Features
Helen Nadel is about to assume the presidency of an important world-wide body: The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
And while Helen Nadel has had a distinguished career in medicine as a pediatric radiologist and nuclear medicine physician – Winnipeg will always be near and dear to her
By BERNIE BELLAN Quite often this newspaper has published articles about former Winnipeggers who have gone on to great careers once they’ve left Winnipeg. If there’s one thing our Jewish community here has been especially proficient at doing, it’s been serving as a springboard for outstanding students to launch successful careers elsewhere.
In some ways, while we may lament that so many of our “best and brightest” have sought to further their careers by leaving Manitoba, almost all those expatriates have something in common, and that’s a deep affection for their hometown – also for the bonds that they formed growing up in Winnipeg.
A few months ago I happened to be in conversation with one of our out-of-town readers: Diane Unrode-Ackley. Diane mentioned that a good friend of hers, Helen Nadel, had recently been elected to serve as the upcoming president of a rarified body: The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.
Now, I should also explain that Helen has been an online subscriber to this paper for many years but, like many other online subscribers, I really didn’t have a clue where Helen lived – or what Helen’s background was.
I told Diane that I would definitely want to interview Helen to ask her about her career and what led up to her assuming the presidency of such an important body. But, as you might expect, Helen Nadel is one very busy woman. Try as we might to find a time that would work for both of us to conduct an in-depth interview, it wasn’t until earlier this past month that we were able to speak – face to face so to speak, via Zoom.
What follows are excerpts from that interview, but first here is Helen Nadel’s bio as given on the Stanford University School of Medicine website:
“Dr. Nadel is a dual board -certified Pediatric Radiologist and Nuclear Medicine Physician in both the USA and Canada. She holds certifications from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, The American Board of Radiology (ABR) with certificate of added qualification in Pediatric Radiology and the American Board of Nuclear Medicine (ABNM). Dr. Nadel was an Associate Professor of Radiology at University of British Columbia and had been practicing as a pediatric radiologist and pediatric nuclear medicine physician at British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia since 1983 after medical school at University of Manitoba (1977, Winnipeg, Manitoba), internship and residency at University of Toronto (1978-1982) and Pediatric Radiology fellowship (Chief Fellow) at Hospital for Sick Children (1982-1983, Toronto, Ont.) She has been working with the entire breadth of general and hybrid nuclear medicine studies in children in a fully integrated department of Pediatric Radiology and lecturing to promote this field for her entire career. Dr. Nadel currently uses PET/MRI exclusively for PET imaging at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University (LPCH) and co-directs the clinical PET/MRI program at LPCH. Dr. Nadel has been inducted as a Fellow of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (FSNMMI). Dr. Nadel is the 2022-2023 President-Elect of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.”
And here is the interview:
JP&N: ¨Nice to meet you – finally.”
Nadel: “You too.
JP&N: “We actually met seven years ago at the Jewish Schools Reunion. You’ve had a very illustrious career – and worn many hats, but tell me something about your growing up in Winnipeg.”
Nadel: “I’m a north ender – an only child. My mother came to Winnipeg in 1921 – she was born near Kiev.
“My father came after the war. He had had a military career in the Polish Army. He was captured by the Russians in 1939 and sent to the Gulag. Then when he was repatriated he walked back over the Ural mountains to then fight in the free Polish division of the Russian army.”
JP&N: “Wow!” (Ed. note: That would have been over 2,000 kilometres! At this point I’m including a later part of the interview in which Helen elaborated upon what happened to her father.)
JP&N: “Did you say he had to walk from the Gulag?”
Nadel: “Yes, he walked. It took him two years. He lived in the Ural Mountains, he lived in Uzbekistan.”
JP&N: ¨I just wrote about a book by another doctor – Meyer Kreger. It was the memoir of his mother, Rose. She was also from Poland and survived the war after being sent to Siberia, then Uzbekistan, then Kazakhstan. The stories of how some people were able to survive when others couldn’t endure are endlessly fascinating.”
