The CJN‘s culture section is made up primarily of stories concerning the arts and entertainment, but also contains book reviews, food stories, sports on occasion and the Social Scene and Backstory columns.
Here are some of the highlights of 2015:
Arts:
On Jan. 26, Art Spiegelman, the storied cartoonist and creator of Maus, gave a lecture in Toronto discussing comics, free speech, his Jewish sensibilities and, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacres, how perilous a craft cartooning can be.
The images captured by the little Leica camera that Henryk Ross carried around the Lodz Ghetto from 1940 to 1944 may be black and white, but the stories they tell are vivid, beyond the iconic views of the Holocaust. So wrote Toby Saltzman in her story about Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross, an exhibit that ran at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).
It was fun to read Susan Minuk’s piece about Abby and Sarah Ginsburg. The pair of Toronto twins had flown to Los Angeles to perform Jason Mraz’s song I’m Yours for Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen Show.
Who can resist the allure of nine-year-old Skyler Wexler? The young actor is becoming a big player in sci-fi and horror flicks. She had a role as the young Carrie, in the recent remake of the Stephen King book, but most viewers might recognize her from her recurring role in the TV thriller Orphan Black, where she plays Kira, the daughter of one of the clones.
We’d written about actor Jake Epstein before, but I was fascinated to learn he was collaborating with his mother, Kathy Kacer, writer of such popular young reader Holocaust novels as Gabi’s Dresser. Kathryn Kates wrote about how the two worked on a play, Therefore Choose Life, which premiered in Toronto on April 18.
We cover art stories of all forms, of course, but some seem especially unique. Jodie Shupac’s piece on Ballad of the Burning Star, a one-man cabaret-style drag show that ran at the Theatre Centre in May was quite illuminating.
With the Stratford Festival running a production of The Diary of Anne Frank, the co-ordinator of Canadian Projects for Anne Frank House Amsterdam thought this would be a good time to host the exhibit Anne Frank: A History for Today. In her preview, Saltzman wrote about how Julie Couture was smitten by the farmhouse that became the Stratford Perth Museum, as the place to host this exhibit.
We don’t get to cover classic rock much in these pages, and I was delighted last June to assign Ruth Schweitzer a story on Bob Gruen, the photographer who took iconic pictures of John Lennon, Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper, among others.
It took Winnipeg filmmakers Daniel Eskin and Trevor Mowchun more than 10 years to finish their first feature, World to Come. Based on events surrounding an abuse allegation scandal that rocked Winnipeg’s Jewish community in the late 1980s and 1990s, the film premiered at the AGO on July 11.
Like it or not, we’ve all had our ears filled with Let It Go, the hit song from the film Frozen. Thus it was a highlight for us to run Marvin Glassman’s interview with the ubiquitous song’s singer Idina Menzel prior to her Canadian concerts.
To commemorate Frank Sinatra’s birthday, Schweitzer wrote a thoughtful piece about Ruth Lowe, the Toronto songwriter who launched the American popular singer’s career.
Although The CJN misses Bill Gladstone’s Eye on Arts column (the last of which ran in August) it was good to welcome several new columnists into the back pages. Chaimie and Leizer of YidLife Crisis’ spoof on the greatest Chanukah film never told was a fun read. Evelyn Tauben hit the nail on the head with her insightful piece on how, over the course of history, forms, colours and symbols have gathered a potent meaning, and consequently we need to absorb imagery with a sensitive eye.
Food:
Staf reporter Jodie Shupac met with celebrity chef Susur Lee and Modern Kosher Catering owner Moishe Brown. The two discussed their creation of an exclusive line of kosher, Susur Lee-branded food, to be added to Modern Kosher’s existing list of menu options.
Books:
I was thrilled to review the last part of Catherine Gildiner’s memoir trilogy, Coming Ashore. I’d been following the series for several years. In this one, the Toronto psychiatrist discusses her hippy days, describing encounters with a young Bill Clinton and Jimi Hendrix, and her time at Toronto’s notorious Rochdale College.
READ: For Jewish Christmas, the ten best Chinese restaurants in Toronto
Other book reviews we ran, which I didn’t write but enjoyed reading, were Mordechai Ben-Dat’s analysis of David Liss’ The Day of Atonement, and his review of Charles Belfoure’s The Paris Architect; Gladstone’s look at Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Catch the Jew by Tuvia Tenenbom; Norm Ravvin’s take on All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr; and Martin Lockshin’s look at The Jewish Dog by Asher Kravitz. Read them all here.
Sports:
With the PanAm Games held in Toronto this summer, we profiled most of the Jewish athletes involved. Of particular interest to me were the pair of rhythmic gymnastics twins Anjelika and Victoria Reznik, who we profiled before the twins went on to win medals.
Backstory:
I enjoy reading Backstory for its unique look at sometimes obscure events in Jewish history. Gladstone’s piece about Rev. Shabetai Benjamin Rohold, the son of the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, who became a missionary Jew in Toronto in the pre-World War I era, was very informative.
Eiran Harris wrote an interesting column about Emerson Swift Mahon, Canada’s first black Jew. After coming to Canada in 1912 and converting to Judaism, he seriously considered becoming a rabbi at one point.
Social Scene:
I love reading David Levine’s Wry Bread column each month, but some hit the spot for me more than others. I particularly liked his piece on GCGs (Genuinely Curious Gentiles). “Can you spot the GCCs in your life? Use the real-life examples below to practise.” The piece on Donald Trump was also hilarious – and still topical. And who can forget his take on paying shul dues?