stereotype that of the anxious, changeable, wandering Jew we perhaps fulfill Singer’s obser vation: that the Jew is so restless, so unset tled, they are wont to become almost ever ything at once, whether by circumstance, situation, necessity, or pilpulistic contrarianism

So, we contain multitudes Are multitudinous containing ever ything, wandering endlessly, doing, planning, pursuing, assuming the stance of an exiled ancestor, making a personality out of histor y, living the character, and feeling it like fate whether gathered through our genes or through our memes

But multitudes aside, the stereotypes per-

sist and are not always without merit The Jews are an urban people. It’s been said, there are quotes I can find them, I can have a computer find them for you. There are reasons given, there are reasons disputed. Jews are an urban people because we couldn’t own land, because we couldn’t join guilds. We’re an urban people because many excelled in trade, finance, and intellectual pursuits, all of which are central to urban environments We’re an urban people for safety, to remain close to the centres of civilization to influence leadership so that we may live under a tolerant government I have the sources, I’ll dig them up There is truth in common ut terances, there is contentiousness in them as well We are all inevitably products of histor y and historiography We are born into circumstances, but also born into par ticular tellings of those circumstances Both shape our perception, then our actions and contributions

Though the urban stereotype seems true enough, at least from the Haskalah (Enlightenment) on, through immigration, assimilation, and modernization there isn’t a lot going on in the other direction No one says, “The Jews are a rural people ” Because not so much, not really And again, we have the

why, and can seek out and verif y and find all the evidence Because it’s harder to run a synagogue in nor thern Quebec than it is in Westmount Because there’s no market for kosher meat in Happy Valley- Goose Bay, N L Because the institutions, organizations, and community that make up Jewish life are more difficult to maintain without a critical mass of Jews

Now, if modernization, globalization, and/ or catastrophe were to render these enduring organizations, institutions, and holy relics extinct, it would strike much of the public as sad As when faced with the loss of a species, we resist, we conser ve whether for sentiment, or the fear and knowledge that that which is lost contains irretrievable value But there is arguably more on the line with the loss of community than just ar tifacts, ways of being, ways of cooking, historical knowledge, jokes, and sometimes wisdom On the impor tance of community, Singer, in the same book paraphrased earlier, writes the following:

“The Ten Commandments are commandments against human nature Many people would like to steal if they knew that they could do it without being punished But Moses came and he said that if humanity wants to exist it has to follow cer tain rules no mat ter how difficult they are. I would say that even to this day we have not yet convinced ourselves that people can make such decisions and keep them Even when they make them, they can only keep them if they make them as a collective If people live together like the Jews in the ghet tos they keep to their decisions Why ? Because one guards the other.”

Not only is community essential to civilization keeping us on guard against our human nature but its dailiness and regular rhythms are necessar y to an individual’s ability to identif y with the collective and thereby feel they have a place in the world In turn, through personal identity founded in community, the collective is reinforced and so exists, or even thrives Tradition lives as long as you practise it

We rural Jews, then without a bustling community, a critical mass, or even a poorly at tended synagogue what are we doing out here? In the sticks, in the boonies, making mat zah by hand and leaving Seinfeld on a loop? Containing multitudes? Writing restless essays on ever ything at once? Mangling tradition and identif ying with commercial versions of a histor y known in par t through

cheap data and Temu ads? Anthropomorphic hamantashen doormats from $9! Jewdolph the Blue -Nosed Reindeer tote bags from $4! Polyester sweatshir ts imploring the wearer, or reader of the wearer, to “Imagine if your phone was at 10% but lasted eight days? Now you understand Hanukkah!” from only $12!

We’re doing what in the woods? Well, whatever We wandered out here Or were led by family, friends, or men we met online The same thing that directs the rest of the rootless, restless modern souls who find themselves simultaneously inside and outside of culture And though detachment, even in a bucolic set ting, might be an absolute tell of our modernity as Saul Bellow says, “To be modern is to be mobile, forever en route with few local at tachments anywhere,

We are born into circumstances, but also born into particular tellings of those circumstances.

cosmopolitan, not par ticularly disturbed to be an outsider in temporar y quar ters” in a sense, we’ve been practising that mobility, that outsider status, that potential for a cosmopolitan disposition, since before we had the consciousness to know it

Thus, due to circumstance and personal quirks, we are not all fated to live tradition, to guard against deviance, to know the blessing on a major (Jewdolph) purchase

There is no use in lamenting alienation, exile, or estrangement par ticularly when that estrangement fits so well within an obser ved and somewhat yearned af ter collective identity of restless wanderers because though there is living tradition and historical connection in community, there is intrigue in the individual As Singer says, look to the “human ocean” that surrounds you “where stories and novelties flow by the millions ”

Maybe we, the rural Jews, the feral, far-flung untraditional Jews, can accept ourselves and our brand of restlessness

through that lens of novelty and curiosity that Singer identifies Or else we forge ahead because time moves in only one direction and find ourselves drif ting through modernity mapping out new identities online And for now, though cer tainly not forever, it might look like a backwards hat and a TikTok-trend inflected voice saying, “I’m a rural Jew of course I whit tled my mezuzah out of drif twood” played over a billion small screens, making reality out of hyperreality, hyperstitiously forming an identity on the historical realities and inventions of a people drenched in time and, say, more specifically, the 1970s when their grandmother got divorced, lef t Montreal, and went adventuring And this new mush of a person might say they consider themselves a hyphenated Jew As in, a “I’m a Rural-Jew ”

“I’m a Rural-Jew of course I grew up in isolated Canadian communities with a family who wanted to give me a sense of Jewishness, which, without the input of traditional rigour, amounted to ver y cute, highly irregular, idiosyncratic practices determined by whim ”

“I’m a Rural-Jew of course we did the fun holidays, the dress up holidays, the good food holidays. Mostly Hanukkah.”

“I’m a Rural-Jew of course Jewish summer camp made me feel like a voyeur peering in a bedroom window, watching the real Jews make their collective histor y while doubting my own Jewishness and internally arguing myself to sleep.”

“I’m a Rural-Jew of course I learned the Shema on YouTube.”

And what would Singer, adopted angel of the introduction, say about these new versions of an old people breaking with tradition, forming new tradition, reviving ancient tradition, and learning about themselves, each other, and the burgeoning multitudinous collectives of online life? Perhaps he would shrug, as he was accustomed to do, or else he would say, as he’s said once before, that “the more you see what other people do, the more you learn about yourself ”

We can hope

We can hope to learn, we can hope that wisdom isn’t relegated to the past, we can hope that restlessness yields innovation, invention, and creativity And we can know that whether urban or rural, religious or secular, stories of the individual enter tain us, make us smile, add depth to our days, and grist to the mill And that, luckily, stories are something we’ll never run out of n

A MESSAGE FROM YOUR LIBERAL MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

our support of Israel's right to exist as a democratic and Jewish state, existing peacefully and securely alongside its neighbours.

On December 25th, as the sun sets, Jewish communities in Canada and around the world will gather to celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. As we light the Hanukkah candles, we extend our warmest wishes for a joyous holiday. Hanukkah is a celebration of light overcoming darkness, hope prevailing through adversity, and the strength of the Jewish people, whose resilience continues to inspire us all.

May the glow of the menorah inspire all of us to continue working toward a brighter, more inclusive future. Let us carry the lessons of Hanukkah with us throughout the coming year celebrating unity, fostering understanding, and always reaching toward the light.

As we celebrate Hanukkah, we reaffirm our commitment to the values of freedom, respect, and dignity for Jewish Canadians, and our dedication to combating antisemitism both here at home and abroad We also stand firm in

abroad.

Wishing you and your loved ones a blessed and prosperous Hanukkah.

Chag Hanukkah Sameach!

UN MESSAGE DE VOS DÉPUTÉS LIBÉRAUX

Le 25 décembre, au coucher du soleil, les communautés juives du Canada et du monde entier se réuniront pour célébrer Hanoukka, la fête des lumières. En allumant les bougies de Hanoukka, nous vous adressons nos vœux les plus chaleureux pour une fête joyeuse. Hanoukka est une célébration de la lumière surmontant l'obscurité, de l'espoir prévalant sur l'adversité et de la force du peuple juif, dont la résilience continue de nous inspirer tous.

fermement le droit d'Israël à exister en tant qu'État démocratique et juif, dans la paix et la sécurité, aux côtés de ses voisins.

Puisse la lueur de la ménorah nous inspirer tous pour continuer à œuvrer en faveur d'un avenir plus lumineux et plus inclusif. Portons les enseignements de Hanoukka avec nous tout au long de l'année à venir : célébrons l'unité, encourageons la compréhension et tendons toujours vers la lumière.

Nous vous souhaitons, à vous et à vos proches, une Hanoukka bénie et prospère.

En célébrant Hanoukka, nous réaffirmons notre engagement en faveur des valeurs de liberté, de respect et de dignité des Canadiens juifs, ainsi que notre détermination ntre l'antisémitisme, ous qu'à l'étranger. enons également

PRESENTED BY / PRÉSENTÉ PAR

PRÉSENTÉ PAR à lutter contre tant chez nous qu'à Nous soutenons

Chag Hanukkah Sameach!

