Controversial play should foster dialogue, Jewish Congress says

By Andrew Serba

In 2003, American activist Rachel Corrie died protesting the demolition of a Palestinian house on the Gaza Strip. In 2006, a play based on her diaries premiered in London, England. Niki Landau, the artistic director of Theatre Panik, wants Torontonians to experience the play.

“It was put on three times in London and it won several awards there,” she said.

The play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, has drawn a negative response from the members of some Jewish communities.

Esther Arbeid is the film and theatre program coordinator at the Toronto Jewish Community Centre (JCC). She hopes that when the play opens in Toronto, the JCC can help facilitate a neutral, informed debate about the play and the issues surrounding it.

“I don’t think that there’s a reason to be nervous about art,” Arbeid said. “We don’t have a political agenda in our cultural program . . . If you’re going to speak out against something, one should do so after they’ve done all their research and they know what they’re talking about.”

My Name is Rachel Corrie attracted controversy in North America when a large theatre company in New York and CanStage in Toronto cancelled their plans to stage it. Theatre Panik will show the play in Toronto beginning May 29.

Meanwhile, the JCC has scheduled a theatre forum for May 15 to discuss the play and the issues surrounding it.

Artistic Director Landau said that she feels most of the people who believe the play will spark anti-Israeli sentiment haven’t read or seen it. At the same time, she noted that as a work of art, a one-woman play cannot be expected to be entirely neutral or tell all the sides of a very complicated story.

“I think there are people in the Jewish community, and I am part of the Jewish community, that are afraid that the play is going to make people have anti-Israeli feelings,” she said. “They’re worried that because she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer that that’s damaging to Israel . . . They’re worried that it’s one sided, and they’re not wrong. It’s not the Palestinian side, but it’s the side of one activist.”

Jordan Kerbel, a spokesperson for the Canadian Jewish Congress, said that any informed debate that the play fosters should be seen in a positive light.

“As long as people realize that it’s one person’s view, from what one person saw, I see no problem with the play being put on. Anything that encourages open debate is a good thing.”

Landau said that the controversy surrounding the play in North America generally means that only smaller theatre companies can take a chance on it.

“We don’t have a board of directors to say ‘don’t do it’ and we don’t have subscribers to get upset,” she said.

The play’s success in London alone, she added, warrants a chance for Toronto theatre-goers to see the play.

“It was put on 3 times in London and it won several awards there,” she said. “Once there’s a major urban centre that finds it worthwhile, it’s hard to say that Toronto doesn’t deserve the same opportunity.”

Tax clinics offer valuable outreach

By Andrew Serba

This year thousands of people across Toronto will turn to free tax clinics to file their taxes and ensure they get the services and benefits they are entitled to.

Nancy Garrow, a retired paralegal who will volunteer at the St. Christopher House tax clinic for her fifth consecutive year, said that for people with low income, or no income at all, filing for income tax and getting into the system can be a turning point in their lives.

She recalled a young man who came to the clinic recovering from years of drug addiction, hoping to get a hold of his finances so he could go back to school.

“When we finally filed his returns for him, we did about six years for him. He was going to get about $2, 500,” she said. “I remember him because it was like a light went off for him; ‘I can make a change in my life that’s going to be significant,’ [he thought].”

St. Christopher House, a secular community group funded in part by the United Way, is ready to open its fifth tax clinic since 2003. It has trained 20 volunteers year. The clinic will run from March 3 to April 30 and will operate out of four locations. St. Christopher house focuses its efforts in downtown Toronto’s west-end.

Last year, St. Christopher House ran four of the Greater Toronto Area’s 61 “Community Volunteer Income Tax Program locations,” according to Barbara Gal-Jagielski, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA). In 2007, 700 volunteers completed over 15,000 tax and benefit returns.

The free clinics are open to single people who make less than $25,000 and couples or single parents who make less than $30,000. An additional $2,000 is added to the threshold for each dependent.

Miryam Zeballos, the Coordinator of the St. Christopher House Financial Advocacy and Problem Solving Program, said that they have seen a five-fold increase in the number of clients they serve. Last year’s clinic saw volunteers file on behalf of almost 1,000 people, resulting in over $1.6 million in returns, she said.

Zeballos noted that the government relies on the income tax system to distribute Child Benefits, the Ontario Disability Support Program, Old Age Security and energy rebates.

“The government transfers income through the tax system,” she noted. “If you don’t do a return, [then] in August, your benefits are cut.”

The CRA Trains volunteer tax preparers each year from October to December for free. St. Christopher house also trains its volunteers on how to deal with problems that their clients often face.

According to Garrow, the tax clinic often acts as a gateway through which their clients get further financial and legal advice.

“We’re dealing with people who have street salaries, or people who are on social assistance or people who are on ODSP,” Garrow said. “And we get seniors, so we’re just getting them old age security . . . so they’re pretty straight forward returns that we do.”

Garrow, who has volunteered all her life, said that working at the clinic has changed the way she views many people and the system they are confronted with.

“Nobody wants to be low-income,” she said. “[I’ve also realized] how complicated the system is and how problematic it is for people to sort through it. If we can help them, then that’s great.”

