Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture

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Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture

Our doors are open to people of diverse cultures, beliefs, genders and sexual orientations.

The Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture was founded in 1945 to establish and conduct a school that provides students of all ages with a progressive and modern Jewish cultural education. The Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture was founded in 1945 to establish and conduct a school that provides a progressive and modern Jewish cultural education to students of all ages. Located in Vancouve

r, BC on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, we hold classes, lectures, exhibitions, concerts, holiday celebrations and similar gatherings in order to teach and advance the cause of progressive and modern Jewish learning, culture, and education and the Yiddish language. Visit our website for upcoming events and educational and cultural programs: https://peretz-centre.org/

08/28/2026

The Peretz community, friends, and new faces of all ages are invited to participate in the Peretz combined/condensed Rosh Hashone (New Year) & Yom Kippur observance!

🍎New Year-themed crafting for all ages
🍎Traditional and secular songs with the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir
🍎Poetry and texts focused on the meaning of the holiday
🍎Kol Nidre (sung by Stephen Aberle)
🍎Blowing of the shofar
🍎Secular Yizkor memorial service
🍎Apples, honey, and other Rosh Hashone foods

Our tradition is to engage with and adapt traditional rituals, songs, and practices from Jewish cultures that are meaningful to us, and create new ones for present and future generations. With family activities, our High Holidays event offers a space to connect with family, friends, and the Peretz community, remember those we have lost in the last year, and welcome the new year together.

Our doors are open to people of diverse cultures, beliefs, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities.

Get tickets at: https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/peretz-centre-high-holidays-2026

08/08/2026

Your favourite Yiddishist’s favourite folk ensemble performs songs of nature, labour, and love from their new album Levyosn’s Dream.

🌙 Levyosn’s Dream: Old, New, and Reimagined Yiddish Song 🌙
⭐ Saturday, August 29, 2026
🕖 Doors at 6:30pm (show starts at 7pm)
📍 Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture (6184 Ash Street, Vancouver)

🎟️ Get tickets at https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/levyosn-old-new-and-reimagined-yiddish-song
$33/person (or $35 at the door)
👯 TZUSAMMEN: Get 2 tickets for $55 (until Wednesday, August 19th at 11:59pm)

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Levyosn (“leviathan” in Ashkenazi Hebrew) is inspired by the mythical sea monster of Jewish legend, traveling the world in search of songs, krill, and dreams. Founded in 2021, the Boston-based ensemble has made its mark on the international klezmer scene through thoughtful arrangements of original and traditional Yiddish songs, blending American and Ashkenazi influences with rich vocal harmonies.

Their 2026 album “Levyosn’s Dream” builds on their signature sound while exploring new sonic territory, with adventurous harmonies and kaleidoscopic arrangements. Weaving the sounds and stories of friendship and collaboration together, Levyosn’s Dream embraces the full range of the ensemble’s musical influences – from archival recordings to contemporary folk music, jazz, and pop to Balkan polyphony and chamber music – to welcome both seasoned Yiddishists and new listeners.

Tonight’s trio performance will feature original Yiddish songs and innovative arrangements of archival folk songs in three-part harmony that, in the words of Ira Khonen Temple, “brims with the sweetness of community life.”

🌟 Learn to sing in harmony with the performers! Lysander Jaffe, Lexi Ugelow, and Adah Hetko are offering a special workshop exploring the rich repertoire of Yiddish folk song in the afternoon before the show. Register at our website

Sponsored and funded by the Peretz Centre’s Shaya Kirman Memorial Fund for Yiddish Culture and KlezWest.

06/17/2026

***New date!*** Concluding the 2025-26 Zhargon Speaker Series, Dr. Gabriella Safran asks how Jewish migrants around the turn of the 20th century used literature, plays, and songs to work through questions about caring for elderly family members they left behind.

💌 Give Alms to the Jewish King Lear: Eldercare in Yiddish Literature with Dr. Gabriella Safran
🚢 Thursday, June 25th, 2026 (New Date!)
🌎 5:30pm PDT / 8:30pm EDT (online)
🔗 Registration is required (by donation, no minimum): https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/eldercare-in-yiddish-literature-gabriella-safran

The Jews who migrated to the United States from 1875 to 1924 were often supporting the family members they left in the Old Country — and they eagerly listened to songs and went to plays about how adult children care (or do not care) for their aging parents.

Among the plays they watched were two hits based (loosely) on Shakespeare, The Jewish King Lear and Mirele Efros: The Jewish Queen Lear. What can we learn from this literature about the ways that these migrants worked through the questions about care that they faced in their lives?

