Features
Former Winnipegger Chuck Lazer looks back on satisfying career in television production
By MYRON LOVE It was French filmmaker Francois Truffaut’s 1973 film, “Day for Night”, that inspired former Winnipegger Chuck Lazer to pursue a career in show business.
“The movie was about a film producer making a movie,” the older brother of current Jewish Federation of Winnipeg President Joel Lazer recalls. “After watching that film, I determined that was what I wanted to do.”
Over a career in television production spanning 40 years, Chuck Lazer has written scripts for two dozen Canadian series – the best known of which may be “Danger Bay”, “Max Glick”, “North of 60”, “Avonlea”, “When Calls the Heart”. As well he has served as producer for a number of series including “Flash Forward”, “Thrill of a Lifetime”, “The Odyssey”, “BeastMaster”, “The Lost World” “Nothing Too good for a Cowboy” –which was based on a made-for-television movie he also produced – and, most recently, “When Calls the Heart”.
Among the actors he has had the pleasure of working with are Yannick Bisson (star of the long-running “Murdoch Mysteries”, (Winnipeg-born) Ted Atherton, Sarah Chalke (whose subsequent credits include starring roles in “Scrubs” and “Roseanne”, also Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Gosling, both of whom went on to major movie careers in the United States.
“Because of limited budgets for Canadian productions, we get many younger actors at the beginning of their careers before they became household names,” he notes.
“Working on a television production, the hours are insane,” Lazer observes. “You put in 20-hours days. But it’s more like play than work. And you are collaborating with a lot of wonderfully talented people who share your passion for telling stories. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Writing for television however is not where Chuck Lazer saw his life’s journey going when the Peretz School and West Kildonan Collegiate graduate left Winnipeg after high school in 1962 to attend Princeton University.
“Being accepted to Princeton was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up,” he recalls.
Once he began studying Mathematics and Physics at Princeton, he quickly realized that Science was not for him. He switched to Sociology, eventually earning a Ph.D. in the field from the University of Michigan, following which he taught for some years at the University of Victoria.
While he enjoyed teaching Sociology, he notes, he aspired to a much larger audience. After viewing “Day For Night”, he and his wife at the time moved to Toronto where he began his first job in television production in “craft services”, the department in film, television and video production which provides cast and crew with snacks, drinks and other assistance.
“It was a way for me to get my foot in the door, spend time with actors and directors and observe them at work,” he explains.
From there, he went to work for a long-running CTV series called “Thrill of a Lifetime” in which regular Canadians were given a chance to live out their fantasiesl. He served as co-producer and occasional writer for the series.
After that, he recalls, the pickings were slim for many years.
“I kept busy writing,” he says.
It was finally in 1990 that his career as producer and writer took off – including writing for the CBC series “Max Glick” and serving as executive story editor for several episodes. “Max Glick” was based on a novel by Morley Torgov about a barmitzvah-aged boy living in a community in northwestern Ontario. After that came “Danger Bay”, “Avonlea”, “The Odyssey” and the TV movie “Nothing Too good for a Cowboy”. His most recent production, “When Calls the Heart”, was broadcast in 2017.
Lazer says that he decided to become a producer because he wanted more control over his stories. Twenty-five years ago, he formed a partnership with David Barlow who, In the mid-1990s, acquired the rights to “Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy” based on the memoirs of long-ago Western rancher Rich Hobson. The partners turned the book first into a movie – which debuted as a TV movie in 1998 – and followed up with a TV series for CBC, which ran for 26 episodes.
Asked what is involved in being a producer, Lazer responds that it is relatively straightforward. “Everything,” he responds. “David and I were in charge of all the creative aspects – developing the story, hiring staff, casting the roles, making sure production was running smoothly. We partnered with producers and studios on the financial side.”
In 2003, he notes, his achievements in the television industry were recognized with the presentation of the Margaret Colliers Award – a lifetime achievement award presented by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to a Canadian writer for an outstanding body of work in film or television.
(His collaborator, David Barlow, was presented with the award a couple of years earlier.)
Since his one-year stint as “When Calls the Heart” supervising producer came to an end in 2017, Lazer says that “his phone has stopped ringing” when it comes to filmmaking. Ten years ago, he and his wife, Dacia Moss, moved back to Victoria – where they met – and he took up playing the bass. He also spends his time playing golf.
While he says that he is still available if something in filmmaking comes up, he is, in the meantime, enjoying semi-retirement.
Features
Shall We Live by Our Swords Forever?
