Ophira Calof is having a busy month. The 28-year-old Toronto-based actor, writer and curator will be judging entries for AccessCBC, the CBC’s new access project for filmmakers with disabilities; she’s picking films and handling programming for the annual ReelAbilities film festival, screening at the Miles Nadal JCC; and she is, as always, advocating for the arts world to make room for creatives like her who have physical, mental or other disabilities.
To kick off Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month, Calof joins The CJN Daily podcast to discuss how Jewish institutions can become more aware of the realities faced by Jews who live with disabilities every day, and why she purposely chose to reclaim the word “crip” by naming her consulting company #CriptheScript.
What we talked about:
- To register for “An evening with Ophira Calof”, visit kehillatbethisrael.com
- Watch Ophira Calof perform Me and My Wheelchair on YouTube
- Read about the CBC initiative at cbc.ca
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.
Episode Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated automatically by a computer. Because we can’t always read them through entirely, they may contain some errors.
Ophira Calof:
Singing: “With her, my whole world expands so let’s give her a hand. My wheelchair…”
Ellin Bessner:
That’s a clip of performer Ophira Calof on stage at a showcase by the Second City Comedy Troupe, a couple of years ago. Calof was showing off her talent not only in musical comedy, but also her training as an opera singer. Her song was an ode to her motorized wheelchair. The 28-year-old actor, writer and curator relies on the wheelchair to get around due to her complex physical disabilities. Calof will be speaking Monday night virtually for Kehillat Beth Israel Synagogue in Ottawa. That’s her hometown. Because February is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month across North America. Calof is a sought-after expert and advocate for more representation of people who are disabled in Canadian film, television and theater. And this winter, the CBC has partnered with her to help judge entries in a new fund that the broadcaster has just launched to mentor creatives who are disabled or deaf.
Ophira Calof:
A brand-new national initiative to sort of create development opportunities for disabled writers across the country. And I hope it’s just the first of many there are so many stories to tell, so many incredibly talented storytellers who just needs to be given the space to tell the stories on their own terms.
Ellin Bessner:
I’m Ellin Bessner. And this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Monday, February 7, 2022. Welcome to the CJN Daily, sponsored by Metropia.
Ophira Calof is having a busy month. She’s judging entries for that new CBC Access project after the submission deadline closed last week. And she’s picking out the films and setting up the program for the annual Real Abilities Film Festival, which is held each May in partnership with the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre in Toronto. She’s also trying to get the arts world to make room at the table and in auditions and on film, not only for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and South Asian visible minorities, but also for creatives who are disabled. She’s named her consulting company #CriptheScript. And coming up, she’ll be here to explain why she purposely chose to use that word. Plus, how Jewish institutions like synagogues should become more aware of what Jewish people who are disabled face, when they want to participate fully in community life. But first, here’s what’s making news elsewhere in Canada right now.
George Bluman:
I’m George Bluman in Vancouver. And this is what Jewish Canada sounds like.
Ellin Bessner:
In the wake of the Freedom Convoy protests across Canada, two important pieces of legislation are coming to the House of Commons that you should know about. Last week, an NDP member of Parliament from BC, Peter Julian, put forward a Private Member’s bill that would make it illegal to display and sell Swastikas as well as Ku Klux Klan and Confederate symbols. A prison term of two years would be the penalty if the suspect is convicted. Meanwhile, a second bill is on its way. Again. It’s a Private Member’s bill. This time it’ll be introduced by the federal Conservatives. The final draft hasn’t been tabled yet, but sources say it will be this week, and it would ban Holocaust denial in Canada and other important antisemitism measures. A Saskatoon MP Kevin Waugh put the Notice of Motion out last week that the bill is coming. Jewish sources say they’ve been waiting for this for a long time. By the way, Waugh was one of the Conservatives who came out in support of the truckers’ protest, and he met with them. But he has attended Holocaust Remembrance Day services for years.
Ophira Calof joins me now from Toronto.
Ophira Calof:
Thank you so much for having me.
Ellin Bessner:
It’s really nice to meet you. And I should tell our listeners that my mother and your grandmother are old friends since Ottawa. So, we did not know that until just now.
