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Grade 12 graduate Lauren Cogan creates virtual grad video with student participation from around the world
By MYRON LOVE
Like other students who expected to graduate high school anywhere in the world, 2020 Oak Park High School graduate Lauren Cogan was disappointed that there will be no formal graduation ceremonies this year to mark this momentous occasion in one’s life.
Undeterred, the daughter of Joel and Jessica Cogan has come up with a creative alternative. She has put together a video – which can be seen on Instagram and YouTube, in which the 2020 grad, clad in graduation gown and mortarboard, stands in front of her school and delivers a valedictorian address for the ages.
While Cogan introduces the usual themes about gratitude, positive memories and lessons learned, she shares her screen time with 80 other students from 17 different countries who volunteered to share their thoughts and sentiments as part of a “global Valedictorian speech.” .
The young filmmaker says she was inspired to create this video by other – localized – virtual grads and parties she had heard about or seen online. In order to create her global valedictorian speech, she reached out to fellow and sister 2020 grads – via Instagram – all over the world.
She was helped in her efforts to make the video, she notes, by close friend Reis Best and a grant from a Federal Government program called “Rising Youth”.
She reports that, as of the end of May, the video had received 12,000 views on her Instagram account and 1,000 more on YouTube. “I have received a lot of positive comments from viewers thanking me for trying to bring grads together,” she says. “It has been a great way to spread a powerful message of unity.”
That Lauren Cogan should undertake such an initiative comes as no surprise. Rather, she has shown herself to be a doer. She has an extensive volunteer resumé both in and out of school, locally and nationally.
This past year, for example, she served as co-President of the Oak Park Student Council. She has served as a peer tutor, and a Conservation Committee member. She has also been one of Manitoba’s leading athletes (for which she was awarded the Bert Knazan youth athletic award last year).
In the community, she started a youth-led initiative that collects sanitary products for people in our community who can’t afford them. (The initiative has provided over 500 boxes of products to date.)
She has served as President and Vice-President of a student led company through Junior Achievement and – last summer – she was selected to attend the JA National Summit in Calgary, where she was selected as one of the top eight leaders at the summit. In May, she received an Entrepreneurial Excellence scholarship from JA.
She has also served on the National Youth Advisory Committee for a non-profit, called Experiences Canada. As well, last summer, she, along with 64 other youth from across Canada, was invited to attend the Experiences Canada forum on Diversity and Inclusion.
Currently, she is the Meal Delivery Coordinator for the Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre.
This past spring, she was supposed to go to Germany with BBYO as one of their ambassadors in March, but that was cancelled due to Covid-19. She was also scheduled to go on the March of the Living. And, as a Maimonides Scholar, she was supposed to be going to Yale University this summer for two weeks, along with other Jewish teen, to learn with some top Jewish thinkers. However, because of Covid-19, the courses this year are being conducted via Zoom.
“Maimonides hopes to have us come to Yale to learn in person sometime in the future,” she adds.
For the fall, she has been accepted to Western University and its Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario. The five-year program would give her dual degrees in Economics and Business.
But, as she concludes in the Global Valedictorian film: “Life is not about the final destination, it’s about the journey”.
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Talented Winnipeg composer Sara Kreindler teams up with her mother Reena Kreindler to create new satirical show to premiere here in May
By BERNIE BELLAN It’s been many years since I’ve heard from Sara Kreindler. Sara’s name first appeared in The Jewish Post & News in 2002 when a satirical musical titled “A Touch of Class” was reviewed by the late Arnold Ross. That particular production featured songs from popular Broadway shows that touched upon themes such as “greed, poverty, oppression, and social unrest.”
When she appeared in that show, Ross noted, Kreindler had just recently returned to Winnipeg from England, where she had obtained a doctorate in Social Psychology from Oxford University.
While at Oxford, Kreindler found time to compose a satirical musical titled “Charity,” which played to rave reviews there, and was performed five times.
Continuing in the theme of writing satirical musicals, Sara has now teamed up with her mother, Reena, to write a new musical titled “A Perfect Man,” which is set to run at the Gargoyle Theatre from May 6-17.
According to a press release we received, “A Perfect Man” is “a satirical musical, set on a fictional analogue of ‘The Bachelor’.
