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Stand-up vegetable stand at Campus 2019

Last year, Yazidi newcomers to Manitoba operated a very successful pop-up vegetable stand outside the Asper Campus. Every Thursday, for the time being, vegetables in pre-packaged bags will be available for purchase once again. Read more to find out how you can get your fresh vegetables at great prices:

Nora Kobrinsky: “Birth of Vexation”

By SUSAN TURNER
ARTA coordinator, participant, designer

ROUNDNESS, an ARTA project, is an on-line exhibition of work by 24 artists in response to issues around the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition is located on YUMPU.com, a Swiss-based site at which on-line magazines can be created.

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/63697012/roundness-arta-project-artists-respond-to-covid-19-pandemic

Philip Berger - whimsical... & serious

By GERRY POSNER
Recently the book “Healing Lives, a Century of Manitoba Jewish Physicians” was published and in it are the names of all Jewish physicians who practiced medicine in Manitoba for at least five years over the past 100 years. What is not included, however, are those doctors who graduated from the University of Manitoba medical school who went elsewhere to practice their profession. One of those doctors is none other than a descendant of a longtime Winnipeg family who has made his mark in the medical world: Philip Berger.

Avi Posen in Israel

Gray Academy to participate, along with five other schools in Canada
By BERNIE BELLAN

Two weeks ago we received some interesting information from an organization known as “Unpacked for Educators” about a new program designed to help educators in Jewish schools teach about Israel. At the time we received the email we didn't realize that the individual coordinating the program is none other than Avi Posen, formerly of Gray Academy, now residing in Israel. (You can read about Avi and his wife Ilana's moving to Israel last year at https://old.jewishpostandnews.ca/features/3044-gifted-teacher-and-chazan-avi-posen-and-wife-illana-make-aliyah)

a plot before weeding and one after

By BERNIE BELLAN
In previous issues we reported on changes the Shaarey Zedek had made to the maintenance of its cemetery as a result of the pandemic.
In our June 10 issue we noted that the synagogue board had decided to forego the planting of flowers on graves that would ordinarily have had flowers planted in keeping with perpetual care agreements.

Jewish Foundation logoBy BERNIE BELLAN
Imagine my surprise when, despite being told that the Jewish Foundation would not disclose how much funding specific organizations have received from the Foundation in its three stage emergency funding process, which began in April, I happened to be perusing the Jewish Foundation website and, lo and behold, there are complete tables giving all that information.

Shalom Residences' Micah Kraut & Rabbi Yitzchok Charytan

Ed. note: As part of our continuing effort to report on the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on all Jewish organizations and agencies in this city, we present information about Shalom Residences and Gwen Secter Centre based on email exchanges we had with Shalom Residences Executive Director Nancy Hughes and Gwen Secter Executive Director Becky Chisick. We also present information from Rady JCC Executive Director Rob Berkowits about enhanced amenities at that facility.

Dr. Lorne Brandes

By JON VAN DER VEEN

To further understand the challenges and changes resulting from the pandemic, The Jewish Post & News has reached out to different members of the community to see how their lives have been impacted.
We contacted Dr. Lorne Brandes, who has had a long career as an oncologist, but who, upon retiring from that specialty, has been working as a practicing internist at Eaton Place Medical Centre. We wanted to know how Dr. Brandes has adapted to the restrictions imposed upon doctors such as him.

32-year-old Ari Hanson

By MYRON LOVE
Seventeen years ago, a Gray Academy high school student by the name of Ari Hanson began doing volunteer work for the Jewish Child and Family Service (JCFS). Today, the 32-year-old tax and civil litigation associate with Fillmore Riley LLP is the youngest president in the history of the JCFS.

Wedding scene in Plaszow concentration camp

By MARTIN ZEILIG

When Hadasa Bau and Clila Bau Cohen received notice earlier this year that their parents, Josef and Rebecca Bau, were to going to be honoured, along with some other Holocaust survivors, at a ceremony in Jerusalem in April, they burst out in tears.
It was an emotional moment.

Beth El Synagogue in L.A. May 30

By BERNIE BELLAN

If you’ve been reading our paper for a long enough time - or looking at this website, you should know by now that I don’t shy away from dealing with controversial topics. So, when I receive requests from readers to suppress the opinions of someone like Myron Love – well, it ain’t gonna happen under my watch.

Abe Simkin in 2012 - age 90

With the death of Abe Simkin last month in California, the last surviving member of his generation of the Simkin clan is now gone. You can read Mr. Simkin’s obituary elsewhere on this website at http://jewishpostandnews.ca/obituaries/520-abraham-abe-simkin, but we present here an excerpt from Abe Simkin’s life story as it appears in the Jewish Foundation’s Book of Life. This excerpt was written in 2012 when Mr. Simkin had just turned 90:

Outdoor Kabbalat Shabbat service at Etz Chayim

By MYRON LOVE
It is most definitely an understatement to say that this will be a yom tov like no other. In my last year’s reporting about high holiday attendance at Winnipeg synagogues (including services held at Camp Massad) in The Jewish Post & News yearly survey of high holiday synagogue attendance I noted that about 4,500 Jewish Winnipeggers at least could be found in shul - at least at peak times – for shofar-blowing, Kol Nidre and yizkor.