Ophira Calof:
So that’s very exciting. We have to do the Jewish geography.
Ellin Bessner:
We totally do. Well, I’m going to start right now because I read that back in Ottawa, when you were at Merivale High School, you were up for an award for the best lead actress in a musical for a play. And it was called The Cappies. Is that kind of like Oscars of Ottawa High School thing, what is that?
Ophira Calof:
That is exactly what it is. And you go for awards and there’s a whole ceremony at the NEC. It was very exciting.
Ellin Bessner:
Did you win?
Ophira Calof:
I did not win. It was my “teenage heartbreak, must persevere.”
Ellin Bessner:
What grade were you in when you did that? It was June 20, 10th.
Ophira Calof:
Yes. I was in Grade 11, and the character that I got to play was an unconventional Princess who just was a little bit of a mess, which suited me perfectly.
Ellin Bessner:
And were you in a wheelchair in Grade 11, or was this something that happened after?
Ophira Calof:
So, I didn’t use a wheelchair at that time. At that time, I didn’t really identify as disabled. I just had a couple of health things going on, and my wheelchair that I use now became part of my life starting around 2013. It is in and out. I like to keep things interesting in between a wheelchair, a walker, nothing. It fluctuates.
Ellin Bessner:
Peter Dinklage, who is the star of Game of Thrones, has brought up a topic which has been in the news lately, which is he’s very upset about Disney. You know about this. They’re making a live action movie about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and he was upset about casting dwarf actors. And then there was backlash. Right. What was the backlash? Are you following the story?
Ophira Calof:
Yes. It’s been very interesting to see Peter Dinklage kind of made this comment and expressed his frustration with the fact that in some ways, Disney is sort of putting forward this really progressive sort of idea and perspective and seems to be trying to listen to a lot of different communities. But when it comes to disability and specifically in this case, little people, Disney is kind of putting out a storyline that has seven characters that have really sort of reductive tropes that have been really harmful to the community over time. And he expressed frustration that it was happening. And the conversation that’s come out of it has been really fascinating. This question of what is positive for the community as a whole, what are opportunities for individuals who have been fighting so hard to get some screen time? In my opinion, ideally, if there were just a lot more roles out there that weren’t built off of stereotypes, then there wouldn’t be this tension, right? People would be able to have thriving careers and feel like the community was well represented.
Ellin Bessner:
Well, let’s talk about that a bit, let’s break it down. How does the entertainment business navigate this kind of balance that they’re trying to be representative versus making money on entertainment without having to also deal with cancel culture, which is kind of what this is a whole new climate? How do you see it?
Ophira Calof:
It’s tricky, and it’s interesting because I think the conversation about disability in particular is very new within the entertainment industry. If you look back over movies in the past, there’s been a lot of storylines that feature sort of a disabled character, but they’re pretty much never played by a disabled actor. And they’re almost, I would say, like, 99.9% of the time, not written by a disabled writer as well. And more recently, the community has come forward and said, like, hey, we are also interested in telling stories and acting and also putting a narrative forward that’s maybe a bit more authentic to what the actual experience of being disabled is. But there’s a lot of pushback, a lot of tension. And yeah, it’s something that I grapple with in my own career. I act and I write, and sometimes I come in as a story consultant to people. And for some reason, there’s very much this idea that disability is different and that disabled people aren’t necessarily equipped to act at the scale that non-disabled people are.
Ellin Bessner:
Specifically, what does it look like to face some of these barriers?
Ophira Calof:
I mean, a very sort of nuts and bolts experience is when I have gotten calls for auditions before and I sent an email to the casting agency double checking if the room that I’m supposed to go to is accessible, and I find out that there’s no elevator. So, in that specific case, I can’t even get into the room to audition, never mind the idea of what the experience would be like if I was cast, what the experience on set would be. There’s a lot of sort of putting people in boxes, and I think that this is internationally. For me, I wear a neck brace and I use a power wheelchair. I’m probably only going to be cast as a person who wears a neck brace and uses a power wheelchair.
Ellin Bessner:
Well, that kind of leads us into your #Crip the Script work and advocacy. How did you come up with the title for that?
