Blog'jour: Notes from the front:
From Friday February 12 - Friday, February 19th. 2010
My new strategy for this blog:
My days are so full that I plan to use this blog as an update of my thoughts and activities during the week with video clips and links.
I am finding that if I don't write these things down right away, they get lost and never get done. And my weeks are really full.
So here goes starting with today and going back one week to last Friday. I hope you find it interesting enough to come along on my journey.
I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU THE HIGHLIGHTS.
FRIDAY FEB. 12TH
3 -5PM
A once in a lifetime opportunity to INTERVIEW SUSAN WEIDMAN SCHNEIDER, Chief editor of LILLITH MAGAZINE: http://www.lilith.org/about.htm?PHPSESSID=cefc972d8a1127aeeca4c70b7c14a7e7
I grabbed a cab and picked up FRAMBOISE BABULOT and SONIA SARAH LIPSYC.
We had a Tunisan cab driver on the way there. he immediately icked up Sonia Sarah's North African French accent.
SHABBAT RETREAT at DORSHEI EMET:
Pot luck Friday night and the opportunity to listen and interact with Susan Weidman Schneider
SATURDAY NIGHT:
BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR LEA BENEGBI AT MY PLACE WITH
ALBERT NIRENBERG LAUGHOLOGIST EXTRAORDINAIRE , FILMMAKER AND
GAZETTE COLUMNIST
MONDAY;
Work at home feverishly to find a caretaker for my sister for when she returns from day surgery tomorrow.
TUESDAY:
surgery cancelled: work at home with Framboise
5:15 I grabbed a cab and pulled out my camera. (I have been systematically recording my cab rides and conversations with cab drivers, they are an amazing source of wisdom and very cooperative.) This time it was a Jewish Morrocan cab driver, pretty much the same demographic that we were about to discuss. He gave me his name and it is on the video which he said I could feel free to use and I will post it later for those of you who want to share my cab ride.
5:30 focus group at CJA Federation on developing future services for seniors
As I walked into the Gelber center (5151 Cote St. Catherine) I said hello to a woman entering and as we gave each other a second look we both realized that we did not know each other. I asked her where she was going and she told me she was going to a meeting of the LYMPHODEMA SOCIETY !!!!
WOW....
My sister has been dealing with this for the last three months. Nobody knows how to treat it. I had to take two minutes to check this out.
Sure enough the Lymphodema society was having its meetings: one in
English: one in French: They meet 3-4 times per year and have some very nice handouts and a permanent office and tel. number:
514-979-2463
AQL/LAQ
Association québécoisedu lymphoedème
Lymphodema Association of Quebec
I also got the number of this sweet woman to give to my sister for a personal contact. thank you.
The FEDERATION meeting was lively, approx.10 people from various areas of Montreal and varying demographic configurations.
TERRY TRAGER will report on the meeting on their website and invite anyone in the community to also voice their opinion.
My own review;
Concerns are for health and cultural services in a Jewish social milieu as people age.
Services for Jews are sparser in the suburbs.
There is an interest in grassroots involvement in creation and functioning of all programs and a request for an ongoing information service to help people seeking services including volunteer opportunities.
Check out their website to express your own opinion.
I met some amazing people there and we exchanged contact information.
From there I took a taxi to the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue to catch:
TUESDAY NIGHT LEARNING AT THE SHAAR
Here I participated in a class with Alice Lehrer,
"Whats the "good" in Judaism? a brief History.
and then an amazing class by Rabbi Howard Joseph, Rabbi emeritus of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue on, "The Religious dynamics in the music and poetry of Leonard Cohen"
followed by a special rendition of Cohen's Halleluyah by Alon,a young musicam intern from Israel.
WEDNESDAY
AM
I discover BBC world radio program: Witness, a fiveminute segment of live witness to history accounts: today the account of a Jewish prisoner who survived the bombing in Dresden under Nazi guard.
PM
Working at home with Framboise, we lose our computer connection.
We go over to CUTV and participate in the filming of the Vegan Iron Chef program
at Concordia U. Lots of vegan munchies and cool video.
