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York grad’s debut novel a contender for GG's award

Photo by Glen Lowry

Is it possible that a mere first novelist could grab this year's Governor General's Award for fiction away from much-lauded scribes like Michael Ondaatje, Barbara Gowdy and M.G. Vassanji? asked a Montreal Gazette reviewer Nov. 17 after hearing finalist David Chariandy (right) (PhD ’02) read from his debut novel Soucouyant. On the back flyleaf of his book, there are precisely two sentences: "David Chariandy lives in Vancouver and teaches in the department of English at Simon Fraser University. This is his first novel." Soucouyant, however, does not read like a debut effort.

Chariandy was born and raised in Scarborough, Ont., to parents who had immigrated, as adults, from Trinidad. If it hadn't been for one guidance counselor who took note of his reading levels, he would have been "streamed" into trade school. He did his undergraduate studies and masters degree at Carleton University in Ottawa, then went on to do his PhD in English at York. Four years ago, he was hired by SFU as a literary critic and teaching professor. He researches and writes mainly about Canadian, Caribbean and post-colonial literature.

"I'd always wanted to do creative writing," he said. "But I felt, foolishly, that it was self-indulgent, selfish to be a creative writer. So one has to get a real job.” he said. “Creative writing was this thing that I felt had to do on the side, not to tell too many people that I was doing it."

Osgoode alumna proves 'nice' can finish first
Margarett Best (left) (LLB ’95) is the kind of woman you'd love to hate, wrote the Toronto Star Nov. 20.

The outside is bad enough: She's thin, fit, pretty and looks at least 10 years younger than her 49 years. [A graduate of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School,] she had a successful practice as a lawyer before running as a rookie in Scarborough-Guildwood in the provincial election in October, and now the rookie is an Ontario government cabinet minister.

You'd love to hate Best, but she seems too nice. Not bland-and-vacuous nice, which would be boring and grounds for feeling smugly superior. No, she's nice-from-experience nice, possessed of the inner dignity and empathy that come from battling adversity – repeatedly – and winning.

She knows what it is like to struggle through daily routines with a broken heart. Her mother died when Best was 11. Margarett and a sister emigrated from Jamaica to Detroit to live with an uncle, who died when Best was 14. They began working nights in a nursing home to support themselves. Best had to lie about her age to get hired.

She met a Canadian and moved to Toronto, where she raised three children – now 33, 30 and 20 – while working in a law office and taking night classes. For many years, she was a single mom, juggling it all on her own.

Minister of health promotion is a good fit for the health-conscious Best. She drinks at least eight glasses of water every day, walks half an hour every day and likes to hit the gym three days a week.

Best is clearly engaged by the idea of helping Ontarians improve their health, even if she hasn't quite yet mastered the pedometers her ministry hands out, one of which she has begun wearing to track the number of steps she takes each day.

Biologist alum speaks about animal pleasures, including sex
York alumnus Jonathan Balcombe (right) (BSc ’83) has been billed an animal sexpert – at least for tonight, wrote the Toronto Star Nov. 21. "I didn't know that's how they spun it," he says with a chuckle, referring to his Toronto talk sponsored by the animal protection charity Zoocheck Canada.

While the PhD-toting ethologist (a person who studies animal behaviour) has written a book on all aspects of animal pleasure, from the joys of touch to the delights of eating, that doesn't mean he spends his time watching animals get it on.

Rather, Balcombe, a senior research scientist at the Washington, DC-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, wants to use his knowledge of behaviour to make the world a better place for animals. "I'm a qualified voice for animals," he says. The Toronto native, with an undergraduate biology degree from York University says knowing how animals – from elephants to fish – experience pleasure is important if we are to give them the best quality of life.

Theatre alumna takes on a 'Porn Life'
It may not be a lifestyle to which she's accustomed, but local actor Rebecca Nicholson (left) (BFA ’03) will spend the next few weeks immersed in Porn Life, wrote Toronto’s City Centre Nov. 22. Nicholson will star in the tawdrily titled play, a comedy that sends up the adult film genre with a mockumentary-style look at the behind-the-scenes lives of a fictitious porn film crew.

