By BERNIE BELLAN
Posted April 21; updated Apr. 22
Three days after BerMax Caffé on Corydon Avenue was hit with what police are treating as "a hate-related crime in conjunction with a Commercial Robbery", no further information has been released by police.
By BERNIE BELLAN
For 22-year-old Jeremy Morantz, writing a book about what it was like to live with a brother who was severely autistic served multiple purposes. What began as a project for the Creative Communications program in which Jeremy is enrolled at Red River College was transformed into a short book titled “What does he dream about?, which was launched this past February.
(Executive Edior, Tablet Magazine)
While I was doing research for a book about my great-grandmother’s murder, I discovered stories I’d never heard about my great-grandfather–stories of gambling, wild horses, organized crime, and a forgotten slice of Jewish life on the Canadian prairies. My great-grandmother Sarah Feinstein was murdered on Aug. 1, 1913, in Winnipeg’s “Hebrew Colony.” The city’s only unsolved homicide that year, it made the Canadian newspapers from Toronto to Vancouver, in English and Yiddish. The Winnipeg Tribune called it “without doubt one of the most mysterious occurrences ever recorded in the annals of this city.”
On February 8, 2019, a piece of history appeared before my eyes, although this little moment might never have been noticed by most people in the synagogue service at Beth Tzedec Synagogue that Shabbat morning. As I sat in the chapel looking at the bimah, in front of me were two rabbis - the newest member of the Beth Tzedec clergy: Rabbi Steven Wernick and another rabbi who has been with Beth Tzedec as an interim rabbi for several years now, Rabbi Shalom Schachter. On the face of it, that there are two rabbis in the same space for a service on a given Shabbat might not be that surprising.
By SCOTT TAYLOR
It would not be a stretch to say that the Rozin family is Canadian now.
Readers of The Jewish Post & News might recall that three years ago, Bernie Bellan introduced you to Roie Rozin, his wife Pnina and their three kids, who had decided to move to Canada because middle child Guy had a special skill.
When Jerry Maslowsky (z”l), a highly-respected local business executive, supremely gifted entertainer, devoted family man, as well as all-around mensch, died unexpectedly from an aggressive form of cancer in September 2016, he left gaping shoes to fill as well as an inestimable legacy of giving back to the community he so loved and had dedicated his life to serving.
Jolene Norton Neufeldt needs your help!
The eldest granddaughter of Evelyn and the late Dr. David Pearlman – who many readers of certain age will undoubtedly remember – is in need of a liver and double lung transplant which requires her and her family to move to Toronto for at least a year or more. As we all know, Toronto, even under the best of circumstances is an expensive place to live. To help pay the bills while Jolene and her family are waiting in Toronto for the transplant, she has created a GoFundMe page( http://gf.me/u/rxua63).
One of the most important lessons I gleaned from reading Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s book, “Words That Hurt, Words That Heal – How the Words You Choose Shape Your Destiny”, is the long-lasting impact that a thoughtless remark can have on someone – even years after it was delivered.
In his book, which was first published in 1996, then republished just this year, Rabbi Telushkin offers a remarkable series of anecdotes to illustrate that point. If I had to single one particular story out for how much it resonated, it is a story he tells of the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
Ezer Mizion is Israel’s largest medical support organization. The crown jewel of the organization is the Ezer Mizion Bone Marrow Registry, the largest Jewish registry in the world with over 950,000 potential bone marrow donors. The size of the registry allows the organization to facilitate over 30 life saving bone marrow transplants every month of the year in Israel, the USA and around the world. In the month of March alone there were 38 lifesaving transplants!
By MYRON LOVE (with update by BERNIE BELLAN)
The Seven Oaks School Division has decided to cancel a booking of the Garden City Performance Arts Centre, which was scheduled to take place April 26. The booking had been made by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, which was planning on hosting a panel discussion titled “Sorry, NOT Sorry! Unapologetically Working for Social Justice”.
By BERNIE BELLAN
I have to admit: I’m really torn when it comes to deciding how to deal with controversial speakers whose message may be objectionable to large swaths of the Jewish community.
The issue has arisen in recent weeks as a result of two speakers having been invited to appear in Winnipeg - one Jewish, one Muslim – both of whom aroused the ire of certain individuals who are experienced at using social media to orchestrate campaigns whose purpose is to delegitimize critics of Israel.
Ed. note:
In July 2010 Harvey Rosen penned a column about the great St. John’s High School football teams of years past. That same year St. John’s was celebrating its 100th anniversary. In his column Harvey paid particular attention to Lou Bernstein. Lou passed away a couple of weeks ago, so we thought it appropriate to revisit that classic column of Harvey’s.
I might add that when I mentioned to Lou’s daughter, Roz Greenfeld, that I was planning on rerunning a column about her father and other members of the St. John’s Tigers football team, Roz told me that Lori Gilfix, whose father was also a member of the same team as Lou, actually had a picture of the 1942 St. John’s Tigers. We are reproducing that picture here. If you look closely at it, I’m sure you’ll recognize many names from the past.
