Features
“Also Here” – a granddaughter tells her grandmother’s story of surviving the Holocaust
By JULIE KIRSH, Former Sun Media News Research Director
(Exclusive to jewishpostandnews.ca)
My youngest daughter, who experiences frequent backaches and headaches, feels that the trauma of her survivor grandparents has been passed down to her. Some third generation Holocaust literature supports this thesis.
Brooke Randel’s recently published “Also Here, Love, Literacy and the Legacy of the Holocaust,” is a biography that feature Randel’s Bubbie and their close, though not always easy relationship.
Bubbie was illiterate and her granddaughter worked for an ad agency as a copywriter. Bubbie wanted her story told. However, she had no way to tell her story. In “Also Here,” Randel has fulfilled her grandmother’s wishes by putting Bubbie’s thoughts to paper.
The reader learns that Bubbie is always on the go. In her Florida condo, she shops, cooks, visits friends, plays cards, and does laps around the pool. “A woman who survives stays surviving.” However, at night when her hands were still, she was surrounded by the memories of the war and her lost family. Bubbie asked herself the eternal question of survivors: “Ehy did she survive when so many didn’t?”
The author’s ancestral family moved to Sighet in Romania which then became part of Hungary. Eli Wiesel, in his acclaimed book, “Night”, paints a vivid picture of the Jews of Sighet, 14,000 mostly religious souls. When Bubbie was six years old, the family suffered a tragedy. Bubbie’s father, the patriarch, died of prostate cancer. Her mother resorted to work as a travelling merchant. The two older siblings went to jobs in Budapest. Everyone had a role to play. Perhaps school was not a part of Bubbie’s upbringing or she had a learning disability, according to the author. In any case, Bubbie was permanently illiterate.
In order to discover Bubbie’s Holocaust story, the author sits with her grandmother and hears the words so that she, the wordsmith, can transcribe them. Providing an historical context, we know that the Nazis formalized their plans at the Wannsee Conference. “Evict, rob, deport, kill” were the words used, buried in obscure bureaucracy. “Words could lead the way to genocide and silence could let it happen.”
In a poignant chapter, the reader hears Bubbie’s words as she relives the road to Auschwitz in her head, telling her granddaughter what happened. In April 1945, 60,000 prisoners, including Bubbie and her sister were held in Bergen-Belsen. They had travelled by foot and boxcar from Auschwitz, covering more than 280 miles to get there. No food, no water, no clothes, no shoes and the winter was particularly bitter that year. In Bergen-Belsen there was typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever and dysentery. Anne Frank and her sister Margot were taken and died there.
After the war, Bubbie married at 17 years of age to an older man. This was a typical rushed, survivor’s marriage. My own parents were 20 years apart. They would not have been a match before the war. Bubbie and her husband fought constantly. She was a go-getter with a good job. He was depressed and unsuccessful in his business attempts.
In trying to understand her Bubbie, the author refers to an Israeli study: Female survivors had high levels of avoidance behavior, intrusive thoughts, and an unresolved state of mind. Bubbie grew up in chaos before the war and in the camps. Logic was thrown out the window. She was scattered and impulsive.
From Windsor to Detroit, Bubbie and her family of three children and a sad husband tried to make a better life. However, post-traumatic stress was their constant companion.
In my own Holocaust survivor family, food was all important and came with certain rules set by my father. The chicken soup had to be boiling hot. Onions were to be feared and the plentiful food had to be cooked and served only by my mother’s hands. Restaurant food was considered suspicious, so we didn’t go out to eat very often.
Bubbie also exhibited a survivor’s anxiety around food. It was not to be wasted. She cooked constantly and fed her family delicious food. Without a language of words, Bubbie retained all the recipes in her head. What Bubbie did not have was the ability to read. All efforts to confront her illiteracy came to naught. Her granddaughter learned to see Bubbie differently from other people. In doing so, she unknowingly gained skills that her grandmother had: adaptation, creativity, stealth, and care. Bubbie taught her granddaughter to listen to the chaotic jumble of her memories and eventually the author learned how to write this book.
Being part of the third generation is not the experience of survival but an echo of survival. Bubbie’s journey and her very different American grandchildren emphasized their separateness.
This book could not have been written without the acceptance of that separateness and a willingness to listen to what could not be said.
“Also Here”
by Brooke Randel
published by Tortoise Books, 2024
Features
How DIY Auto Repairs Can Help You Cut Costs—Safely
Regular maintenance and minor repairs are the greatest approach for many car drivers to save money without sacrificing dependability. DIY repairs can save you a lot of money over the life of your car since most of the expense is in the labour. DIY helps you learn how things work and notice tiny issues before they become costly ones. Every work requires planning, patience, and safety.
