A Home for Jewish Voices: The Return of Parchment

A Home for Jewish Voices: The Return of Parchment

By: Dr. Kelly Baron, Director, Holy Blossom Temple Board

In September 2015, as I was beginning my graduate work in literature, one of my great inspirations was Italo Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night a Traveller. It’s a strange little book, known for its use of the second person. The premise is this: you are reading a novel, but due to a printer error, it cuts off at the climax. You return to the bookstore to track down the original, but instead encounter more narratives, more mis-printings, more aborted stories. Some interpret the novel as Calvino showing off; the different tales that comprise the book are each enthralling and formally distinct. I’ve always interpreted it as a celebration of the reader. The book cannot exist without dedicated readers hungry for well-told stories.

Ten years later, I recalled this motivation during my interview to join Holy Blossom’s board. Why did I keep volunteering for positions in the arts community, especially after October 7, when the arts became a hotbed for antisemitism? Because, I argued, there is something special about creativity, especially during a period of hate. I left my role as publisher of a Canadian literary magazine shortly after October 7 due to a mismanaged incident involving antisemitic statements made by an editor on my staff. As time passed, I missed being involved in the literary community. When Adam Sol told me about the rebirth of Parchment, Canada’s only Jewish literary magazine, I wanted in.

Parchment is new in its current iteration, but it has a storied past in Canadian Jewish literary history. In the early 1990s, Parchment boasted a readership that included the most beloved Jewish writers of the time, including Elie Wiesel and Saul Bellow. (Wiesel’s letter of congratulations to the editorial board is archived at the Fisher Rare Book Library at UofT). It has been energizing to work on a literary magazine again, and to know that I’m lending my editorial eye to the Jewish literary community at a time when antisemitism is silencing many Jewish voices in the arts.

Parchment is the only literary journal devoted to contemporary Canadian Jewish writing. We are dedicated to representing the full, dynamic experience of the Canadian Jewish community, including a range of post-Oct 7 positions on Israel. This isn’t easy, but the conversations are important, and while we argue and disagree, we do so with the respect that comes from shared purpose and a love of good writing.

The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote that when the Torah describes us as created in God’s image, it is because we are creative beings. In his words, “We, like God, are capable of imagining a world that is not yet and bringing it into being.” Parchment feels like a holy endeavour because we are prioritizing Jewish creative expression, in all its complexity.

Although Parchment is not a Holy Blossom undertaking, the team is filled with HBTers: Adam Sol is our literary director; Cynthia Good and Miriam Borden are on our advisory board; our editor-in-chief, Orly Zebak, is a new YAD member; and I serve on the editorial team as the non-fiction editor. Many of you saw our executive editor, David Koffman, in conversation with Evan Solomon for a Yom Kippur study session on the state of Canadian Jewry. Our first issue includes an edited version of Rabbi Kaye’s Yom Kippur address. Holy Blossom’s stamp is all over this first issue, and I couldn’t be prouder of the work we’ve done.

Parchment is a print magazine, published twice yearly. If you, like me, are a dedicated reader who values writing centred on the Canadian Jewish experience, please subscribe here and join us in imagining a world filled with creative expression and conversation.