In the play, she portrays a veteran of the adult film industry who is looking to return to the movies after a forced retirement. While she loves the heightened comedic elements in the play, Nicholson said she still gets plenty of raised eyebrows from others who have not seen the play. "When I talk about it, I get a lot of weird looks and I've had a lot of people ask me 'is there nudity'?" she said. "But the good thing is that people are definitely interested in it, and I hope people open their eyes and ears to it."

Blindness doesn't stop this York alumnus
York alumnus Michael Ovens (BES ’02) had a few goals in his life – finish university, get a job and buy a condo. When he'd accomplished those goals, he decided it was time to volunteer, wrote the Sudbury Star Nov. 22. "I began to look around for an organization to volunteer for," said Ovens, a former Val Therese resident now living in Toronto who is blind. "I'd always been interested in the Foundation Fighting Blindness, but I never had the time to get involved with them."

When Ovens was seven or eight years old, his parents noticed that he had trouble seeing at night. "It took quite a few years to figure it out…it was retinitis pigmentosa. It's a degenerative eye disease which affects the retina. Currently there is no cure." His vision loss progressed from night blindness to tunnel vision. Throughout elementary and high school, Ovens did well at school, but needed some extra time to complete assignments by the end of high school. He graduated from Ecole secondaire Hanmer and went to York University.

"Three months before graduating, in 2002, I guess the last healthy clump of retina gave out and I couldn't read print any more," Ovens said. "So, I had to go back and learn JAWS (Job Access With Speech) which allows you to navigate the computer screen without the use of a mouse."

In 2005, Ovens began running marathons to raise money for the foundation. This year, he raised $5,000. Ovens plans to run the Miami Marathon on Jan. 27, the Boston Marathon in April, Run Ottawa in May and the New York City Marathon in November to raise money for the foundation. The group's sole purpose is to fund Canadian research.

Queen's appoints York grad as its diversity adviser
Queen's University, which has been criticized for its "culture of whiteness," has appointed a special high-level diversity adviser, wrote the Kingston Whig-Standard Nov. 21. Principal Karen Hitchcock has announced the two-year renewable appointment of York alumnus Barrington Walker (right) (BA ‘93), a history professor at Queen’s, to advise university administration on ways to make the campus more diverse and address prejudice and racism.

Walker, who specializes in black Canadian history and who is completing a book on how blacks have been historically treated by Ontario’s justice system, said yesterday his role was not to address individual complaints the way the university’s human rights office already does but to make broad recommendations on school practices and policies.

“I see my role as complementing the work of the human rights office,” said Walker. “I see it as formulating policy that will make the campus a more welcoming place and to address curricular issues.”

Football coach’s job is all work and no play
It is 5am and, as the world sleeps around him, BC Lions assistant coach Mike Benevides (right) is engrossed in video, reported The Vancouver Province Nov. 18. This is not unusual.

Benevides, like all assistant coaches, watches more video than Roger Ebert. This morning, he will put in 21/2 hours of work in preparation for the Lions' 6:30am defensive meeting in his capacity as the linebackers' coach. If he's lucky, he'll be home at 7pm. And for all that, Benevides will tell you he's been extremely fortunate in his career. Since graduating to the CFL from York University (where he studied administrative studies from 1990 to 1995) eight years ago, he's had two jobs and one boss. He won a Grey Cup with the Stamps in '01, another with the Lions in '06 and, in his five years here, the Lions have averaged just under 13 wins a season.

Giving art a solid framework
Alexandra Montgomery (below) (MBA ’87) doesn't get a chance to put brush to canvas these days. Instead, her passion for the arts finds an outlet in a very different medium: the business world, wrote The Globe and Mail Nov. 21.

As executive director of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto, Montgomery, 46, has applied her business skills to transforming the museum from a niche, private collection with a modest profile into a world-recognized specialty museum and cultural destination for a vastly expanded audience.

Now she is being honoured among women who have shaped Canadian thinking and culture in the arenas of Arts and Communications by the Toronto-based Women's Executive Network in its annual list of the top 100 most powerful women in Canada.

Her involvement with the Gardiner began with a summer job working as a clerk in the shop of the newly opened museum. When Montgomery went on to do an MBA in Arts Administration at York University’s Schulich School of Business, she interned in the Gardiner's administrative offices.

