Primrose Madayag Knazan is the winner of the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition, and her new play, Precipice, is about a Filipino-Canadian woman who converts to Judaism—just like she did.
The Winnipeg resident’s play debuted in 2021 at the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre’s So, Nu? Festival, beating nearly two dozen entries to claim the top prize.
Madayag Knazan calls Precipice a love letter to the symbolism and ceremony of Judaism. The former Catholic wanted to study the Jewish religion after meeting her husband-to-be’s rabbi, Alan Green, who had lived in the Philippines. Now the Knazans are raising their family in the Jewish tradition, with their sons enrolled in parochial school and one having recently celebrated his bar mitzvah.
Madayag Knazan joins The CJN Daily to discuss how her play, as well as her new novel Lessons in Fusion, provide a mirror for children like hers to face the challenges of being a visible minority within Canada’s Jewish community.
Episode Transcript:
Note: Transcripts are generated automatically by a computer. They may contain some errors.
Rochelle Kives:
Now here I am at the edge of the Mikvah. I am not at the end of the path, but at the crossroads. And I must make the choice that will determine who I am and where I will stand tomorrow. This shouldn’t be that hard. To Jew or not to Jew? That’s the question, right?
Ellin Bessner:
That’s the sound at the So Nu? festival from Winnipeg’s Jewish Theatre last year, and that was the first reading of a new play called “Precipice”. The author is Primrose Madayag Knazan. She wrote it to describe the journey of a Filipino woman converting to Judaism and navigating between the two cultures. It’s a familiar theme. The Winnipegger did something like that herself nearly 20 years ago when she met and later married her husband, who was Jewish. “Precipice” has just won first prize in this year’s Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition. The author is no stranger to exploring the themes of identity and Canadian and Jewish diversity through her art. Her newest book for young readers is called “Lessons in Fusion”, about what it’s like to grow up during the pandemic as a minority in a minority, a mixed race Jewish Filipino girl in a community where there aren’t many others like them.
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
I specifically wrote the novel so that my son would want to read again, and I wanted him to find a story about himself that he could relate to. And that was my biggest accomplishment, to find something he would read. And now, hopefully for other people to read.
Ellin Bessner:
I’m Ellin Bessner, and this is What Jewish Canada Sounds Like for Thursday, February 24, 2022. Welcome to the CJN Daily, sponsored by Metropia.
Primrose Madayag Knazan’s new play beat out 20 others to win the Jewish Playwriting Competition. The judges come from the Seagull Centre in Montreal, Winnipeg’s Jewish Theatre, the Neptune in Halifax, and the Harold Green in Toronto. For coming first, she gets a cash prize, but more importantly, she gets sessions with the dramaturg and other theatre people, including some actors, to actually workshop the play on stage and present it at the Miles Nadal JCC in Toronto later this year. Madayag Knazan’s parents immigrated to Canada in the 1970s. She was born in Manitoba. She’s written other pieces for the theatre before. She’s also a well-known food blogger in Winnipeg, and she’s got a day job with the federal government. Coming up, Madayag Knazan will be here to explain why she wanted her sons to have books and theatre that they can relate to. But first, here’s what’s making news elsewhere in Canada right now.
Barbara Perry:
I’m Barbara Perry at Ontario Tech University, and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like.
Ellin Bessnere:
As the city of Ottawa recovers from three weeks of turmoil under the recent truckers convoy protests. Here’s a story that couldn’t have come at a better time. A local Jewish group in Ottawa has launched a week-long challenge to spread a little kindness. They’re asking people to pay a nice compliment to somebody, a sincere compliment, and then challenge others to do the same. They’ve got a little video lesson on how to do it properly. It’s called Compliments 101, and we’ll play some of it for you at the end of the show. The Compliments Challenge comes as Canada marks its first ever National Kindness Week. Parliament adopted the law last year in honour of the late Ottawa Rabbi Reuven Bulka.
Primrose Madayag Knazan joins me now from her home in Winnipeg.
Ellin Bessner:
It’s great to meet you, and congratulations for winning the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition Award. Amazing.
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
Thank you so much.
Ellin Bessner:
Was it a surprise?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
Well, I don’t assume I’m going to win anything. I hope. And so many people have told me that it was such a good play, and that because of the subject matter of being Filipino and Jewish, it’s a story that you don’t see very often, that I had a good chance of winning. That’s what people told me. I had looked over previous winners, and I knew I would be in with a good company if I was a winner. So I’m just very honoured to have been selected.
Ellin Bessner:
Tell us a little 30 second blurb what it is, and I have a quick question about it. So first, you go ahead.
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
This play is about the journey of a Filipino woman who converts to Judaism. And this journey takes her from her future in-laws Seder table to a synagogue in the Philippines. And she uses ceremony and the beautiful symbolism and Judaism to bridge her fractured family.
Ellin Bessner:
I don’t know if our listeners will be aware that there are synagogues in the Philippines. So is there a Jewish community in the Philippines? What did you know about it when you started writing this?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
Well, what had happened was that when I met my husband, we fell in love and he proposed. Then I decided to look into converting. When I met with the Rabbi, his Rabbi at the time, Rabbi Green, at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, he had told me something that really started to pique my interest in Judaism, is that he lived in the Philippines for a while. He was practicing at a synagogue, and he and his group were part of the People Power movement, which was a peaceful protest against the Marcos regime in the Philippines.