Late afternoon:
I learn that my sister has been admitted to hospitl for tests. I pass the camera equipment to framboise to film the Jewish/Christian dialogue meeting at the Reform Temple that evening and head over to the hospital and home to bed. Whew!!! She is pleased that she will get a speedy assessment.
THURSDAY
8- 9 am meet with my trainer Steve Hoather: another amazing session feeding both body and mind. this time we talk about health and wellness and disability. (I record this on the i-phone and hope to publish it eventually perhaps even here in future.)
12:15 Michael Yeung picks me up to go to the Cummings Centre to videotape the Human Promise Conference on Human Rights.
PROGRAM SPEAKERS: 1- 4 pm
Allii Carr: at 28 years old she has 9 years of international volunteer experience and is in the process of building a school for disabled children in Ghana,West Africa called Happy village International:
Murray Levine replaced a guest who could not show up on short notice and shared about his fundraising efforts over the last thirty years for all kinds of causes.
Hélène Massé's students (autistic) from École de la Magdeleine in La Prairie
presented a powerpoint which they created on the plight of African child soldiers and child witches.
Ky'oksing Kirunga a field representative for the Stephen Lewis Foundation spoke about HIV/AIDS in Africa and the work the foundation is doing in this area.
Maya Smith and Nick Pang, interns in the Faiths Act Fellowship, presented a project that all present participated in.
The message to all was "you are powerful and you can make a difference"
I think I will stop here.
Oh yes, my sister was discharged from the hospital yesterday. The cat scan was negative.
We spoke this morning and she agreed with Dr. Bali that she needs to take a deep breath and go with the flow as the body heals itself.
G-d bless you all!
what a week!
Shabbat shalom...
Abigail Hirsch
514-792-6065
Blogger: http://askabigail.blogspot.com/
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/askabigail
AskAbigail Productions
Shalom Foundation for Healing Community:
Fondation shalom pour la guérison des communautés
RADIO NETHERLANDS worlwide: the State Were in: Taking back Jihad
The State We're In, 20 February 2010. Noman Benotman was a jihadist who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. He’s still a jihadist, but believes that the extremists are “idiots” and immoral. He wants the term restored to its spiritual sense and is fighting now with words, instead of guns, to do just that.
Listen to this week's show in full:
en_the_state_were_in_44_1kHz_20100219_174931.mp3
Taking back jihad
Noman Benotman spent five years as a jihadist fighter until he realised that the concept of jihad had been perverted and he told Osama Bin Laden and his followers as much. Now he’s waging a war of ideas and believes that the days of the extremists are numbered.
Fighting words
Noman and other Muslim thinkers have created a 400-page text that attempts to undermine the extremist interpretation of jihad. He hopes it may help change the course of history.
en_the_state_were_in_44_1kHz_20100219_174931.mp3
Taking back jihad
Noman Benotman spent five years as a jihadist fighter until he realised that the concept of jihad had been perverted and he told Osama Bin Laden and his followers as much. Now he’s waging a war of ideas and believes that the days of the extremists are numbered.
Fighting words
Noman and other Muslim thinkers have created a 400-page text that attempts to undermine the extremist interpretation of jihad. He hopes it may help change the course of history.
YEL, Yaacobi et Liedenthal de Hanokh Levin chez le theatre Prospero avec café théatrale d'Aleph
A happening this Wednesday at the Theatre Prospero, a delightful and deep musical about the relationships between two male friends, one husband and one wife: A play by Hanokh Levin, an Israeli playwright translated into French. After the play, there will be a discussion animated by Sonia Sarah Lipsyc of Aleph.
It will be an opportunity for the Dibboulk group of actors to meet as well. I am one of them. also I will be videotaping the post play activities.
See you there!!
http://soniasarahlipsyc.canalblog.com
Chères amies du Dibbouk, cher Joseph,
Que pensez-vous si on se rencontrait au Théâtre Prospéro ce mercredi 3 février pour le Café Théâtral d'ALEPH à 19 heures!
