May 24, 2010: Tamir celebrates 25 years with an unforgettable night of theatre

By Michael Regenstreif

Wow!

What an amazing night it was sitting in the packed-to-capacity Centrepointe Theatre, May 13, watching Tamir’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I lost track of how many times I wiped tears from my eyes from being profoundly moved, how much I laughed, how much I clapped, and for how long I was on my feet for the extended – and so well-deserved – standing ovation and curtain calls.

Before I get back to raving about the show, let me wish a hearty Mazel Tov to Tamir on its 25th anniversary as a social service agency fulfilling the needs of Jewish adults with developmental disabilities (and their families). Tamir does a remarkable job with its group and independent living programs, its day programs, its Judaic outreach programs, its family respite programs, and so much more.

What started as a dream of a few families a quarter-century ago has grown into a remarkable organization of participants and families and a highly dedicated corps of volunteers and staff.

Back to the show!

Another Mazel Tov, and endless bravos, to every single person in any way connected to Tamir’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. From the Tamir board and staff who first discussed how to celebrate Tamir’s 25th anniversary, to the visionaries who conceived of this very special production, to the producers, directors, singers, actors, musicians, technicians, designers, costumers, stage managers, stage hands, gofers, and everyone else, all of you did a truly extraordinary and awesome job.

I’ve seen a lot of plays and musicals in my time – from school productions to community theatre, from regional theatre to Broadway. For seven years in the 1980s, I ran an annual theatre festival in Montreal – I know something about what it takes to put on a show.

So, I must admit that I was more-than-a-little skeptical when I first heard, a year or so ago, that Tamir was planning a large-scale production of Joseph featuring a fully integrated cast of Tamir participants – most of whom had never been on stage before – along with community theatre veterans and several young professionals. Putting together a big, Broadway-style show is not an easy task – even when you’re fully funded and working with trained professionals – so it was hard to imagine doing it with a cast centred around actors and singers with developmental disabilities and no experience.

I was not alone in my initial skepticism. Dick Zuker, a past-president of Tamir’s board and chair of the 25th Anniversary Committee, notes that the Tamir board’s approval of the Joseph project “was met with a moment of disbelief at the thought of what we had taken on.”

But Tamir did it. With hard work and dedication, they pulled off something that had never been done before, not here, not anywhere: a fully integrated production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Early on in the six-month rehearsal period, I began to hear rumblings that Joseph was going to be something special. I’d run into Cantor Daniel Benlolo, who initially proposed putting on the production, and who was intimately involved as one of the production’s musical directors and was performing in the show as the Pharaoh, and he’d be so enthusiastic about how it was going. Or I’d walk through the hallway near my office in the Soloway Jewish Community Centre and I’d see and hear Tamir participant Debby Applebaum practising her songs from the show.

That initial skepticism was gone months ago. It became obvious to me that Tamir’s Joseph was turning into something special.

And special it was. All of the actors, singers, dancers, narrators were great. The orchestra in the pit was spectacular.

But it was something else, something very intangible, but so patently obvious, that made Joseph so special. Everyone involved in this production loved being involved.

That love could be felt listening to speeches by Tamir President Howard Yegendorf and Executive Director Mark Palmer at a reception before the show. I felt it chatting with director Barry Karp and backstage volunteer Anna Bilsky in the lobby.

I saw that love on the joyous faces of every Tamir participant in the show. I heard it in the voices of the children’s choir. And in the fine performances of the experienced theatre people in the cast and, especially, in the gentle way they helped guide their Tamir colleagues on stage.

And that love was surely there in the sustained applause and cheers from those of us who were honoured to be in the audience.

Wow!

May 10, 2010: Herzl’s Zionist vision led to the modern State of Israel

By Michael Regenstreif

Last week marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Theodore Herzl on May 2, 1860 in Budapest. Herzl is remembered as the father of the modern Zionist movement that ultimately led to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

Trained as a lawyer, Herzl was a novelist, playwright and journalist who witnessed the antisemitism prevalent in Europe in the 1890s.

In Paris at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, Herzl saw mobs chanting “Death to the Jews,” in response to the charges of treason levelled at French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was framed and convicted in what was later proven to be an antisemitic conspiracy.

Herzl determined that the only solution to antisemitism was a Jewish state. He launched the modern Zionist movement with a book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1896 and convened the first Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland.

In a novel, Altneuland (Old New Land), published in 1902, Herzl envisioned an enlightened, secular Jewish state; a cooperative society based on equality; a centre for science and agriculture; a “light unto the nations.” Herzl did not predict Arab rejectionism in his utopian vision.

Herzl was just 44 years old when he died of pneumonia and heart failure in Vienna in 1904, so, sadly, he didn’t live to see the fulfilment of his Zionist dream. And, tragically, neither did any of his three children.

His daughter Pauline, a drug addict, died of an apparent overdose in 1930. Herzl’s son, Hans, committed suicide when he learned of his sister’s death. Herzl’s other daughter, Trude, died at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943, one of the six million Jews lost during the Holocaust.

Trude’s son, Herzl’s only grandchild, had been sent to safety in England before the Holocaust, but committed suicide in 1946 on learning the fate of his parents.

In 1949, Herzl’s remains were brought to Israel for reburial on Mount Herzl, which was named in his honour.

Those of us under the age of 62 have never known a world without the State of Israel. But, it is a modern phenomenon and it is important we remember that the movement leading to its founding began with Herzl’s vision just a half-century before.

Shalom Ireland

On Wednesday, May 12, the Soloway Jewish Community Centre will be screening Shalom Ireland, an excellent documentary about the Jewish community of Ireland. I saw the film at the 2004 Montreal Jewish Film Festival and recommend it to your attention.

The film discusses some of the most prominent members of Ireland’s Jewish community, among them Jack Briscoe, an Irish parliamentarian who served two terms in the 1950s and 1960s as lord mayor of Dublin. His son, Ben Briscoe, held the position in the 1980s. Ben, and his brother, Joe, are leaders of today’s Jewish community in Ireland.

The Herzogs were another prominent Irish Jewish family. Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, born in Poland, was chief rabbi of Ireland from 1921 to 1936. From 1937 until his death in 1959, he was chief Ashkenazi rabbi of British Mandate Palestine and, from 1948, the State of Israel. His son, Chaim, born and raised in Ireland, became a general in the IDF, was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, and served two terms as president of Israel from 1983 to 1993.

The film looks at the role of Irish Jews in the struggles for Ireland’s independence and in the Zionist movement. It also describes the impact the Second World War and the Holocaust had on the community.

Ireland’s Jewish population peaked in the 1940s and has been in decline since due to emigration to Israel and North America.

The film is an interesting study of a Jewish community struggling against the odds to retain and rejuvenate its vitality.