WELLNESS FAIR
A Valentine’s Day Wellness Fair will be held at the Jewish General Hospital’s Hope & Cope Wellness Centre for cancer patients. Craft activities, information booths and snacks are planned. Family and friends welcome. 340-3616.
LILITH EDITOR
Susan Weidman Schneider, editor-in-chief of the Jewish women’s magazine Lilith, speaks at the Reconstructionist Synagogue, 8 p.m., and on Feb. 13 at 10 a.m., on how women are transforming Judaism, Jewish scholarship and the community, as well as the impact of feminism on Jewish men. Until March 26, the synagogue’s Emet Gallery is exhibiting “Kol Ishah: Celebrating Lilith, the Voice of Jewish Women,” which documents the impact of feminist Jewish journalism during the pivotal years of 1976 to 2001 and includes illustrations from the magazine, original manuscripts, iconic photographs and other memorabilia. 486-9400.
CHOCOLATE TASTING
A “Chocolate Tasting and Beyond” with Yves Filion will be held at the Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors, 10 a.m. Donna, 342-1234, ext. 7220
ON AIR
Hagit Ofran, director of Settlement Watch, is the guest on the Jewish Digest, Radio Centre-Ville 102.3FM, 8:30 a.m.
ROSH CHODESH
A women’s Rosh Chodesh service for the month of Adar takes place at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue 9:30 a.m. Dvar Torah follows. Children welcome. Shelley, 489-9094.
BOOK DISCUSSION
Nora Ryan’s Song by Patricia Reilly Giff is the topic of the Mother-Daughter Book Discussion Group at the Jewish Public Library, 7 p.m. For girls in grades 5 and up, the program is led by librarian Penny Fransblow. 345-2627, ext. 3028.
MOVIE MATINEE
A film featuring singer Andrea Bocelli will be shown at a Beth Ora Seniors meeting, 1:30 p.m. 342-1234, ext. 7220.
RADIOTHERAPY NEWS
“What’s New in Radiotherapy” will be discussed by Dr. Louis Souhami, a McGill University Health Centre radiation oncologist, at the Jewish General Hospital’s Hope & Cope Wellness Centre, 5:30-7 p.m. He’ll focus on bladder cancer. Reservations, 340-3616.
HISTORY OF ZIONISM
A six-session course called “A History of the Zionist Movement” from across the political spectrum will be given by Janie Respitz, beginning at the Jewish Public Library, 7-9 p.m. Registration, 345-2627, ext. 3006.
HEART HEALTH
A “Heart Health Awareness Workshop” will be offered at the Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors from 1:30-3 p.m. 342-1234, ext. 7305.
HALACHIC LIVING WILLS
Rabbi Ira Ebbin talks about “Halachic Living Wills: The Gift you Give your Children,” Beth Zion Congregation, 7:45 p.m. www.bethzion.com.
The Montreal Jewish community continues to do its part for Haiti. Federation CJA reports that contributions to its relief fund have reached over $260,000, including $50,000 donated to Ensemble pour Haïti, the French-language Quebec telethon Jan. 22. New winter clothing was also donated for those evacuated from Haiti to Montreal. Several Jewish schools initiated fundraising projects, including Hebrew Foundation School in Dollard des Ormeaux, whose primary students collected $1,200.
The Canadiens-Bruins game Feb. 4 became “Hockey Night for Haiti” at Hillel House, with proceeds from beer and food sales going to UNICEF. On Jan. 30, Quebec Jewish Congress and its partners presented the play Identity Card by Rwandan survivor Diogène Ntarindwa at the Segal Centre to benefit rebuilding Haiti…
On March 10, an art exhibit titled “Mémoires haïtiennes de la Shoah,” a tribute to the Haitian people by the Jewish community, opens at the federation’s Cummings House…
Yaacobi et Leidental, by the late Israeli dramatist Hanokh Levin, is on at Théâtre Prospero until Feb. 13, a rare production in Quebec. This sumptuous version has 30 scenes and 12 songs… Un violon sur le toit, Quebec’s first professional French-language production of Fiddler on the Roof, directed by theatre doyenne Denise Filiatrault, will be staged at Quebec City’s Théâtre Le Capitole from June 16-Aug. 1. The splashy musical was a runaway hit last spring and summer in Montreal, first at Théâtre du Rideau vert and then at Salle Pierre-Mercure…
Quebec Jewish Congress sponsored an opening-night preview of the exhibition “Jewish Painters of Montreal: Witnesses of their Time, 1930-1948” at the McCord Museum. “This exhibition masterfully captures a dark era in world history and its impact on Montreal’s Jewish community, as well as [its] contributions to society as seen through the eyes of these painters,” said QJC president Adam Atlas. The exhibition continues until May… Quebec writer Yves Vaillancourt’s debut novel Mon Nord magnétique (Québec/Amérique) is receiving favourable critical notice. Evgeni Lazareff, a young Russian Jewish immigrant to Montreal, torn between his love of music and of computers, consults an aboriginal shaman, among others, to help find his way…
Jewish General Hospital researcher Amir Raz, a cognitive psychologist whose specialty is attention, will receive a $284,200 grant from the Quebec government, area MNA Pierre Arcand announced. Raz, who was a magician in his native Israel, holds the Canada Research Chair in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention at McGill University. Using brain-imaging technology, Raz is trying to understand how and why we pay attention… A Sephardi take on what’s happening in Montreal is the focus of a new Internet program called On est ensemble, co-produced by the Communauté Sépharade Unifiée du Québec and Kayak Media. Each month, a different 30-minute talk-show-style program is streamed at www.onestensemble.ca. It’s aimed not only at Sephardi viewers, but francophone Quebecers as a whole, and host Philippe Régnoux and the majority of the four other contributors are, in fact, not Sephardi…
Harav Baruch Gannot, a former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot, physicist and now Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Ma’ale Efraim, was a guest recently at the Kollel Torah Mitzion Montreal, where he spoke about a Sefer Torah being written in memory of Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon,who was killed in the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003, and his son Assaf, who died last September in an F-16 fighter jet crash. Gannot was an IAF comrade of the elder Ramon. The project has the endorsement of his widow Rona Ramon…
A Ben Weider Tribute Day was held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Feb. 5 in honour of the businessman and philanthropist who died in October 2008. Weider donated his priceless Napoleonic collection to the museum, where it’s on permanent display. Among the speakers paying homage to Weider was his friend Senator Serge Joyal, who shared his passion for the French emperor… The second annual conference of the Peter Brojde Centre for Innovation in Engineering and Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was held recently in Israel. The theme was “Physical Implementations of Quantum Computing.” Some 130 students, professors, scientists and engineers from Israel and elsewhere attended. Brojde, a Montreal scientist and entrepreneur who died in 2005, was a pioneer in personal computing in Canada…
Young Montrealer Rena Hundert’s play Mental Floss runs at Théâtre Ste. Catherine, Feb. 11-14. It’s described as “a romantic comedy set in the realm of the absurd with film noir elements.”