Sitting in an artistically infused blue-hued office reflective of classic understated elegance, Sylvia Bielak is a vision in refined business style.

Poised and polite to the point of shyness, her handshake is as firm and direct as her clear gaze, and it's easy to mistakenly assume this businesswoman is president of a fashion conglomerate, or at the very least some famous cosmetics organization.

She isn't. Instead, Bielak heads up Lazar Gourmet Foods, one of Canada's most successful glatt kosher food companies. Her company offers everything from the finest cuts of meats to a detailed line of gourmet food products such as chicken pot pies, shepherd's pie and lasagnas to a line of cooked chicken products delightfully named Little Rachel's after a real little girl...

As the child of a Holocaust survivor, Toronto filmmaker Jeremy Podeswa was already well-read on the subject when he came across Anne Michaels' new novel Fugitive Pieces a decade ago. "This one hit me in a different place," the director recalls between bites of fettucine at Il Gatto Nero, a bistro near his home in Little Italy. "The book was sort of a revelation for me."

He continues: "It touched me really deeply, it was so exquisitely written, moving, profound and poetic. I felt there was a beautiful movie in there."...

Two Recent TCHAT Grads Among Five Area Students Volunteering Overseas for the American Jewish World Sevices

Deborah Cole (TCHAT '05) and Beckie Cherniak ('06) are part of a contingent of five Canadian Jewish students from the Greater Toronto Area joining their American counterparts in sacrificing all modern comforts to assist developing communities in Uganda, Thailand, Honduras and Ghana with American Jewish World Service’s (AJWS) summer volunteer program.

From Volunteering in a Netanya Orphanage to Learning in Yerushalayim, from Community Action in Bat Yam to Tuilim throughout the country, the Shevet  program, Young Judaea’s Year Course in Israel has been a huge hit with Rebecca Cherniak (TCHAT '06).

• Read an interview in the TCHAT Hebrew Language Newspaper
• Read one of Rebecca's letters to her friends near and far describing the Shevet program and its many components activities

Note that from the TCHAT class of 2007, 10 grads have signed up for Shevet / YJ programs for 5768 (2007-08), and 4 additional members of this graduating class plan to be spending the year in Israel on other programs.