Local and overseas, self- and traditionally published, their own family story or someone else’s — we’ve lined up an experienced and talented panel featuring authors: Izak Paul, Sydney Sharpe, and Betty Sherwood,  to talk about their experiences with the family history book writing process. Moderated by Maxine Fischbein. In partnership with Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta.

Local and overseas, self- and traditionally published, their own family story or someone else’s — we’ve lined up an experienced and talented panel featuring authors: Izak Paul, Sydney Sharpe, and Betty Sherwood,  to talk about their experiences with the family history book writing process. Moderated by Maxine Fischbein.

About Izak Paul
Izak Paul is a retired professor of Biology. During his career, he received three teaching awards. He was the founding Mount Royal University coordinator of the annual Holocaust Education Symposium and served as the MRU coordinator for 30 years. He received a Human Rights Award from MRU as well as four community service awards from Calgary’s Jewish Community Council / Calgary Jewish Federation. Izak and his wife Hindy love spending time with their three amazing children and many beautiful grandchildren here in Calgary and in Jerusalem.

Izak’s book describes how he discovered what happened to his paternal grandparents and great-grandparents during the Holocaust. Izak grew up knowing that they had been murdered in the Holocaust but there was very little information known about what actually happened to them. During a vacation trip in Europe, he visited the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (near Prague) and unexpectedly discovered Nazi records of his great-grandparents’ imprisonment there and records that described their ultimate fate. This discovery sparked a quest to discover many more details (including Nazi documents) about the tragic experiences of his paternal grandparents and great-grandparents during the Holocaust. It took him over nine years to complete all the research and write his book, Journey of Discovery.

About Sydney Sharpe
Sydney Sharpe is an award-winning author and co-author of 10 published books. They include The Gilded Ghetto: Women and Political Power in Canada; Notley Nation: How Alberta’s Political Upheaval Swept the Country (with Don Braid); as well as biographies of Sam Switzer, Doc Seaman, Clay Riddell, and Alvin Libin.

Sydney was senior columnist for the Calgary Herald, Calgary Bureau Chief for the Financial Post, and has written for numerous magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. She was a tenured professor in anthropology and sociology at Athabasca University and MacEwan University.

About Betty Sherwood
Born in Sarnia while her father was stationed there for a wartime engineering project, Betty pursued her education across several Canadian cities, including Edmonton, Sarnia, Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary, fostering a lifelong love of learning and literature. Betty devoted more than three decades to her career as a teacher and teacher-librarian in Toronto before relocating to Calgary fifteen years ago.

Since then, she has been an active volunteer with Heritage Park, Historic Calgary Week, the Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta, and Jewish Family Service Calgary. A dedicated member of the CWLC for the past 10 years, Betty enjoys attending the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, opera, and ballet, as well as traveling and researching her family history. While her preferred reading is nonfiction, she appreciates that the club inspires her to explore a wide range of literary works.

Betty’s past presentation subjects include: Helen Humphreys, Alan Bennett, Shirley Hazzard, and Gary Shteyngart.