March 17, 2014: The Quebec election is all about values

By Michael Regenstreif

In May 2008, less than a year after I moved to Ottawa from Montreal to work at the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, I attended a talk at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre given by Queen’s University historian Gerald Tulchinsky.

Tulchinsky was here to speak about his then-new book, Canada’s Jews: A People’s Journey, a history of Canada’s Jewish community. At one point in his talk, Tulchinsky was describing the Protestant school system in Quebec in which the vast majority of Montreal’s Jews in the 20th century were educated. He asked if anyone in the audience had been through that system. About two-thirds of us put up our hands.

All that to say that there are many of us in Ottawa’s Jewish community with roots in Quebec. And many of us retain deep ties there. So, we feel like we have a stake in what goes on in Quebec. And, as Jason Moscovitz notes in his Ideas and Impressions column in the space below, the campaign has begun for the Quebec provincial election on April 7.

One of the main issues in this election – I would argue the main issue – is the so-called Charter of Quebec Values proposed by the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ), which seeks to take away the right of public sector workers to wear clothing or obvious symbols of their religion. Under the charter, a Jewish doctor, a Muslim teacher or a Sikh bus driver would be banned from wearing the kippah, hijab or turban they might feel is important to their religious observance. And there are PQ ministers who have said they would like to see private sector companies adopt the charter as well.

In essence, the proposed charter is a decidedly unsubtle message to religious minorities that they are not welcome in mainstream society – at least the society envisioned by the PQ.

That this proposed charter runs contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and to Quebec’s own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, is of no consequence to the PQ. They want nothing more than to provoke court battles with the federal government as a way of proving the need for separation to their followers.

Yes, this election is very much about values – and it remains to be seen which values Quebecers will choose.

March 3, 2014: Israeli singer David Broza reaches out with a powerful message of peace

By Michael Regenstreif

I’m somewhat of a music maven, and singer-songwriter-guitarist David Broza – who performed a sold-out concert 15 months ago at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre – has long been one of my favourite Israeli artists. In his music, he often combines elements of folk, flamenco, pop and rock styles to create something that is both universal and uniquely his own. Many of his songs are compelling and intense keeping listeners’ attention glued both to the music and to the messages in the songs.

Broza has long advocated Israel’s seeking a comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians – one of his most beloved songs is “Yihyeh Tov,” which, decades ago, became an anthem of the Israeli peace movement – and nowhere is that clearer than on his latest album, East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem.

Broza purposefully recorded the album in an East Jerusalem recording studio owned by a Palestinian and on it he collaborates with a cast of Israeli, Palestinian and American singers and musicians on a repertoire of songs – some of which he wrote or co-wrote, others borrowed from other sources – most of which advocate for peace and cooperation.

The songs on East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem are written and sung primarily in English although a couple of them also have verses in both Hebrew and Arabic. Some of the songs are specific to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, while others take on that meaning due to the context of the album, the artist and his collaborators. Several of the songs are controversial just by virtue of who wrote them.

Among the highlights of Broza’s own songs is the title track, “East Jerusalem/ West Jerusalem,” which he co-wrote and sings with American-Haitian hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean. The song recognizes the essential humanity of all people – Israelis and Palestinians and others from around the world – and expresses a longing for shalom and salaam, and a time when “the world will be a better place.” The musical interaction of Broza’s singing and Jean’s rapping is captivating and convincing.

But, without doubt, the most poignant song on the album is Broza’s musical setting of “The Lion’s Den,” a poem written by Judea Pearl, the Israeli-American university professor, about the horrific murder of his son, journalist Daniel Pearl, by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan.

Written and sung as an imagined narrative by Daniel of what he was witnessing in Pakistan in his final days and hours, he observes that unspeakable evil is being committed and justified in God’s name. Although it is sung quietly, “The Lion’s Den” is a song of unmistakable and unforgettable power.