Parm Bains, M.P. · Yvan Baker, M.P. · Hon. Terry Beech, M.P. · Hon. Bill Blair, M.P. · Ben Carr, M.P. ger, M P · Shaun Chen, M P · Paul Chiang, M P · Michael Coteau, M P · Julie Dabrusin, M P Terry Duguid, M P · Julie Dzerowicz, M P · Ali Ehsassi, M P · Hon Mona Fortier, M P and, M P Hon Hedy Fry, M P Anna Gainey, M P Hon Karina Gould, M P Hon Steven Guilbeault, M P .P. Ken Hardie, M.P. Anthony Housefather, M.P. Hon. Marci Ien, M.P. Hon. Helena Jaczek, M.P. · Arielle Kayabaga, M P · Hon Kamal Khera, M P · Hon David McGuinty, M P · Hon John McKay, M P cino, M P Wilson Miao, M P · Hon Joyce Murray, M P · Yasir Naqvi, M P · Hon Mary Ng, M P med, M P Jennifer O'Connell, M P Hon Rob Oliphant, M P Hon Carla Qualtrough, M P P Hon Ruby Sahota, M P Hon Harjit S Sajjan, M P Hon Ya'ara Saks, M P Randeep Sarai, M P M.P. · Ryan Turnbull, M.P. · Tony Van Bynen, M.P. · Hon. Dan Vandal, M.P. · Anita Vandenbeld, M.P. P · Patrick Weiler, M P · Hon Jonathan Wilkinson, M P · Jean Yip, M P · Sameer Zuberi, M P

Shafqat Ali, M.P. · Parm Bains, M.P. · Yvan M.P. · Hon. Terry M.P. · Hon. Bill M.P. · Ben Carr, M.P. Hon. Bardish Chagger, M.P. · Shaun Chen, M.P. · Paul M.P. · Michael Coteau, M.P. · Julie Dabrusin, M.P. Anju Dhillon, M.P. M.P. · Julie Dzerowicz, M.P. · Ali Ehsassi, M.P. · Hon. Mona Fortier, M.P. Hon. Chrystia Freeland, M.P. · Hon. M.P. · Anna M.P. · Hon. Karina M.P. · Hon. Steven M.P. Brendan Hanley, M.P. · Ken M.P. · M.P. · Hon. Marci M.P. · Hon. Helena M.P. Majid Jowhari, M.P. · Arielle M.P. · Hon. Kamal M.P. · Hon. David McGuinty, M.P. · Hon. John McKay, M.P. Hon. Marco Mendicino, M.P. Wilson Miao, M.P. · Hon. M.P. · Yasir M.P. · Hon. M.P. Taleeb Noormohamed, M.P. · Jennifer M.P. · Hon. Rob M.P. · Hon. Carla M.P. Leah Taylor Roy, M.P. · Hon. M.P. · Hon. S. M.P. · Hon. Ya'ara M.P. · M.P. Francesco Sorbara, M.P. · Ryan M.P. · Tony Van Bynen, M.P. · Hon. Dan M.P. · Anita M.P. Hon. Arif Virani, M.P. · Patrick M.P. · Hon. Jonathan M.P. · Jean M.P. · Sameer M.P.

Happy Chanukah!

2022-2026 City of Vaughan

Members of Council

First 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 of Vaughan; Mario Ferri, Local and Regional Councillor; Mario G Racco, Local and Regional Councillor

Menorah Lighting Ceremony

Mayor Steven Del Duca and Members of Council wish you and your family a wonderful Chanukah Chag Chanukah Sameach! Mon , Dec 30 3:30 p.m. Vaughan City Hall 2141 Major Mackenzie Dr FREE KOSHER REFRESHMENTS FREE REGISTRATION vaughan ca/festive

Chanukah

Happy Hanuk kah

From Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario & the Ontario PC Caucus

Laura Smith MPP/Députée – Thor nhill

Robin Martin MPP/Députée – Eglinton–Lawrence

Andrea

MPP/Députée – Barrie –Innis l

Stephen

MPP/Député – King–Vaughan

Michael

MPP/Député – Aurora–Oak Ridges–Richmond Hill

Michael Kerzner MPP/Député – York Centre

Logan Kanapathi MPP/Député – Markham –Thor nhill

Lecce

Khanjin

Parsa

Stan Cho MPP/Député – Willowdale

Daisy Wai MPP/Députée – Richmond Hill

Shulamit Krakauer, 54

Slocan, B.C., since 2022

Su s a n i s t h e n a m e o n my b i r t h ce r ti f i -

c ate, b u t I n eve r rea l ly l i ke d i t I was o n a B u d d h i s t ret reat i n my l ate 3 0 s w h e n

a tea ch e r s a i d, “ Yo u d o n’t l o o k l i ke a S u -

s a n I t’s n ot t h e rig h t n a m e fo r yo u D o yo u h ave a n ot h e r n a m e? ” I to l d h i m t h at I h a d

t h i s H eb rew n a m e t h at I h a d n eve r go n e by, eve n w h e n I l ive d i n I s ra el H e t h o ug h t

I s h o u l d t r y i t

Weeks later, at a yoga retreat, I realized there were four other Susans ; it seemed like a good time to tr y something dif ferent Shulamit felt like a bit of an outdated name, but my Israeli cousin sug gested that I go by Shuli. For the last 17 years, that’s the name that ever yone has known me by I don’t even respond when I hear someone call out my previous name I spent my childhood in Etobicoke, Ont ; we were one of two Jewish families in the neighbourhood I remember leaving class to sit in the librar y, along with my siblings and the kids from that other family, when the class recited the Lord’s Prayer, talked about the Bible, and drew pictures of Jesus My mother made sure we had a strong sense of Jewish identity, keeping us involved in the local Reform synagogue and sending us to Zionist summer camps We’d of ten spend Jewish holidays with my grandparents in Hamilton, Ont , and we all had our bar and bat mit zvahs at the Solel Congregation in Mississauga, Ont

The first full-time job I got of fered as a vet was in 1997 at the most Jewish intersection of Toronto, Ont : Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue I was all set to move back when the job fell through and I ended up going out to Grand Forks, B C , to fill a maternity leave Af ter a summer being the sole vet in a small town, I decided to move to Vancouver, B C , to work in a busy emergency clinic Although I hadn’t planned

It’s been a theme of my life to want to fit in and at the same time to be a bit different.

It’s been a theme of my life to want to fit in and at the same time to be a bit different When I had friends going to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for a year, I decided to go to Tel Aviv University instead I ended up living on a kibbutz for the next few years, making aliyah, and doing my army ser vice Eventually, I came back to study and enter veterinary school at the University of Guelph

to make a move to the West Coast, I ended up loving the lifestyle and stayed out west, pursuing my interest in holistic modalities to treat animals

forest and mountains and lake

We’re slowly finding that there are Jews out here and a lovely, albeit small, Jewish community in Nelson, B C , which we joined for a Yom Kippur ser vice on the beach of Kootenay Lake

Still, for years, I toyed with the idea of moving outside of the city to be closer to nature, and to have more space to do things like garden and have more animals In 2022, my daughter and I found a home in Slocan, B C I was at tracted to the beauty of the valley Af ter we arrived, I realized that, when my daughter said she wanted a horse, we could actually have a horse! Life is a bit dif ferent here, surrounded by

Sydney Blum, 74

Wearing a Star of David is something I had never done With the current climate of antisemitism, I felt a private need for something special and simple that could lay close to my hear t, day and night I had an ar tisan craft one, inspired by a simple military-issue one that I had carried in my pocket Even here in nor thern Nova Scotia, there’s enough antisemitism that I found myself hiding it under my clothes I decided to take it off and put it in a special little box on my dresser

My parents grew up in the boroughs of New York City They were poor, but valuing education got them both to college My father spent

his academic career at Colgate University in central New York state; we were the only family where both parents were Jewish We kept our ethnicity hidden Colgate had a Hillel group, and a couple of students gave me Hebrew lessons and introduced me to some of the traditions I learned to sew on a sewing machine when I was four and was drawn to vivid colour and heavy embroidery I would fantasize that I lived in Poland, where my paternal grandmother was born; my aesthetic was shaped by the ethnic crafts of that culture

When I was 17 years old, my family moved to Israel for the year: my father was pursuing

a research program studying the kibbutz and moshav An ear problem prevented him from flying, so we took a boat from New York City to Israel I remember arriving in Haifa and feeling this enormous sense of relief surrounded by Jews; it was a wonder ful feeling of not having to hide who I was Af ter returning from Israel in 1968, I took a three-week trip to Prince Edward Island to visit a friend who moved there to avoid the Vietnam War draf t I was always drawn to remote rural locations, so many years later after several false star ts and several degrees, af ter designing transparent Western clothing