Dr. Gabriella Safran is a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Eva Chernov Lokey Professor of Jewish Studies at Stanford University. She has published articles and books about Russian and Yiddish literature and intellectual history, mostly before the 1917 revolutions. She is now beginning a new project involving migration and the literature of eldercare.

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This event is the fourth part of the 2025-26 Zhargon Speaker Series: four public, online talks that bring leading figures in Yiddish Studies and contemporary Yiddish arts and culture to share their work. The series extends classroom learning for students in the Peretz Centre’s program, Zhargon: A Journey through the Histories of Yiddishkayt, and opens discussion with the broader community. Learn more at https://www.peretz-centre.org/

We acknowledge the support of the Canadian Race Relations Fdn / Fondation canadienne des relations raciales with funding provided by the Government of Canada.

05/27/2026

Next in the Peretz Centre’s Doikayt Speaker Series, local artist and scholar Sasha J. Langford asks how sound can open up possibilities for communal life in a time shaped by rising nationalism and ecological crisis.

🔴 LISTENING TO THE HERE AND NOW: Spontaneous Prayer in a Time of Polycrisis
🔴 Wednesday, June 17th, 2026
🔴 5:30pm PT / 8:30pm ET
🌐 Online (Zoom)

🔗 Registration is required (by donation, no minimum): https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/listening-to-the-here-and-now-spontaneous-prayer-in-an-era-of-polycrisis

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In a time shaped by rising nationalism and ecological crisis, how might the act of listening help us trace the embodied realities of these conditions? How can sound help us attune to one another, and open up possibilities for communal life?

Through performance, installation, and text-based visual and sound works, Sasha J. Langford, local artist and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow at the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, explores how sound moves through the world and affects the bodies within it. Inspired by Yiddishist musician and scholar Gabriel Levine’s idea of the “radical vernacular”—a way of engaging with tradition that is both rooted and experimental—she draws from older Jewish prayer practices like Yiddish tkhines and contemplative hisbodedus to connect past and present.

In this talk, Sasha will reflect on a recent work, or eternity (2026), which brings elements of spontaneous prayer into a post-secular, digitally mediated context. Through this piece, she considers how practices from her Ashkenazi ancestors might carry forward, helping shape new ways of listening and creating moments of shared connection among audiences.

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“Listening to the Here and Now” is the closing event in the Peretz Centre’s new Doikayt Speaker Series (2026): four public, online talks with local scholars and organizers to help us think about what it means to be here, right now — and how we can be part of the work to sustain and initiate change for the sake of a better, more beautiful world for all.

We acknowledge the support of the Canadian Race Relations Fdn / Fondation canadienne des relations raciales with funding provided by the Government of Canada.

Poster credit: Adi Burton, with photos by Rachel Topham (or eternity installation, 2026) and Pascha Marrow (Langford profile).

05/08/2026

This Tuesday (May 12), we welcome Bob Ages as the third speaker in the Peretz Centre’s Doikayt Speaker Series!

Indigenous Sovereignty & the Fight Against Ecocide: Stories of Solidarity in the Tradition of Jewish Anti-Fascism

💚 Tuesday, May 12th, 2026
✨ 5:30pm PT / 8:30pm ET
🌐 Online (Zoom), open to all!

🔗 Registration is required (free): https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/indigenous-sovereignty-the-fight-against-ecocide-stories-of-solidarity-in-the-tradition-of-jewish-anti-fascism

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How did a retired Jewish accountant wind up on the front lines of Indigenous land defence 1,400km north and west of Vancouver? Approaching this question in the context of Jewish anti-fascist political movements of the last 150 years, local organizer Robert Ages outlines a multi-generational struggle against oppression that grounds his current solidarity work with Indigenous allies defending their land and sovereignty from some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies.

History provides us with stories that can sustain us in the present day and many histories of anti-fascist resistance are suppressed or forgotten. Rooted in his family history, in this online talk Bob will share his personal experiences, lessons learned, and the joys of being on the front lines of resistance and resurgence.

He will speak to the ways that settler allies and co-conspirators can support Indigenous Nations in their efforts to protect and steward their unceded territories, and further, learning what it means to do so in a good way, with good hearts.

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This is the third event in the Peretz Centre’s new Doikayt Speaker Series: four public, online talks with local scholars and organizers to help us think about what it means to be here, right now — and how we can be part of the work to sustain and initiate change for the sake of a better, more beautiful world for all.

