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Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia JHSBC Oral History Collection British Columbia Immigrants
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Miriam Aroeste

Oral Interview with Miriam Aroeste for the JMABC Artists Scribe. Interviewed by Daniella Givon. Miriam was born in Mexico City in 1961 and she explains how her family ended up in Mexico from Poland prior to WWII. She discusses her immediate family, and how her and her husband resettled in Vancouver in 1990. Miriam talks about her career in the film industry and how she transitioned to visual arts with inspiration from her father and the need to balance her career with parenthood. She speaks about having little interest in arts, besides dance, growing up, but that changed when she lived in Europe for almost a decade during her 20s. Miriam describes her art style as more abstract than figurative and discusses her love of bright colours and the necessity of knowing what you want from an art career. She talks about curating art for Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics, selling her work, and the kinds of commissions she enjoys. Lastly Miriam discusses her time in art galleries as an artist, curator and art consultant and what she had learned about art collectors and art institutions along the way.

Nora Patrich

Oral History Interview with Nora Patrich for the JMABC Artists Scribe. Interviewed by Carol Herbert. Patrich was born in Argentina in 1952 and speaks about her upbringing between Argentina, Israel and the United States. She discusses her exposure to political activism and Latin American expressionist art throughout her formative years, including mentorship within her father’s politically charged arts collective named the Spartacus Movement. She tells her experience of the military coup in Argentina during the ‘70s, that forced her into exile in Israel with young children after her husband was assassinated. She explains how this led to a life of traveling activism denouncing Argentina’s past military atrocities, including anti-Semitic genocide, and fighting for human rights through art and protest. Patrich’s primary art mediums are painted murals and sculptures; she discusses their public installments into places like past concentration camps and military bombing sites, and how her art will always be political. She closes by talking about doing mosaic work, independent book printing and publishing, and how there is a documentary about her stories of Argentina.

Mia Weinberg

Oral History Interview with Mia Weinberg for the JMABC Artists Scribe. Interviewed by Bill Gruenthal. Mia was born in London, England in 1958. She describes her life as a child of German-Jewish refugees post-WWII, growing up in England and the role this had on her life, including her art work. She discusses her transition from a materials technologist in England to an immigrant in Vancouver, going to art school in her 30s and becoming an independent working artist. Mia is known for working with unconventional materials in her works, most often sculpture and installations.

Olga Campbell

Oral History Interview with Olga Campbell for the JMABC Artists Scribe. Interviewed by Bill Gruenthal. Olga Campbell was born in Iraq in 1943 and immigrated to Canada at the age of five in 1948. She explains her family’s experience with both Russian prison camps and the Holocaust during WWII, where they eventually made it safely to Canada. She discusses her journey as a social worker turned arts professional, including her time spent at Emily Carr and Capilano arts schools. As a second generation Holocaust survivor, Olga discusses how being Jewish and the associated inter-generational trauma of Holocaust survivorship has informed her works. Olga is a mixed-media artist, working in digital and traditional mediums, including collage and sculpture. She also published her art in a book focused on her family’s experience of the Holocaust that has fostered connections to her story, shared herein.

Sidi Schaffer

Oral Interview with Sidi Schaffer for the JMABC Artists Scribe. Interviewed by Daniella Givon. Sidi goes over her family history in Romania, where she was born, and across Eastern Europe, and then details her immediate family in Canada. Sidi describes her artistic influences from her parents who were professional photographers after WWII, especially her mother who encouraged her to do art. Being born in 1938, some of Sidi’s earliest childhood memories are of fleeing from the Holocaust with her family. Sidi found art to be an escape from personal traumas, which eventually took her to art school in Bucharest where she met her husband, David. Sidi describes her and David’s time living in Israel, and eventually moving to Edmonton where she pursued more formal arts education. Sidi describes opportunities to show her printmaking and painted works, and teach arts across Canada. She also describes inspiration from nature, freedom of expression, and memories of the Holocaust. She outlines how the Gesher Project helped her develop as a Jewish artist, and how she produces Judaic influenced art with her sister.

Vanessa Marks

Interview with Vanessa Marks. Interviewed by Cindy Rozen. Vanessa talks about her family's history, her childhood, and her immigration to New Zealand and eventually Canada. She compares life, culture, and the Jewish community between South Africa and Canada, and talks briefly about her education, career, and family.