Beirut explosionThe following information was submitted by Shurat Hadin (Israel Law Center) on Thursday, August 6:
As the Lebanese people struggle to recover from the catastrophic deaths and destruction wrought by the Beirut explosion, more questions than answers continue to arise. The official story, that in 2013, Lebanese port officials impounded a Moldovan flagged ship bound for Mozambique, laden with explosive chemicals, does not address other facts which have emerged and must be investigated:

Simkin Centre 
residents of Simkin Centre early July

 

By BERNIE BELLAN
Even though the Province of Manitoba has eased the rules governing personal care homes and how visitors will now be able to see loved ones, the financial pressures facing all personal care homes in Manitoba had been huge even before the pandemic set in.

Ben Gurion U President Daniel Chamovitz

The university is raising a fund to support students in their studies as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

With the COVID-19 pandemic surging once again in Israel it is having a devastating effect on many young people who had been enrolled in institutions of higher learning throughout the country.

Jerry Shore/Harry Belafonte

By MYRON LOVE
For my 21st birthday in 1970, a couple of friends treated me to a ticket to Winnipeg’s first ever major outdoor rock concert. One of the principal organizers of that concert, which was called the Man-Pop Festival, and which was held on Saturday, August 29, was Jerry Shore, who turns 90 on July 23.

Prof. Bryan Schwartz

By MYRON LOVE
Ten years ago, University of Manitoba Law Professor Bryan Schwartz, in conjunction with the Rothberg International School at the Hebrew University, introduced Mishpatim, now known as the Asper International Law Program on Israeli Law and Society - a program whose goal was to introduce the State of Israel to University of Manitoba Law students through direct exposure to Israeli scholarship and society.

Ramallah Cafe is popular with Israelis

By BERNIE BELLAN

In recent weeks I’ve had occasion to meet the owners of some Arab restaurants in this city. Sure, it was to talk to them about advertising - but it was also a chance to discuss their feelings about relations between Jews and Muslims.

Bonnie edited 2By SIMONE COHEN SCOTT
Winnipeg Beach, July 11, 2020
My usual practice is to spend the winter months in Jerusalem, returning to Canada in early April. That didn’t happen this year. I didn’t take the Coronavirus seriously until it was too late to ‘get out of town’, so to speak. I ignored the general talk as I have with the other ‘sky is falling’ viruses, just doubling up on Vitamin C and Ecinacea as a precaution.

Annamie Paul/the late Rabbi Jim Diamond

By GERRY POSNER
Imagine my surprise when I picked up a very recent edition of the JP&N and I saw an article on the very woman, Annamie Paul, I had just been asked to interview by Bernie Bellan. (Bernie’s reason for his wanting me to interview Annamie – even though the paper had just published an article about her, had to do with a Winnipeg connection – about which Annamie was probably unaware.)

book cover/Martin Zeilig

How People Live In Soviet Russia
Reviewed by MARTIN ZEILIG
In February and March 1932 Mendel Osherowitch visited the Soviet Union on assignment for the Yiddish-language newspaper, Forverts (The Jewish Daily Forward). With a daily circulation of 275,000, this influential New York City-based newspaper was “socialist in content but not Bolshevik in form,” notes Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor of political geography at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, in the introduction to How People Live In Soviet Russia.

David Weller/Myron Love

In our July 8 issue Myron Love wrote an op-ed piece titled "American Reform movement endorses anti-Semitic organization". That article elicited a strong reaction from reader David Weller. In the interest of presenting as many sides to an issue as possible, we present here  both Myron's piece and David's response:

Jewish Foundation logoBy BERNIE BELLAN
As we reported in our June 24 issue, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba has announced that it will be giving a total of $600,000 in emergency funding to local Jewish organizations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, of which $400,000 has now been given.

Jewish Federation logoJewish Child and Family Service and Rady JCC see largest increases in allocations
By BERNIE BELLAN
The Jewish Federation of Winnipeg has released the amounts by which it will fund its 12 beneficiary agencies for the coming fiscal year, which begins September 1.

Members of ESRA on a hike in Israel

Ed. note: We received the following email last week:
Hello. My name is Jack Copelovici. My wife Ida and I made Aliyah from Toronto to Israel in 2016. It is obvious that relations are fraying between the Jews in the Diaspora and the Jews in Israel.

JCFS Executive Director Al Benarroch

By BERNIE BELLAN
In covering Annual General Meetings over the years I always try and find something different about which I can write – so that an article like this doesn’t end up being simply a repeat of previous years’ reports.

By BERNIE BELLAN
A while back I was speaking with Jacquie Seipp who, four years ago, came up with a novel and very thoughtful idea: Invite individuals and groups to participate in commemorating the memories of the “1.5 million children murdered in the Shoah”.

Dr. Nathan Stall

By GERRY POSNER

With all the devastating fallout from the COVID- 19 nightmare which has taken over all our lives on this planet over the last five months, there is an upside ( for me at least) to it all. Anyone who watches TV and the news of the pandemic has frequently seen two figures cross the screen in interviews.

A Toronto restaurant known as Foodbenders has set off a storm of controversy over its overtly anti-Israel stance (along with being anti just about everything that it’s fashionable to be against these days among certain elements on the left).

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