We acknowledge the support of the Canadian Race Relations Fdn / Fondation canadienne des relations raciales with funding provided by the Government of Canada.

Poster credit: Adi Burton, with Illustration of trees from Morris Bassin’s Antologye finf hundert yohr Idishe poezye (2nd edition), published by Dos Bukh in New York, 1917 (p. 187).

05/01/2026

Just a few days left to apply for the Zumershule Camp Counsellor & Artistic Advisor position!

The Peretz Centre in Vancouver is recruiting an experienced, caring, and creative camp counsellor for our summer program for youth (8-13) to explore Jewish arts and culture and participate in intergenerational learning.

🔸Deadline to apply: May 2, 2026
🔸Program dates: August 17-28 (9am-5pm)
🔸$3,000 for two weeks ($35/hr)
🔸Work with youth ages 8-13
🔸Supervise and assist in arts workshops and activities
🔸Support and advise participants in pursuing creative projects and play
🔸Create an amazing experience for youth of all backgrounds and abilities

The ideal candidate(s) will be aligned with the educational and creative/artistic goals of the program and the interests of participants and demonstrate their ability to work in a highly collaborative environment.

The Peretz Centre is a cultural and secular charitable organization, committed to the values of diversity, equity, and social justice. People of diverse experiences, cultures, genders, and sexual orientations are encouraged to apply.

Learn more here: https://www.peretz-centre.org/post/job-posting-peretz-zumershule-camp-counsellor-artistic-advisor-2026

04/16/2026

On Saturday, May 3rd, don't miss the Vancouver launch of "The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands" (Verso, 2026) by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone, an inspiring account of Jewish socialist struggles against Tsarist pogroms, exploitative sweatshops, and murderous N***s across three continents.

The Radical Jewish Tradition recovers some of the long-neglected history of Jewish resistance to oppression, highlighting radicals who forged solidarity with other oppressed groups and whose revived stories expand the limits of our historical imagination in a world in crisis.

Co-author Janey Stone will be in lively conversation with local writer and artist Jess Goldman.

⭐️ SATURDAY, MAY 3, 2026 at 7pm (doors at 6:30pm)
📍Peretz Centre at 6184 Ash St., Vancouver
🎟️ Admission by donation, no minimum
🔗 Registration is required in advance as space is limited: https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/the-radical-jewish-tradition-book-launch-revolutionaries-resistance-fighters-and-firebrands

"Gluckstein and Stone offer readers a rich framework for this history, locating Jewish radicalism within broader Jewish and non-Jewish pasts. They trace a past that rejects the 'lachrymose' narrative of Jewish history that 'is founded on an assumption that all Jews, everywhere and at all times, have been the victims of an anti-Jewish hostility that is inherent in all non-Jews.' Instead, they argue for the role of capitalism and its systems in fomenting anti-Semitism. And if anti-Semitism has been socially created, so too, they assert, 'it can be defeated.'" — Jordana Silverstein, University of Melbourne

This event is organized by the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture in partnership with Independent Jewish Voices Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Our doors are open to people of diverse cultures, beliefs, genders, and sexual orientation, and abilities.

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Event image: In 1919-1920, tenants across New York City organized a wave of rent strikes, including the one pictured, in which 450 families living in Brooklyn formed a union and went on a rent strike after their corporate landlord tried to evict them (photograph published in the Daily News, September 6, 1919, via Wikimedia).

04/14/2026

Our 2nd guest for the 2026 Doikayt Speaker Series, Cynthia Ramsay, tells the history of the 96-year-old Jewish Independent, British Columbia’s Jewish community newspaper and the most continuous record of local Jewish communal life.

🗞️ A LABOUR OF LOVE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE JEWISH INDEPENDENT
🔹Monday, April 29th, 2026
🔹5:30pm PDT / 8:30pm EDT
🌐 Online (Zoom), open to all!
🔗 Registration is required (by donation, no minimum): https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/a-brief-history-of-the-jewish-independent-newspaper-cynthia-ramsay

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Local community newspapers play many important roles in animating and reflecting communal life. From the most personal announcements to institutional news to local insights on major global events, they connect and inform community members about what is happening around them.

Stories can bring attention to diverse and marginalized perspectives, editorials and letters provide a forum for discussion and debate, and social pages help families mark milestones from birth to death. As a historical record, within their pages we find the hopes and fears of people across time.