Ophira Calof:
So, Crip is a term that’s been reclaimed a fair bit by the disability community. And so, the idea of crippling the script kind of comes about in thinking through what are all of the ways in which disability culture and disability-centred practices can enhance our stories, the way we tell them? How can I structure my shows in ways that sort of embrace an audience to feel comfortable, even if they aren’t traditionally comfortable in a theatre space? And when I share content, how can I kind of take that idea of disability stories existing through an able-bodied lens and kind of take back the script, Crip it, and centre my own experience as a disabled person within that story?
Ellin Bessner:
So, let’s talk about this Jewish angle. What do Jewish people not know about being disabled?
Ophira Calof:
I think the big idea is that disability, the idea that disability or chronic illness can just be a thing. I think that there’s a great understanding and awareness, at least within the Jewish community that I grew up with, that people can get sick and a huge well of support kind of comes forward with that. I’ve had those experiences within my family. Someone’s hospitalized, something happens, and the casseroles start piling up on the front door, and the community really comes out in support. We have within shul systems and “Mi She Berachs” and a whole system to support in crisis mode. So, I think the idea that illness and disability, they’re not necessarily temporary things to be overcome. Sometimes they just become part of life. And for me, I don’t want to be seen as someone that the community takes care of, as someone sort of outside of the community to be an object of Tzedakah. I want to be part of the community in all of the ways: I want to both receive care and give care and feel that vibrancy. So, I think that’s one thing.
Another thing is that sometimes these experiences are invisible. I know for me before I had a wheelchair and would go about in the community, I would feel so embarrassed if I was at shul and the Ark opened and everyone was standing and I couldn’t stand, but nobody knew why I couldn’t stand. And I sort of feel that sense that I was being disrespectful. And so, I think sort of an idea that we don’t necessarily always know what’s going on and finding that sort of flexibility and openness.
Ellin Bessner:
So, moving from there in the history, how do you feel about the attention that is given through Jewish Disability Month? Once a year sort of like Black History, once a year.
Ophira Calof:
Yeah. I mean, this is very much a thing, right? It’s the balance of ‘It’s great to have a specific space in time where there’s a spotlight and these conversations happen and it’s hopeful.’ But also, I’m disabled 360 days of the year, and so when it sort of gets put into a category, it brings up the question of, ‘Okay, what happens the rest of the year?’ I’m hopeful that every year more conversations are brought up that will and hopefully are starting to carry forward. But, yeah, it’s definitely a complicated thing.
Ellin Bessner:
And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like for this episode of the CJN Daily. Sponsored by Metropia. Integrity, Community, Quality and Customer care. Today’s listener shout out goes to Daniel Minden in Ottawa. He’s a staffer on Parliament Hill with the Minister of National Defence.
And we’ll end today’s episode with a reminder to join the CJN Circle. For $64 a year, you can sign up at TheCJN.ca/ circle and support this show and Jewish journalism.
Plus, a snippet from an amazing chat that I heard Sunday between British writer David Baddiel, who wrote “Jews Don’t Count”, and he’s the guy you’ve probably seen on social media since the whole Whoopi Goldberg Holocaust controversy, and with Dara Horn, the American author of the book “People Love Dead Jews”. The pair were the opening event at the Vancouver JCC Jewish Book Festival, and here they are discussing two key points.
David Baddiel:
The Holocaust fatigue thing, I think, is very clear to me, and actually, I would say there’s an element of that and Whoopie Goldberg, not from Whoopie Goldberg itself, necessarily, but some of the reaction that I’ve got from talking about it is quite a lot about essentially just under the surface. “Yeah, but Jews. The Holocaust. Enough already! Jews, the Holocaust. Haven’t Jews been hogging that atrocity spotlight a bit long? Blah, blah, blah.” You hear that all the time.
Dara Horn:
Yeah. I just want to say I actually think there’s a little bit more overlap in terms of the idea of the erasure of living Jews or like a race and really that there are specific ways in which actual Jews are allowed to participate in this public conversation, and they’re extremely limited. And also, the gaslighting around that problem where Jews are not allowed to talk about this, that framework that, like your identity, of being imposed from the outside, is something I think that is very common.