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130 university students and young adults attended this year’s “Shabbat Unplugged” at the Hecla Island Resort the weekend of January 10-12.

By MYRON LOVE
The fifth annual Shabbat Unplugged Leadership Retreat – which took place on the weekend of January 10-12 – was the most successful to date. Asper School of Business student Einat Livni, who assisted Hillel Winnipeg director Hartley Mendelsohn, reports that this year’s retreat at Hecla attracted 130 university students and young adults, including eight from UBC in Vancouver and seven from the University of Calgary.

Attorney Noa Shein with survivor Aryeh Shotzky Credit: Sarit Uzieli

By SHARON GELBACH

The statistics are grim: a quarter of Holocaust survivors in Israel and a third of those in the US are living in poverty. These now-elderly people, who experienced some of the worst traumas in modern times, are subsisting on so little they can't afford both food and medicine, or dental treatment, or house repairs, or to replace a broken appliance. Many are childless; many are the last remnant of their extended families, with no support network to advocate for them in their twilight years.

Former White Supremacist Elisa Hategan in a 2018 photo (left); and as a White Supremacist at a meeting of the neo-Nazi Heritage Front in June 1992

By MYRON LOVE

Once upon a time, Elisa Hategan was a protégé of noted Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and White Supremacist leader and Canadian Heritage Front founder Wolfgang Droege.
Today, she is a member in good standing of Canada’s Jewish community and a frequent voice against the very concepts with which she was formerly identified.
On the weekend of February 29-March 1, Hategan will be in Winnipeg – for the first time – at Limmud (at the Asper Jewish Community Centre) speaking about her journey from the dark to the light and her path to Judaism.

Rabbi Allan Finkel

By MYRON LOVE
According to Rabbi Allan Finkel, there has been a long-standing pattern of denying the existence of addiction within the established Jewish community.
As recently as 1995, Temple Shalom’s new spiritual leader reported, a study of addiction in England’s Jewish community concluded that the problem didn’t exist in the community. It has only been within the past 25 years that Jewish communities in North America have taken the problem seriously and been making efforts to help community members struggling with addiction.
Finkel addressed the issue at a presentation on Tuesday, January 14, at the Asper Campus Adult Lounge as part of a series of Rady JCC-initiated monthly talks featuring local rabbis speaking about contemporary issues.

Scarlett Johansson - nominated for 2 Academy Awards: Best Actress, “Marriage Story”; Best Supporting Actress, “Jojo Rabbit”

By GABE FRIEDMAN
(JTA) – The 2020 Oscar nominations are out, and unsurprisingly, they’re already causing a firestorm on social media.
The list, announced early Monday morning, didn’t do much to quell longstanding concerns that the awards have issues with race and gender equality. Only one actor of color was nominated – Cyntha Erivo, for her role in “Harriet” – and the best director category is once again all male, despite the fact that Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of “Little Women” was a massive critical and commercial success.

Mentalist Haim Goldenberg

By MYRON LOVE
Haim Goldenberg believes that when confronted with a problem you are having trouble solving, looking at the problem from different angles can lead to a solution.
It is a philosophy that the Israeli-Canadian mentalist uses in his stage show – with sometimes surprising results.

Billed as a “real life” mentalist (whatever that means), Goldenberg made his Winnipeg premiere at the Berney Theatre on Saturday, January 11, with two shows – the first in English and the second in Hebrew.

Ben Carr (left) and Kevin Freedman

By MYRON LOVE
Long time friends Ben Carr and Kevin Freedman are hoping to be working together come March 21 as fellow members of Winnipeg School Division No. 1’s Board of Trustees.
The pair are running in two separate byelections – in Wards 3 and 4, where the previously elected school trustees, Mark Wasyliw and Lisa Naylor, quit their positions after winning seats in the Manitoba legislature in last fall’s provincial election.

At the premiere of “Painful Truth: The Falun Gong Genocide”, Jan. 9, in the Berney Theatre (l-r): Ran Ukashi, National Director, B'nai Brith League for Human Rights; lawyer David Matas, longtime crusader for members of Falun Gong; Adriana Glickman, National Program Coordinator, B’nai Brith Canada; filmmaker Yolanda Papini-Pollock (standing behind Adriana); Prof Maria Cheung (Associate Professor in the U of M Faculty of Social Work, and herself a Falun Gong practitioner and survivor of the Chinese gulag); and Erol Meryl (a survivor of the Rwandan genocide)

By MYRON LOVE
Genocide can take different forms. The Holocaust, for example, and the more recent Rwandan genocide were condensed in a frenzy of killing. For the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, the killing and attempted erasure of their cultures transpired over several hundred years.
Then, there is the matter of the Falun Gong.
Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa and Qi Gong) is a practice combining simple exercises with meditation based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.Of ancient Chinese origin, the practice – with the encouragement of the Chinese Communist government – developed a very large following in modern China. In 1999, however, Li Peng, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, decided that practicing Falun Gong was a threat to the Chinese Communist government. He initiated a thoroughgoing campaign to demonize the practice and eradicate anyone who continued to practice the tradition.

