Jewish community event raises cash for science education in Israel
Philanthropy: Honoree was Gary Segal who chairs campaign for new Ronald McDonald House
REACHING OUT: Members of Vancouver’s Jewish community filled the Four Seasons hotel ballroom recently for the annual Negev Dinner. Chaired by Kira Levy with honorary chairs Ben Goldberg and Josephine Nadel, the sold- out event helped the Jewish National Fund and the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem fund scientific education in Israel.
Bullhorn - toting folk harangued arriving guests, who included B. C. Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon and JNF president Ilene- Jo Bellas. They might have protested less if they’d known of event honouree Gary Segal chairing a $ 32- million campaign for Ronald McDonald House at B. C. Children’s Hospital, of his similar roles at other hospitals, and of a million- dollar fundraising for children’s healthservices in Ethiopia directed by Dr. Rick Hodes, who was present.
“This isn’t a perfect world, and we don’t choose where we are born or the circumstances we are born into,” Segal said.
Calling himself “a very lucky man” who learned philanthropy from parents Joe and Rosalie, he said: “All I did, like many in this room, was reach out and try to do something for fellow human beings in times of great suffering and need.”
He thanked his wife Nanci, “who always puts herself last,” and his children Haley, Adam, Stephi and daughterinlaw Gillian for working on the fundraising effort, and especially son Justin who was MC. Lucky man, indeed.
• ART FULL: Sunshine, a high- school jazz band and $ 5- a- glass wine had West Vancouverites crowd their museum’s lawn this week.
Ditto the building itself, where an exhibition by past and present students included works by Bobbie Burgers, Douglas Coupland, Geoffrey Farmer, Graham Gillmore, Ross Penhall, Ian Wallace and other heavyweights. Penhall, whose paintings fetch $ 20,000, smiled at folk jamming rooms which, in his former incarnation as a fire captain, he’d have made them vacate.
• RUNWAY FUN: Fashion models usually vary little in height, weight and age.
Not so at Winsor Gallery Thursday when TV Shopping Bags Kristina Matisic and Anna Wallner MCed a $ 25,000 benefit for Baby Go Round. Jennifer Randall Nelson founded that organization in 2012 to provide needy families with new or little- used baby goods and clothing.
Misch boutique’s Alice Whittick attired the show’s older models, and Isola Bella store owner Julia Molnar looked after the juniors, who seemed unconcerned by missing their naps or being late for bed.
• STRING FEVER: Key “bislin chan momento” for a YouTube video of Fraser Valley violinist Jan Bislin bowing the A and E strings and Jonathan Chan the D and G strings of the same instrument in their take of Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang ( My Baby Shot Me Down). DEAD TO WRITE: Weyerhaeuser president Anne Giardini may have more than robes and a floppy hat to show when she becomes Simon Fraser University’s chancellor June 13. That’s about when HarperCollins should publish her book about “dead people, dead countries, dead loves, dead relationships, dead languages and what happens when you die.” As for what will happen to outgoing SFU chancellor Carole Taylor, this is a mayoral election year. TIME OF A WHALE: Mayor Gregor Robertson’s philosophical dive into Vancouver Aquarium’s whale pool comes 40 years after Vancouver magazine writer Hank Harrison did so. Picturing killer whales bringing news for the Stanley Park facility’s first such captive, Harrison wrote: “Skana misses her relatives and her fun and frolic. But most of all she misses her old man, who is a big bruiser and rather angry about Skana’s circumstance.
“When Skana was captured, you see, nobody bothered to ascertain her position in the family system, the social pattern that all whales ( as well as geese, caribou and humans) abide by. For Skana is the matriarch of her tribe, in the very top rank of leadership. … She is like a queen, and she’s in jail.”
That line could have been sung by the Grateful Dead, a band Harrison managed in its early days as the Warlocks, or by daughter Courtney Love, who was 10 in 1974.
• MID- LIFE MUSTANG: Happy birthday, Ford Mustang, which will be 50 on April 17. Many have been restored by False Creek Automotive principal Vern Bethel, who, noting an early model’s iron- oxide dandruff, once said: “They don’t call ’ em Rustangs for nothing.”
With condo towers replacing False Creek’s rusting workshops, outfits like Bethel’s and neighbour Ken Powers’ Classic Customs and Hot Rods are migrating to the creek’s original eastern shoreline, now Clark Drive.
CURRENT TREND: Electric cars must be legit if hot- rodders build them. Classic Cars Rehab co- principal Joe Mizsak made a “rustbucket” 1958 Chevy pickup like new again, installed an electric motor and 24 lithium batteries at $ 1,000 per, painted it apple green and sent it out, named Retro Electro, to juice up Steam Whistle Brewing’s marketing efforts.
• DOWN PARRYSCOPE: City hall’s tightening of “urban forest” rules will doubtless permit the felling of trees that threaten cyclists.