I’ve known Jason for a long time now. I cannot pinpoint the precise moment when we first met or how we made it a point to see each other often and keep in touch. Maybe it’s his love for food and my love for feeding people or a general love for travel and cultures or our entrepreneurial pursuits. Over time, we exchanged a great deal more than pleasantries about different dishes – going steps forward into history or anthropology or politics - but mostly history. Almost everyone I know has a historical tale that is quite close to their heart and interestingly – somehow related to geopolitical events somewhere. It’s a reminder that no matter how distant and abstract an event may seem - be it the Iranian revolution or the world wars or some other brutal policy or circumstance, it is much closer to home than we are aware. To me, Canada is a bit like a stage where these different products of history came together and play out their narrative. Someone may have fled Iran during the Shah's time, or the Czechoslovakia during the revolution, or perhaps the restrictive impositions of the Licence Raj in India. In the end, everyone is here and a product of different narratives that they carry with them through stories or their culture. His grandparents were Holocaust survivors and much of my curiosity in understanding the implications of the Holocaust – the state of affairs before but also after – would be defined by my interactions with Jason. The same would apply for my curiosity about geopolitics in the middle east and Middle Eastern history.
Some years ago, when I was flying from Jordan to Montreal, our pilot flew the plane low enough for us to catch a glimpse of the Old City of Jerusalem, and it was Jason and my many conversations with him that came to mind.
I met Mel some years later, and though we spent many evenings at dinner tables, nothing can compare getting to know someone through hospitality - which was the case when I stayed with them for 2 weeks prior to my big move to Toronto. It was amusing to see what an incredible fit they were for one another, and how much of an influence they had on each other. Any study that looks at how partnerships makes people more successful need only look at Jason and Mel as their poster children.
