Traditions!

It is my great pleasure to introduce you to one of our great supporters here at Bubbies & Zaidas Blogging.    To chat with Fania Wedro is to sit with the community.  As we sat to talk, people would come up and pay their respects. It was clear that she is well loved. Fania is not simply the one woman but she embodies her community.   When I point this out to her, she laughs and reminds me that she always says: “JCC is the living room for the Jewish People in Calgary.”

Fanny is well known for her presentations at the Speak every year at the Holocaust Education Symposium, now in it’s 30th year.    She is clear that only through education, through storytelling and sharing can we get to the promise of  “never again”.   “When I was a child I was afraid to go out at Easter because of the oppression of the Jews… things change” she reflects. 

At the 25th anniversary of symposium, a teacher from Strathmore spoke about being at the symposium when she was 17 and hearing Fanny speak about hiding in the forest,  this changed the course of her life.  That is the fuel that keeps Fanny going, telling her stories and keeping traditions.

“I am not religious but I am think traditional” says Bubby Fanny “traditions help us remember who we are, not just as individuals or families but as whole communities.   They are important.  It is what keeps the Jewish culture together.  If we didn’t have tradition we wouldn’t have survived Holocaust and the persecution all those years.”

“There are so many things that get in the way of our traditions.  Remembrance day has become a day at the mall.   We should take the time to reflect on our history and how we got here as a society, how we got our freedom."

She sees the danger in not passing on our history when these children, who will become the future decision makers do not know the stories of the past and then “history will repeat” itself.

She goes on to remind us that “Culture can maintain traditions and support the education of our history so that we can try to learn from our traditions.”

The key here is taking the best of what we have learned, and learning from the worst of what we have experienced.  When I asked her how we would know what was good her life experience made the answer spring from her lips, as though this common sense answer would be easy if you simply gave it some thought:  the best “traditions are respectful of humanity as a whole”.

She reminds us that it is unhelpful to ghetto yourself.  The world is a wider scope than the four walls of your house.  If we keep our traditions we are able to move from our families, to our communities and to humanity.

“It is not just my tradition, it is our tradition, I also love other traditions like Christmas - I love it.   I have Christmas dinner with my friends that celebrate Christmas.  American thanksgiving, I respect other traditions. Its a bringing together.   And if we all supported each other’s beliefs and traditions we would have fewer troubles in the world.”

What Christmas Does Mean?

By Sandi

Christmas does not mean, buy, buy, buy…spend a lot of money.

Christmas should not mean loneliness, being on the streets and being without food. There are

Statistics show Christmas is the time of year where many people commit suicide. There is pressure of the following:

thousands of people in the world who are in this situation. Would it not be a joyful experience if we felt safe enough to invite a lonely person or a homeless person into our home during the Christmas season to share some food with and make them aware they are special in his or her own way? This in itself is a gift.

(1) “spend time with your family”

(2) “spend time with your friends”
(3) “cook a turkey dinner with the fixings”

(4) “put up a tree with all the trimmings”

(5) “buy gifts for those people in your life that you love etc. 

There are many people in the world that are not fortunate to be able to do any of the above as they don’t have family, don’t have friends, can’t afford to buy a turkey etc. Through all the hype, loneliness becomes more prominent during the Christmas season. Some people find the pain so unbearable that they just want to avoid the hurt.

The problem with the pressure to buy, buy, buy is that there are people who do not have self-discipline and cannot afford to spend a lot of money on gifts, however, because it is Christmas will go into extreme debt. People believe they will pay this debt off later; however, this does not appear to happen. Unfortunately, some of these people are shopaholics. The sponsors of the numerous advertisements pressuring people to buy are feeding this addiction.

Years ago there were numerous advertisements to purchase cigarettes…this has now ceased. Scientists and doctors have proven that smoking is harmful to a person’s health. Over spending is also hazardous to a person’s health. Extreme debt and finding a solution causes stress that causes numerous health problems. Valuable relationships have almost been destroyed for the wrong reasons…materialism. I suspect we will see the need for the same kind of interventions for consumerism as we did for smoking cessation in the future.  Thousands of children know Christmas as only being the time of year they are going to receive numerous gifts and grow up with with this mind set.

Another scenario occurs during Christmas. Numerous charities are asking for money. There are people who want to give to the charities that mean the most to them, however, unfortunately they cannot, as they themselves do not have the money to give and put themselves on a guilt trip because they care so much.

Last, but not least, winter holiday traditions are different for all cultures and beliefs. The Christian world celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ during the Christmas season. Therefore, speaking as a Christian, I wish you a Merry Christmas, welcoming you into my tradition of celebration, not consumerism.  I welcome you into my celebration, as other faith traditions welcome me.

Not married? No Children! Oh My!

By Norma

When I was a teenager the expectation was that it was alright to get an education but this was to occur while you were waiting to get married.  The marriages and engagements started by the end of high school and later, most of the women in my nursing class were engaged by the time we graduated.  I came close! My fiancé wanted to get married right away, but I wanted to get my degree. Since he did not want to wait, we parted.

I was a enthusiastic pupil and had always been encouraged by my parents to study. This was not the norm amongst my peers! My relatives continued to ask about boyfriends, engagement parties and weddings were a nightmare of veiled looks and questions.
   

The next big question was - didn't I want children?  This did have me questioning my own motivation.  But...  I guessed that if I did marry, children would likely follow.  But... did I really want that?  I have felt judged, particularly as time went on and I didn't marry or have children. I could sense that behind the questions looks there were other thoughts- is there something wrong with her since she can't get a man?  Is she just too picky?       

Feminism, MS magazine,and the "the pill", were front and center during my 20's and 30's.  In some ways that made my situation more tenable. At least there were discussions and forums on marriage and motherhood and I didn't have to feel so alone being single and childless.  There were other women out other women like me!  There were even women brave enough to admit that motherhood was not for them.
       

I have had my share of relationships, some brief, some long term. My common law marriage has lasted 25 years.  Marriage was not an issue for either of us and we were beyond the parenthood age when we met. My career in Nursing has spanned 46  satisfying years. I have reached the age of 70 sans marriage or offspring.

Oh my!