Nadel: “You know Francie Winograd, don’t you? My father was in the same DP camp as Francie’s mother (Gertrude) after the war. It was near Munich.
“When my father came to Winnipeg, he met the Grosh family – and they had a sister-in-law who was in her thirties and not married. She was introduced to my father and as they say, the rest is history.” (I had to tell Helen that Gerry Posner uses that line in every story he writes.)
“They were married in 1949 and I was born in ’52.”
“I went to Peretz School in Winnipeg and then to Jefferson and Garden City Collegiate. I graduated and did undergrad and med school in Winnipeg. After that‚ I went to a Toronto to do my specialty training in radiology. I’m a radiologist‚ and I have two specialties – actually. three specialties. I’m a radiologist‚ but I sub specialize in pediatric radiology, and I also have a secondary qualification in nuclear medicine, both of which are diagnostic tools.
“One uses what you would think of as conventional X rays and now, ultrasound. MRI is general radiology. Nuclear medicine uses a small amount of radioactive material to also look at how the body works, how it functions. The new thing about nuclear medicine – it’s not so new really, is we can also use it for therapy. So, if you’ve heard of people having thyroid disease, sometimes we give them radioactivity to treat thyroid cancer.
“And now, the big thing‚ of course‚ is we can treat prostate cancer in men; we can treat other cancers as well. But the new kid on the block is treating prostate cancer with radioactive material. We’ve had very good success. But I’m a pediatric person‚ so that’s not actually my purview at the moment.
“But part of the reason I think Diane wanted you to talk to me is I’m about to become the President of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.”
JP&N: ¨You haven’t assumed the throne yet, have you?”
Nadel: “My presidential year starts in June of this year. But I’ve been in the leadership (of the Society) for three years. I was elected in June 2021.”
JP&N: ¨You’re going to become head of a worldwide organization – right, or is it just American?”
Nadel: “It’s a worldwide organization, based in the US‚ but it is global. We are the largest organization (in the field of nuclear medicine). We have a membership that includes physicians‚ technologists‚ scientists and industry. And it has about 14,000 (members). There are some other organizations (in the field). There are regional – sort of country-based organizations. There are continental-based organizations – like the European Association of Nuclear Medicine – but we’re much bigger.”
JP&N: “You said your specialty is pediatric radiology. Is that right?”
Helen: “Yes‚ ¨I’m a pediatric radiologist.”
JP&N: “So, up to what age would you be treating patients?”
Nadel: Well‚ that’s a good question – usually to age 18. However‚ here at Stanford‚ we have a lot of children that have had diseases as infants‚ and we keep seeing them as they become adults. We still see them. So, it’s a movable barrier. But usually pediatrics is to 18.”
JP&N: ¨I assume you know Ted Lyons.”
Nadel: “I do. Ted was instrumental in bringing ultrasound to Winnipeg and to Canada and as such he came to teach us in our radiology training program at the University of Toronto.”
(At that moment Helen’s phone rang and she had to take a short call. When Helen resumed our Zoom call I noticed a male figure had wandered into the background.)
JP&N: “Who’s that wandering into the background now? Is that your husband?”
Nadel: “Yes, that’s my husband.”
JP&N: “What’s your husband’s name?”
Nadel: “Tevy Goodman. ‘Tevy, say hi to Bernie Bellan‚ the editor of the Jewish Post.’ ”
JP&N: “Are you in Palo Alto? Is that where I’m reaching you now?”
Nadel: “We’re in Palo Alto. We’re in the heart of Silicon Valley. I came to Stanford five years ago. I was recruited here. Actually‚ I was sort of retiring from my job. I had been 35 years at Children’s Hospital – at British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver – as a pediatric radiologist and the head of their pediatric nuclear medicine department, and I was going to sort of retire – slow down, at least.
“But there was a new hospital at Stanford – a new children’s hospital. I have a lot of friends in the community all over and one of them here convinced me that I should at least look at this job. And you know what it was? It was an opportunity that not many people would get. And, so, instead of retiring‚ I decided to come here – and I’m moving – going ‘uphill’ to go ‘downhill’.”