Magen David Adom paramedic Don Sharpe will be offering training for emergencies on Feb. 5 at the Rady JCC

By REBECA KUROPATWA

In 2016, when Magen David Adom (MDA) introduced the Life Guardian Program, thousands of Israelis with no medical training jumped at the opportunity to participate.
The Life Guardian Program added another layer of responders to emergencies to potentially save more lives with faster response time, by certifying or recertifying everyday Israeli citizens. Many participants had learned CPR as part of their army service or teacher certification, and others took first-aid basics for the first time.

singer Jennifer Hanson kicked off this year's edition of Music 'n Mavens

By MYRON LOVE
The Rady JCC’s popular Music ‘N’ Mavens kicked off its 22nd season on Tuesday, January 14, with a bravura performance by the incomparable Jennifer Hanson. Accompanied by Gilles Fournier on base and Murray Pulver on guitar (both of whom are also fixtures on the local music scene) – and still getting over a cold, one of Winnipeg’s leading ladies of song delivered a range of numbers beginning with long ago hits from Cole Porter and encompassing the Turtles, the Beatles, the Pointer Sisters, Linda Ronstadt and more (including a song of her own composition) while between songs chatting comfortably with her audience of nearly 200 who filled the Berney Theatre.

By YURI KOGAN and ZEV COHEN of Ergo Oriens Crisis Management. (Special to The Jewish Post & News)

PS752, a scheduled commercial flight by Ukraine International Airlines from Tehran to Kyiv disappeared from air traffic control radar a few minutes after departure in the early morning hours of Wednesday, January 10. Initial media reports, quoting local witnesses and Iranian officials reported the airliner disappeared 6 minutes after departure at an altitude of 8,000 ft. It was reported that no distress call was transmitted by the crew. All 176 crew and passengers on board were reported as casualties. There were no survivors. Most of those on board were either Canadian citizens or others on their way to Canada through Kyiv.

 

Danielle Margolis in the Sahara in Morocco

By MYRON LOVE

Realtor Danielle Margolis recently went for a trek in the desert to raise money for an initiative she strongly believes in. The desert was the Sahara and Margolis one of 120 Royal LePage realtors from across the country – divided into four groups - who took part in the “Sahara Desert Challenge”, on behalf of the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation - in support of women’s and children’s shelters across Canada.

 

Bermax Caffé the day after the alleged break-in & vandalism- April 19

By BERNIE BELLAN

As reported on the CBC website on January 16, two of the three lawyers who had been representing different members of the Berent family, which owned Bermax Caffé & Bistro, “are no longer defending” two members of the Berent family – Alexander and Oksana Berent, following a” ‘breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship,’ Crown prosecutor Mike Himmelman told the court.”
Both James Lowry, who had been defending Alexander Berent, and Martin Glazer, who had been defending Oksana Berent, have resigned as counsel for the accused, according to the CBC report.

By BERNIE BELLAN
The situation regarding the possible sale of Town Island took a somewhat confusing twist these past two weeks when an online publication known as Kenora Online reported on Monday, January 13, that Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford (who is also Ontario’s Northern Development Minister) said “he’s working with the City of Kenora on a possible Town Island land swap.”

n the large foyer of Canada House is a little snack shop called Yad LaKashish. The pastries and sweets are surprisingly low priced. The treat for me was to learn that this woman, Simmy Cohen, with a name very similar to mine, and her son, have been residents in the area all their lives and…..get this…..the family had owned a butcher shop/grocery store for several generations, which had been housed in the building next door, the very place where the Yad LaKashish shop is now. I think we’ve come full circle.

By SIMONE COHEN SCOTT
Jerusalem
When I call this piece ‘Adventures’, you have to realize who I am. I’m an elderly Jewish woman. Even before this happened to me though, I was not into bungee jumping, mountain climbing, deep sea diving (not even light scuba diving), canoe trips, stock car racing, or anything like that. Buying myself an apartment in Jerusalem is as adventurous as I’ve ever been. That’s a long story, and it’s not one that I’m going to tell today. But, I was gradually beginning to travel here more than once in twelve months, and I wanted to stop feeling like the meter is running and you have to keep doing something because otherwise money is going down the drain.

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