Monday, May 26, 2014

Bruce's Dream: Searching For the Truth

It is important to seek out the truth.  In this video Bruce explains how he discovered the truth about his wife's family as it was torn apart during the war.


Monday, May 19, 2014

Norma Explains it All to You


Norma has experienced a lot of changes for women in her life.  Here she explains how she traversed the complications of cultural expectations and a desire for learning.  Enjoy!

Monday, May 12, 2014

Purpose Driven: Notes to my 13 year old Self.

By Amalia Tauber

This video was made in the blogging class with myself, some students and Mariette.   It came from the conversation I had with one of the young students about what I would tell my younger self.

The transcript, I started below, as well




The first  thing I  would tell myself at 13 is to study... not just for professional life but for learning about LIFE... about mankind, about how things came to be and where they could go.

In 1939 the war started, with that my life changed.  And my perspective about life was completely different then.

Before those days I knew there were rich people and poor people, people who would like to achieve thinking that they couldn't achieve in life but that life could be so hard and people could regress to acting like savages, that was something completely new to me.

War can change everybody.  BUT it is not just the war but it was the things that led up to the war... it was the unfinished work that lead up to the war, the treaties, the fallout from WW1 and the economic pressures, the changes in the country lines and the economic pressures that followed after the first ww - the consequences... in particular what happened in Germany.

How the National Socialist Party could take hold there was because the economic situation was so bad there.  There was inflation and unemployment.

If you know how people came to their circumstances, how they came to live you can understand and anticipate the future.   You can only do this if you LEARN about history, human behaviour, and life situations.  You can learn in many ways

You can learn from experience, from other in your surrounding and life, and you can learn from books and other resources.

Learning from life experience for me meant living in a concentration camp.   I was a teenager, I didn't anticipate this kind of cruelty and horror in what I and many other experienced.

You need to know what is happening in the world and if you want to change it you need to fight for better conditions for living, not just for yourself but for all people.

There are many distractions, especially now, for a young person.  There are many ways to get knocked of a helpful path.  Our cultures encourages us to be shallow.   I am not saying don't enjoy your life but a young person needs to have ideals, a purpose.  You may not know your purpose exactly, but if you read and you explore the failures of humanity through learning, (not through personal experience, I hope for you) and you can find your way to your purpose.  I

Its very important for younger people to go on the path of ideals, it is much harder to find as you get old.  When you are young you are more enthusiast and believe more in the goodness of others.  As you age you can become more cynical, so to capture you ideals and enthusiasm and hold onto it as you grow.

After all I have been through, and it has been much, I still believe in the goodness of mankind.  There are more good people than bad.

What would you tell yourself, leave it in the comments below

Monday, May 5, 2014

Our Launch

Our video launch was a tremendous success with a great showing of over 40 friends and family.   Our intrepid blogger Sandi was our host for the evening and she encouraged us all to have a great time.   We had folks from the Jewish Centre supporting us, The Calgary Jewish Academy came to celebrate with us and some representation from the fantastic youth that were part of the project.

So this week we want to feature the fantastic video made by Micah who asked Bob 5 questions.  These questions were based on conversations around "what stories would you want to share with younger people".

Stepping into becoming an Elder in your community and moving into a position of storyteller is an important part of the aging process.  Only you have the lived experience and understanding if you are ahead of someone.  It makes seniors leaders and we have some great leadership on this blog! 

Hope you stayed tuned for more stories, but for now, here's Bob!