JP&N: Are most of your duties teaching or clinical? How does it break down?”
Nadel: “I am a clinical physician. I’m in charge of a new division – brand new at this hospital‚ which is called Pediatric Nuclear Medicine. I am also a full service pediatric radiologist. And so I have two hats – two big hats.
“We have some unique equipment here that not many places in the world have – and I’m kind of a leader. I don’t want to blow my own horn‚ but I’m a leader in a field called PET/MRI (Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance Imaging).
“Winnipeg has a PET/CT scanner. There are two in Vancouver. There are two down the street from here, where I live. So‚ you know‚ it’s just a different world, it’s a different focus‚ a different way of doing things. I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been able to use these exceptional tools for over 20 years now in my practice, both in Canada and the US. And pediatric lags behind adults in this area – just because we’re smaller. You know, there are fewer kids, but 25% of the world population is pediatric. It will increase as the Boomers get older and die off . Some Third World countries have mostly young people, so it will take a while to build up another Boomer type age group once we’re out of the picture. And disease will get younger in the medical field.”
JP&N: ¨ There are all sorts of scary news reports about cancer, saying it’s increasing – depending on who you talk to. Yesterday‚ I think I saw in Time Magazine, that 50% of people will have cancer in their lifetimes. Someone else told me‚ 70% – but she’s really into conspiracy theories. Can you give a more specific figure or is it hard to do that?”
Nadel: “I don’t have an answer to that. But there are some reports that suggest that the ages at which some people are getting certain diseases are getting younger. There was a big report this week on colon cancer – saying people are getting it younger. It’s being picked up at younger ages. I think that’s in part due to the fact that we have better techniques to pick these diseases up. We are taking more interest in preventative health‚ and that’s okay.
“One of the things that attracted me to Stanford was the physician who recruited me. His name was Sam Gambhir. He was an absolute giant in the field. Unfortunately, he died two years ago of cancer – a very horrible story. You could look him up. He was brilliant. But he basically was on track and his lab -which is still here‚ was on track to promote precision health and preventative health. And precision medicine includes wearable technology, you know.
“One of the last things he wrote about – a great article‚ was about the ‘smart toilet’ And it exists, basically. Your toilet can determine if you have disease by your feces. But nobody knows that’s the case. There’s so much going on in the world. I mean‚ this is beyond me‚ but I’m just saying that there’s a lot of stuff going on.
“So, the statistics are enabling us to pick up more diseases‚ and we’re picking it up earlier. We’re finding ways to treat it. But, have we moved the dial? I’m not sure yet. We don’t know yet. We don’t have enough information yet to determine if we’ve moved the dial in the right direction. I think we will, but I think it’s going to take a little longer to actually prove that.
JP&N: “Okay‚ I want to talk about your new position, but I also want to put a little bit of a ‘haimish’ touch to this. You said you left Winnipeg – when?. Were you in your twenties?”
Nadel: I left Winnipeg after I graduated from med school. I was 24.”
JP&N: “And you went to Toronto for postgraduate?”
Nadel: “Basically, you have to do a year of postgraduate training to get a medical license. I actually did what was called in those days a rotating internship. So I did twelve months of a bunch of everything – all different parts of medicine. I actually thought I would become a family physician and come back to Winnipeg. Then I met my husband. We actually met in Winnipeg. He’s from Vancouver‚ but we met in Winnipeg‚ and he followed me to Toronto. He didn’t want to come back to Winnipeg – put it that way.”
JP&N: “Sounds familiar.”
Nadel: “We thought we would end up in Toronto. And, after 14 years of postgraduate education – which included all my radiology training…I also did specialty training; after a year of internship; after four years of radiology residency and a one year pediatric radiology fellowship – I didn’t have a job! I needed a job. And I got offered to do much like what I’m doing here: start up a new program at a brand new hospital in Vancouver – British Columbia Children’s Hospital. I was 30 years old.