Au plaisir de vous revoir.
Mireille.
Bonjour Mireille et les dibboukim,
J'ai vu la pièce et c'est un chef-d'oeuvre à tous points de vues. Vous passerez une superbe soirée, je vous l'assure.
Je vous embrasse. Au plaisir de vous revoir bientôt. De très belles activités Aleph en perspective. Guila Chétrit
It will be an opportunity for the Dibboulk group of actors to meet as well. I am one of them. also I will be videotaping the post play activities.
See you there!!
http://soniasarahlipsyc.canalblog.com
Chères amies du Dibbouk, cher Joseph,
Que pensez-vous si on se rencontrait au Théâtre Prospéro ce mercredi 3 février pour le Café Théâtral d'ALEPH à 19 heures!
Au plaisir de vous revoir.
Mireille.
Bonjour Mireille et les dibboukim,
J'ai vu la pièce et c'est un chef-d'oeuvre à tous points de vues. Vous passerez une superbe soirée, je vous l'assure.
Je vous embrasse. Au plaisir de vous revoir bientôt. De très belles activités Aleph en perspective. Guila Chétrit
Theatrical reading of "Address Unknown" followed by a panel discussion about civic engagement
This year marks the 65th year since the liberation of Auschwitz and to commemorate this important day, the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum invites you to a theatrical reading of "Address Unknown" followed by a panel discussion about civic engagement at 5151Cote-Ste-Catherine Road, the Gelber Centre in Montreal
◦ Address Unknown was written in 1938, as a series of letters between a Jewish art dealer, living in San Francisco, and his German best friend and business partner, who had returned to Germany in 1932 and gradually adopted the ideology of Nazism,
◦ at 6:00pm: French Reading at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum,
◦ at 7:00pm: English Reading at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum.
•
◦ At 8H15pm : Following the Readings, a Panel discussion about the importance of civic engagement
The role of the everyday citizen in genocide prevention and other human rights abuses,
Moderated by Alice Herscovitch, Executive Director of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (MHMC),
◦ with the participation of Susyn Borer, President of Board of Directors, MHMC,
◦ a reprensentative of the Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by War, Genocide, and other Human Rights Violations,
◦ And Steve Baird, Executive Director of The Darfur/Sudan Peace Network.
Audience members will have the opportunity to meet representatives from different human rights organisations, and learn about volunteer opportunities.
Looking forward to seeing you there,
◦ Address Unknown was written in 1938, as a series of letters between a Jewish art dealer, living in San Francisco, and his German best friend and business partner, who had returned to Germany in 1932 and gradually adopted the ideology of Nazism,
◦ at 6:00pm: French Reading at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum,
◦ at 7:00pm: English Reading at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum.
•
◦ At 8H15pm : Following the Readings, a Panel discussion about the importance of civic engagement
The role of the everyday citizen in genocide prevention and other human rights abuses,
Moderated by Alice Herscovitch, Executive Director of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre (MHMC),
◦ with the participation of Susyn Borer, President of Board of Directors, MHMC,
◦ a reprensentative of the Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by War, Genocide, and other Human Rights Violations,
◦ And Steve Baird, Executive Director of The Darfur/Sudan Peace Network.
Audience members will have the opportunity to meet representatives from different human rights organisations, and learn about volunteer opportunities.
Looking forward to seeing you there,
About my family in Hungary during the Second World War
The earthquake in Haiti recently prompted me to recall these memories about survival of a different sort.
I grew up with the stories of my family – their courageous attempts to save themselves and those around them during the 10 plus years of the Nazi onslaught:
There was the German soldier who waved my mother away from the ghetto where German soldiers were rounding up Jews.