By ORLY DREMAN (Oct. 4, 2024) t is hard to believe a year has passed… the worst year of our nation… a year of grief, nightmares, sorrow, crying, pain, bereavement, anger, desperation, frustration, hurt and anxiety because of this horrible endless war. Every person in the country knows people who were killed. When an old person dies naturally one receives it with understanding, but when young people die it feels like Job.
The average life span of Israelis is going down every day. We try to relax, breath deeply, do mindfulness, exercise, meet friends. Israel suffers four times more from anxiety and depression than any other place in the world. I feel I just want to sit down one day, cry and release, and not be strong all the time. All our souls are already in reserves for a year . Since our army’s survival depends on its reserve soldiers it means they are tired, have lost their jobs, and wives are heroes and have to quit their jobs because the husbands are not there to help with the kids. Children see their parents recruited, they see people with weapons in the streets, they hear the word “hostages”, they hear war planes in the sky twenty four seven, they are scared, and no wonder there is regression in their behavior.
We are an injured society in a war routine- every new death swallows up the death from the day before.
When the six young hostages were murdered in the tunnels in September and the bodies were brought back by our soldiers, many people in Israel felt it is like the day their own parents passed away- it was so sad. It was revealed they were starved- the bodies weighed 35 kg. (close to 80 pounds). In the tunnels with no air, no light, low ceilings so they could not stand up, no sanitary conditions – tortured by Satan. They urinated in bottles that remained next to them. We all feel responsible for their deaths. Did we demonstrate enough? Did we pray enough? The members of the cabinet who voted with Bibi not to make a deal to save them – how can they live with themselves? What if the nightmare came true and there are babies who were born in captivity and survived? Then we have more than 101 hostages. Our country was established on social solidarity that we do not leave bodies and injured behind. We are going to pay a heavy price if we do not do the just and correct thing and bring them back home.
I recommend you read the book “One day in October” – forty heroic stories from that day told by remaining relatives and friends about the heroic citizens who saved the country. Who is a hero? A person who cannot stand aside if someone is in distress; hey come to help, like those who jumped on hand grenades to save the rest. The injured who continued to fight. Men who stalled the terrorists in order to enable women and children to escape until they were murdered. Women who ran out of their homes while the shooting was going on to pull the injured into buildings. Five young women and men soldiers who saved one hundred new recruits in their base till they themselves were killed. The paramedic Amit Mann in Kibbutz Be’eri who stayed to save many lives when she could have escaped until she was killed. (in that kibbutz out of 1000 residents 100 were killed.) Aner, who was at the “death shelter” and managed seven times to catch the hand grenades the terrorists threw inside; Aner threw them back out, until the eighth time he was killed while his friend Hirsh Goldberg Polin lost his hand and was kidnapped to Gaza where he was murdered 11 months later. The few survivors of this shelter survived because bodies fell on them and hid them. So many who already got to safety with friends, but drove back again and again to rescue young people from the festival until they themselves got killed. How parents had to close their babies’ mouths so they did not cry and be heard, with the risk of choking them to death. Even for those who held a gun, it was not enough against groups of hundreds of terrorists. The families in the center of the country heard their dear ones on the phone screaming they are burning us and they have RPGs (rocket propelled grenades). There were some who wanted to do like in Masada- kill their families and then kill themselves – just not to be kidnapped.
The first eight hours of the war the terrorists were stopped only by citizens and some police. The army was not there. Every person who in his lifetime had taken a first aid course – even people in their seventies, bandaged and put tourniquets on the wounded while they were without water, with no electricity. In the book, an officer of the “Zaka” organization- whose members are always on scenes of unnatural deaths to collect body parts and who have seen all possible atrocities, said that if he would have known what he is about to see on Oct. 7th he would have asked God to make him blind. Another story in the book is of a Holocaust survivor who said it was worse than things they have seen during the Holocaust.
Whole families on the kibbutzim on the border were murdered- children, parents, grandparents. A friend of my seven-year-old granddaughter told me her grandparents lived on kibbutz Be’eri. I asked her if they were evacuated and she answered yes. I was told later that the grandfather was murdered while protecting his wife, who survived. The seven-year-old is in repression and denial. We have friends who live on the Gaza border who told us how the father, the son and a friend left in two cars to return and rescue people, but in the chaos our army mistook them for terrorists and they shot at the cars. The friend of the son was killed while the son managed to roll out of the car. The father who was in the second car describes the car being riddled with bullet holes and he still does not understand how he survived. Unfortunately, there were quite a number of these incidents.