¨And my husband being from Vancouver‚ that seemed like a reasonable thing to do for what we thought would be five years. We ended up having two daughters in those first five years – and we never left.”
JP&N: “Can I ask: What did your husband do?”
Nadel: “My husband is a retired professional engineer – a civil engineer and, in an interesting twist‚ he helped build some of the nuclear generating stations in Ontario. He worked in construction development and then in power group development. He worked for Ontario Hydro for all the years that we were in Ontario. And then he basically retired.”
“He took care of me and the kids and it just worked out that way. Coming back to Vancouver turned out to be a good thing and a bad thing when we came back. We came for my job because I did not have another job, and it looked like he would get a similar job in civil engineering, but that had dried up in the 80s (when nuclear plants stopped being built).
“And, our first child was premature But, you know what? The decision to have one parent at home was the right decision. And so it was him. I was young; he was a great father. He is a great father. So he was a forerunner then. And he was not Mr. Mom. He was everything. He is everything still. I couldn’t have done anything I did – and still do if I didn’t have that kind of support.”
JP&N: “So, as far as your Winnipeg roots go‚ I know that you’re friends with Diane Unrode-Ackley. Do you still have many friends from that time?”
Nadel: “Well Diane is like a sister me. I really had a close circle of three. Mindy (Unrode, Diane’s younger sister, who sadly died in 1986) was my best friend. We met when we were seven or eight years old. We were friends forever. She moved to Toronto as well after she got divorced.
“My second close friend was Cheryl Schwartz, who’s now (Dr.) Cheryl Minuk – also in Toronto.
JP&N: “She’s a subscriber, too. I talk to her occasionally.”
Nadel: And my other close friend was (Madame Justice) Robyn (Moglove) Diamond (who also passed away – in 2018). The four of us (Helen, Mindy, Cheryl, and Robyn) were best friends.
JP&N: “What street did you grow up on?”
Nadel: “I grew up on Scotia Street‚ between Smithfield and McAdam. My cousins are the Grosh family. I should mention that my family were also long time shul goers at Rosh Pina.”
JP&N: I just heard from Joel (Grosh). His mother (Tesse) just passed and we had her obituary in the paper. This is really a little Jewish geography we’re doing.”
Nadel: “Totally. So, Tesse’s husband, Abe, and I were first cousins. Our mothers were sisters‚ but I’m almost the same age as Joel; he’s one year older than me. So, even though I’m one generation older than him we grew up together. We grew up in a compound almost. Joel’s family lived next door to us until they built their really nice house on Smithfield. His grandparents lived next door to him – half a block away
“What happened is two brothers – named Grosh, married two sisters my aunts – whose name was Chmelnitsky – and they lived across the street from each other. In a real twist of fate, someone else you know, Osher (Archie) Kraut, is also my cousin.
“They’re cousins on my father’s side – which is how my father came to Winnipeg after the war. Archie’s parents actually brought him to Winnipeg. He was only planning to pass through Winnipeg on his way to Israel. He’d been in a DP camp for four years. He had had typhus; he wasn’t that well. And then he came to Winnipeg. He wasn’t even 40.”
JP&N: “By the way, we’re only a year apart in age. Well, let’s turn to the position you’re about to assume. What will be your actual title?”
Nadel: “I’ll be President of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. When you’re first elected‚ you are vice-president elect‚ then you become president elect‚ then you become president, and then you become past president. What happens is you’re part of the leadership, basically. So, as president elect you travel together with the president. You deal with all of the sort of day to day problems that such an organization might have. We deal with the US federal government, for the most part. We deal with international governments related to the supply of radiopharmaceuticals that we use in our medical careers. And we also have international organizations. We deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which I’ve been involved with for 20 years as well, on a consultancy basis.
“How did I get to where I am in this organization? Well‚ as a pediatric radiologist and nuclear medicine physician‚ I was always interested in promoting the interests of children. They’re different than adults. There’s a saying that children are not small adults, and that’s true. And so, in some things, kids do get left behind. They don’t get some of the drugs. They don’t get some of the treatments that are available, some of the diagnostic things that you could do, some things you don’t want to do, etc.