“The story follows an anthropologist who arrives to research TV’s hottest reality-dating show — only to discover she’s been made a contestant, and the bachelor is her high school crush. Past and present collide against an exuberant pastiche score that uses vintage musical styles to highlight modern absurdities.”
“Praised as ‘a musician [who] can make biofuels funny’ (CBC), Sara is known for whip-smart satire on a panoply of topics. Her digital musical, ‘Larry Saves the Canadian Healthcare System, created during her former life as an academic, has garnered over 84,000 YouTube views. Naturally, she had a field day with the subject of reality dating.
“The topic just begs for campy zaniness, which I think we all need in these times — but also for a more cerebral critique of what these shows say about the culture that spawned them,” says Kreindler. And thanks to the romance context, the satire is woven into a deeper, more personal story. “It’s satire with a heart.”
Here is some more information about Sara Kreindler, taken from a 2009 article I wrote about her:
“Born in Israel, Sara’s precocious talent was nurtured by her mother, Reena, whose own particular talent is literary, not musical. According to Reena, however, Sara was singing from the time she was a baby, and she began to study piano at the age of four.
“As a young girl, Sara began writing her own songs and poems, along with the “occasional musical”, notes Reena. Yet, Sara’s rare talent put her at odds with the typical interests of other children her own age, on top of which she attended a school to which she was exposed to a fair degree of antisemtism.
“As a result, Sara says, being bullied was a common aspect of her childhood. On one occasion, when she was nine, she notes, Sara fought back against one particular bully by reciting the following little ditty:
“I write so many epigrams to you that all the people laugh.
I’m tired of writing epigrams.
I want to write your epitaph!”
“Sara went on to compose a musical titled ‘Flutesong’ while she was a student at Vincent Massey Collegiate, she says. After doing her undergraduate work at the University of Manitoba, majoring in Psychology, Sara won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University.
“Sara eventually earned a doctorate in Social Psychology and returned to Winnipeg, where she began teaching at the University of Manitoba, but she said she didn’t enjoy the “mass production” style of teaching upwards of 300 students at a time, so she switched careers and began doing health research for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.”
All the while Sara has been continuing to compose and perform her own songs, often teaming up with her mother, as she has for “A Perfect Man.”
Showtimes and ticket information for The Perfect Man are available at:
http://www.thegargoyletheatre.com/upcoming-events/the-perfect-man
Local News
Rabbi Kliel Rose to leave Congregation Etz Chayim for new post in Ottawa
The following email from Congregation Etz Chayim Executive Director Morissa Granove was sent to members of the congregation on Friday, April 10:
“Dear Members and Friends,
“As we know, Rabbi Kliel recently spent a weekend with Kehilllat Beth Israel where he has since been offered a position. After much thought and consideration, he has made the decision to sign a contract in Ottawa. He will continue to lead our congregation through Yom Kippur.
“This news marks a significant ending for our Etz Chayim community, and at the same time with change comes opportunity. Congregation Etz Chayim will soon embark on our own Rabbinical search with excitement as we look for our perfect candidates and explore the new possibilities that will help us to continue to shape a strong future for our synagogue and members.”
Kliel Rose took up the position of rabbi at Etz Chayim in August, 2018.
In an article announcing his appointment to the position in the June 6, 2018 issue of The Jewish Post & News, Myron Love wrote:
The congregation has been without a permanent rabbi since last summer when Rabbi Larry Lander chose to retire – after ten years here – and relocate to Toronto.
Kliel Rose is already a well-seasoned rabbi. He was ordained in 2004 by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
He previously served as spiritual leader at the West End Synagogue in Nashville and Temple Enamu-El in Miami Beach. His current posting is Beth Shalom Synagogue in Edmonton.
Following the example of his parents, Kliel Rose has been active in interfaith dialogue and human rights work for which he was honoured in 2014 with the Human Rights Hero Award by Truah: The Rabbibic Call for Human Rights.
He has also participated in the Kellogg Management Education for Jewish Leaders program at Northwestern University and was most recently chosen to be among 20 rabbis from different denominations chosen to train in the Clergy leadership Incubator – a two-year program, under the leadership of Ranni Sidney Schwarz, intended to educate younger rabbis in innovative thinking, change management and institutional transformation.
In Edmonton, Rose also served as Jewish chaplain at the University of Alberta and took the lead on a program called “Faith and Inclusion”, whose mandate was to support individuals with cognitive and physical learning challenges to feel more welcome within various faith communities.