INSIDE: Homage to Montreal – Photos and Personal Stories
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Volume 1 • Issue 3 • October 2018 Co-editedVolume by Pearl 4 • Karal, Issue Myrna 2 • June Webber 2021 and Linda Morganstein. Assisted by Sharyn Cipin. Editors:Layout Pearl Karal, by Shayla Linda "Gee" Morganstein Enterprises Fen Reporter: Miriam Goldberg Once again, many thanks to Fred Maisel who has supplied much of Shana Tova 5779!the “miscellaneous” material for this issue. For the wonderful architectural photos of Montreal, we thank Rose Lenkov. "Grief is the price we pay for love." "Everybody wants Peace – and they will — Queen Elizabeth II fight the most terrible Wars to get it." INSIDE: Homage to Montreal – photos and personal stories Reufah Shlemah Do you like to sing? Condolences We, the residents of 2 Neptune Drive offer our congratulations to our ever-smiling concierge, Peter Kehinde, whose hard work at York University has earned him his MSc. Degree! Way to go, Peter! Netpune Mirror • Oct. 2018 • Page 1 RESIDENTS’ COUNCIL, PRESIDENT’S REPORT Toni Perl I have been thinking about where we were and where we are at this moment. Yes, it has been a difficult year so far, and I hope that the social interaction plans and changes we collectively made so far to the activity schedules with our great front man, Robert, show success in whatever we were able to plan and execute. I hear only good things from a lot of you, delivered with smiles and thanks – but yes, we also put out some fires. Celebrations, as they were presented, were the input and follow through from our I am so sad about the losses we have had hospitality committee and our delivery and we hope that those families know that volunteers. we are thinking of them and remembering better days. Looking forward, the Council is already buzzing with new hope of news for some loosening of the restrictions to bring the joy back to our very special home. SIGNS ON SYNAGOGUE BULETIN BOARDS: * Under the same management for 5,781 years * Don’t give up. Moses was once a basket case. * What part of “Thou shalt not” don’t you understand? * Sign over the urinal in a bathroom at Hebrew University: The future of the Jewish people is in your hands. Neptune Mirror • June 2021 • Page 2 FROM THE LIBRARY Sid Kardash Great books for serious readers! EDUCATED by Tara Westover THE BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER by Amy Tan An international best seller which details the memoir of a girl growing up A search into the recent past in the Chinese in a survivalist community in Idaho. countryside by a contemporary woman Lacking formal education, she teaches seeking to know who her mother was, the herself mathematics and grammar, enters locally famous Bonesetter from the Mouth university to study history, and eventually of the Mountain. A wonderful adventure enters Harvard and Cambridge. A by the author of the Joy Luck club. remarkable tale of the struggle for self- invention. THE JANSON DIRECTIVE by Robert Ludlum SEE THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE A near-mythical terrorist named The by Anthony Doerr Calif kidnaps one of the world’s greatest men. Enter Paul Johnson, a legend in Chosen as one of the ten best books of the secret American covert agency, who 2014 by the New York Times. A family forms an elite team in order to carry out flees occupied Paris in 1940 to St. Malo an ingenious rescue operation. Another and, as orphaned children, to a mining thriller by the author of some 3 dozen town in Germany where the discovery of espionage adventures. a crude radio transforms the life of the novel’s key character. QUEENSMAKER by India Edghill To reserve any of these books, The first novel by an American author call Sid Kardash at 647 340 8959 detailing the life of Michal, the wife of or email [email protected] King David of Israel who is the centre of the ongoing events and intrigues of palace life in Biblical Jerusalem. Neptune Mirror • June 2021 • Page 3 TO MONTREAL – WITH LOVE Rose Lenkov Imagine a little Eastern European shtetl transported to a major North American city in the early part of the 20th century, with its linguistic, cultural and gastronomical links to the Old Country. building on St. Urbain Street, an iconic Far fetched, perhaps? But that’s where and street made famous by the controversial how I grew up! Montreal author Mordecai Richler. His We were living in a ghetto of mainly poor novel, St. Urbain’s Horseman, became a Jewish immigrants; our neighbours were critically acclaimed best seller. French-Canadians and other ethnic newly Immersed as I was in Yiddishkeit and arrived Eastern European immigrants. Our Zionism, at the very same time I was glued parents, facing hardships adapting to the to the