The Hungarian couple, Gozon neni and Gozon baci who found work for my aunt Lilly as a maid with a Hungarian family, and accepted my teenage uncles to stay in his home when they escaped the Nazi soldiers who were marching their school group through Budapest saying to anyone who asked, “these are our cousins visiting us from the country.” I visited the home of this dear man, five years ago when I and my sister Anita and her two sons Noam and Yair and their wives, Maya and Ilana, visited Hungary with my Mom, Edith, who was then in her eighties. During the war, Gozon baci was the superintendant of a small apartment building in fashionable Buda on the way to the national park overlooking the Danube, which still exists with its monuments and overlook, and which had been the billeting site for the German army. Gozon baci’s daughter was dating a German officer and he would come to the house.
All these people, my aunt Lilli, my aunt Margit, my uncles,Tibi, and André as well as my dear Mother, Edith are alive today due to the bravery of this man and his wife and sister. Sadly Gozon neni and Gozon baci and even their children are long gone, but their memory will always be with me and with my family, and I hope through this blog with you.
Abigail Hirsch
Montreal, 1/27/2010
AskAbigail Productions
Shalom Foundation for Healing in Community: Fondation Shalom pour la guérison en communauté
Blogger: http://askabigail.blogspot.com/
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/AskAbigail
facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/askabigail
Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/askabigail
I grew up with the stories of my family – their courageous attempts to save themselves and those around them during the 10 plus years of the Nazi onslaught:
There was the German soldier who waved my mother away from the ghetto where German soldiers were rounding up Jews.
The Hungarian couple, Gozon neni and Gozon baci who found work for my aunt Lilly as a maid with a Hungarian family, and accepted my teenage uncles to stay in his home when they escaped the Nazi soldiers who were marching their school group through Budapest saying to anyone who asked, “these are our cousins visiting us from the country.” I visited the home of this dear man, five years ago when I and my sister Anita and her two sons Noam and Yair and their wives, Maya and Ilana, visited Hungary with my Mom, Edith, who was then in her eighties. During the war, Gozon baci was the superintendant of a small apartment building in fashionable Buda on the way to the national park overlooking the Danube, which still exists with its monuments and overlook, and which had been the billeting site for the German army. Gozon baci’s daughter was dating a German officer and he would come to the house.
All these people, my aunt Lilli, my aunt Margit, my uncles,Tibi, and André as well as my dear Mother, Edith are alive today due to the bravery of this man and his wife and sister. Sadly Gozon neni and Gozon baci and even their children are long gone, but their memory will always be with me and with my family, and I hope through this blog with you.
Abigail Hirsch
Montreal, 1/27/2010
AskAbigail Productions
Shalom Foundation for Healing in Community: Fondation Shalom pour la guérison en communauté
Blogger: http://askabigail.blogspot.com/
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/AskAbigail
facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/askabigail
Linkedin: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/askabigail
Feelings and thoughts about the earthquake in Haiti
Thoughts about the earthquake in Haiti
As I watch the unfolding of the events in Haiti. I feel numb. I was not alive in 1945 but I think to myself this is what the coverage of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima would have been like, only much worse due to the tremendous pain caused by any burning flesh.
As much as nature’s cruelty is awesome, I am reminded that man’s can be worse. I was born after the second world war, but my parents survived the Nazi onslaught in Hungary, both the invading armies, German and Russian, and the Nazi drive to exterminate Jews and others deemed “inferior”, gypsies, the handicapped, democrats, communists, and all those who did not support their ideology which lasted over 10 years from 1933 - 1945. I have spent my life trying to understand how something like this could have actually been put into place by the likes of Eichmann, Hitler, and Goering, and the silent acquiescence of those who did not speak up to oppose them.
On Sunday the day after the earthquake I joined an internet gratitude site. Yesterday morning, they sent me a notice asking why I had not posted anything. As much as I wanted to, I was numb: and then as I left the house yesterday morning on my way to a rehearsal with my camera equipment (I am videotaping the process of the creation of a play about human rights initiated by a class of autistic boys and girls and jointly produced by them and several non-autistic boys and girls from the same school, and a group of boys and girls from Herzliyah High school in Montreal which is on exactly this same theme: connâitre l’histoire pour ne pas conter des histoires) the following words came to me:
Moda ani lefaneha, Melech Hai ve Kayam, shehehezarta bi nishmati behemlah, rabah emunateha (and my friend Miriam Ohevetel adds the word bi.)