Nova Scotia along the Northumberland Strait since 2009

that was featured on the cover of Women’s Wear Daily and teaching ar t at Parsons School of Design when finances forced me to consider relocation, the Maritimes came to mind I drove up to explore possibilities and came to a small village with a health food store, its own subversive bookstore, and plans for an ar t centre I was smitten, and began to plan my home and studio and to navigate the immigration process

I knew of no other Jewish people in this community, however At one point, I made a friend who attended a synagogue in Halifax, N S which is two hours away I attended a few

times with the hope that I could fit in I didn’t Feeling my roots deeply, I continued to search for accessible connections and discovered a book: Sacred Therapy by Estelle Frankel, an Or thodox Jewish scholar and psychotherapist whose writing drew inspiration from Kabbalah This book saved my life I’ve read it three times, copied vast por tions into my own notebooks, re-read passages; this is the teacher I was seeking I’ve contacted her and we’ve had a number of sessions, and I also update her on my ar twork, which is influenced by her writing My ar t (I am currently represented by the Galerie

Rober tson Arès in Montreal) is intended to take me and the viewer upward, to higher realms, and downward, to the most basic and rudimentary levels of being It’s an attempt to convey the creation myth of breaking apar t to recreate, lights shattering and scattering to be gathered and contained once more

The pulse of the sea also embodies this gathering and scattering I wanted to live near the water, the tide, to take those rhythms into the deepest par ts of my being Though my beautiful Star of David sits waiting in its box on my dresser, I am content in my private and precious Jewishness on this remote shore n

Dan Heilbrunn, 42

Inuvik, N.W.T. since 2008

Iwas born in Jerusalem but grew up in midtown Toronto, Ont., with secular parents my dad is Israeli and mom is from Winnipeg, Man. who gave me a lot of freedom to roam around the city on my BMX bike This led me to the riding scene, and I ended up meeting an Indigenous mentor, another BMX-er and an entrepreneur tool and die maker He gave me a lot of suppor t, and opened my eyes to the existence of Indigenous people in Canada, and lit the spark that led me to one day work for them

A few years later, when I was 26, I was looking for work as a teacher; jobs in the nor th were available immediately and paid well There was a major street dog problem at the time I noticed one chasing cars up and down the main drag, a black husk y mix that I ended up adopting On walks, she was always pulling my arm of f until somebody gave me a harnes s ; I got her to star t drag ging logs to slow her down Soon enough, I realized I would like a dog

team Looking back, it was pret t y meshuggeneh, but I was get ting a serious taste for mushing adventures and winter camping at some pret t y frigid temperatures.

I met my wife, Christine, as a spectator at a dog - sled race at the Inuvik Spring Carnival in 2011 She seemed ver y interested in the dog teams so I introduced myself and invited her for a dog - sled ride We quickly hit it of f, and we eventually adopted eight more huskies Now we have a six-year-old daughter, Ruthie

I learned so much about dog mushing from the Indigenous elders in Inuvik, N W T They insisted that the dogs had to have the best food, the best bedding, the best equipment, and the best training If we wanted to win races, we had to train them consistently day in day out, tr y not to run them in -30 weather or colder, and always keep the dogs wanting more Just like people, dogs will do fantastic things if they feel good about what they’re doing

My mushing and racing days are over now ; Christine and I are focusing on parenthood But I still enjoy playing outside with our retired dogs ever y day af ter supper

Christine’s family had also worked with sled dogs for generations ; her back ground is half Inuit and half European Af ter our daughter was born, we star ted talking more about Judaism, wondering what would be involved in taking on more obser vance During the pandemic, we connected with a rabbi in Vancouver, B C , who was suppor tive of the conversion proces s, fully knowing the challenges we face living in the Nor thwest Territories The rabbi we were working with for an Or thodox conversion unfor tunately moved on from his job, and we’re now pursuing it with a C onser vative congregation instead

We obser ve Shabbat in a fully traditional fashion, and consider it a bles sing We’ve got timers on the lights, food in the slow cooker, and savour a day in which we don’t work, drive, or shlep We get kosher chicken and beef shipped in from Edmonton, Alta My wife appreciates that the chicken is cheaper, and bet ter qualit y than what you get here, without all the kishkes I love studying Torah, especially on Shabbat, and I’m engros sed with the writings of rabbis from the Middle A ges : Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Maimonides, Nachmanides, and Abarbanel they all had enormous minds.

It’s been hear twarming to see my daughter learn a lit tle Hebrew, especially through the brachot Those blessings are bet ter than any mindfulness app to help you slow down and be grateful I love discussing Torah with Ruthie, and it brings us great nachas when she enthusiastically wants to discuss the moral and legal quandaries in Mishpatim or Bava Kamma Of course, I make some adjustments: “What would you do if your friend asked you to watch her teddy bear and then it got lost?” “Who should pay the vet bills if we were watching our friend’s dog and one of our sled dogs bites it?”

Judaism has also made me more inquisitive : we went into her conversion proces s with a lot of questions, and we’ve done a lot of listening Practising far away from a Jewish communit y is unique, insofar as we have our own lit tle bubble On one hand, we’ve created a space for our Jewish values and traditions to grow and develop as a family, and on the other, I know that we can bring a lit tle light into all aspects of our current life here in the Arctic n

Sheila Levy, 74

Nunavut, 1978-2020

Af te r f ive yea r s o f l ivi ng as a m a rri e d c o u p l e i n To ro n to, O n t , my h u s b a n d

a n d I wo n d e re d i f we s h o u l d go o n a n a dve n tu re toget h e r a n d t r y s o m et h i ng n ew

A n d t h e re i t was : a n ewsp a p e r a d fo r e d u -

c ati o n a l tea ch i ng o p p o r tu n i ti e s a c ro s s t h e No r t h we s t Te rri to ri e s We t h o ug h t we wo u l d d o i t fo r t wo yea r s I t e n d e d u p l as ti ng fo u r d e c a d e s

I had Jewish relatives on my father’s side but my mother’s father was an Anglican minister, so that ended up being my parent’s way of life Judaism, though, was a par t of my heritage I felt connected to ; when I met a Jewish man in Miami Beach, Fla , who became my husband, it was also par t of accepting that connection for myself. We married at a Unitarian church in Ot tawa, Ont , but we gravitated to the Oraynu Congregation in Toronto, as it felt comfor table and right to me to have a formal, secular-humanist conversion

The jobs in N.W.T. brought us to a communit y of about 1,200, close to the Arctic Circle. We were amazed by the landscape when we first arrived in Pangnir tung My husband had never seen a mountain, and here we were living in a f jord at the base of a mile -high mountain range directly on the Arctic Ocean We stayed in Pangnir tung for four years ; our first child was born there. By the late 1980s, we had moved t wice more, spending t wo years in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, and three in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and had t wo more kids In the late 1980s we moved to what was then called Frobisher Bay : in 1999, when Nunavut became its own territor y, the name was changed to Iqaluit as a par t of Inuit reclamation of place names

We found Jewish friends to celebrate holidays with in all the communities we lived in, but we also developed a tradition of throwing a big annual Hanukkah par ty, to give ever yone a taste of something Jewish One year, our kids invited so many friends many of whom were Inuit that we had over 100 people in our home

Oraynu, in Toronto, was where our children all had bar and bat mit zvahs, although we also did have a b’nai mit zvah in Iqaluit for our twins The hotel where we held it was

proud to be the first to host such an event We connected with a butcher y in Ot tawa that sent us kosher food although one of those deliveries spoiled when a freezer went kaput on a boat delivering our annual sealif t, which at that time was how we got most of our food for an entire year

for all Nunavut called Kamatsiaqtut, which is the Inuk titut word for “thoughtful people who care ” I had been a volunteer with the Ot tawa Distress Centre when I was in university, which was likely why I was asked to assist I’ve been overseeing the project for 35 years, and now I’m training others to make sure it continues in the spirit that it began: with volunteers living in Nunavut who “help people help themselves ” My husband and I feel that it’s our obligation as humanistic Jews to live up to the concept of repairing the world by listening more, talking less,

It was from initially working at the school in Pangnir tung that I met and taught many young children Some later died by suicide as teenagers It broke my hear t, because I remembered and understood them as bright and energized young people with so much promise at age the age of nine or 10 In 1989, I was invited to a meeting to talk about the root causes of suicide, and the next thing I knew I was star ting a help line

and recognizing there may not be simple answers but there are thoughtful actions that go a long way

Our kids went south for university but are still connected to Nunavummiut (the people of Nunavut) My grandson Thomas was born in Iqaluit in 2014 A mohel flew in from Ottawa to do the brit milah The big gest job I had that day was to make sure the food was as kosher as possible n