Test Your Talents with Safe Limits
DIY solutions succeed when one is honest about their talents. Wiper blades, air filters, and occupant filters are beginner-friendly. With the correct equipment, intermediate owners can replace brake pads, spark plugs, coolant, and brake fluid. Pressurized fuel, high-voltage hybrids, airbags, and timing components are risky. Only professionals should manage them. Limitations protect you and your car. Drivers trust sources like Parts Avenue to find, install, and schedule manufacturer-approved work.
Set Up a Reliable Workspace and Tools
Good tools pay for themselves quickly. Ratchets, torque wrenches, combination wrenches, heavy jack stands, and wheel chocks are essential. It is advisable to engage specialists for specific tasks. A clean, flat, well-lit, and open space is essential. Please take your time. While working, keep a charged phone nearby to read repair instructions or write torque patterns.
Find the Problem before Replacing the Parts
It may cost more to replace something without diagnosing it. Instead of ideas, start with symptoms. OBD-II readers detect leaks, sounds, and DTCs. Simple tests like voltage, smoke indicating vacuum leaks, pad thickness, and rotor runout might reveal failure. A good analysis saves components, protects surrounding parts, and fosters future trust.
Maintenance That Pays off is Most Crucial
Jobs compensate for time and tools differently. Prioritize returns and maintenance. Change the oil and filter, rotate the tires, evaluate the air pressure, replace low brake fluid, clean the coolant with the right chemicals, and replace belts and filters before they fail. These items extend automotive life, stabilize fuel efficiency, and reduce roadside towing issues that can take months to resolve.
Do as Instructed, Utilize Quality Parts, and Follow Torque Requirements
Understand the service. Set the jacking points, tighten the screws in the appropriate order, and use threadlocker or anti-seize as suggested by the maker. Rotor wear can cause leaks, distortions, or broken threads. Choose components that meet or exceed OEM requirements and fit your car’s VIN, engine code, and manufacturing date. Cheap parts that break easily cost extra.
Test, Record, and Discard Carefully
Safely test the system before patching. Check under the car for drops, bleed the brakes again, and check fluid levels after a short drive. Note torques, parts, miles, and repair date. Photo and document storage for car sales. Properly dispose of oil, filters, coolant, and brake fluid. Controlling hazards protects your community and workplace.
Know When to Seek Professional Help
Self-employed individuals recognize their constraints. If a task is challenging, requires special instruments, or involves safety, consult an expert. Collaboration makes cars safer, cheaper, and more efficient. Selecting, planning, and implementing processes properly improves performance, lowers costs, and ensures safety.
Features
What It Means for Ontario to Be the Most Open iGaming Market in Canada
Ontario is the most open commercial iGaming market in Canada, having been the first province to open up to commercial actors in the online casino and betting space since 2022.
Since gambling laws in Canada are managed on a provincial level, each province has its own legislation.
Before April 4th, 2022, Ontario was similar to any other Canadian province in the iGaming space. The only gaming site regulated in the province was run by government-owned Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, also known as OLG. However, when the market opened up, numerous high-quality gambling companies established themselves in the province, quickly generating substantial revenue. As the largest online gambling market in Canada, it’s now, three years later, also one of the biggest in North America.
The fully regulated commercial market is run under iGaming Ontario and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. These licensed casinos and online sportsbooks are thus fully legal and safe for players to play at, while at the same time, the open market allows companies to compete and offer different products and platforms as long as they all fit within the requirements set up by the state of Ontario.
This means that Ontarians have a wide choice of licensed sites, whether they’re interested in sports betting, live dealer games, or slots – all with strict consumer-protection rules that keep them safe while exploring the many options. (Source: https://esportsinsider.com/ca/gambling/online-casinos-canada)
There are many benefits to online gaming, especially in a country that’s as sparsely populated as Canada, leaving physical venues often few and far between for those living outside the biggest cities.
Even before Ontario launched its own gambling sites, online gambling had been common among Ontarians. Regulating the market and offering alternatives regulated by the province has often added safer and more controlled options.
Since 85% of Ontarians now play at regulated sites, the initiative of opening up the market seems a clear win in more than one way.
Despite the huge success of the Ontario market, most provinces in Canada haven’t changed much in the iGaming sector in the past few years. Some provinces keep Crown-run monopolies, while others limit activity to a single government-run platform. This often leads Canadians to seek offshore alternatives instead, since the options are so few in their own province.
But 2025 marks an important change. The provinces seem to have noticed that Ontario picked a winning strategy, and Alberta has clearly been taking notes.
While the province of Alberta has previously opted for controlled gambling through one government website, the province is now opening up the commercial online gambling market. The Alberta iGaming Corporation will be in charge of licensing and inspecting actors that operate in the province. This will mean many more options for players, coupled with consumer protection and a high level of safety.
