By ALEX KLINER Social Columnist
Family and Cosmetic Dentristry
From Baghdad to Vancouver
In addition to being a pilot, Akram Ftaya co-runs the Bakehouse.
F
^ or generations, Akram Ftaya's family called Baghdad home. Circumstances, however.
changed in 1952, the year he was bom. The Ftayas left tliat home as refugees. "Tlie writing was on the wall as the Baath Party took power. There was no room in Iraq anymore for Jews," he says. Canada became home for the Ftayas.
Growing up witli a love of flying, Akram became a military pilot. Served three years in the Canadian Anned Forces. Tlien, back to civilian life as a commercial pilot for CP Air. In 1976, he enlisted, for two years, in tlie Israeli air force then returned to civilian piloting and CP Air. These days, he's with Air Canada.
On Dec. 31, 2004, pilot Akram and life partner Jenny Lamb, a former airline anendant, took a new flight patli, so to speak ... opened tlie Bakehouse in tlie Dundarave area of West Vancouver, at 2453 Marine Dr. "We're a fanily business with our four children," says Akram. Tlie baked goods... "all our own." The food... "made from scratch." And, naturally, they always serve coffee, tea or milk!
Akram Ftaya with Bakehouse baking.
Thinking about an eternal rest in Jerusalem' Seems higli demand and shortage of cemetery space witliin the dty itself means burial for nonresidents can cost from a "basic" $7,250 US for plot and intemient to $15,000 US at the historic Mount of Olives. And there's "no shortage of takers." More than 1,000 Diaspora Jews are buried in Israel each year, hundreds in Jerusalem.
And speaking of Israel cemeteries ... Eretz Hahayim, 20 miles west of Jerusalem, is managed by Rabbi Yitzhak Freilich, whose last name in Yiddish translates to "joyous" or "happy." An appropriate name, I'd say, probably reflecting the afterlife elation of those interred there ... buried in tlie Holy Land!
While visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., leave some time to also visit tlie nearby National Museum of the American Indian... the U.S. capital's "hottest" new attraction. "A long-overdue addition," says one observer, "to the National Mall's extraordinary collection of science, art and cultural facilities." Botli museums, he points out, "painfully recount a people's devastation."
"Sbikscf ... pejorative word for a non-Jewish female and title of a book, Shiksa; The Gentile Woman in the Jewish World. Fiction writer and essayist Christine Benvenuto examines "first and foremost" the experience preva-
lent in the American-Jewish world of non-Jewish women and those who converted to Judaism. Shiksa is intended to "confront, head-on, controvereial and complex issues" says the autlior.
Then tliere's Army of Roses.... a book that documents the lives of five Palestinian women who "martyred" tliemselves. Also draws on interviews with women who "foiled or botched" tlieir suicide attempts or who helped otlier bombere carry out attadcs. Essentially, however, author Barbara Victor (a "seasoned" journalist for CBS television and U.S. News and Worid Report) "takes both societies (Israeli and Palestinian] to task."
"Quackery! No such tiling as an anti-aging product," says University of Chicago public healtii professor Jay Olshansky. "Aging is a genetic process." In tiiis context, tiie good professor mentions tliat sea turdes have a life span of 150 years. In that case ... to a Jewish sea turtle you don't make our traditional wish ... "you should live to 120."
***
In tlie 1960s, tiien-young Israeli musicians Itzhak Perlman, Pin-chas Zukerman and Daniel Barcnboim were named "die Jewish Mafia" by others in the music world... partly in jest, partly in envy of tiieir skyrocketing fame. However, unlike die mafia, Perlman and Zukerman actually did cany violins in dieir cases and Barenboim was
never known to stash a submachine gun in his piano.
A study published in ihejounial of Applied Social Psychology found diat women who work near loud, annoying office noise react by overeating ... mostly junk food. Seems die women do some extra snacking after die stress has passed ... "during a period of winding down." "Hie stressed-out women in die study were "almost frantic snackers," says Laura Klein, who teaches behavioral healdi at Perm State University.
Tlie study, I should mention, found that men don't snack. Naturally! We're mosdy too busy creating the loud, annoying office noise! Then we go out for a relaxing drink.
***
The Big Lebowski, a 1998 movie made by die "marvellously meshugah" Coen brothers. Tells die story of an aging hippie, Dude, and Viemam buddy Walter, a Polish Catholic "obsessed" with his failed marriage to a Jewish woman and who remains "shomer Shabbes." Originally garnering a "puny" $20 million at die box office, Lebowski is now having "a prosperous cult-status afteriife" by way of Lebowski Fests "sprouting up" in die United States. So mazal tov "Dude," to Walter, and to you, dear reader, a good Shabbes ... shomer or odienvise. S
Alex Kliner has a varied background in tbcativ, education and community service.
Dentistry
• Funily
• Cosmetic '• Root Canal
I^tment
• Crown & Bridge Graduate Hebrew University Jerusalem , Gum treatment
Dr. Monica Berant
Graduate UFM Cluj-Napoca
Dr. Aaron Berant
25 years Israeli & Canadian experience
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1. The new exhibit, Movement and Abstraction by Karen Qiapnilc continues to January 18,2006 in ttie Sydney and Gertnjde Zack Gallery.
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