After graduating, she worked in communications, marketing and fundraising, largely in non-profit arts organizations in Toronto, including the Canadian Opera Company. She returned to the Gardiner as director of development and communications in 1999, then advanced to become interim director and finally executive director in 2000, when the job of curator became a separate position under her. "I am not an academic, curator or educator," she says. "I see myself as an entrepreneur."

Filming wraps up on tanning black comedy
A York University student's movie about tanning addiction is finally done, despite a backlash from the tanning industry that kiboshed previous plans, wrote the Brantford Expositor Nov. 21. City native Sarah Evans was to film scenes for Baked, a black comedy about a woman with a fictional tanning disorder, in Brantford. However, those plans were cancelled after a news story about the movie sparked complaints from tanning businesses, including a national organization overseeing the industry.

The cancellation left the 21-year-old York University filmmaker scrambling. But she was able to find new locations in town and wrapped the short movie early Tuesday. Evans won't reveal where she shot in Brantford. "A nice, kind person let me film there," she said. "It was very last minute, but we got it done and everybody's happy. That's all that matters now."

The movie is part of her final course requirements for York's bachelor of fine arts degree in film & video production. Editing should be complete by April and then different cuts will be made before the final product is evaluated. Evans also plans to enter Baked in film festivals.

York alumna published insightful essays by ESL students
Writing helps reveal the complexity of the immigrant experience, teachers at Jones Avenue Adult Centre have found, and each year since 2002 they have compiled and published essays by their 300 English-as-a-second-language students, wrote the Toronto Star Nov. 20. The latest edition of the anthology, called Footprints, is to be launched today, during ESL week in Toronto, at a private function at the Toronto school board's offices.

"Often students who have trouble articulating in the classroom will reveal all these layers of themselves through their writing," says editor and York alumna Momoye Sugiman (BA ’81), one of the teachers at the school. "I've gotten to know some very shy, withdrawn students through their writing."

The results, as Jones Avenue school site manager Mary Jane Walker points out in her introduction to the 123-page book, are stories told with rare and poignant clarity. Some of the authors are people in mid-life. Others, like Nguyen Nhu Trang, 21, who has just learned that she has been accepted at York University in chemical engineering, are just beginning their adult lives.

Education or segregation? African-centred school showing the way
Toronto has been engaged in a heated debate about the merits of opening up an Africentric public school – a concept that already exists on a small scale at the privately run Umoja Learning Circle in Rexdale, reported the National Post Nov. 19. A Rastafarian grandmother who goes by the moniker Tafari (BEd ’94, BA ’95) started the school 13 years ago after she lost faith in a public education system she says failed her son. Like those currently advocating for an Africentric public school, she says diversity in the Toronto District School Board stops at the student population. "There are kids who can go through the public school system just tops, but that's not for everybody," said Tafari, a trained teacher who was educated at York University. "For the ones who can't fit in that, I think if you immerse them in their own, when they leave as adults they will be better equipped to contribute to society."

• The Toronto Star quoted Carl James, York education and sociology professor, Nov. 18: "There are important things to work through – content of curriculum, discipline, approaches to learning and navigating the differences in class, race, culture and differing immigration experiences of blacks. That doesn't mean it's not worth a try. I'm curious to see where it goes. I'm trying to figure out why the angst. This is the fourth or fifth time this has surfaced. If it's about the achievement of black students, we should be willing to try what's possible. We need a curriculum and a school program that responds to the needs and expectations of students who are black."

Youth drug use survey was administered by York's ISR
Crack and crystal meth use among Ontario high-school students is on the decline, according to a new survey that suggests teens in the province who use illicit drugs may be finding them in their household medicine cabinet, wrote Canadian Press Nov. 21.

Those statistics are contained in the latest iteration of the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, which for the past 30 years has been polling Ontario teenagers on drug use at two-year intervals. The survey is a project of the University of Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. A total of 6,323 students in Grades 7 through 12 filled in the 2007 survey, which is administered by the Institute for Social Research at York University for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

How Bob Dylan became a living pop-culture god
No living artist has died and been reborn as many times as Bob Dylan, wrote CanWest News Service Nov. 23. From folk messiah and electric-rock maverick to evangelical Christian and country-crooner, Dylan's five decades in the spotlight are best defined as indefinable.