Janet Esseiva

Oral History Interview with Janet Esseiva for the JMABC Artists Scribe. Interviewed by Helen Aqua. Janet Esseiva was born in South Africa in 1964. She is an artist currently based out of Bowen Island, B.C. Esseiva describes her younger years in South Africa during the time of Apartheid and her meaningful exposure to the arts. She explains her transition from an Information Technology professional in Cape Town to an immigrant in Canada eventually working as a full time artist. Esseiva is known for painted works that focus on nature, and she explains how these works can evoke strong emotions and meaningful connections between art and artist, as well as artist and viewer.

Renee Kursan

.Interview with Renee Kursan. Interviewed by Sara Bernstein. Renee talks about her family's history, her education, and her childhood growing up in Cape Town and Mossel Bay, South Africa. She discusses her career as a nurse and life raising her young children outside of Queenstown and in Cape Town. Renee speaks about her and her family’s immigration to Vancouver, Canada. She compares Jewish life in South Africa to Canada and the countries’ culture, race and the Apartheid in South Africa.

Irma Schneider

Oral history interview with Irma Schneider, interviewed by Cindy Rozen. Irma speaks on her family’s history as well as her early life and adolescence in East London, South Africa. Irma also discusses her childhood education in a Catholic convent and her experience with camp and Habonim. When she was married, she lived in Cape Town, where her children were also born, and in 1980, she immigrated to Vancouver, Canada. She details her family’s and her own experience with immigrating to Canada and speaks about her marriage and her children’s families.

Marcus Stiller

Number: CA JMABC A.1971.001-20.18-23
Name: Marcus Stiller
Interviewer: David Goldman
Date: June 4th, 2018
Place: Vancouver, BC
Project: The Jewish Historical Society of BC Oral History Project

00:00 Interviewer David Goldman introduces themselves and Marcus Stiller, the owner of Fish Café, who is being interviewed.
0:21 Stiller was born in Durban, South Africa in 1961. His family lived in a near a Jewish community and Stiller went to Jewish schools. Stiller also describes the significant role food has played in their life since they were young.
1:53 Stiller went to hotel school in South Africa but decided they preferred the culinary industry. Later they worked in Israel for two years.
3:10 Stiller’s first restaurant was in Tel Aviv. They developed a restaurant for a wealthy family and enjoyed the social aspect of the business.
4:18 Goldman asks Stiller how they started the Fish Café in Vancouver. Still recalls that he modeled his business after one with a similar concept in South Africa that sells only seafood.
5:21 Stiller provides an overview of their time in the food industry. After working in Israel for two years, they went to Pretoria, South Africa and joined a friend’s steakhouse business. Around that time, Stiller met their wife to be who was planning to move to Cape Town. Stiller moved with her where they got involved in a successful pizza and pasta restaurant chain. Later, Stiller moved to Johannesburg where they joined their brother-in-law in an electronics business before also working in the security industry. In 1996, Stiller and their wife moved to Vancouver and in 2000, opened the Fish Café.
8:25 Goldman asks Stiller about the extent that Judaism had an effect on their business. Stiller describes how the Jewish community in Vancouver continuously supported their restaurant.
9:33 The speakers begin discussing the changes that have occurred in the food industry during Stiller’s career. Stiller notes that they have noticed a growing trend of smaller food businesses that are independent and family-owned opening in the Kerrisdale area. Stiller recalls their sons’ involvement in the restaurant.
11:39 Goldman asks what Stiller thinks regarding the future of the Fish Café and whether their children will continue it. Stiller replies that it is unlikely their children will take over the business and they will work in it until they are no longer able to.
13:27 Stiller recounts what they’ve learned after working in the restaurant industry. They describe how they are starting to see young people whose parents brought them to the Fish Café as children come in themselves. The Fish Café has allowed Stiller to develop many relationships within the community.
15:11 Stiller recalls how Kerrisdale has changed since the Fish Café began. They notice that it has become increasingly commercialized. Stiller also mentions how they feel very fortunate to be part of the community in Vancouver.
16:19 End of interview.

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