By BERNIE BELLAN
Pulitzer prize-winning NY Times columnist Bret Stephens was the 14th speaker in what has become an annual tradition in Winnipeg: the 14th Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture Series, held once again at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue –this year on Monday, May 13.
On this, the 100th anniversary of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, it is worth noting that many Jewish individuals played prominent roles in the strike. Click "read more" to see a montage of some of those individuals.
Harriet Zaidman's new young adult novel, "City on Strike: A Novel" (Red Deer Press 191 pg. $14.95), is set during the time of the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 when workers and soldiers returning from the First World War demanded jobs, decent wages and the right to organize.
“Many politicians and business leaders condemned strike organizers and, backed up by police, unleashed deadly violence against them on a day now known as Bloody Sunday,” said Harriet in describing the book. “City on Strike focusses on a 13-year-old boy and his younger sister who are part of a poor but hard-working immigrant family. Together with their neighbours, these siblings get drawn into the chaos that changed the city, and the country, forever.” Following is an excerpt from "City on Strike":
This year's Yom Ha'atsmaut celebrations at the Asper Campus drew a record crowd on May 9. Over 3,000 attendees over the course of the late afternoon and evening filled
the Rady JCC gym to play games, enjoy Israeli food, and watch entertainment provided by a series of singers and dancers. Click "read more" for a montage of the day's events.
By MYRON LOVE
2018 was another year of growth for the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba. Last year, current President Eric Winograd reported, as the second largest such foundation in the province (after the Winnipeg Foundation) the Foundation’s capital base grew to $125 million and it was able to distribute a record $4.5 million from interest on its capital fund to programs and services that benefit both the Jewish community and the larger community as a whole.
By BERNIE BELLAN
The second annual Adas Yeshurun-Herzlia distinguished lecture, featuring Rabbi Joseph Telushkin Thursday, May 9, attracted another very large crowd – duplicating last year’s inaugural lecture, which featured novelist Dara Horn.
Over 336 tickets were sold for this year’s lecture. Apparently many of those who attended bought their tickets only in the last week leading up to the event, as ticket sales had been a bit slow until that point. But word must have spread how good a speaker Rabbi Telushkin was, and no one who would have bought a ticket with that in mind would have been disappointed.
Growing up in Garden City, Bernie Shore , who is now 54, attended Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate and Camp Massad. He went on to earn his B.A. at the University of Manitoba, including studying creative writing and criminology.
Shore, who was born in Vancouver, was adopted by Winnipeg’s Shore family. His siblings live in New York – his sister working as a doctor and his brother as a rabbi.
By BERNIE BELLAN
(Note: If you've already read our previous article about the BerMax incident, the following article won't contain any new information, but it should be more coherent than what we had previously - which was written more as a blog than an article.)
What began as the worst hate crime in Winnipeg history - within five days was transformed into one of the greatest hoaxes in recent memory.
It began with a police bulletin issued Friday morning, April 20 :
By MYRON LOVE
Sixteen years ago, Elaine Berliner was at a low point in her life.
“I was feeling lousy,” she recalls. “It was close to Christmas and it struck me that this must be the way homeless people feel at Christmas.”
Frankly, I didn’t really want to attend the much talked-about event planned for Friday, April 26, at which Linda Sarsour was scheduled to be a panelist.
But, with all the attention that had been focused on this alleged “antisemite” (and oh my, how that word gets tossed around so liberally these days), I felt it my duty to see whether Sarsour was going to say anything that would give credence to the accusation that she really hates Jews. (Well, maybe not Jews per se, but according to the definition that’s become popular within certain circles, if you’re anti-Israel, ipso facto, you’re an antisemite.)
By SAM SOKOL
TEL AVIV (JTA) — After the weekend’s fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army, some Israelis have raised questions about the strength of their country’s missile defenses.
By BERNIE BELLAN
As much as it's becoming increasingly unpopular within our Jewish community to defend free speech, I'm going to continue arguing that it's terribly hypocritical to call for the preemptive banning of certain speakers whose views may be critical of Israeli government policy while forgetting that pro-Israel speakers have been - and are still being subjected to exactly the same treatment.
