TORONTO — Through a new organization called the Young Associates of the Canadian Friends of the Israel Museum, two twentysomethings hope to expose Toronto’s young professionals to one of Israel’s world-renowned institutions.
Jessica Waks, right, and Rina Zigler, left, the
CFIM Young Associates co-chairs, are working to raise the public
profile of Jerusalem’s Israel Museum, which is home to about half a
million works of art, Judaica and archeological finds.
On March 13, Waks and Zigler attracted about 130 young professionals to the group’s official launch with an event called Red, White and Moose, held at contemporary Canadian artist Charles Pachter’s private gallery, called the Moose Factory.
“I think a lot of people my age are starting to get interested in culture, wanting to start their own art collections, and this is a great way for them to learn about a great museum, a great institution, to give back to Israel in some way, but also to enrich themselves culturally,” said Waks, 23, who works as a communications co-ordinator for the Discovery Channel at CTV.
“Obviously, we’re not saving lives here. We’re not curing cancer, but culture is so important. Culture and art is people’s way of channelling creativity.”
CFIMis one of 14 organizations that financially support the Israel Museum. Funds raised by CFIM go to providing free admission to Israeli children of all faiths and ethnicities.
Zigler, a 22-year-old McGill University art history graduate, said she always wanted to find a way to get involved with CFIM.
In June 2005, Zigler moved to Jerusalem for seven months to go to Hebrew University and to intern in the Israel Museum’s contemporary art department.
She said that when she returned, she was disappointed to learn that so few young adults and art enthusiasts knew anything about the museum.
“You don’t know that it has an amazing contemporary section, that it has a beautiful sculpture garden… You don’t know about the youth wing,” Waks said.
This past summer, Zigler volunteered to help organize the Royal Ontario Museum’s Canada Collects event, which was held in October.
During the planning process, she decided to contact Waks, whom she had known since high school, to see if they could inject more of a youthful presence into the event.
After attracting a few young professionals to Canada Collects, they organized an informal wine-and-cheese CFIM event at Toronto’s Lonsdale Gallery in November, and from there, they formed the CFIM Young Associates committee, which consists of about 12 young adults in their 20s and 30s.
“Jessica and I got in touch, and the two of us, before we knew it, were the co-chairs of the Young Associates, and we’ve been starting up this program ever since. This is our first major event, our first independent event, our debut on the Toronto scene,” Zigler said.
Pachter, who is best known for his mural, Hockey Knights in Canada, in Toronto’s College Street subway station, lent his private gallery to the sold-out event, which had a Canadian red-and-white theme.
“[The venue] is a modern masterpiece,” Waks said. “It has won a bunch of architectural awards, and the thing about Charlie is that he has such a connection to the museum. He is an artist, he’s Jewish and his mom was [the late] Sara Pachter,” who was an avid supporter of Israel and led countless tours to the Holy Land.
Although there was a strong Jewish aspect to the launch, the invited crowd wasn’t exclusively Jewish.
“Our belief is that the museum is one of Israel’s best institutions, and to help project Israel for her democratic values and for her cultural identity, it detracts from another side of the country that the media often projects,” Zigler said.
Waks said that at the event at the Lonsdale Gallery, they showed a video about the children involved with the museum’s youth wing.
“After the Katyusha rockets in the north [of Israel] destroyed all the forests [during the 2006 Second Lebanon War], the kids from the youth wing in the museum came and painted these beautiful installations on wooden tree cut outs in the forest. It was such a powerful image to have kids from Christian, Muslim and Jewish backgrounds all coming together and expressing themselves through art and promoting the idea of peace.”
Zigler said she hopes the Young Associates will help expose Torontonians to one of Israel’s finest institutions.
“It’s a really great way for the international arts community to get a better understanding of the country, and we think it’s a really great institution to support. We want to target young people who, if they’re not interested in Israel, they’re interested in art, and by virtue of being interested in arts, they’ll come to the events and learn about the museum.”