There are evacuees who moved almost 10 times this year with their families from place to place. They cannot hold a job, the children change schools and change friends. What is nice about “the good Israeli” is one sees requests on Facebook from evacuated families asking for a place to live because the government does not pay for some of the hotels anymore, or those people live in areas that were not officially evacuated by the army/government, but still are in the rockets’ range. Other Israelis open up their homes to host these people.
We are now fighting seven fronts. We just started in Lebanon and we already have eight soldiers killed there in one day, but the damage from Hizballah was growing every day and they were crushing us. If Hizballah would have joined Hamas in sending 6000 terrorists through their tunnels into Israel on Oct. 7th in addition to the 4000 terrorists Hamas sent, it would have been the end of Israel. We’d have hundreds of thousands dead. The tunnels we discovered now in Lebanon are bigger than those in Gaza and cannot be blown up because of the terrain; it will only make them wider. Iran lost again in this second round of 200 rockets on Oct. 1st. Our air defense systems shot down most of the ballistic rockets. We must retaliate with a strong hand. We cannot live by our sword forever.
Our challenges today are not just against our enemies, but also against others who have different moral and ethical values. How can Bibi even think of replacing our excellent defense minister in the middle of the war – only for political reasons? Instead of making a deal in the south- returning the hostages, making peace with Saudi Arabia, forming a coalition against Iran, he is busy eternalizing his coalition. We deserve an empathetic leadership which sees the good of its people before themselves.
We have thousands of new disabled servicemen and women. It is no wonder that at all the Para Olympic games we win the highest number of medals. For organ donors today doctors are especially asking for cartilage because we have 20,000 new wounded ; this is something they did not do in the past.
It has been a very challenging year and we learned how strong we are. For the New Year may we blessed to see the return of all our hostages, start to rehabilitate them, put a smile back on our faces, sleep at night, worry less and feel safe again.
Features
New documentary about expulsion of Jews from Arab lands
On Monday, October 7 VisionTV presented the world premiere of Forgotten Expulsion: Jews From Arab Lands, a new documentary from filmmaker Martin Himel specially commissioned by Executive Producer Moses Znaimer.
ABOUT FORGOTTEN EXPULSION: JEWS FROM ARAB LANDS
On October 7, 2023, Palestinian Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 Israelis and took some 250 hostages in an invasion marked by methodically planned unprecedented levels of barbarism.
Not only was it the most extensive slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, it also sparked a wave of Pro Palestinian/Antisemitic protests worldwide. The protestors claim Israel should be destroyed because it is allegedly a colonial state artificially created by European and North American Zionists.
The documentary Forgotten Expulsion: Jews From Arab Lands shows that these Zionists are Jews, and that Jews have been indigenous to the Land of Israel and the Middle East for the past 3,500 years. Jews are, and have been an intrinsic part of the Middle East long before the Arabs conquered the region 1,400 years ago; 1,000 years before Christianity, 1,500 years before Islam.
In 1947/48, it was not only 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced during the Israel war of Independence, but 850,000 Jews were also expelled from their ancient homes in Arab countries by Islamic regimes + their murderous mobs. The film argues that if Palestinians are to be repatriated and to receive compensation for their loss, then Jewish refugees from Arab Lands should also be repatriated + compensated.
Forgotten Expulsion also highlights the strange case of the Palestinians, the only refugee population in the world that never declines. That original refugee population of 700,000 now numbers 5 million. Some genocide!
Featuring:
Rabbi Elie Abadi, Senior Rabbi for the Jewish Council of the Emirates in Dubai, UAE, prominent Sephardic Judaism scholar
Avraham El Arar, President, Canadian Sephardi Association
Judy Feld Carr, Rescuer of 3,228 Syrian Jews + Human RIghts Activist
Professor Henry Green, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami
Eylon Levi, Former Israeli Government Spokesman, Current Leader of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office, prominent figure representing Israel internationally since the start of the October 7 War against Hamas
Simcha Jacobovici, Canadian-Israeli Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker
Professor Shimon Ohayon, Head of the Dahan Center for Culture, Society & Education in the Sephardic Heritage, Bar Ilan University
Ambassador Mark Regev, Chair Abba Eban Institute at Reichman University, Former Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs + International Communications
Eli Sadr, Former Jewish Refugee from Syria
Dr Stanley Urman, Executive Vice-President, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries
Levana Zamier, Former Jewish Refugee from Egypt
If you weren’t able to see the original presentation of Forgotten Expulsion: Jews From Arab Lands it can be viewed at https://www.visiontv.ca/videos/forgotten-expulsion-jews-arab-lands/
Features
The Complex Relationship Between Gambling and Israel
The relationship between Israel and gambling is unique and complex, shaped by the country’s deeply intertwined cultural, religious, and political history. While gambling and online casino gaming are highly popular activities globally, Israel has adopted a more conservative stance toward them, reflecting the strong influence of religious and social values regarding perceived morality. Despite these restrictions, certain forms of state-controlled gambling are permitted. This article explores the evolution of gambling legislation in Israel, from early prohibitions to the current legal framework, and examines potential future changes in this controversial area.