A HAPPY HANUKKAH

Jewish Community Organizations, Synagogues and Schools wish s e r

As we light the lights, let us pray for peace and security

Adath Israel Congregation

Beit Rayim Synagogue & School

Bernard Betel Centre

Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am

Beth Emeth Synagogue

Beth Sholom Synagogue

Beth Tikvah Synagogue

Beth Tzedec Congregation

Canadian Friends of Akim

Canadian Friends of Ezrath Nashim - Herzog Hospital

Canadian Friends of Hebrew University

Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel

Congregation Beth Haminyan

Congregation Darchei Noam

Congregation Habonim

Hebrew Beach Institute & School

Holy Blossom Temple

Israel Bonds/Canada-Israel Securities, Limited

Na’amat Canada Toronto

Pride of Israel Synagogue

Reena

Temple Emanu-El

Temple Har Zion

Temple Kol Ami

Temple Sinai Congregation

The Song Shul

Stepping

Early 20th century sports heroes (clockwise from top le : Canadian welterweigh champion Sammy Lu spring, Hall of Famer Goody Rosen, world featherweight champion Abe Attell, and Olympic track medalist Bobbie Rosenfeld) changed perceptions held by Jews as well as non-Jews of Jews and athleticism.

from le : Canadian

into the Ring

A century ago, a new wave of Jewish sports stars upended stereotypes inside the Jewish community as well as outside of it

In 1936, a 27-year-old spor tswriter for the New York Post named Stanley B Frank published an extraordinar y book called The Jew in Spor t

The reason for writing the book, Frank declared in his opening chapter, was to counter a statement made by General Charles H Sherrill, an American member of the International Olympic Commit tee. The general had travelled to Nazi Germany in 1935, and had several meetings with Adolf Hitler about the par ticipation of Jewish athletes in the upcoming Berlin Olympics.

Af ter get ting Hitler to agree to allow one Jewish athlete on the German team, Sherrill told repor ters that he thought the issue of Jewish par ticipation was rather overblown because “there never was a prominent Jewish athlete in histor y.”

Frank was outraged He described Sherrill’s statement as “a vicious libel” and a “preposterous concept of the Jew,” even while conceding that the idea of Jewish athletic inferiorit y had some legitimate historical roots.

Jews had faced centuries of discrimination and oppression in Europe. “Forced by society to live in terribly overcrowded, unsanitar y ghet tos,” Frank wrote, “the Jew became undersized and puny His meagre existence, his ver y life, depended on his mental agility and keenness of perception ”

Under those circumstances, it was hardly surprising that “physical proficiency or

achievement was of profound unimpor tance and disinterest to him ”

But that was the old world of Europe The new world of Nor th America presented different challenges for Jews “Influenced by his environment, the Jew, as always, tried to conform to the culture pat tern of his new community,” Frank continued and that meant embracing the culture of spor t

“Spor ts are a tremendously impor tant factor in modern civilization,” Frank argued, and he was convinced that, freed from the confines of the ghet to, the Jew could be “a commanding and prominent figure in spor ts if given half a chance to prove his ability ”

By 1936, that’s precisely what Jewish athletes in the U S were doing: winning Olympic medals, starring in American college and pro spor ts, dominating the ranks of basketball and boxing

“The Jewish athlete at last has burst from the bonds of an old legend and is creating a new order,” Stanley Frank concluded.

In his review of Jews who were excelling in spor ts, Frank scarcely bothered to cast his gaze nor thward to Canada He asser ted (incorrectly) that “the population of the Dominion is practically non-Jewish ”

Had he looked, he would have discovered that, in those years between the world wars, Canadian Jewish athletes were also forging a new order Many of them were children of the first generation of Jewish immigrants

from Eastern Europe who had come to Canada in the early years of the centur y Many had to overcome their parents’ disapproval to pursue their passion for spor ts

A rug ged defenceman from Toronto’s downtown St John’s Ward named Alex Levinsky was starring in the NHL. Another ghet to graduate named Goodwin George “Goody” Rosen was playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Baseball and basketball teams composed of Jewish kids from Toronto’s Elizabeth Street playground, who called themselves the “Lizzies,” were consistently rated among the best in the countr y And a multi-spor t star named Fanny Rosenfeld, known as “Bobbie,” won gold and silver medals in track at the 1928 Olympics ; she was and was widely acknowledged to be one of the most accomplished woman athletes in the world.

But it was in boxing, described by Frank as “the most fundamental of all spor ts,” that Jews, both in the U S and Canada, were really making their mark. Twenty-two Jewish boxers won world championships between 1908 and 1936. For Frank, this represented “the clinching proof of the Jew’s inherent spiritual and physical toughness.”

Few boxers anywhere were tougher than Sammy Luf tspring,

Born in 1916 in Toronto’s Jewish ghet to, Luf tspring’s father, Yossel, was a Polish émigré, a boot maker by trade, who suf fered from a variety of health issues. Respirator y problems caused by breathing in too much

leather dust caused him to spend years in a sanitorium, and an accident suf fered while ser ving in the Polish army had lef t him with one leg shor ter than the other, making it difficult to walk He was, in many ways, the “undersized and puny” European Jew that Frank had writ ten about

studying Torah as well as other pursuits that might bet ter prepare their children for life in the new world

Those children had other ideas. They were looking to find their places within a mainstream culture that was strange and of ten hostile Spor ts could help bring them closer to that goal, allow them to escape the cloistered geographic and cultural world of their parents “People didn’t get out of their neighbourhood too much in those days,” Luf tspring wrote in his memoir, Call Me Sammy, published in 1975, “nor was there much reason they should ”

punch, hit a ball, shoot a basket, or score a goal, you would not only be accepted, you would be celebrated within your own community and also among people who otherwise would have no time for you

Iunabashedly Jewish, they were shattering any notions that Jews lacked the mental and physical toughness to become and at the same time, were using sports to gain acceptance into the

His son Sammy, who became a Canadian champion and one of the top-ranked welterweights in the world, represented the new order par t of a remarkable generation of young Canadian athletes who were excelling on the ice, the field, the cour t, and in the ring in the 1920s and ‘30s Proudly and unabashedly Jewish, they were shat terin any lingering notions that Jews lacked th mental and physical toughness to becom champions, and at the same time, they we using spor ts to gain acceptance into th Canadian mainstream

n some ways, this golden generation Jewish athletes was fulfilling a drea that dated back to the earliest days of th Zionist movement.

Those young Jewish athletes, this first generation of muscular Jews, were acutely aware that they were helping to redefine how a Jew looked and sounded “I have always believed that the Jewish people are far superior in ever y way to ever yone else,” the ex-Dodger Goody Rosen told the historian Peter Levine in 1984 “We took care of ourselves, we gave as good as we got, and we erged stronger than ever ”

n some ways, this of Jewish athletes was a dream that dated back to the earliest of the

In a speech to the Second Zionist Co gress, in 1898, Max Nordau (who co-foun ed the World Zionist Organization with The dor Herzl) argued that a Jewish homelan needed to be more than a place where Jew could go to escape religious discriminatio He called for the emergence of a “new Jew a “generation of muscular Jews” to replac the “ner vous Jews” of the European dia pora who were weak of mind and body.

emerged stronger than ever.”

OIn a to the Second Zionist Congress, in 1898, Max Nordau (who co-founded the World Zionist with Theodor that a Jewish homeland needed to be more than a where Jews could go to escape discrimination. He called for the emergence of a “new Jew,” a of muscular Jews” to replace the “nervous Jews” of the dias-

ran more counter to the stereotype of the meek and Jew—than boxing.

“ The Jewish athlete at last has burst from the bonds of an old legend and is creating a new order.”

f all the spor ts that Jews excelled in, perhaps none was more unexpected more counter to the stereotype of the ek and cowardly Jew than boxing oxing had several advantages over other or ts that a ghet to kid might have been erested in Unlike hockey or baseball, it uired ver y lit tle physical space It also n’t cost much to become a boxer, and ou were good, there was actual money be made, even as an amateur: promotwould routinely slip $25 or $30 to their ung fighters under the table af ter a bout. h at was

These new Jews would be men and women with solid stomachs and hard muscles who would possess the physical and mental toughness to build a Jewish homeland and change the world’s image of the Jew

Inspired by Nordau’s writings, the teaching of g ymnastics became an integral par t of the Zionist project in Palestine. But Jews like Yossel Luf tspring, who had fled to Nor th America from the shtetls of Eastern Europe, had lit tle time for or interest in g ymnastics, or spor ts of any kind. He had six children and a wife to feed Af ter Prohibition came to Ontario in 1916, he and Sammy’s mother ran a successful bootleg ging operation out of their kitchen, but those good times ended when the law was repealed in 1927, and the family slipped into pover ty

Besides, Yossel was deeply Or thodox, and Jews were supposed to be the “people of the book,” not of the playground or the spor ts field Like many of his generation, he thought athletics took time away from

This was a new generation By the time he turned 20, Sammy Luf tspring had already travelled all over Canada and boxed in 11 American cities He had friends who were Irish, Italian, and Protestant Meanwhile, his parents rarely ventured beyond the Jewish ghet to of Spadina Avenue and C ollege Street

For bet ter and for worse, these young Jews would be drawn into the great urban ethnic mosaic that Toronto had become They would play the spor ts that other Canadians played boxing, basketball, baseball, hockey and they would play them bet ter, without sacrificing their identity

In the 1930s, there were “no Jews allowed” signs at some Toronto beaches Universities had quotas on Jewish students. Some golf clubs and resor ts would not accept Jewish guests. Spor ts represented a dif ferent world, a world that was as close to a meritocracy as many of those young Jews would ever encounter If you could throw a

Boxing had several over other sports that a ghetto kid have been interested in. Unlike or baseball, it required very little space. It also didn’t cost much to become a and if you were there was actual money to be made, even as an amateur: promoters would routinely slip $25 or $30 to their young under the table after a bout. That was a big deal for young, impoverished Jewish fighters. And with Jews heavily involved as managers, trainers, and promoters, boxing was one sport where antisemitism was not really an issue. And besides, knowing how to give and take a

e ri ng as wel l.