I am grateful to You, Living and Ongoing Source of All, for restoring my breath,(my soul) to me this morning. How great is your compassion and courageous faith: and my friend Miriam adds the word “bi” Hebrew for “in me”.
This is the formula for the start of all morning Jewish prayer. And I felt the revival of my spirit, the sudden revival of hope that is so necessary especially in the darkest of times as recently pointed out by Rabbi Steinmetz in his talk on the parsha relating to the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt (Vaeerah)
I am still here and I can do good in this world.
Abigail Hirsch
514-792-6065
Blogger: http://askabigail.blogspot.com/
Twitter:http://twitter.com/AskAbigail
AskAbigail Productions
Shalom Foundation for Healing in Community: Fondation Shalom pour la Guérison des communautés
As I watch the unfolding of the events in Haiti. I feel numb. I was not alive in 1945 but I think to myself this is what the coverage of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima would have been like, only much worse due to the tremendous pain caused by any burning flesh.
As much as nature’s cruelty is awesome, I am reminded that man’s can be worse. I was born after the second world war, but my parents survived the Nazi onslaught in Hungary, both the invading armies, German and Russian, and the Nazi drive to exterminate Jews and others deemed “inferior”, gypsies, the handicapped, democrats, communists, and all those who did not support their ideology which lasted over 10 years from 1933 - 1945. I have spent my life trying to understand how something like this could have actually been put into place by the likes of Eichmann, Hitler, and Goering, and the silent acquiescence of those who did not speak up to oppose them.
On Sunday the day after the earthquake I joined an internet gratitude site. Yesterday morning, they sent me a notice asking why I had not posted anything. As much as I wanted to, I was numb: and then as I left the house yesterday morning on my way to a rehearsal with my camera equipment (I am videotaping the process of the creation of a play about human rights initiated by a class of autistic boys and girls and jointly produced by them and several non-autistic boys and girls from the same school, and a group of boys and girls from Herzliyah High school in Montreal which is on exactly this same theme: connâitre l’histoire pour ne pas conter des histoires) the following words came to me:
Moda ani lefaneha, Melech Hai ve Kayam, shehehezarta bi nishmati behemlah, rabah emunateha (and my friend Miriam Ohevetel adds the word bi.)
I am grateful to You, Living and Ongoing Source of All, for restoring my breath,(my soul) to me this morning. How great is your compassion and courageous faith: and my friend Miriam adds the word “bi” Hebrew for “in me”.
This is the formula for the start of all morning Jewish prayer. And I felt the revival of my spirit, the sudden revival of hope that is so necessary especially in the darkest of times as recently pointed out by Rabbi Steinmetz in his talk on the parsha relating to the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt (Vaeerah)
I am still here and I can do good in this world.
Abigail Hirsch
514-792-6065
Blogger: http://askabigail.blogspot.com/
Twitter:http://twitter.com/AskAbigail
AskAbigail Productions
Shalom Foundation for Healing in Community: Fondation Shalom pour la Guérison des communautés
Campus Ahead Program: free: Feb 2nd 6:30- 8:30 Cote St.Luc
The next Campus Ahead session will be held from 6:30-8:30pm on Tuesday, February 2nd at the Beth Israel Beth Aaron Synagogue on Mackle (in Cote Saint Luc). This session will explore, differentiate and grapple with traditional antisemitism, the new antisemitism and anti-Israelism. Through a mix of interactive polling, discussions and real-life experiences from student leaders, we will explore the implications, responses and trends on campus.
This session is free for all post-secondary school students as well as students in Secondary V (grade 11) who are likely to be on a college campus next year. Supper will be served. So we can prepare properly, please register
online. For more information, please contact Jason (514.845.9171).
Tell your friends!
This session is free for all post-secondary school students as well as students in Secondary V (grade 11) who are likely to be on a college campus next year. Supper will be served. So we can prepare properly, please register
online. For more information, please contact Jason (514.845.9171).
Tell your friends!
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