The big surprise is that much of his modern creative output – after a lacklustre span in the 1980s – has the "same power and intelligence of his protest albums of 1963," says Rob Bowman (right) , professor of ethnomusicology in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts. Not only is Dylan always re-inventing himself, he's also constantly re-shaping his classic material, Bowman explains.

"There is not a single person in modern popular music who has not been directly or indirectly influenced by Bob Dylan...in a way, Dylan invented modern rock," Bowman says. Bowman says Dylan changed the possibilities for language in pop music and helped transform it into a legitimate art form. "(He represents) the transformation from the pop artist as entertainer to the rock music as artist...he didn't do it alone, but he spearheaded it."

Psychology professor’s study bends theories of the mind
A new report in the journal Science shows that people with profound amnesia are as capable as people with intact memories at doing tasks that require the ability to exercise what scientists call theory of mind, wrote the Canadian Press Nov. 23.

The work was led by Shayna Rosenbaum (right), professor of psychology in York’s Faculty of Health and an associate scientist at the Rotman Research Institute at Toronto's Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. "The belief was that perhaps the ability to travel back and maybe even travel forward would also be necessary for travelling into someone else's mind – or taking on someone else's perspective,'' Rosenbaum said in an interview.

Rosenbaum said she hopes that the findings will persuade doctors treating patients with brain damage not to jump to conclusions about which capacities might be lost and which might be spared. And, she suggested, the findings also underscore that brain imaging data can only reveal part of the story to scientists mapping the brain.

“I hope that people will be a little more cautious interpreting imaging data,” she said. “You do need the patient part of the puzzle in order to better understand whether the parts of the brain that are activated in these imaging studies are actually necessary. So hopefully people will realize that there are advantages to many of these techniques to investigate the brain but there are also limitations.”

• A leafy suburb in Mississauga seems an unlikely place to find one of the world's most famous amnesiacs. But Kent Cochrane, a man who could be described as a prisoner of the present, is indeed famous, wrote the Toronto Star Nov. 23.

Cochrane has no memory of past events, whether they occurred years ago or yesterday. Even his capacity to imagine events in the future has been stolen from him, says York psychologist Shayna Rosenbaum, who featured Cochrane as one of two near-total amnesiacs in a study published today in the journal Science.

Although she's encountered Cochrane more than 40 times, he had no recollection of having met her. "Once in a while, but it really does take many, many visits, he might actually say my name spontaneously," Rosenbaum explains. "But he doesn't have any information that he can associate with my name."

The paper, of which Rosenbaum is the lead author, showed that despite a near-total memory collapse, Cochrane, along with a fellow brain injury patient known as M.L., could still comfortably interact with people through an intact ability to read their emotional state.

She may be pushing 50, but Barbie's still got legs
Andrea O'Reilly, a professor in York’s School of Women’s Studies and director of the Association for Research on Mothering at York, says she grew up playing with Barbies, but did not allow them for her two daughters, now 18 and 20, because of the unrealistic beauty standards the doll represented, wrote The Globe and Mail Nov. 20. "I kind of regret it," O'Reilly says. "I have a far more positive view of Barbie than I did 10 years ago," she says, adding that she still wishes Barbie could be more racially diverse.

But compared with the newer trend toward battery-operated baby dolls that are designed to be fed and changed, O'Reilly says, playing with Barbie allows girls to act out grown-up, yet independent adventures. "Barbie is about being an adult. She's not about being a mother," she says.

"When you are playing with dolls, you're positioned as a mother, a caretaker. Nothing troubles me more than when I see little girls at 4, 5, 6 shopping with their mom and they're already pushing a baby carriage, their mobility restricted."

Middleton says no late fees for videos was a ‘dumb idea’
Barely a year after Rogers Video adopted a "no-late-fee" policy for movie rentals at its national chain of 288 video stores, the company has introduced a new "pay-per-day" policy that boils down to charging people up to $4 extra if they fail to return top new releases on time, wrote the Toronto Star Nov. 23.

"I thought no late fees was a dumb idea in the first place," said Alan Middleton, marketing professor in York's Schulich School of Business. "For the most popular movies, you either need to significantly increase your inventory or risk making people angry.” Middleton said Rogers may also be trying to squeeze money out of a dying business so it can be invested in more promising products, such as its video-on-demand service.