The Jewish Independent actually had its beginnings in 1925, with a short-lived mimeo, which went through a series of names and publishers before becoming the Jewish Western Bulletin, a tabloid that has been published since 1930, its name changing to the Jewish Independent in 2005.

In this talk, editor of the Jewish Independent Cynthia Ramsay will offer a broad overview of the paper’s history, from its pre-origins to today.

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This event is the second in the Peretz Centre’s new Doikayt Speaker Series: four public, online talks with with local scholars and organizers to help us think about what it means to be here, right now — and how we can take part in the work to sustain and initiate change for the sake of a better, more beautiful world for all.

We acknowledge the support of the Canadian Race Relations Fdn / Fondation canadienne des relations raciales with funding provided by the Government of Canada.

Poster credit: Adi Burton, with archival materials from the Jewish Western Bulletin and the Jewish Independent. Check out the public archives of the Jewish Western Bulletin at the SFU library newspaper collection: https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/newspapers/jewish-western-bulletin)

03/26/2026

The Peretz Centre is thrilled to present a new storytime program to open up a world of Jewish children’s literature and song for children age 6 and under!

For the first half hour, we’ll sing and read together and then transition into a pre-planned craft. We’ll explore Jewish cultures and traditions while building early literacy skills.

📖 Sundays from 1pm-2pm
🐱 April 12th, May 24th, & June 14th
📍 The Peretz Centre at 6184 Ash Street (Oakridge)
🔗 Registration is required: https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/kindervelt-jewish-storytime-for-kids-at-the-peretz-centre-2026-04-12-13-00-1

Our doors are open to people of diverse cultures, beliefs, genders, sexual orientation, and abilities.

*Parents and caregivers must stay with their children throughout the program.

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The Peretz Centre’s new Kindervelt Jewish Storytime program is led by Aurel Matte (they/he). Aurel is a children’s librarian at Richmond Public Library, where they run a wide-range of programming for kids and youth from 0-18. Aurel was a child actor and ACTRA Apprentice. They hold a BA in Drama Studies from York University. An active member of the Peretz community, Aurel was President of the Peretz Board of Directors in 2024 and 2025.

Image Credit: Adi Burton, animal illustrations by Misha Shvarts, from Flemelekh un fayerlekh by Moises Guiser (Borokov, Buenos Aires, 1929), via the Yiddish Book Center.

03/25/2026

Announcing the first speaker in the Peretz Centre’s new Doikayt Speaker Series!

Local historian Faith Jones will share her work on the often buried history of left-wing Jewish politics in Vancouver, and the social and political forces that repress leftist Jewish movements, from the Red Scare to the present day.

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💥 VANCOUVER’S LEFT-WING JEWS AND THE POLITICS OF RESPECTABILITY with Faith Jones
📅 Tuesday, April 7th
🕠 5:30pm PST / 7:30pm EST
🌎 Online (Zoom), open to all!
🔗 Registration is required (by donation, no minimum): https://www.peretz-centre.org/event-details-registration/faith-jones-vancouvers-left-wing-jews-and-the-politics-of-respectability

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Vancouver's Jewish community grew suddenly during and immediately following the Second World War, doubling between the censuses of 1941 (which identified 2,742 Jews by ethnicity) and 1951 (5,467). Shortly after this boom in population, radical Jews became personas non grata within Vancouver's Jewish community. Throughout the '50s, Canadian Jewish communities experienced explicit pressure from law enforcement to expel left-wing members and organizations: For the most part, Jewish mainstream organizations complied with these expectations, with repercussions that are still with us today.

In this talk, Faith Jones will discuss how this history of self-censorship and in-group political repression has shaped Vancouver's Jewish community and continues in new forms.

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This event is the first in the Peretz Centre’s new Doikayt Speaker Series: four public, online talks with with local scholars and activists to help us think about what it means to be here, right now — and how we can be involved in the work to sustain and initiate change for the sake of a better, more beautiful world for all.

Located on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, the Peretz Centre's Doikayt program invites a lovingly critical engagement with Jewish histories of migration and settlement, and the role that Jews have played in colonial projects of nation-building.

We acknowledge the support of the Canadian Race Relations Fdn / Fondation canadienne des relations raciales with funding provided by the Government of Canada.

Photo credit: Rally of the unemployed at the Cambie Grounds, May 1, 1935 (Vancouver Public Library Archives)

Address

6184 Ash Street
Vancouver, BC
V5Z3G9

Telephone

+16043251812

Website

https://peretz-centre.org/, https://www.peretz-centre.org/#subscribe, https://www.instagram.com/klezwest/, https://www.f

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