"...absolutely incredible," Lawrence Kaplan tribute for J.I. Segal Award, November 11, 2008

"...the same personal, unmistakable voice comes through in both the text and pictures, the voice of a person on whom nothing is lost, of a person who sees everything, takes in everything, and reproduces everything with life, precision, exactitude, and fidelity, a shrewd, strong, honest, direct, clear, and unvarnished voice, a voice which while it is uniquely personal is, at the same time, the voice of the quintessential East European Jew..."

There were twenty-one books submitted in the prize category of English non-Fiction on a Jewish Theme--many of them truly excellent--on a dazzlingly variety of subjects, testifying both to the depth, breadth, and richness of the Jewish experience and the broad pool of exceptionally fine, talented Canadian authors with which we are blessed. But, particularly in light of the description of the work of J.l. Segal in the Jewish Public Library award brochure as "characterized by its deep lyric expression and evocation of the dignity of Jewish life in the Eastern European Shtetl and Canada," one book stood out from the rest--indeed it was almost a slam- dunk--They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust, by Mayer Kirshenblatt, a 92 year old artist living and working in Toronto, with "A Daughter's Afterword" by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, the distinguished cultural anthropologist. (By the way, to clarify, Mayer July is the English equivalent of Mayer Tammez or Crazy Mayer. I personally would have entitled the book, "They called Me Dog-Days Mayer.")

In the book, both in the text and pictures, Mayer Kirshenblatt resurrects and brings to life with great vigor and in bright and bold colors and absolutely incredible and amazing detail Jewish life in his native city of Apt, Opatów in Polish, before the Holocaust, Jewish life in all its dazzling plentitude, in its strengths and weaknesses, its periods of flourishing and decline. What we find before us as we begin to read and are drawn, pulled, and swept into the book is Clifford Geertz's "thick description" with a vengeance, a description compounded, to cite the words of his daughter, of "memory and imagination." What I wish to emphasize is that the same personal, unmistakable voice comes through in both the text and pictures, the voice of a person on whom nothing is lost, of a person who sees everything, takes in everything, and reproduces everything with life, precision, exactitude, and fidelity, a shrewd, strong, honest, direct, clear, and unvarnished voice, a voice which while it is uniquely personal is, at the same time, the voice of the quintessential East European Jew.

Mayer Kirshenblatt states at the book's end "What I'm trying to say is 'Hey there was a big world out there before the Holocaust.' There was a rich cultural life in Poland as I knew it at the time. That's why I feel I'm doing something very important by showing what that life was like. It's in my head: I will be gone but the book will be there. They don't call me Crazy Mayer for nothing." To which I will add and with which I will conclude: The book--and thanks to it Jewish life in the city of Apt will indeed be there. And "Crazy Mayer?" Crazy as a fox!

It is my pleasure and privilege to present the J.l. Segal Prize in the category of English Non-Fiction on a Jewish Theme to Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett for They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust.