Features
“On a Clear April Morning,” a Brazilian masterpiece written by a Jewish author documenting the early Jewish experience in Brazil, is finally available in English
By IRENA KARSHENBAUM On a foggy December afternoon in 2021, I accidentally stumbled on a fascinating website, The Baron Hirsch Jewish Farmers Community. The golden field, on the home page, illuminated by the sun, seemed to shine a ray of light into my gloomy living room. As I clicked through the different pages: Argentina, Brazil, USA, I was intrigued to discover that these countries had Jewish farming colonies and that they had received funding from Baron Maurice de Hirsch, one of the 19th century’s wealthiest men and the most significant Jewish philanthropist of his time who wanted Jews to become farmers, then seen as the most honourable of occupations, and which, he believed, would be the answer to eliminating anti-Semitism.
Engrossed by the stories — the Catskills’ Grossinger’s resort had its start as a Jewish farm located on rocky soil that just could not make a go of it as a farm? Who knew? — I noticed conspicuously missing was a page on the Canadian Jewish farming experience. Since most Jewish farms in Canada received at least some financial assistance from the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), the philanthropic organization Hirsch established, I thought a Canadian chapter was warranted.
I found an email address and wrote away asking if I could contribute a story on Jewish farming in Canada, specifically about a Jewish farming colony in eastern Alberta that was once home to a synagogue — the 1916 Montefiore Institute — which had received $300 towards its construction from JCA.
Then I waited.
And waited.
Weeks went by and not a word. I forgot my offer and moved on with other projects.
In October of 2022, 10 months after my initial inquiry, I received a frantic note bursting with apologies that my email had somehow escaped the recipient’s eyes. Being so happy to finally receive a reply, I quickly wrote back. A few weeks later, over Zoom, I met the owner of the website, Merrie Blocker, living in Maryland. A retired U.S. diplomat, Blocker was once posted to Argentina and Brazil, among other countries, and proceeded to explain that when she was living in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which had a large Jewish community, she befriended Moacyr Scliar.
I repeated the name to make sure I had heard her correctly. “The Moacyr Scliar, one of the greatest Brazilian writers? Author of Max and the Cats?”
It was the same Moacyr Scliar and it was he who introduced her to a gem of a book, On a Clear April Morning, A Jewish Journey. Written by Ukrainian-born, Brazilian author, Marcos Iolovitch, it was a biographical work of fiction, published in 1940, and the first literary work to document the early Jewish experience in Brazil. Blocker explained that it was this book that inspired Scliar to become a writer. “Let me send you a copy,” she said, and yes, I could also contribute a blog to her website about The Little Synagogue on the Prairie Project.
A memory swept across my mind and I could see, years earlier, while searching through book shelves at Chapters, my hand coming to rest on a slim novella, Max and the Cats. Even back then, I was on the hunt for the obscure, the antithesis of a best seller, a great literary work from some far away place. I purchased a copy and the story unfolded of a German boy escaping Nazi Germany, in the 1930s, who found himself on a dinghy with a jaguar sailing across the Atlantic Ocean before finally finding refuge in Brazil. It became one of my favourite books. I was not the only one who understood its simple brilliance. Yann Martel borrowed the storyline for his novel, Life of Pi — where a young Indian boy finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra and a Bengal tiger — which won him the 2002 Man Booker Prize.
A copy of On a Clear April Morning eventually appeared in my mailbox and I proceeded to read a moving and heartbreaking immigrant account that began with a relatively abundant life in Zagradowka, a village in the Ukrainian province of Kherson. Yossef Iolovitch, the author’s father, began to worry about his children’s future, while at the same time being slowly seduced by brochures depicting rural Brazilian life of “a soft, blue sky, a farmer, with a wide-brimmed hat… wielding the handles of a plow pulled by a team of oxen turning the virgin land… highlighted in vivid and bold colours, was an enormous orchard, composed principally of orange trees.” The father who “had little education,” but “had no doubts about the truth of the offerings…[and] had complete trust in the goodness of mankind,” sold his business (despite his wife’s objections) and forced his family to endure an arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to finally arrive in Brazil — to take up the noble profession of farming.
Settling on a farm in Erebango, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Iolovitch describes the family’s beginning, “One of the first visits we received in the new land was from Death who carried away forever my youngest brother.”
Eventually failing at farming, the family moved to Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Disembarking off the train with no money, with almost no Portuguese, they were luckily saved by a blind Jewish cart man who “saw the suffering of others” and “generously offered his modest hospitality.” The move to the city did not ease the family’s dire poverty, which continued for years as they struggled to eke out a bare existence.
Scliar republished Iolovitch’s book in 1987, writing a preface to that edition, in Portuguese, that first began by explaining that in any body of literature there exists for some obscure reason a work that is underestimated. On a Clear April Morning “falls into this category,” he wrote.