And he told me about that and about how Judaism, how important peace was, and to confront conflict through nonviolent means. And I started to look into it. Then I thought that was very interesting. And several years ago, me and my husband had watched a documentary at the Rady Centre in Winnipeg that talked about the Jewish community that had come to the Philippines because the Philippines was one of the few countries that was accepting refugees during World War II. And so I started to become more interested about how the Jews end up in the Philippines and their story. And part of that is in this play.
Elln Bessner:
So Ashkenazi Jews, right?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
Ashkenazi Jews, yes.
Ellin Bessner:
Have you been back to the Philippines since you converted to Judaism and took on this life?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
No, not yet. That’s the goal from there.
Ellin Bessner:
But going back to the play, there’s family estrangement. How different is a Filipino family than a Jewish family in terms of interfamily, sibling problems, all that stuff?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
I think almost all families, it’s very similar, but there’s a big emphasis on the parents putting all their hopes and dreams in their children, which is a huge part of Judaism, a huge part of the Filipino culture. The idea of legacy. I remember it was very important for my husband. He wanted Jewish children. That was important to him and so many other Jewish families. They want to continue that lineage and continue that line, and that is important in the Filipino culture as well. And I found that that is so similar, and it is addressed in the play. It’s a big part of the play about this idea of carrying on for the future, not just culture, but also religion and blood.
Ellin Bessner:
So it must have been quite a navigation for you to join a Jewish family and convert and also have to explain it to your own family?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
I chose to become Jewish. Not only to marry him, and so that was to make his family happy. I fell in love with Judaism, fell in love with the ceremony and fell in love with the symbolism and the way it made me feel. I grew up Catholic, and I left the Catholic Church for many reasons since I was a teenager. And not to disparage any other Catholics. It just didn’t work for me anymore. But when I found Judaism, I realized I loved the idea of the symbolism and the whole idea of choosing how to worship and putting spirituality in everything you do from simple of how you wake up in the morning and how you eat, how symbolism is just ingrained in all of that. And this play is a love letter to the ceremony and symbolism of Judaism.
Ellin Bessner:
You’re writing not just this play, but in your new novel, which came out in the fall. There’s a lot of themes that are very contemporary, and young people are struggling with them. Racism and skin tone and religion, of course, and body image. Are you basically taking things that you see in your own family life? Where does the inspiration for these themes come from?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
For me, it’s important to get these stories out there, especially the Filipino Judaism. I’ve been writing about that more because I want my children to have something to look forward to in the future, for them to look back on and say, “That’s me! I see something in writing and in art that is me!”
And even through social media, when I talked about my writing, about talking about the Jewish and Filipino stories, other people have actually reached out to me and said, “I never thought anyone had this experience. I thought it was just me” and they feel less alone. So I’m just really happy to have these stories out there, not just for the Jewish Philippine audience, but for the Jewish audience and the Filipino audience to maybe look at these stories and say to themselves, we’re not that different and we can bridge these gaps.
Ellin Bessner:
Well, talking about for your children, what they have to identify, that someone looks like them and feels like them. Not only do they have a challenge of being visible minority, but of course, anti-Jewishness, antisemitism. How have they confronted that? What are the challenges that they are seeing in their lives at the moment?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
The way I raise my children is for them to be incredibly proud of who they are. I wanted them to always see both sides of themselves. In a recent conversation I had with my son, we talked about my oldest son, Jericho, about how he would go to synagogue one day. On Saturday, he’d go to synagogue on Saturdays, and on Sundays he go to Filipino folk dance. And he felt what a wonderful way to show both sides of him and to explore both sides of him. I’ve always told my children the best way to fight anti Semitism, the best way to fight racism and any kind of hate is pride. Be proud of who you are, because no one can take that away.
Ellin Bessner:
But your kids were raised 100% Jewish, right?
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
Correct. They go to Jewish schools. My oldest son had his Bar Mitzvah last year.
Ellin Bessner:
Describe yourself as a Jewish mother.
Primrose Madayag Knazan:
That’s a great question. As a Jewish mother, I am one of those mothers that will do anything for their children. And I will sacrifice my time, my sleep, and I will prioritize them. First, I just want to make sure that they are taken care of. And most of all, I want to make sure that they can be the best they can, which is why it’s still such a strong sense of pride in that.
Ellin Bessner:
Participant #1:
And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like for this week and this episode of the CJN Daily, sponsored by Metropia. Integrity, Community Quality and Customer Care. Today’s listener shout out goes to Robbie Babins-Wagner in Calgary. You know, the Jewish world is really small because I met her on a Mediterranean cruise way before the pandemic. And last week’s show about the magicians, Jonah Babins is her nephew.
And we’ll end today’s show with this bit from auto volunteer Susie Shore Sauve explaining how you can pay a compliment properly on Kindness Week.
Suzi Shore Sauve:
Go out of your mind and place in your mouth all the goodness you perceive in your friend by letting them know that you value and appreciate their specific virtuous qualities. Sincerely compliment an attribute you admire rather than patronizing with general gush. Let the other know what they did when they did it and why and how you were affected positively by their behaviour.
What we talked about
- Follow Primrose Madayag Knazan on Instagram
- Buy her novel Lessons in Fusion
- Watch the Compliments Challenge video for Kindness Week
Credits
The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.