“But it’s important to promote pediatrics. I’ve been a strong proponent of educating people about my field, my particular area of interest. I met people along the way who were interested in how I do things. I was interested in the organization that I belong to. I’m promoting the fact that there are new techniques that we can utilize. I’ve just been vocal. I teach, I give a lot of lectures, I’m not shy. Well‚ I guess you could say I’m an ‘introverted extrovert.’
“I got known in my field as a speaker, somebody who was interesting. I worked as a solo practitioner in my area – in Vancouver, even here (at Stanford). It’s usually never more than one person that does pediatric nuclear medicine in any hospital department.
“I suppose the reason I got to where I got was I volunteered to get involved in different parts of the organization, but I wasn’t aspiring to do this (become president of the nuclear medicine association). But again, much like coming to Stanford, somebody asked if I would consider doing it. My reaction was, given that I was new at Stanford and that I’m trying to grow a brand new program, (the administrators at Stanford) would say, ‘Are you crazy? We’re not giving you that time.’
“But, instead, they were delighted. But when you say you’re willing to put your name forward for election, you actually have to run an election. I ran an election. I sent out 10,000 emails.”
JP&N: “Were there other candidates running?”
Nadel: “There was another candidate that ran, but I won the election in June 2021. I’m going to be the seventy-first president of this organization. I’ll also be the fifth woman, the fifth pediatric person, and the third Canadian.”
JP&N: “Are you an American citizen now, too (in addition to being a Canadian citizen?”
Nadel: “No, no, I am a Canadian citizen. I do have a green card. My husband and I both have green cards, but we’ll always be Canadian.”
JP&N: “Okay, Helen, this has been terrific. It was very nice meeting you – finally. This was a long time in coming. It was hard to pin you down, but I’m glad we did this.
Nadel: “Okay, I hate talking about myself, but thanks for this. It was great.”
Following our interview I asked Helen to provide some information about her two daughters. Here’s what she wrote:
“My husband and I have two daughters. Frani is a cantor, having graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in NYC as a cantor in the Conservative movement. She is currently completing a fellowship in Vancouver to be a chaplain. She has Master Degrees in Sacred Music and Jewish Education and also teaches in the Jewish education system in Vancouver.
“Daniella has a Masters Degree in Early Childhood Special Education from Hunter College in NYC. She is currently teaching kindergarten in a charter school in Brooklyn, also completing a second Masters degree in Speech Therapy.”
Mahler the Jew: A futuristic fantasy (Part II)
David Topper
Features
Is Hamas a “treatable” cancer?
By GREGORY MASON If we define Hamas as a cancer, can we devise a strategy to, if not defeat Hamas, at least manage it? Is Hamas “treatable?”
Defining treatable cancer
Although the cancer charities like to promote the notion that we are winning the war against cancer, a reference that confirms the suitability of conjoining cancer and Hamas, the reality is that five-year survival rates are increasing only slowly. While curative therapies continue to improve, early detection —encompassing both greater testing participation and technological advancements in testing —appears to be the most crucial factor in lengthened survivability.
The key treatment condition is the stage at which cancer becomes known. The typical staging has four levels, where the tumour:
- remains entirely within the margins (edges) of the organ
- reaches the margins.
- moves beyond the margin and invades the surrounding tissues.
- move another organ or system.
Sometimes oncologists refer to precancerous growths as “stage 0” when a surgeon removes a skin lesion as a precaution. Progression among the cancer stages is known as metastasis.
Most important is to understand that the five-year survival standard includes no reference to quality of life. Most cancer treatments compromise quality of life.
Patients often assume the word “cancer” means a death sentence. Yet if detected early, the idea of “treatable cancer” invariably creates a sense of optimism since it also implies a course of action leading to a “cure.” Most oncologists are wary of raising false expectations when discussing the nature of a patient’s condition and the options for treatment.
Three conditions mark a treatable cancer. - Treatment options exist.