Scliar continues, “This book’s value as a work of documentation is priceless. It speaks to us of an age, it speak to us of a human experience that decisively marked Judaism and also left an indelible mark on the history of this state, Rio Grande do Sul, and of this country, Brazil.” Scliar reminds readers that emigration, as an experience, over the last two thousand years, has not been a rare occurrence in the Jewish timeline and that the “confessional dimension” of the book, “can move the most indifferent reader with its innocence and sincerity.”
After reading On a Clear April Morning in a single sitting, Blocker made a promise to herself that she would one day translate the work from Portuguese to English and get it published. (This was the reason for the existence of her beautiful website that I accidentally stumbled on, as writers who want to get published need to have a website.) Blocker kept her promise for over 30 years. She translated the book into English and found a publisher, Academic Studies Press, in Brookline, Massachusetts, which released the book, in 2020, to English-speaking readers — 80 years after its initial publication in Brazil.
I urge readers to discover for themselves this unassuming masterpiece.
Irena Karshenbaum is a writer, historian and heritage advocate who led a project that gifted one of the last surviving prairie synagogues — the 1916 Montefiore Institute — to Calgary’s Heritage Park.
irenakarshenbaum.com
Features
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Features
Israel pavilion ambassadors – then and now
By BERNIE BELLAN Given that Folklorama is on again and the Israel pavilion – Shalom Square, is in full swing, I thought it timely to resurrect an article I first posted to this website in August 2023.
But before reading that article, I wanted you to see who this year’s ambassadors are for Shalom Square:
It was back in 2023, however, that I set out to answer a question that I had asked our readers to help answer: Where was the very first Israel pavilion located? Some readers had thought it was the Golden Age Club, which used to be located on Pritchard and Salter. But others weren’t so sure. Here then is what I wrote back in August 2023 – when, with the help of a librarian at the Winnipeg Public Library, I was able to solve the riddle of where the first Israel pavilion was located:
It was earlier in August 2023 that I had raised a number of questions about the history of the Israel pavilion at Folklorama.
Among those questions were: Where was the first Israel pavilion located and when did the Israel pavilion actually become a permanent fixture in the YMHA on Hargrave (before moving to its current home in the Asper Campus)?
As part of my search for answers to those questions I turned to David Cohen, who had long been the coordinator of the Israel pavilion when it was located on Hargrave, but who didn’t step into that role until 1975.
David thought that the Israel pavilion hadn’t moved to Hargrave until 1974, but he wasn’t sure where the first Israel pavilion had been located.
I tried to find information using the Winnipeg Public Library online digital archive. In case you didn’t know, anyone with a library card can access the library’s online archive. You can also have access to newspaperarchive.com through the library’s digital archive. Newspaperarchive.com is an invaluable reference tool for journalists especially – or anyone wanting to access old newspaper archives, for that matter, but ordinarily you would need a subscription to newspaperarchive.com in order to use it. For some reason, however, the search function in the Winnipeg Public Library’s digital search engine didn’t produce results when I entered the word “Folklorama.”
As a result I called the Winnipeg Public Library for assistance and received great help from someone by the name of Louis-Phillipe. After taking my information, Louis-Phillipe phoned me to say that he had found out that the library had compiled a file of press clippings related to Folklorama going back to the very first year, 1970.
Further, Louis-Phillipe said, he had found a list of the 22 pavilions in that first year of Folklorama, along with where they were located. It turns out that the Israel pavilion was actually located in two different venues that first year: the Rosh Pina and the Shaarey Zedek.
The next day I also heard from reader Phyllis Dana, who confirmed that the Israel Pavilion had been in both synagogues. Phyllis also remembered that the only food served that first year was honey cake.
But the pièce de resistance came when I heard from reader Marilyn Breitman (née Stitz), who now lives in Calgary, when she phoned me on Monday, August 21 (which is when she received the August 16 issue of the paper with my story about Folklorama).
Marilyn told me that, not only did she remember that the first Israel pavilion alternated between the Rosh Pina and the Shaarey Zedek, she had actually been the female representative of the Israel pavilion that first year. Her title, Marilyn said, was simply “Jewish.”
But, as you might also recall, the entire confusion over where the first Israel pavilion was located began with an email I had received from Roz Greenfeld, who had written to correct my mistake when I had written in the August 2 issue that the Israel pavilion had been located in the YMHA from the very beginning.
Roz pointed out that, in 1971, the second year of Folklorama, the Israel pavilion was located in “Council House” or, as it was better known, “The Golden Age Club,” on Pritchard and Salter. How did she remember that? Roz was the female representative of the pavilion that year. Her title, as I found out was “Miss Judea,” she said.
