O n May 28, at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Rivkush host Campbell spoke with the filmmaker and actor about her childhood in Jewish Toronto and her newest project, a six-episode show, produced by APTN and Crave, about an Indigenous child adopted by a Montreal Jewish family. Rivka: Jennifer is a wonderful blend of Ash- kenazi Jewish and Indigenous Anishinaabe, on her mum’s side. And Jennifer has been in the biz for like 30 years, which I find just mind-blowing, in film and television.
deep political conversations about identity and all kinds of things.
in my career has been really hard, emo- tionally. Except for one short documentary about going back to Lodz, Poland, with my grandfather, I’ve only ever made Indigenous content, and it’s always been super heavy. Even when you try to do comedy, it inter- sects with the reality of the current situation that we’re in. So when this project came to me, it was 2015, and it was just a pitch. I had known that there was a group of kids that were, when they were taken, were sent through Jewish Family & Child Service in Montreal, because a lot of child-welfare agencies got this catalogue. And the catalogue, when you see it, it looks like a catalogue that’s selling children.
Rivka: So, kind of hardcore Jewish. Okay, so what about your Indigenous side?
Jennifer: So again, growing up here, we were here, I guess until Grade 1, and then we moved to Vancouver to be closer to my mum’s family. So I did have a very immersive experience living in that world. I think the ultimate reality was that my parents’ relation- ship—sorry, Dad, just live on a podcast—my parents’ relationship was challenged, and I think there were cultural barriers and addictions issues and all kinds of different elements and variables. So nowhere was comfortable. I wasn’t comfortable over there. I wasn’t comfortable over here. It’s hard to see your family fall apart when you’re a child, and also be sort of caught in an identity thing. “I wanted to tell a story that was at the intersection of Jewish and Indigenous identities. Who else knew all of that information like I do?” So then when we came back, we started going to the Native Centre in Toronto, which was a very important thing, because that was all I had. I didn’t have any Indigenous friends—I had my sister. We explored our identity together. I don’t know if it would have been the same without her. My sister Tamara is five years younger, and then I have another sister, Sarah, who’s 10 years younger, but it was mostly Tamara and me growing up together, fielding and navigat- ing the complex middle part of always being different. Rivka: Because it is complex, and it’s won- derful that you had a support system in your sister. But let’s fast forward through your life. Tell us about Little Bird . What brought you to that decision to produce it? Because it’s a tough, hard story.
Jennifer: I know, because I look 30.
Rivka: Well, I figure you started when you were like five. And for the last 25 years you have been creating and producing your own stuff with your company, RedCloud Studios. I want to kick it off by delving a little bit into who you are, because you’re this blend of two distinct cultures. How was that as you were coming up in this world? Jennifer: I grew up at Bathurst and Wilson. My father is in Toronto, Saul Podemski. My aunt, Rachel Katz Podemski. My daughter, too—she came later, but more importantly, grew up at Bathurst and Wilson. So this is my area. Being here, to share this story, this is very full-circle for me today, which is excellent, especially because I’m trying to do a lot of full-circle moments. I just turned 50 and I think it’s great to do full-circle moments at those milestones. I think I had a an identity crisis for a long, long time until I felt my true power as a storyteller and recognized the power of using your voice and sharing what’s on your mind to express the things that are inside of you in a way that could potentially be a bridge-build- ing experience. I was surrounded by Jewish people my whole life, and just always got the looks, be- cause I think there was this idea that I didn’t belong. But on the flip side of that, I went to Hashomer Hatzair Camp Shomria from Grade 7, and that’s really where I found my place as a burgeoning activist. So growing up and having that influence really informed the person that I became. Also, it’s my grandfather’s birthday today, Joe Podemski. He would be 101. He just passed away a year and a half ago. But he was the ultimate philosopher, a Holocaust survivor from Lodz, always interested in
Rivka: Yeah, I got kind of stuck on the word catalogue.
Jennifer: It’s a terrible reality, but it was marketed. It was a program out of Saskatch- ewan. The program was called “Adopt Indian and Métis” and it was designed to continue the removal of Indigenous children and filter them through the child-welfare system, which was newly created at the time, in the ’60s, so that the provinces would absorb the cost of foster care. This program that started in Regina creat- ed these catalogues with pictures—and we do tell part of that story in Little Bird —and Jewish Family & Child Services got one of these. That’s why there’s only a handful, as far as I know from all the research we’ve done, like 28 people that were adopted at that time who were raised in Jewish homes in Montreal. The production company came to me, Resolution Pictures from Montreal, and said, We’re interested in making a show about this concept of an Indigenous girl adopted into a Jewish home. Because of your background, we thought maybe this would be something that you were interested in. And anyone who makes television knows that once you say “yes” to making a show, you know that you’re giving at least five to 10 years of your life to make it. In Canada, you usually go through several years of development, and most of the time, a show doesn’t get made. So I did say yes. I was only in foster care for a few weeks, as I understand it. But I was very compelled to tell this story because I had known that nobody else had done it. And I also, really badly, wanted to tell a story
Jennifer: I’m used to doing tough, hard stor- ies. It seems like everything that I’ve done
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