- Actions are feasible – the patient resides where the technology, talent, and treatments (medications) are available.
- Patients receive no guarantees that exist for a cure (complete remission), extension of life, or improved quality of life.
Treatment outcomes for cancer exist in several dimensions: the extension of life, the quality of that life, and the difficulty of the treatment. Patients and physicians face complex trade-offs, where the difficulty of the treatment versus the expected gain in quality of life may induce the patient to curtail active treatment. The patient submits to the inevitable and enters palliative care.
Setting aside voodoo, cancer treatments include surgery that targets specific tumour sites, chemotherapy that uses a cocktail of chemicals that targets cancerous cells without affecting healthy tissue, and palliative care. Palliative care accepts the inevitable course of disease leading to death.
The final issue is that a systemic cancer, such as lymphoma, stands in contrast to a tumour, which exists at a defined point. Treatment is different for each type. Systemic cancers require chemotherapy, while point cancers require surgery.
Hamas as a cancer.
Some may object to my characterization of Hamas as a cancer since they see Hamas as freedom fighters for Palestinian independence. No comment. No apology.
The origin of Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood, which started in Egypt during the late 1920s as a labour movement among Suez Canal dockworkers, led by Hassan al-Banna. Its goals were to spread Islam across the Arab world, oppose colonialism (primarily British and French) and promote the Arab mission in Palestine. This movement has spread rapidly throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Hamas (Harakat-al-Muqawama-al-Islamiya or “Islamic Resistance Movement”) was established in 1987 following the first intifada, when Arabs living in Gaza, Judea/Samaria and East Jerusalem engaged in a violent protest against what Hamas and other groups perceived as unjustified Israeli governance over their lands. A core goal was to build support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which had lost support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) sponsored by Iran. It is one example of the conflict between Sunni Islam (Muslim Brotherhood) and Shia Islam (PIJ).
Rather than an isolated tumour, Hamas in Gaza is but a derivative lesion of the broader Muslim Brotherhood cancer. Although not part of the Palestinian Authority, it is the most popular movement in the West Bank. It may well have had a hand in the weekend attack in Jerusalem that killed six and injured 13, although many malign actors are available.
Another Muslim Brotherhood lesion is the Hamas leadership that has remained ensconced in luxury Qatar hotels. Israel’s recent attack on the Hamas leadership in Qatar is another attempt to excise the tumour, with a subtle twist. Qatar has operated duplicitously. On the one hand, it has sheltered Hamas leaders and shovelled buckets of money to support their war against Israel while also serving as a “neutral” mediator in the hostage negotiation. Along with Iran and Türkiye, it is a significant funder of the Brotherhood, not only throughout the Middle East, but also in Europe and North America.
Qatar has also opened a series of tumours in post-secondary education, especially in its funding of elite universities. This aligns with the long view inherent in radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. Funding “endowed chairs” enables external funders to circumvent standard academic hiring procedures, placing academics with specific viewpoints in key academic positions. This becomes a critical element in the metastasis of radical Islam. In addition to promoting Islam and an anti-Israel perspective, these faculty members work in partnership with post-modern ideologies that undermine recognition of the past achievements of Western civilization. This is not to defend the past, as much exists in Western history that needs correction.
Defeating Hamas: Tactical win or strategic loss?
Israel’s goals in Gaza have fluctuated, reflecting its extraordinary duration and the existence of the hostages. Many do not want the Netanyahu government to proceed with the final expulsion of Hamas from Gaza. Most opponents to such a campaign within Israel fear it is not possible without massively increased civilian casualties, further hostage deaths, and a prohibitive cost in soldiers’ lives for the Israel Defence Forces.
In addition to the potential costs, commentators such as Andrew Fox believe it is not possible to eliminate Hamas. His essential point is that Hamas has shown a remarkable capacity to adapt. However, he has applauded the attack on the Hamas leadership in Qatar.