So, if the Israel pavilion was located at both the Rosh Pina and Shaarey Zedek in that first year of Folkorama, and in the Golden Age Club that second year, where was it after that?
It was left to Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada archivist Andrew Morrison to come up with the answer to that question. Andrew informed me that the Israel pavilion did indeed move to the YMHA in 1972 and remained there for the next 25 years, until it moved to the Asper Campus in 1997.
There was a further footnote to the story, which is when I decided to try my luck with the Winnipeg Public Library’s online archive one more time. This time, rather than searching for “Folklorama,” I tried searching for old copies of both the Free Press and the Tribune from August 1970. I did manage to get results for the Tribune and when I entered a specific search within the Tribune I found a picture of all the famale representatives of pavilions – in bathing suits.
It turned out – and this was corroborated by both Marilyn Breitman and Roz Greenfeld, the female representatives had to parade in unison – in bathing suits, as part of Folklorama festivities. Each year, as well, a queen of Folklorama was chosen. Neither Marilyn nor Roz was made queen, both of them told me, although Roz was voted “Miss Congeniality.”
In addition to finding out about the early days of the Israel pavilion, I also learned that the Chai dancers were not regular performers at the Israel pavilion in those early years – as they eventually did become. Chai performers would dance only one night in those first years, with other entertainment the other nights.
I did enlist Andrew Morrison’s help once again and did find that Chai performed only one evening during the first few years of Folklorama – from 1970 to 1976. In 1977 Chai began performing every night of Folklorama, but there were other performers on hand as well, including Jerry Maslowsky and Rabbi Yosel Rosenzweig. In 1978 the Chai Folk Ensemble was the featured entertainment every evening; however, a notice that appeared in our paper did say that whistler Harvey Pollock would “be on hand” to entertain – whatever that meant.
While some may wonder of what earth shaking importance all this is, I ask: Isn’t it fun to look back in time – for just a little while, instead of worrying about more immediate problems, such as global warming, inflation, terrorist attacks in Israel, and whether Donald Trump will be president while he’s in jail?
Features
EINSTEIN, RITA AND ME
By DAVID R. TOPPER In the early 1960s, when I was an undergraduate student majoring in Physics at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh – there was only one girl in my advanced physics classes. As I learned later, nothing much had changed since the days of Einstein. When he was studying Physics at the Polytechnic in Zurich, the physics classes were all male – except for Mileva Marić, a Serbian who was the first girl in high school ever to take a physics course in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because Switzerland was the only place where women were admitted to university classes, she was there with Albert in Zurich.
She was very smart, especially in math, and also proficient at the piano. Born with a dislocated hip, Mileva had a slight limp, and the men in the class ignored her – except for one, Albert. They became a couple and eventually married.
Back to me in my university physics classes – where it seems that little had changed for over sixty years. In my advanced classes there was only one girl. Her name was Rita. She mainly stayed to herself. Majoring in Mathematics, she took all the advanced physics courses available, right through the fourth year. In short, in those predominantly male classes, she was an anomaly – alone and ignored by her classmates.
Except me. No, I didn’t date her, yet I didn’t ignore her. During those undergraduate years, I lived at home and took a bus or a trolley to school five days a week, leaving early in the morning. The university is in downtown Pittsburgh. Walking to the campus, I first went to the Physics Department, using it as my base. From there I went to my other classes during the day. There was a small classroom in the Department that was almost always empty, especially in the morning. It could be used for individual studying or small group discussions and such. In the early morning, I was usually the only one there – except for Rita, who used it for studying, too. She often was there, even before me. Usually the conversation started by me saying something like: “Hi Rita, did you get the last problem in mechanics class homework?” Her response was invariably, “Yes.” We would go over it, with her finding my mistakes. We had an amiable relationship that never went beyond our interactions about physics – right up to the end of our university years. As far as I can remember, I don’t think I knew much about her beyond the classroom.
But one event, which I’ll never forget, stands out. It was during our last year of classes in a course on the theory of relativity. For the textbook the prof used a paperback edition of the original papers on the theory. Early in the course, we went through Einstein’s first paper of 1905 – step by step. On this particular day, the prof came in and said he had a problem with the next step in the paper. As we all sat with our books in front of us, he pointed to a certain equation where we ended in the previous class. In the next sentence, Einstein says that such and such follows. The problem for the prof was that he didn’t know how Einstein got that deduction. I looked at it, and didn’t have a clue either.
Just then, Rita’s hand went up. She said she thinks she knows how Einstein got it. The prof asked her to come up to the blackboard and show him. Rita did, and the prof said that she was right. I’m quite sure that – then and there – Rita got an A in that course, if not an A+.
That gives you some idea about Rita and my relationship with her at the time. Not a very significant part of my 4-year undergraduate years – except for this one event in a physics course.
Why then am I bringing this up now, so many years later? Here’s why.
