"...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.")
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