Many of these young boxers had found inspiration in the career of Benny Leonard from New York’s Lower East Side, the world lightweight champion between 1917 and 1925 He was the first ghet to kid to achieve international spor ts super-stardom, and he did it while proudly wearing the Star of David on his trunks. So too did Sammy Luf tspring and many other young boxers of the time

In making such choices, these athletes were both expressing their Jewish pride and helping to sell tickets. Promoters were looking for Jewish boxers to get Jewish fans into their arenas ; potential audiences saw American boxer Abe At tell marketed as “the lit tle Hebrew” and Joe Bernstein described as the “pride of the ghet to ”

Jewish boxers were such a surefire draw that even non-Jewish fighters would sometimes pose as Jewish When American heav yweight Max Baer fought German Max

Schmeling in June 1933, the fight was billed as the Jew vs. the Nazi. The problem was that Schmeling wasn’t a Nazi, and Baer didn’t clearly identif y as a Jew. (His mother was not Jewish, and his father was the son of a Jewish father and a gentile mother.) But there were rumours that Baer had been circumcised for the fight. When he entered the ring wearing a Star of David on his trunks, the 60,000 fans who packed Yankee Stadium cheered wildly

It wasn’t just boxing promoters hoping to cash in on Jewish athletes

John McGraw, the manager of the New York Giants baseball team from 1902 to 1932, liked to talk about how racial rivalries contributed to “the great melting pot of spor t ” He estimated that half the crowd at tending baseball games in New York were Jewish, and they would love to see one of their own in a Giants’ uniform “A homerun hit ter with a Jewish name in New York would be wor th a million,” he told a reporter in 1920

The NHL’s New York Rangers were on a similar quest In 1927, team publicists tried

S

Sammy Lu srping (pictured at right with his father, Yossel) relished the attention an “aggressive little Jew boy” received from the public and the press A er he won his championship at a bout in Maple Leaf Gardens, he wrote, “I was Judah the Maccabee in Star of David shorts ”

to convince fans that their newly acquired goalie, Lorne Chabot, was actually named Lorne Chabotsky

That nickname had been bestowed on Levinsky by a local Toronto spor tswriter who claimed Levinsky’s father used to sit in the stands and yell “that’s mein boy” when his son made a good play The stor y was almost cer tainly untrue. Levinsky’s father was born in Toronto and didn’t speak with an accent But the nickname stuck, and Levinsky never publicly objected

That was typical of an era when spor tswriters focused on identity and played to stereotypes in ways that would be unimaginable today Levinsky was variously referred to in the Toronto press as a “curly-haired Jew,” a “clever Hebrew per former,” and “the only Litvak lad in major league hockey ” Luf tspring was an “ag gressive lit tle Jew boy ”

Newspapers, par ticularly The Daily Star, covered amateur spor ts extensively and helped make local heroes out of Luf tspring and other Toronto Jewish athletes But that coverage came at a cost Writers and editors exploited tribal loyalties and eagerly pit ted ethnic communities against one another to sell papers In 1933, when Luf tspring lost a controversial decision to a boxer from Hamilton named Chick McCar thy, the headline in the Toronto Daily Star was “Fans Raise Terrific Howl When Irisher Beats Hebrew.”

Most young Jewish athletes welcomed the publicity, the recognition, and the oppor tunities that the press coverage brought them, both inside and outside their communities. That was especially true of boxers, who were celebrated in ways that stars of team spor ts rarely were And they would have had no reason to object to being called tough, ag gressive, rug ged, or any other quality that ran counter to traditional male Jewish stereotypes

Luf tspring, by his own account, wore the mantle of “ag gressive lit tle Jew boy” with pride. In his memoir, Luf tspring boasted about being in the newspaper practically

Proudly and unabashedly Jewish, star athletes used sports to gain acceptance into the Canadian mainstream.

every day between 1932 and 1936. “I was the most written about person in the whole city,” he declared. While he described some of the coverage as “loose and inaccurate and vulgar and tasteless,” he added, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t crave the ink those sportswriters of the thirties gave me. passion to see my name or my picture in print was as uncritical as it was boundless.”

When, in he beat Frankie the pride of Toronto’s Little in front of more than 5,000 people at Maple Leaf Gardens, to win the Canadian crown, Luftspring recalled, “I went home that night to a that was mine for the asking. I was I was emperor. I was God. I was David shorts.”

y between 1932 and 1936 “I was writ ten about person in the whole declared While he described some overage as “loose and inaccurate ar and tasteless,” he added, “I’d f I said I didn’t crave the ink those iters of the thir ties gave me My to see my name or my picture in as uncritical as it was boundless ” n 1936, he beat Frankie Genovese, of Toronto’s Little Italy, in front of an 5,000 people at Maple Leaf to win the Canadian welterweight uf tspring recalled, “I went home that a neighbourhood that was mine for ng. I was king, I was emperor. I was as Judah the Maccebee in Star of or ts.”

s back to being considered a laughing at ter

was back to being considered a laughing matter.

Today, while Jews an outsized role in the ranks of North American professional sports, there are about a dozen Jewish in the NHL, and slightly more than that in major league baseball. In the two sports that Jews dominated in the interwar period, boxing and basketball, there are virtually no Jews participating at an elite level.

The decline in the years after the Second World War. As the Jewish community grew and became more prosperous, it left the cohesive downtown hoods that had been the for so many athletes in the years between

oday, while Jews play an outsized role the ownership ranks of Nor th American ofessional spor ts, there are only about a zen Jewish players in the NHL, and only ghtly more than that playing in major ague baseball In the two spor ts that Jews minated in the inter war period, boxing d basketball, there are vir tually no Jews r ticipating at an elite level he decline began in the years af ter the cond World War As the Jewish commungrew and became more prosperous, lef t the cohesive downtown neighbourods that had been the breeding grounds so many athletes in the years between the wars The children of those athletes were more assimilated, more comfor table interacting with the non-Jewish world, and had far more educational and professional oppor tunities available to them If you could feed your family and be upwardly mobile without get ting punched repeatedly in the head, why not take advantage of that?

But the contributions made by that first generation of “muscular Jews” should not be minimized or forgot ten They helped shat ter long-standing stereotypes that insisted Jews lacked the physical and mental streng th to compete successfully in spor ts They opened doors to a wider world that others could walk through, whether or not they were athletes

writers from a stewardess is handing out material to passengers.

“Do you have an older

cene from the hit 1980 movie comAirplane!, writ ten by three Jewish rom Wisconsin, a stewardess is out reading material to passengers u have anything light?” an older sks

“How about this leaflet,” the stewardess replies handing her a small piece of paper “‘Famous Jewish Spor ts Legends ’”

Stanley Frank would not have been amused

More than half a centur y af ter he had declared that Jewish athletes were bursting the bonds of an old legend and creating a new order, the notion of Jewish athleticism

And they did it not by minimizing their Jewishness to make non-Jews feel more comfor table with them but by asser ting their Jewish pride at ever y oppor tunity In 1980, Budd Schulberg, the great American boxing correspondent, wrote about his experience watching Benny Leonard fight: “To see him climb into the ring spor ting his six-pointed Jewish star on his fighting trunks was to anticipate sweet revenge for all the bloody noses, split lips, and mocking laughter at pale lit tle Jewish boys who had run the neighbourhood gauntlet.”

In 1907, the president of Har vard, Charles Eliot had told the university’s Menorah Society that Jews were “distinctly inferior in stature and physical development...to any other race,” and he lamented the loss of a “mar tial spirit” among Jews since the days of the Maccabees The generation of Jewish athletes who came of age in the years af ter Eliot made those remarks did indeed re -kindle that mar tial spirit. For a time, they were the new Maccabees 

No more to it than that

Trying to make sense of the burgeoning wave of divorce lit

“You’re get ting fed up with whose company ? Bruce’s? Oh well that’s only natural, he’s your husband.” Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced “Bouquet” ) in Keeping Up Appearances (1995)

In No Fault, Haley Mlotek’s first book, slated for release in Februar y, the author recalls “a ver y drunk woman” she had once known accosting her at a par ty to ask some rather blunt questions about her divorce. “‘You just decided you didn’t want to be married? Or was there more to it than that?’” To which Mlotek responds, in an aside to readers, “There was a great deal more, but I declined to share with her ”

The intoxicated lady, c’est moi. Not literally: despite some overlapping biographical par ticulars (we’re both millennial Jewish women writers who’ve lived in New York and Toronto) , I don’t know the author and thus have never hassled her about her personal life But I am the simple soul who picked up a divorce memoir naively assuming I’d learn, therein, why the author got divorced

The implied audience for No Fault is too sophisticated to demand such answers Or maybe there aren’t any: “[M]y friends and I are alike in that we both had no idea why my marriage ended (We are dif ferent in that they think they can find the answer, and I know I never will ) ”

Can a whole entire book about divorce centre on a marital breakup that happened for reasons unknown even to the instigator ? In a way it has to, because this is what separates No Fault from its rather crowded field

Divorce lit is having a moment In a column a few months ago, my friend and podcast co-host Kat Rosenfield wrote of the “glut of divorce memoirs ” The past year has seen Lyz Lenz’s bestselling This American Ex-Wife and Leslie Jamison’s similarly well-received Splinters, two books covered jointly in The New York Times book review section

The year 2024 also saw the publication of Sara Glass’s Kissing Girls on Shabbat, a moving memoir by an ex-Hasidic lesbian who divorces two different men over the course of the book

Poet Mag gie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful came out the previous year It is the one that got the latest wave of the cultural conversation going one linked to broader discussions of men lag ging behind women in education and achievement and willingness to load dishwashers and just generally not being wor th the bother There are bad men out there, and mediocre ones, and if you’re married to one per a cer tain discourse, at least you’d be well rid of him Following #MeToo, and perhaps more to the point a pandemic that saw many women ef fectively foisted out of the workforce and back into the domestic sphere, male misbehaviour and inequitable chore distribution were suddenly of tremendous mainstream interest

Whether the cultural preoccupation with divorce will persist long enough for 2025’s No Fault to hit a ner ve remains to be seen Mlotek is an accomplished writer, with bylines including The New York Times, Hazlit t, and The New Yorker But how many times, in a shor t span, can variations of the same stor y be told?

I had a bit of déjà vu while reading, and it occurred to me that the structure, locations, demographics, topics, and politics recall Nona Willis Aronowit z’s 2022 Bad Sex The structure is the easiest par t to address: No Fault and Bad Sex both intersperse the author’s own divorce stories with in-depth historical research Aronowit z did her homework in the area of feminist histor y, while Mlotek’s is a mix of cultural analysis of divorce -themed books and movies and a howwe -got-here historical synthesis of no-fault divorce

Like Aronowit z, Mlotek had a brief youthful marriage formalized, both women are careful to spell out, for bureaucratic reasons (Mlotek’s visa-related, Aronowit z’s to do with health insurance) We

are not in the square, stuf f y, so-last-season realm of women who plan elaborate weddings and think they’re only complete once they’ve snag ged a husband Sure, such women may still exist, but these par ticular ones are not in milieus where women revel unironically in bacheloret te par ties and all the accompanying frills Both move in circles where it is by no means expected of a young woman to be Mrs So-and-So, and seem to chafe at the dissonance between their self-understandings as modern and the facts-on-theground link between their lives and those of however many millions of other women past, present, and future. Women who, historically, of ten lacked other options

The big gest difference between the two books is that Mlotek chooses divorce not sexual dissatisfaction as her throughline, providing thematic unity in what would otherwise be a large collection of shor t essays

Writing in Publishers Weekly in 2020, Brooke Warner distinguished between “books that are about the writer’s whole life,” which Warner argues are properly deemed autobiography, and “what memoir is supposed to be: a slice of life, ideally held together by a concept or a theme ” A hybrid genre has emerged in recent decades, par ticularly in feminist writing: books in which an author weaves her own life story into a broader one about society at large It’s come to be expected, as though readers require both things not from books collectively (as is reasonable) but from each individual one

The memoir, as a form, of fers something juicy and confessional the gossipy pleasures of peeking into a real stranger’s life but also, these days, an argument linking the author’s experiences to something generalizable, ideally with a world-improving component The quality sought in memoirists, for which they are praised, is self-awareness, both the personality trait of knowing how you come

The memoir, as a form, offers something juicy and confessional— but also, these days, an argument linking the author’s experiences to something generalizable, ideally with a world-improving component.

across to others and, on a big ger scale, understanding, demographically, where you fit into the grand scheme of things The author who fails to sufficiently acknowledge her privilege gets called out for this, by critics, Goodreads reviewers, or whichever other naysayers

As a business mat ter, memoirs sell best if the author’s a celebrity. But if you’re not Prince Harr y or Britney Spears and you want someone to read your thoughts on your own life, you have to make the case for why they should care. And the memoir that includes woven-in quantitative evidence or historical background is the one that gets taken seriously, the author commended for her ability to see beyond her own tiny life

To qualif y as book-wor thy, it helps if a woman’s life stor y can be connected to something societ y-wide, something on which polling data might be cited if not demonstrable demographic change, a shif t in cultural preoccupations A decade ago, there were the books about single women, wherein the author was single (at least as of the work’s inception ; relationship statuses are subject to change) , but had taken her singledom as a prompt to dive into a big ger stor y I’m referring to Kate Bolick’s 2015 Spinster, based on her 2011 Atlantic cover stor y titled “All the Single Ladies,” and Rebecca Traister’s 2016 book, titled All the Single Ladies, both references to Beyoncé’s catchy 2008 song, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) ” A Guardian reviewer inadver tently summed up not just All the Single Ladies but a cer tain t ype of format that has become ubiquitous : “Traister blends histor y, repor tage and personal memoir to propose that the notion of marriage in American life has been and will be writ ten by unmarried women ”

In principle, there’s nothing wrong with mixing the intimate and the general It’s unavoidable, to a point: on some level, every book is par tly about more general subject matter and par tly about its author, though the propor tions vary tremendously And there are times when advocacy is best done through personal testimony, as in Kissing Girls on Shabbat The trouble with the 50-50 memoir-to-background-research ratio is that in practice, the most compelling personal stories are of ten too idiosyncratic to fall so neatly into what just so happens to be the most pressing systemic concerns Along the same lines, the topics society most needs to grapple with do not typically align with what happens to be on the mind of a memoirist The split approach has a way of flattening human experience, shor tchanging both the individual stories and the general ones

In this understanding, a personal stor y derives its value neither

from being unusual and therefore remarkable (which is fun or interesting to read) , nor from being so engagingly told that stor y feels relatable even to people who cannot necessarily relate to any of the specifics therein (my personal preference) , but from its role as a case study for a big ger and ever-so-wor thy phenomenon This publishing backstor y gets at what No Fault is and where it fits in a publishing landscape Mlotek’s own divorce is her Exhibit A in her book about divorce generally.

Whenever I read a book in this style, I find myself wondering if there is one thread the author would have honed in on, absent external pressures Did she sincerely feel her own experience was a Platonic example of a phenomenon meriting sociological or historical discussion? Did she want to write a memoir and tack on the historical digressions for seriousness and hef t? Or would she have liked to write a dif ferent sor t of non-fiction book but conclude that if she lef t her own life stor y out of it, no one would care? Which par t is the book I should be reading, and which was tacked on?

With No Fault, the answer isn’t par ticularly ambiguous. Early on in the book, Mlotek writes that she’s “always preferred reading to reality.” She admits to being “evasive,” adding, “I want you to ask if I’ve read Anna Karenina I do not want you to ask what I would do for love.” She has read, watched, and synthesized a truly impressive number of works about divorce, including scholarly ones The chapters about film and literature (topics include Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilber t and remarriage movies across the decades) are more enjoyable reads than the histor y ones, not because cultural criticism always appeals to me more (it doesn’t) but because the choices there seem more idiosyncratic and therefore surprising

Mlotek notes she was a lacklustre student who dropped out of college, but props to her, the smoothly written result puts disser tation-writers and academics to shame A chapter relying almost exclusively on a book by the Har vard historian Nancy F Cott should, yes, have used more sources, but she narrates well enough that it was only at the end that I noticed this Not for the first time, an autodidact exhibits more aptitude than most who’ve sat through all the seminars

Even the drier par ts are livelier than they need to be Mlotek comes across as someone who genuinely enjoys learning new things and teach others what she’s discovered

The pas sages in which Mlotek discus ses her own marriage sound, by contrast, like someone telling you a stor y under dures s, where they’re leaving the key bits out because quite frankly it’s

none of your busines s This has the unfor tunate ef fect of making these par ts that much more compelling In my initial read, I found myself rushing through the objectively bet ter-fleshed-out par ts of the book, the ones about old novels, movies, and television shows about marital tumult (par ticularly The Continuing Stor y of Carel and Ferd, a 1972 cinematic precursor to modern realit y television) , to get to where she might divulge something about her busines s Busines s that is, of course, no busines s of mine In an ideal world, perhaps, we’d have a book about divorce from someone privately inspired to do so by their own Instead, we have a half-memoir from someone who and who can blame her ? seems ver y pos sibly too private of a person to write a memoir