More than a schoolyard problem
With national bully-free week kicking off, the Senate of Canada and childhood aggression experts are calling for a national strategy on bullying, based on research that shows not only sticks and stones, but words, can break your bones,

"Learning how to get along with other people is far more complex than any other subject you learn in school, yet it's something we take for granted children will learn," said Debra Pepler, a professor at York’s Lamarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution, in an article in the Sault Star Nov. 19.

Pepler is the scientific co-director of Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network. PREVNet wants to spearhead a national bullying program the Senate recommended Canada put in place earlier this year.

York prof trys to raise debate on crime without raising panic
James Sheptycki knows more about crime, and the effects of criminal behaviour, than any 10 people I know, wrote Joe Fiorito in the Toronto Star Nov. 23. Sheptycki teaches at York University’s Faculty of Arts.

He organized a seminar downtown not long ago…a bit of show-and-tell in advance of a conference – Guns, Crime and Social Order – coming up next spring. Sheptycki said, "We're trying to do the impossible – raise the profile of debate about crime without raising panic." A neat trick, if he can pull it off.

The question remains: Do roving packs of trigger-happy thugs own the streets? Sheptycki said, calmly, "Our homicide rate has remained steady over time." He had with him a series of charts and graphs: according to the latest and best information, there are 1.8 gun homicides a year in this city for every 100,000 people.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair [who attended the seminar] went on to talk about crime-prevention strategies. And he noted that, while crime has been on an upswing almost everywhere else, it's been on a general downswing here. He wants to know, if it is possible to know, why that is. When he said he was willing to open up his data, Sheptycki's eyes lit up with thoughts of spring.

‘Ambassador of the saxophone’ taught at York
Paul Brodie, a classical musician who became known as the "ambassador of the saxophone," died yesterday while undergoing heart surgery at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, wrote The Globe and Mail Nov. 20. He was 73.

Raised in Regina, he played the clarinet as a boy and then studied saxophone at the University of Michigan. He graduated in 1958, and three years later made his first solo appearance with the Toronto Symphony. With 50 albums to his credit, he came to be considered the most recorded concert saxophonist in the history of the instrument.

Over the years, he taught woodwinds at Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the University of Toronto and then York University.

York Region school board holds ABEL-aided video conference
New technology adopted by the York Region District School Board is connecting students across the region while cutting costs, wrote the Vaughan Citizen Nov. 17. It is a York University program known as ABEL (advanced broadband enabled learning). It requires a video camera to send live feed, video conference software and a virtual room created by the school board for all schools participating, computer resource teacher Ian Gowans said.

Not only are students across the region getting to know each other, but it also cuts cost for schools since a speaker would only have to be paid once instead of for each school and it keeps transportation costs to a minimum since students can participate from their own classrooms, school board spokesperson Ross Virgo said. The school board has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus hours of labour, and partnered with York University to bring this educational technology to its schools.

The big business of philanthropy
As the fundraising stakes rise, and charities get more competitive for the giving dollar, the professional fundraiser's time has come, reported the National Post Nov. 17. Professional fundraisers can be found on both sides of the table – the givers and the receivers. Paul Marcus is on the receiving end of the charity dollar. As president of the York University Foundation for the past six years, he has helped double its fundraising revenue, with a 63 per cent increase in donors, and has helped bring in 35 gifts of a million dollars or more. "We have a $200-million campaign. Our revenue jumped from $10 million to $26 million in the past five years and that's really resulted from higher-end gifts."

Among York's higher-end donors: Honey and Barry Sherman ($5 million), Tim and Frances Price (over $1 million), TD Waterhouse ($1 million), Milton and Ethel Harris ($5 million) and Seymour Schulich (more than $27 million).

Marcus spends his long days in committee meetings, strategy meetings and schmoozing with donors. Marcus says that it's possible for him to be out every evening on the job. "I'm out there when the big donors are being honoured in the community, from the largest galas, like the Brazilian Carnival Ball, to intimate dinners. There are many choices for people to give their philanthropic dollar, and we want to stay on their radar."

Faith group honours Lakhani family
The Canadian Council of Christians and Jews honoured the Asper family of Manitoba and the Lakhani family of Toronto last night for their contributions to "the fabric of Canadian culture and society, wrote the National Post Nov. 23. The two eminent families were presented with the Human Relations Award at the organization's 60th annual anniversary gala before more than 650 guests at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto.