little wooden radio in a corner of our new world, were struggling just to provide kitchen, listening to the pop songs of the us with the necessities of life. Yet our Big Band swing era and World War II hit modest little “shtibl” was located behind songs. It was a period of musical excellence! the world renowned restaurant, Moishe’s Timeless melodies from the Great American Steak House. No one I knew at the time Songbook, brilliant artists who would could afford to eat steak at home, let alone forever be revered – I just couldn’t get dine out at a fancy restaurant. enough! Oh! The ironies of life! Ex-Montrealers of a certain age will surely The equally famous Schwartz’s Hebrew remember Club 800 on radio station Delicatessen was located just around the CJAD every afternoon after school and the corner on The Main – “a must” tourist and musical guests who were featured. Once I local destination for the very best smoked was lucky enough to get a ticket and saw meat to be had. But alas, this eatery was the legendary piano player, Oscar Peterson, “farbotten” to us since it was non-kosher. being interviewed. A Montreal native son! To my forever good fortune, our parents To continue a family tradition from the strived to keep us close to our traditional Old Country, my parents felt I should learn Jewish roots. While attending elementary to play a musical instrument. I was given school, I was also enrolled after school group mandolin lessons led by an elderly in the Folks Shule, later known as Jewish Jewish gentleman, where I learned to play Peoples School, where Yiddish and Hebrew Yiddish folk songs and traditional holiday reading and writing skills were taught. The songs. I am forever grateful. To this day, Shule was in a ramshackle little whenever we celebrate a Jewish holiday, I take out my mandolin and enjoy playing Neptune Mirror • June 2021 • Page 4 and singing the old holiday favourites. They and runs into early July. A large section evoke tender memories of “yom tov” family of the downtown core of the city actually gatherings over the years. gets closed down. Locals and tourists from around the world literally roam the city Montreal was a “wide open town”, the vice streets heading from one bandstand to capital of Canada during the 1940’s and another, choosing between countless free 50’s. It was Canada’s largest, richest, most shows performed by the best international vibrant and colourful city, still far ahead musicians and singers, both day and night. of Toronto. There were nightclubs galore Imagine doing this and not having to and strip clubs all over the downtown worry about traffic in a major metropolis! area, with the best floor shows and Of course, Place des Arts and other entertainment available. Ex-Montrealers of indoor concert halls also host a variety a certain generation will surely recall lining of first class jazz concerts featuring star up along Stanley Street or Mountain Street entertainers during the Festival. to get into the Downbeat Club, the Chez Paree or the Esquire, just to name a few, Well, the good professor gave me and of course, the El Morocco, supposedly permission to audit his summer course the best club in town. I remember during which he actually presented over a number those carefree years of socializing and of summers. So there I was every day, dating, the unforgettable performances of a mature woman (some may disagree), Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Sophie sitting in a university lecture room with Tucker, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf, and the young students, listening and learning from list goes on… the visits of Festival performers who the students interviewed and then followed up Decades later, my employment in the with a critique. There were in-person field administration at McGill University was trips to the Festival site as well, with me indeed a productive and satisfying period. tagging along with the rest of the class. A Besides the academic environment and its strange sight, no doubt! challenges, the energy of the students and their challenges, I often enjoyed attending Now that I am presently and permanently wonderful productions and concerts at the a resident of Toronto, I listen to Canada’s Faculty of Music and other Departments. only all-jazz station on Jazz FM91 every day on my little kitchen radio. Often Around the time I was planning to retire, I musicians and singers are played on air became friendly with a professor who was whom I enjoyed and became familiar with giving a summer jazz and arts course. He at the Montreal Jazz Festival. They are dear knew I was a big fan of the Montreal Jazz old friends. It’s fun following their careers. Festival and that I was knowledgeable of the genre and many artists.