Early Legislation and Updates for Online Casinos
Since its establishment, the state of Israel has maintained a strict stance against gambling. Early laws were designed to reflect a strong moral position rooted in Jewish religious values, which condemn gambling as a vice. These principles became embedded in Israel’s Penal Law 5737 of 1977, which banned most forms of gambling. The law criminalized gambling on moral and social grounds, focusing on the negative impact it has on individuals and society.
Today, the only forms of legal gambling in Israel are the national lottery and government-licensed sports betting. All other forms of gambling are illegal under the Penal Law 5737. In 2005, the law was updated to include online casino gaming, making it illegal for both operators within Israel and Israeli citizens accessing online gambling services from abroad.
The foundation of these laws lies in cultural and religious beliefs, which explain why gambling is approached with extreme caution in Israel. For many, gambling is viewed as a moral failure that fosters addiction, financial ruin, and various social problems. This perspective, deeply embedded in Jewish teachings, continues to shape Israel’s legal approach to gambling.
Legalization of the Israel Sports Betting Board and National Lottery
Although there has been a general ban on gambling in Israel, two key exemptions were made: the national lottery, Mifal HaPayis, and the Israel Sports Betting Board (ISBB), which oversees legal sports betting. These exemptions were granted to allow for regulated, state-approved gambling while maintaining the country’s stance against unregulated and private gambling enterprises.
Mifal HaPayis is Israel’s government owned lottery company which was established in 1951 to raise funds for health, education, and community welfare projects. By linking the lottery to positive social causes, the government was able to legitimize it while upholding the country’s conservative moral values. Since its inception, the national lottery has become an integral part of Israel’s economy, generating funds for various public services.
The Israel Sports Betting Board, founded in 1967, introduced legal sports betting, initially limited to soccer and basketball. As a state-controlled betting outlet, the proceeds from ISBB are directed towards public sports programs. Similar to the lottery, legal sports betting is justified by its contribution to social welfare, although it remains limited to a small range of sports to preserve the country’s conservative position on gambling.
Attempts to Regulate and Legalize Other Forms of Gambling
Over the years, there have been several attempts to legalize and regulate other forms of gambling in Israel, including casinos and online gaming. Supporters argue that casinos would attract more tourists and generate much-needed tax revenue, while regulating online gambling could help curb the growing illegal market.
In the 1990s, there was a serious proposal to build a casino in Eilat, a popular resort city that seemed like a natural location for such an establishment. However, strong opposition from religious and political factions quickly shut down the plan. To this day, the idea of establishing a casino in Israel remains highly controversial, with moral concerns often outweighing potential economic benefits.
Online gambling presents another contentious issue. As internet access increases in Israel, more people are accessing foreign gambling sites, bypassing the country’s strict land-based betting restrictions. While some lawmakers have considered regulating online gambling as a way to exercise greater control and collect tax revenue, opponents fear it would fuel gambling addiction and place more citizens at risk of financial ruin. So far, efforts to expand the legal scope of gambling in Israel have been met with resistance, particularly from religious authorities and conservative politicians.
The Future of Gambling Legislation in Israel
As global attitudes toward gambling continue to evolve, there is growing speculation about whether Israel will reconsider its restrictive gambling laws. In recent years, there has been increasing pressure to legalize and regulate more forms of betting, particularly in the rapidly expanding world of online gaming. Advocates argue that by legalizing and regulating online betting platforms, Israel could significantly benefit from the substantial tax revenue such platforms generate.
However, any push for more liberal gambling legislation is likely to face strong opposition from religious and conservative groups. These factions maintain that gambling is inherently destructive, warning that increased legal wagering could lead to societal issues like addiction and financial ruin. Balancing this global trend toward responsible gambling with the scrutiny on betting operators presents an additional layer of complexity in Israel’s ongoing debate on gambling legislation.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login