In a review of Leslie Jamison’s Splinters, Mlotek writes, “I sometimes wonder if the divorce memoir, or any ar t about divorce, fulfills needs that the legal process of dissolving a marriage with its conference rooms and paper work doesn’t satisf y ” I suspect it does, but not in the way she means. Divorce allows Mlotek a pretext to write a book It is Mlotek’s status as a divorcée that makes her par t of a lineage, a literar y tradition, a topic of perennial feminist interest. There is a divorce canon, much of it explored in No Fault Rachel Cusk, Deborah Lev y, Jamaica Kincaid, Jenny Offill, Elizabeth Gilber t, and, now, Haley Mlotek

To review a memoir is, in a sense, to review a person It isn’t really: the reader doesn’t know the memoirist personally, or if they do, then that outside information is informing their judgments, and the book itself is a side note But for the typical reader, all you can judge is a character who shares a name and biographical details with the author, not a fictional creation but a construction all the same In non-literar y terms, you know the person behind the memoir the way you know a person you’ve never met through their ver y detailed Facebook profile

It never theless feels judgmental, ungenerous, ad hominem, to respond negatively to a memoir It feels wrong to judge the life choices or interpretations thereof of this person who never asked for your input If I say I found No Fault a bit uninspiring, it seems as if I am casting judgment on Mlotek’s life stor y, or heaven forbid suggesting that my own is any more riveting (I promise it is not )

Whether this is or is not the book for you depends on whether the following sentence would have you more riveted or put off: “The emphasis on [Betty] Friedan and the cultural phenomenon that was Mystique ignores the work of women of color within organizations such as NOW, as

To q u a l i f y a s b o o k-wo r t h y,

i t h e l ps i f a wo m a n ’s l i fe st o r y

c a n b e c o n n e c t e d t o s o m e t h i n g

s o c i e t y-w i d e .

well as within other radical or leftist organizations, and in tandem with organizations distinctly founded for the autonomy of women of color, by women of color ”

I read this and thought, yes, this is a known thing about feminism, as well as a long-since -requisite box a white feminist author must check I’m not sure who, in 2025 needs the corrective that feminism wasn’t just Bet ty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. Anyone who could possibly care about intersectional feminism has read give or take the same sentences in books, ar ticles, and TikToks. By the time Mlotek mentions iconic Black feminist Audre Lorde, it has already been established that this is a book that will be citing Audre Lorde, to an audience of people with Audre Lorde quotes on their Instagram dating from 2020, if not earlier. That said, I now know far more than I once did about Lorde’s divorce What Lorde’s marital split has to do with Mlotek’s, I’m still unclear, but I find myself in the awkward position of wishing the straight white lady author had said even more about Lorde and less about herself.

There are feminist analyses aplenty about the way that seemingly equitable heterosexual relationships evolve into something more 1950s-ish than the par ties themselves anticipated This didn’t happen here. Nor did Mlotek go of f men, either in a fed-up sense or in the Lorde sense of preferring women They didn’t have kids, so their divorce doesn’t prompt any outsiders’ opining about whether they might have stayed together for the children These are just two people who, for paper work reasons, had to pay a lawyer’s fee in order to fully break

c

d e m i c a l ly a cc o mp l i s h e d b oy f ri e n d to, p e rh a p s , t h e m o re a cc o mp l i s h e d m e m b e r o f t h at s a m e c o u p l e Th ey b ro ke u p fo r t h e u s u a l reas o n s h ig h s ch o o l o r c o l l ege swe et h ea r t s b rea k u p : g rowi ng

u p, g rowi ng a p a r t “ [ S ] o m et h i ng b et we e n my ex- h u s b a n d a n d m e h a d s h i f te d w h e n I got a j o b m o re l i ke t h e o n e h e h a d ; i t was t r u e

m u ch o f t h e i d e n ti t y o f o u r rel ati o n s h i p re s te d o n u s b ot h b el i ev -

i ng t h at h e to o k c a re o f m e, i n m a ny d i f fe re n t m ate ri a l way s ; i t was t r u e t h at by t h e ti m e we l ef t ea ch ot h e r I h a d b eg u n to wo n-

d e r i f ch a ng i ng s o m u ch o f my l i fe h a d ch a nge d t h e way we s aw

ea ch ot h e r ” Ha d M l otek at te mpte d to tel l t h i s to t h e d r u n k l a dy

at t h e p a r t y, t h at wo m a n wo u l d h ave ve r y l i kely n o d d e d o f f Th e

g i s t o f No Fault i s t h at eve n i n t h e a b s e n ce o f d ra m a t h at wo u l d

ke e p a n a u d i e n ce g l u e d to i t s s eat s , s o m eti m e s a m a rri age j u s t

d o e s n’t wo rk n

C U LT U R E K L ATS C H

A Complete Unknown, the long-awaited Bob Dylan biopic, will be in theatres on December 25

F I L M

The Brutalist

In theatres

December 20

A l rea dy p eg ge d as a l i kely O s c a r c o n te n -

d e r, The Brutalist fo l l ows a f i c ti o n a l H u n -

ga ri a n -J ewi s h a rch i te c t L á s z l ó Tot h ( Ad ri e n

B ro dy ) a n d h i s wi fe E r z s éb et ( Fel i c i t y

J o n e s ) i n A m e ri c a a f te r t h e S e c o n d Wo rl d

Wa r S e p a rate d a n d i mp ove ri s h e d a f te r

h avi ng s u r vive d t h e c a mp s , t h e c o u p l e

i s eve n tu a l ly re u n i te d, a n d t h e i r fo r tu n e s

ch a nge a f te r L á s z l ó re ce ive s t h e a rch i te c -

tu ra l c o m m i s s i o n o f a l i feti m e f ro m a ri ch,

WA S P y A m e ri c a n o n ly to rea l ize t h at h e

m ay h ave m a d e a d ea l wi t h t h e ( a n ti s e -

m i ti c ) d evi l. Wi t h p re m i e re s at t h e Ve n i ce

a n d To ro n to f i l m fe s tiva l s , c ri ti c s o n s eve -

ra l c o n ti n e n t s a re a l rea dy s i ng i ng d i re c to r

B ra dy C o rb et’s p ra i s e s ( The Guardian c o mp a re d t h e m ovi e to t h e wo rks o f S a u l

B el l ow a n d B e rn a rd M a l a m u d )

A Complete Unknown

In theatres

December 25

T h e l o n g - awa i te d B o b D y l a n b i o p i c i s , a f te r m u c h a n t i c i p at i o n , f i n a l l y u p o n

u s A C o mp l ete Un k n ow n t r a c k s t h e fo l k

l e ge n d ’s r i s e to f a m e a s we l l a s h i s c o nt rove r s i a l s wi tc h f ro m a c o

Ari’s Theme

Streaming on Telus Originals

Februar y 2025

An ar ticle in Vancouver’s Jewish Independent inspired this new documentar y about Ari Kinar thy, a composer with type -2 spinal muscular atrophy Directors Nathan Drillot and Jef f Lee Petr y were intrigued by the newspaper’s 2020 stor y about Ari, a then30-year-old Jewish composer from Victoria, B C , who had won composition awards and

Books, lms, and other new releases of note

writ ten songs for his local shul The film follows Kinar thy as his muscles progressively atrophy, forcing him to think about his death and his legacy

H O L I DAY

RO M - C O M S

Leah’s Per fect Gif t

W Network

December 8

Laz y scriptwriters seem to think that Jews sit around yearning to celebrate Christmas In Leah’s Per fect Gif t, Hallmark takes a more nuanced look at this non-problem The Christmas-loving titular heroine’s dreams finally come true when her gentile boyfriend, Graham, invites her to his Connecticut Christmas with his family But Leah quickly discovers that she doesn’t fit in with her boyfriend’s family and his traditions and must re -examine who she is, as a Jew and a Christmas lover Despite these strange stakes, Hallmark seems to have finally gotten the memo that eg gnog and a few stocking stuf fers won’t cure Jewish malaise

Hanukkah on the Rocks

W Network

December 13

To recap the official synopsis: Tory, a Jewish corporate lawyer finds herself unemployed right before the holiday season She uses her new-found spare time to run around Chicago on a mission to find the last box of Hanukkah

candles for her bubbe At a dive bar along the way, Tory meets a handsome Jewish radiologist who is on the same candle quest as she is. Tory eventually transforms the dive bar into a wildly successful Hanukkah-themed bar all while falling in love with the handsome radiologist and convincing him not to move back to Chicago from Florida. We can’t quite make sense of all this either, but we’re nonetheless excited that, like our Christmas-celebrating neighbours and friends, we finally have our own supply of shmalt z y, nonsensical holiday flicks to call our own.