The Lakhanis, led by Hassanali Lakhani, founded Toronto's Noor Cultural Centre, which is dedicated to promoting Islamic culture while respecting diversity in people and religions, wrote the Post. The centre collaborates with York University on various events, including a lecture series.

Building an enclave around a mosque in suburban Toronto
After nine years of living in housing at York University, Hamid Rahman was looking for other options, reported The New York Times in its real estate section Nov. 18. An instructor of Web design, Rahman valued York's multicultural mix, yet his housing setup was inconvenient for his religious life. For prayers, he had to visit a multifaith centre or join other Muslims in renting a conference room. That changed in 2003, however, when he moved with his wife, Bilquis, and four children to a home on Bashir Street in Peace Village, an Islamic subdivision of 265 homes in Vaughan, a suburb north of Toronto.

Some Canadian Muslims believe that the community's homogeneity is polarizing. "Diversity is the backbone of Canada and the value of living here is that you get to mix and mingle," said Raheel Raza (left), an author who has lectured at York University about the portrayal of Muslims in the media. "Especially after 9/11 when we see more polarization of Muslims, it's important to be seen as part of the community."

Ontario Heritage Trust honours Lincoln Alexander
Lincoln MacCauley Alexander grew up living in a time when people called him the N-word and African-Canadians or anyone with a foreign-sounding name wasn't welcome to walk the streets of Toronto, reported The Toronto Sun Nov. 18. "My daddy was a porter and my momma was a maid, but I vowed never to become a porter. I respected my dad being a porter, but I was not going to be restricted by the foolishness of (racist) people," said Alexander, who graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1953. He became Canada's first black member of parliament, first black cabinet member and first black lieutenant-governor and the founding chairman of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

On Nov. 27, the Ontario Heritage Trust is holding a presentation to mark its 40th anniversary, featuring Stephen Lewis, at the Winter Garden Theatre. Proceeds will go to the Ontario Heritage Trust's Lincoln M. Alexander Legacy Fund in support of heritage conservation.

Church archives are a valuable resource, says York historian
A group of about 50 people converged at Victoria University in downtown Toronto chanting "Save the Archives" on Tuesday in a bid to convince the University not to move its holdings of the United Church of Canada's archives to Etobicoke, reported the Annex Guardian Nov. 16. Craig Heron, a history professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, noted that the church was an essential part of life for settlers and branched out into areas that one might not consider. "Some of the biggest hockey leagues were church leagues," said Heron as he explained how his research into the early Canadian working class took him into the United Church archives. "We are concerned that there is a public interest that hasn't been considered (in this decision process)."

Debut novel published by York press
At 30, Sarah Burns is awaiting the release of her debut novel, reported the Sault Star Nov. 17. Jackfish, the Vanishing Village has been accepted by Inanna Publications, based in York University, and is expected to appear in bookstores Canada-wide by the end of the month. "They are a small, but highly regarded feminist press, so I was very happy to have them for a publisher," said Burns in an e-mail interview from Colorado, where she has lived since her marriage five years ago.

Putting the TTC back on track
The recent announcement by Queen's Park and Ottawa that they'll contribute big-time to the capital cost of extending Toronto's Spadina subway line north through York University to the Vaughan Corporate Centre is good news and bad news, wrote The Toronto Sun Nov. 18. The good news is it would be great if the TTC was operating on a sound business model now. The bad news is, since it isn't, building this particular subway is like discovering your house has a leaky roof and, instead of fixing it, taking out a mortgage to build a new swimming pool.

Holocaust survivors publish memoirs
Anew series of memoirs written by Holocaust survivors was launched in Toronto last night in a bid to ensure their personal witness to history lives on even after they are gone, wrote the National Post Nov. 22.

"The survivors are not going to be with us for very long," said Dr. Naomi Azrieli, executive director of the Azrieli Foundation, the non-profit organization undertaking the project. "We feel a sense of urgency."

The Toronto-based Azrieli Foundation, in partnership with the York University Centre for Jewish Studies, has collected 170 manuscripts so far, six of which have been released in this first boxed set. The goal is to eventually publish all the manuscripts – and any more that they may receive – and distribute them free to libraries and interested readers.