Meanwhile, the Ontario iGaming market continues to prosper, grow, and develop. Now that a second province is following in its footsteps, it seems more likely that other provinces will also start following the trend.
Features
I know exactly why leftists aren’t celebrating this ceasefire
Relief that the fighting may be at an end is one thing. Joy — after all this suffering — is another
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
“We can’t hear you, Zohran,” read one New York Post headline this week: “Pro-Hamas crowd goes quiet on Trump’s Gaza peace deal.”
“It seems awfully curious that the people who have made Gazans a central political cause do not seem at all relieved that there’s at least a temporary cessation of violence … Why aren’t there widespread celebrations across Western cities and college campuses today?” the article asked.
The Post wasn’t alone in voicing that question. A spokesperson for the Republican Jewish Coalition posted on X that “The silence from the ‘ceasefire now’ crowd is shameful and deafening.” Others went so far as to imply that the protesters had been lying and never actually wanted a ceasefire — because what they really wanted wasn’t freedom and security for Palestinians, but the ability to blame Israel. If pro-Palestinian voices had really wanted a ceasefire, the thinking went, they would be celebrating.
I read these various posts and articles and thought of Rania Abu Anza.
I have thought of her every day since I first read her story in early March 2024. Anza spent a decade trying to have a child through in vitro fertilization. When her twins, a boy and a girl, were five months old, an Israeli strike killed them. It also killed her husband and 11 other members of her family.
A year and a half later, a ceasefire cannot bring her children, her husband, or her 11 family members back. They were killed. They will stay dead. What is there to celebrate?
This does not mean that the ceasefire is not welcome, or that it is not a relief. On the contrary: It is both. Of course it’s a relief that the families of hostages don’t need to live one more day in torment and anguish. Of course it’s a relief that more bombs will not fall on Gaza.
But celebration implies, to me anyway, that this is a positive without caveats. And in this situation, there are so many caveats.
The families of the surviving hostages will still have spent years apart from their loved ones, in no small part because their own government did not treat the hostages’ return as the single highest priority. The families of those hostages who were killed in the war will never again sit down to dinner with their loved ones, who could have been saved. And it is difficult to fathom what’s been taken from the hostages themselves: time spent out exploring the world, or with family and friends, or at home doing nothing much at all but sitting safely in quiet contemplation.
And a ceasefire alone will not heal Israeli society, or return trust to the people in their government. It will not fix some of the deep societal problems this war uncovered. A Chatham House report this August found that: “Israeli television ignores the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, while the rhetoric is often aggressive. Critical voices, from inside Israel or abroad, are attacked or silenced.” If the country is ever going to find its way back from Oct. 7 and this war, a ceasefire is a necessary precondition, but not a route in and of itself.
In Gaza, Palestinian health authorities have said that about 67,000 people — not distinguishing between combatants and civilians — have been killed by Israel’s campaign in response to Oct. 7. A full third of those killed were under the age of 18. The ceasefire cannot bring those children back to life.
It cannot turn back time and make it such that Israel admitted more than minimal aid to the embattled strip. It will not undo the damage that has been done to the people of Gaza who were denied enough to eat and drink and proper medical care. It will not give children back their parents, or parents back their children. It will not heal the disabled, or make it so that they were never wounded.
It will not change that all of this happened with the backing of the United States government. (This is to say nothing of the West Bank, which has seen a dramatic expansion of Israeli settlements and escalation of settler violence over the course of the war). And as American Jewish groups put out statements cheering the ceasefire, we should also remember that it does not reverse the reality that too many American Jews were cheerleaders for all this death.
Protesters calling for a ceasefire have regularly been denounced as hateful toward Jews or callous toward the plight of Israelis; American Jews who called for one were called somehow un-Jewish. (Yes, some pro-Palestinian protesters also shared hate toward Jews; the much greater majority did not.) The charge of antisemitism — toward those calling for a ceasefire, those calling for a free Palestine, and those who called attention to Israel’s abuses during this war — was used to silence criticism of Israel and of U.S. foreign policy. Some American Jews went so far as to call for the deportation of students protesting the war.
A ceasefire doesn’t change any of that. It can’t.
I have hopes for this ceasefire. At best, it will allow people — Israelis and Palestinians and, yes, diaspora Jews — to chart a new, better course going forward. But it almost certainly will not do that if we delude ourselves into thinking of this as a victory or a kind of tabula rasa, as though the lives lost and hate spewed are all behind us, forgotten, atoned for. The last two years will never not have happened. What happens next depends on all of us fully appreciating that.
This story was originally published on the Forward.