P O D CA STS

The Copernic Affair Canadaland

Januar y 22

In 1980, someone bombed a Paris synagogue Carleton University professor Hassan Diab was accused of masterminding the

at tack and spent three years in French prison awaiting trial before the charges were dropped and then, several years later, long af ter Diab had returned to Canada, revived Diab was convicted in absentia by a French cour t in 2023, but the Lebanese - Canadian sociologist has adamantly denied any involvement, saying he was in Lebanon at the time of the at tack Suppor ters ranging from Carleton University to the Green Par ty of Canada have argued Diab was wrongfully convicted and urged the federal government to deny any French extradition requests Drawing on fresh repor ting and exclusive interviews, investigative journalists Dana Ballout and Alex Atack reconstruct and tr y to shed light on the decades-long case

BO O KS: F I CT I O N

The Anatomy of Exile Zeeva Bukai ( Delphinium Books)

Januar y 24

Israeli-American writer Zeeva Bukai has been publishing shor t stories for a number of years In her debut novel, she explores the complicated and fraught psycholog y of

Jewish-Palestinian love When Salim Abadi, a Jewish Arab mourning his sister’s sudden death, decides to relocate his family to New York, his wife grapples with her own questions of identity as she tries to prevent their daughter from embarking on a relationship with a Palestinian neighbour and, she fears, following in her dead aunt’s footsteps

A Fool’s Kabbalah

Steve Stern ( Melville House)

Februar y 18

In 1946, the Hebrew University sent philosopher and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem on a mission: go to Germany and central Europe to find and rescue Jewish books stolen by Nazis. In a biography of Scholem, its authors note that he went into a deep depression af ter the search. But what happened while he was on this great, yet upset ting, quest? This is the premise for a perhaps unexpected tragicomedy by Pushcar t Prize–winning writer Steve Stern, who draws on real historical events to create a fictional account of this trip in A Fool’s Kabbalah

Seventeen Spoons E sther Goldenberg (100 Block by Row House)

Februar y 18

Esther Goldenberg has commit ted herself to giving the women of the Torah an in-depth look through The Deser t Songs Trilog y Her first installment, The Scrolls of Deborah, re -examined the life of the titular prophetes s The second, Seventeen Spoons, focuses on Joseph of the technicolour dreamcoat fame Though Joseph is a boy, his stor y fits into the trilog y be -

cause he spent much of his youth in the women’s tents with his mother, Rachel His older, jealous brothers refused to spend time with him, and that is where he went for companionship Seventeen Spoons follows Joseph’s grow th, showing how a young man raised around women can become the benevolent second-in-command of Eg ypt

BO O KS: N O N - F I CT I O N

Sisters in Science : How Four Women Physicists E scaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific Histor y Olivia Campbell ( Park Row)

December 31

Many of the male Jewish scientists who fled Nazi Germany are household names: Alber t Einstein, Max Born, and many of the scientists in Oppenheimer Less known are the

Jewish and anti-Nazi women scientists who escaped Science journalist Olivia Campbell fills these gaps in Sisters in Science She focuses on four physicists who fled Europe, each of whom greatly contributed to the field : one, Lise Meitner, discovered nuclear fission, the basis of nuclear power Their accomplishments paved the way for many other women to enter the field, despite the great sexism they encountered in universities across Europe and the U S Fans of Hidden Figures or Broad Band, this is your next read

Being Jewish Af ter the Destruction of Gaza : A Reckoning

Peter Beinart (Knopf)

Januar y 28

h t h o u g h t . I n h i s n ew b o o k , t h e

e s s ay i s t a rg u e s t h at J ewi s h s e l f - c o n c e p -

t i o n s h ave fo c u s e d to o m u c h o n v i c t i m -

h o o d a n d t h at , i n t h e wa ke o f t h e c u r re n t

wa r, t h i s m u s t c h a n ge B e i n a r t i m p l o re s

J ew s to s e e t h e i r f ate s i n te r t wi n e d wi t h

t h o s e o f t h e P a l e s t i n i a n s , r at h e r t h a n p i t-

t i n g t h e m ag a i n s t o u r ow n s u r v i v a l , a n d

m a i n t a i n s t h at i t i s t i m e to re i m ag i n e a n s -

we r s to age - o l d q u e s t i o n s a b o u t w h at i t

m e a n s to b e J ewi s h

Lorne : The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live

Susan Morrison ( Random House) Februar y 18

Th e m o s t fa m o u s g ra d u ate o f To ro n to’s

Fo re s t H i l l C o l l eg i ate i s t h e s u bj e c t o f a n

a u t h o rize d b i og ra p hy b e i ng p u b l i s h e d

t h e s a m e we ek t h e c o m e dy i n s ti tu ti o n

h e c reate d wi l l c o m m e m o rate 5 0 yea r s

o n t h e a i r Wh i l e h i s f i r s t f ive yea r s at t h e

h el m o f S atu rday N ig h t Live we re fo l l o -

we d by a f ive - yea r h i atu s , Lo rn e M i ch a el s

h as re ig n e d ove r t h e i c o n i c s h ow fo r l o ng

e n o ug h t h at h i s f i r s t n a m e i s e n o ug h fo r

t h e ti t l e Th e b o o k fo l l ows o n t h e h e el s o f

J as o n Re i t m a n’s m ovi e a b o u t S N L’s d eb u t

e p i s o d e, w h i ch i s b e i ng rel eas e d o n B l u -

ray i n J a n u a r y.

In a Yellow Wood :

Selected Stories and E s says C ynthia Ozick ( Ever yman)

March 11

Ozick has chosen some of her favourite essays and shor t stories for a new collection, which can equally ser ve as an introduction to her work and the summation of her decades-long legacy as a writer Complete with an introduction by the author and a bibliography, In a Yellow Wood seems poised to become the definitive one -volume guide to this celebrated writing

BO O KS: K I DS

Sweet Babe! A Jewish Grandma Kvells

Robin Rosenthal ( Tundra Books)

Februar y 18

A b a by b o o k f i l l

(wi t h a g l o s s a r y at t h e b a ck , j u s t i n c as e ) ,

Sweet Babe! h o p e s to h el p

Golden Threads

Ariella Aïsha A zoulay (Ayin Pres s)

Februar y 28

A shor t, illustrated, middle-grade novel, Golden Threads explores the creative world of 1920s Fès, Morocco, where Jewish and Muslim craftspeople live in harmony Five young girls, from both Jewish and Muslim households, band together to try to stop the arrival of a machine from overseas that will destroy the livelihood of the city’s craftspeople A professor of modern culture and media at Brown University, Azoulay recently wrote about Jewish jewellers in the Muslim world; she drew on that research for Golden Threads

The Secret Recipe

Ilan Stavans (Kar-Ben)

March 4

A professor of Latin American studies, Ilan Stavans takes the history of the Spanish Inquisition and turns it into a child-appropriate storybook in The Secret Recipe A child learns from his mother and grandmother about Ladino, how the Sephardic language came to be because of the Inquisition, and how the Jewish language lives on 600 years later

So That Happened... But Maybe You Already Knew That

Tami Sus sman ( Walker Books Australia)

March 4

This middle -grade novel follows as a young Australian girl, Natalie, prepares for her bat mit zvah and her elementar y school graduation The problem is that Natalie’s entire life is falling apar t: her parents are broke and are selling her childhood home, and her best friend leaves her bat mit zvah group because she doesn’t feel like a girl anymore Ever ything is changing, and Natalie doesn’t know what to do about it For tween granddaughters who feel misunderstood, or who just loved You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mit zvah!, this is a book that may not be met with an eye roll (no promises) 

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t h a t i s s e n s i t i v e , c a r i n g a n d

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t s @ k b l l p c a For information on prearranged

Phone: 416-924-4680

Fax: 416-924-4685

A very west coast Hanukkah

Af ter a fellow resident of Bowen Island had a confrontation with an ag gressive Holocaust denier, Mat thew van der Giessen was motivated to raise awareness about the Jewish population living a 20-minute ferr y ride from Vancouver, B C including some children of Holocaust sur vivors

“Building drif twood sculptures is a bit of a thing here,” says the massage therapist. He was inspired to build a hanukkiah by a legendar y mastodon that had been built at a secret site on a mountainside (until it became too much of a tourist at traction and was disassembled by the ar tist) . Scouring beaches for material meant keeping an eye out for pieces of drif twood that weren’t too wet, in a wide variation of sizes and shapes: small ones were needed for filler that could be nail-gunned into the plywood template.

Light Up Bowen, an annual Christmas tree–themed event, provided a stage for the hanukkiah’s 2021 public debut with the suppor t of about 50 Jewish community members who also gather for Friday night ser vices on the beach, Passover seders, and High Holiday ser vices led by van der Giessen.

“We’ve framed the menorah lighting around a theme ever yone can agree on,” he says. “Peace.”

When not in use, the menorah is stored in a shed, with a maintenance routine that consists mostly of keeping water from leaking into its light bulbs

“With a bit of luck and a bit of inspiration,” says van der Giessen, “we think we’ve solved the problem this year ”

The plan is to continue the lighting tradition on the first night of Hanukkah, which this year falls on December 25 n