One song that I think misses its intended mark is “Jerusalem,” written by Steve Earle, the acclaimed American folk and alt-country artist who co-produced the album. While it’s certainly well intentioned, the song absurdly seems to suggest the conflict between “all the children of Abraham” will be resolved when Jews and Muslims get around to accepting the peaceful teachings of Christianity. The song’s essential message ignores centuries of war and oppression wrought in Jesus’ name. (I made this same point in 2002, when I reviewed Earle’s album, Jerusalem, in the Montreal Gazette.)

I mentioned that several songs are controversial just by virtue of who wrote them. The most notable of these is “Mother” from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, which was written by Roger Waters, perhaps the most fervent anti-Israel boycotter in popular music.

Others are “Every Day I Write the Book,” by Elvis Costello, who cancelled a concert in Israel in 2010 following pressure from Palestinian solidarity activists; and “Where Do the Children Play,” by Cat Stevens, a British convert to Islam, who is alleged to have provided support to Hamas.

I think that by including those songs Broza is reaching out to anti-Israel boycotters with a message that peace will be found through dialogue, co-operation and collaboration. If only they could understand that message.

February 17, 2014: Hannah Moscovitch confronts difficult subject in ‘This is War’

By Michael Regenstreif

Far too often recently, we’ve seen news reports of suicides committed by members of the Canadian Forces who have served in the war in Afghanistan. The post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by many of these mostly young men and women are probably incomprehensible to those of us who have not been in their circumstances.

With This Is War, playwright Hannah Moscovitch focuses on the effect of war on soldiers in an attempt to bring some measure of understanding to what they go through in the unrelenting life-and-death circumstances in which they serve.

Moscovitch – who grew up here in Ottawa and is one of Canada’s most acclaimed young theatre artists – has never shied away from difficult subjects. In 2012, the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC) produced Moscovitch’s East of Berlin, a play about the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and the son of a notorious Nazi death camp doctor who grew up not knowing about his father’s evil experiments. The GCTC production of This Is War opened at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre earlier this month and continues through February 23.

The play, set in the Panjwaii district of the Kandahar province of Afghanistan in 2008, looks at war and inter-related issues of love, hate, sex and violence from the perspectives of four Canadian soldiers: Master Corporal Tanya Young (Sarah Finn), Sergeant Stephen Hughes (John Ng), Private Jonny Henderson (Drew Moore – well remembered for his lead role in the 2012 Ottawa production of My Name is Asher Lev) and Sergeant Chris Anders, the company medic.

The play takes the form of a series of interviews with an unseen journalist or, perhaps, a military debriefer. Each of the four characters, who all show varying signs of PTSD after a joint mission with Afghan forces that seemingly led to terrible consequences involving deaths of children and fellow soldiers, recounts what happens back at the base as suppressed tensions came to the surface and exploded. As each of the four tells the story in turn, we see the same events re-enacted from the differing perspectives.

If there is a central character among the four, it is Master Corporal Young, a woman determined to prove her toughness equals or surpasses any of the men. Her tough exterior, though, masks a psyche bearing an overbearing weight of guilt over what happened on the mission-gone-wrong and her role in it. Her guilt plays out in an encounter with the sergeant who is her military superior that is utterly devoid of any love or tenderness and a violent attack upon the private who is infatuated, if not in love, with her.

While all four of the characters are at least somewhat deserving of empathy in reaction to the horrors they’ve been through, it is the 20-year-old Private Henderson, a naïve and inexperienced boy who’s forced to grow up fast in the circumstances, who garners the audience’s pity. Reeling from the results of the mission he’s brutalized psychologically by his sergeant and rebuffed and then violently attacked by Young. It is only the intervention of the concerned medic that keeps him from turning his gun on himself.

Sergeant Hughes is a veteran soldier who has probably seen it all far too many times. His PTSD is manifested in his indifference to the encounter with Young, his cruelty to the young private over it, and, perhaps, in the macho suppression of his true sexual identity.

The smallest role belongs to the most sympathetic of the four characters. The openly gay medic, Sergeant Anders, seems only to want to help the other three. Only with the private is it clear he has some measurable success.

This Is War is not an easy night at the theatre. Those of us sitting in the seats represent Canadian society and it forces us to think about the consequences of our decisions to fight wars and about the ways in which we respond to those consequences and to the effects on the people we put in harm’s way.