** Originally published @ Toronto Observer **

Residential sprinklers save lives, Toronto firefighters say

Toronto Fire Chief William Stewart addressed his colleagues and the media at a press conference and sprinkler demo at the Toronto Fire Academy on Jan. 17. The Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs is calling on the province to require residential sprinkler systems in all new residential units.

By Andrew Serba

Toronto firefighters often face greater danger in some residential fires than their Vancouver counterparts.

The difference is that fire sprinklers now protect close to 40 per cent of all Vancouver’s residences, according to Les Sziklai, a deputy chief with the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services. Vancouver bylaws have required sprinklers in all new residential units since 1990.

“If we have fires in sprinklered buildings it turns into usually not much more than a cleanup of going to the building, stopping the water [and] putting out the spot fire,” Sziklai said. “[The fire] is usually contained to the one room.”

Sziklai said that there is “no comparison” between fighting a fire in a sprinkler-protected building versus one without. An average fire in a protected residence, he said, “would not be considered to be a very dangerous firefighting situation at all.”

Ontario is the last jurisdiction in North America where sprinkler systems are not mandatory in any residences. According to Deputy Chief Frank Lamie of the Toronto Fire Services, a residential fire in a sprinkler-protected residence would not spread as easily, create as much smoke or burn as hot as a fire in a residence without sprinklers. This would make it easier for residents to escape and for firefighters to battle the fire.

In residential buildings, small rooms filled with flammable materials create an environment where a fire raises the temperature quickly. Lamie said this may result in a phenomenon known as flashover, the main problem faced in residential fires.

“The combustibles in the room get hot enough that they spontaneously ignite so you get flames that shoot across the ceiling,” he said. “It draws the air out of the room. Of course the temperature just skyrockets, so if a firefighter is in there when that happens it is extremely dangerous.”

“[When a sprinkler is activated] you’re not going to get flashover,” Sziklai said. “You don’t end up with a lot of materials burning, and that now reduces toxic gasses and smoke . . . and you’re not going to get structural failure because the fire never has a chance to extend.”

Two recent fatal fires in Toronto have galvanized support behind the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs’ (OAFC) call to make sprinklers mandatory in all new residential units. One fire killed a mother and two of her children in their townhouse. Another fire destroyed an apartment and killed a 75-year-old man. Lamie said lives could have been saved by sprinklers.

“Had those been sprinklered, in the townhouse situation, I’m not sure the mother would have been saved, but for sure the children would have been,” Lamie said. “It would have contained the fire and the children would have had time to escape.”

Of 18 fire deaths in 2007 in Toronto, Lamie said that 14 would likely have been prevented by residential sprinkler systems.

According to Sziklai, from 1994 to the present, Vancouver has experienced only six fire deaths in sprinkler-protected residences.

Linda Jeffrey, MPP for Brampton-Springdale, said the Ontario government is considering making residential sprinklers mandatory in highrises of three stories or more. She said it would only require a simple amendment to the building code.

** Originally published @ Toronto Observer **

Holocaust survivor speaks of visas and a hero

Solly Ganor, Holocaust survivor

By Andrew Serba

It was snowing that May 2, 62 years ago. His German captors roused Lithuanian-born Solly Ganor from his prison barracks. They forced the prisoners on a death march from the Dachau concentration camp. Arriving at a clearing in the woods, the prisoners were made to lie down. The snow blanketed them as they awaited their fate.

“When the Germans received their orders to shoot us . . . they shot into the snow and killed a few (of us) and then just took off.” Ganor said. The next moment Ganor looked up and saw a Japanese man in an American uniform.

“I heard him say in English ‘you’re safe now, you’re safe now,’ and I realized that it must be a Japanese American,” he said. “I realized that he must be Japanese because he looked like Chiune Sugihara, who I remembered from my childhood.”

This week, Ganor made the trip from Israel to speak at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre’s Wednesday-night screening of the film “Visas and Virtues,” presented in partnership with the Holocaust Education Week Committee. The film, directed by Chris Tashima, honours the wartime efforts of the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara.

Sugihara, posted at the Japanese consulate in Ganor’s hometown of Kaunas, Lithuania, disobeyed orders from Tokyo to validate more than 2,000 visas for Jews fleeing persecution, many from Nazi-occupied Poland. Tashima’s film portrayed Sugihara as he worked tirelessly to hand-write the visas for as many people as he could. He wrote in his home after Tokyo closed the consulate. He wrote on the train platform as he was recalled from his post.

The visas, issued to individuals and families, allowed over 6,000 people to escape to safety through Japan.

Ganor told how, in December 1940, he first met Sugihara in his aunt’s gourmet shop in Lithuania. Soon after, his family had Sugihara and his wife, Yukiko, over for a Hanukkah dinner.

Six months later, the diplomat’s visa-writing efforts began.

Ganor remembered Polish refugees in Lithuania searching desperately for visas, and he saw thousands find help from Sugihara. The Soviet invasion of Lithuania rendered Ganor’s passport invalid.

“We were among the first to receive visas from Sugihara,” he said. “But because our passports were invalid these visas became worthless.”

Ganor’s memories of Sugihara remain vivid today. Although Sugihara’s visa could not help Ganor during the holocaust, his memories of the diplomat’s selflessness helped him through the dark days he had to endure.

“I will always remember him as a ray of light in a sea of darkness,” Ganor said.

** Originally published in the East Toronto Observer **