If you go online on Etsy, you can buy coffee cups that  say “We shall Dance Again” to commemorate the victims at the Nova Festival on the October 7 Hamas attacks. I thought of this as I was live-streaming the Chai Folk Ensemble’s 60th Anniversary  Concert at Club Regent, (which was wonderful , by the way,) I am the same age as Chai, 60 years And I thought of  the “We shall Dance Again”,  which speaks of  the Jewish people’s  resilience again a night later when I saw Kadima Dance Company perform at Shaarey Zedek synagogue’s Gala Fundraising dinner featuring scholar Rabbi David Wolpe. Their performance was also wonderful.

At the Chai Concert, Shelley Faintuch, who was one of the first 8 dancers of Chai spoke beautifully about dancing in Sarah Sommer’s basement.  She spoke of Sarah Sommer’s tremendous vision in travelling to Israel, a very young nation at the time, to learn its folk dances. Most Jewish communities, who are far larger than us, do not have dance troupes that enable its youth to be embed with the music and dance of Israel. In Winnipeg, we have this because Sarah Sommer had vision. She was a visionary leader. We have much many talented dancers, and the Chai singers had gorgeous voices.

I am going to put out my vision. It is a vision where both Chai and Kadima work on a program with the theme “We shall dance again” to honour and commemorate the victims of the Nova Festival, and to honour the survivors of that festival, and produce a unique show that will involve two concerts.I also think you could involve Chai alumni dancers and singers as they added tremendously to the richness of this year’s Chai. concert. It could be performed on Oct 7, if not next year, then the year after. I think there would be enough people, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to fill the seats for two concerts. Why do I say this? I noticed there were very few new Israeli immigrants who bought tickets to the Chai concert, but if the concert was in commemoration of the victims of The Nova Festival I think they would buy tickets, as would more people in the community, enough to have two concerts. .It would be a way of our Jewish community showing resilience after the Oct 7 attacks. If such a performance were planned, I believe there would be sponsors who could be found to support this event. Possibly, a survivor of the Nova Festival could attend to be part of the program. 

On another note, I saw that there were virtually no Jewish male dancers dancing  in the Chai Concert, but rather dancers from the Philipino community (who were rather excellent dancers).I have no objection to dancers from other communities being in Chai, but I wish to point out that there are now many new Israeli immigrants in our community and I hope Chai and Kadima will get in touch with the Israeli groups in our community (such as the Manitoba-Israel coalition) and ask them to find Israeli male young adults to dance with Chai or Kadima. After Oct 7, I hope these Israelis will step up and help the community show our pride in, and connection to Israel. I believe they will answer the call. And also,if Chai and Kadima did a concert to commemorate the Nova Festival victims and survivors, then each group could take  turns doing their own set, and take turns on stage (just as they do for Yom Ha'atzmaut).

And if the program that is developed for “We shall dance again” is worthy enough, maybe it will go to other cities and, one day, to Israel. That is my vision.

[