I graduated with my BS degree in the fall of 1964. I then went to graduate school at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, majoring in Physics. (It’s now Case-Western Reserve University.)
When I moved there, I lived in a formerly swanky hotel on the edge of the campus, which was purchased by the university as a residence solely for graduate students. They called it The Graduate House. Eleven floors, the top 8 with suites for students, with one floor solely for female students. It was a radical experiment in co-ed living for the time.
My first day there, after getting my room and putting my things in drawers and so forth, it was late in the afternoon – and I was hungry. I had been told when I registered that the dining hall would open the following morning, but for now there was no food. However, on the third floor there were vending machines with sandwiches and such, so I went to find them.
Going down the elevator, exiting at the third floor, and walking down a hall – suddenly I heard my name called. “David, what are you doing here?” Turning around – there was Rita! It was quite a surprise for both of us. This tells you how minimally we interacted before; not even knowing that we both were going to the same graduate school.
I told her that I was majoring in Physics at Case. She, of course, was majoring in Math. After a chat about all this, I said that I was looking for the sandwich machines. She said that there was a diner nearby, and she was going there for dinner with someone else she had just met so I went, too. Thus, Rita and I reunited in Cleveland, now living in the same building.
In a short while, I made friends with a group of people in the Graduate House with diverse majors. Some were in various sciences, others in humanities. It was a lively group, with animated discussions on a range of academic topics, including politics, especially as the Vietnam War became the center of the news in the USA.
Rita was not a part of that group, but I did often see her. Being the eager student that I was, I was up early, getting to the university to study in the library before classes started. Coming to the dining room for breakfast, not long after it opened, I often saw Rita, too – all alone in a far corner. I took my tray and we had breakfast together. Except for that morning ritual, I seldom had any interactions with her.
Thinking about this now, I find the parallel morning rituals (first in Pittsburgh and then in Cleveland) a fascinating serendipitous episode in my life. The difference was that in Cleveland, we were not taking the same courses so we didn’t have to compare solutions to homework. We did talk about our respective courses, and interestingly a parallel appeared. By around mid-term of that first year in graduate school, we both were less than enthusiastic about what we were learning and, accordingly, were both thinking of not carrying on in our respective subjects.
For me it was Quantum Mechanics and the impossibility for us to know reality in itself. Everything was statistical, uncertain and almost esoteric. I found the uncritical attitude toward this world-view to be almost religious in nature. (I only learned later that Einstein felt the same way!)
For Rita, it was the same, despite the different fields. The math now was far beyond basic geometry, algebra and calculus. Topology, Group Theory, Galois’ Theory, and more – all culminating in Gödel’s Theorem, which asserts that all mathematical knowledge is inherently incomplete. It all was too esoteric for her. She knew that she was not going to get a PhD in mathematics.
We commiserated together, with another parallel in our unusual relationship, but with a difference. I still wanted to get my Master’s Degree and somehow still go on to get a job as a professor – that had been my goal in life ever since my first semester at Duquesne. Rita, however, was thinking of dropping out immediately and leaving university life altogether.
For me, this problem was resolved in my second year of Physics at Case, when I took a course taught by Martin Klein. Although he was a physicist in the Department, for many years he no longer was doing research in it. Instead, he was writing papers on the history of the subject – mainly involving Einstein, Boltzmann, Gibbs, Ehrenfest and others. Today those papers are paragons in the field. It was my extremely good luck that the department permitted him to teach such material for the first time.
I loved the course. I was enthralled by the topics – this was the way I wanted to learn physics, through its history. After getting my Master’s in Physics at the end of that year, I moved across campus to the History of Science Department. In another four years I had a PhD in the subject.
Back to early 1965: I tried to talk Rita out of dropping out, but she was adamant. The kicker was this: she really preferred numbers with $$$$ in front of them. Yes, she wanted to be an accountant. She didn’t want to waste any more time here, when she could be home getting her accounting credentials. As I recall, sometime before the spring of that year she went back to Pittsburgh. I’m sure she had an easy time getting her accounting licence and all that went with it. As she was very smart. My guess is that she was an excellent accountant and was very successful in that career.
I have no way of knowing. We didn’t keep in touch (honestly, I don’t know why not) and I can’t even remember her last name. All that I can recall is what I’ve written here. Nonetheless, I find these two interactions between Rita and me an interesting and pleasing tidbit about life and relationships – so much so that I deem it worthy of repeating here.
David R. Topper writes in Winnipeg, Canada. His work has appeared in Mono, Poetic Sun, Discretionary Love, Poetry Pacific, Academy of the Heart & Mind, Altered Reality Mag. and elsewhere.
His poem Seascape with Gulls: My Father’s Last Painting won first prize in the annual poetry contest of CommuterLit Mag – May 12, 2025.