The situation has become dire. First, throughout the Middle East, a multitude of cancerous lesions exist in the form of radical Islamic parties vying for control. In the West Bank, in addition to Fatah, the Palestinian Authority (PA) includes other factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a Marxist-Leninist group), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian Peoples Party, and the Palestine Popular Struggle Front. Not part of the PA, but very influential and popular are Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
In Gaza, in addition to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the major political factions include Fatah (much weakened since 2007), a range of Salafi-Jihad Groups, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all of which vie for support. Finally, in addition, several clan-based militias are operating, which Israel currently funds and arms, primarily to irritate Hamas.
A multitude of factions may arise to fill the vacuum if Hamas disappears. Indeed, none are anywhere as strong and capable as Hamas was. But deep pockets exist in the form of Qatar, Türkiye, and Iran to rebuild Islamist military capacity in Gaza.
The many points of radical Islam, comprising funding in Western universities, the mass migration that results in multiple Western societies being unable to integrate newcomers, and post-modern ideas infusing government and corporate management, have merged to create a systemic cancer that seems impervious to treatment, certainly to precise tumour excision.
Israel can play a furious whack-a-mole model of surgical strikes to excise the many tumorous lesions originating from the Muslim Brotherhood. And it may succeed in bringing Hamas to the table to release the remaining hostages and cease its Gaza operations. Israel can score a tactical victory.
But if the West declines to address the systemic cancer of radical Islam and Hamas reconstitutes itself in the West Bank, a strategic victor will elude Israel, and it will return to excising yet another tumour.
Israel’s refusal to wage the information war and Western leaders losing their way and becoming politically indebted to recent migrants may become the strategic errors prolonging the conflict.
Features
Seeking gangsters, must speak Yiddish: Bringing the Hasidic underworld to life in ‘Caught Stealing’
By PJ Grisar September 3, 2025
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
A duo of burly, gun-toting Hasidic gangsters and their doting bubbe are the breakout characters in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing — at least, for figures not of the feline variety. To bring them to life, the film had a secret weapon: a Yiddish whisperer.
Motl Didner, program director for the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, first heard rumblings of the crime caper through a casting notice seeking Yiddish-speaking actors. He didn’t know the notice was for an Aronofsky film, but he passed the details along to members of the company, and even sent in a self-tape to be considered for a role.
Later, the production got in touch to use him as a Yiddish coach.
“That’s when I found out who exactly it was that I lost out to,” Didner said in a phone interview. “I don’t feel so bad about losing out to, like, Liev Schreiber.”
Didner worked with Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio and Carol Kane — respectively playing a pair of frightening drug lords and their grandmother — settling on a Hungarian dialect for their dialogue, and even rewriting some of their Yiddish lines. (The dynasty to which the brothers belong is never specified, but their scenes with Kane were filmed on location at a Lubavitcher household in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.)
The duo show up as a threat to the film’s protagonist, Hank (Austin Butler), who finds himself caught in the middle of their quest to recover piles of money from other ethnic gangs in 1998 New York City.
Kane, Didner said, took naturally to the mamaloshen. While she isn’t conversational in Yiddish in real life, her breakout role was as a Yiddish-speaking immigrant in Hester Street, and she more recently had Yiddish scenes in the Amazon Prime show Hunters.
Schreiber, for his part, sang Yiddish songs growing up, and “had an ear for it,” Didner said.
D’Onofrio, who isn’t Jewish, was “really kind of thrown deep into the Jewish world,” Didner said, but was very meticulous in getting his “meshugenahs” on point. Crucially, he nails the pronunciation of his beloved bubbe’s title: For native Yiddish speakers, it sounds more like “boh-beh” than “bubbie.”
Didner was on set for the scene in which Butler’s Hank slurps a bowl of matzo ball soup with the brothers. Somehow, word spread that the Oscar winner was shooting in the neighborhood, something of a novelty for the Hasidic enclave. Evidently the heartthrob has a young Chabad fan base.
“When filming wrapped at the end of the day, there were a couple hundred teenage girls waiting to get a glimpse of Austin Butler,” Didner recalled. It was like the reception of the Beatles or, better yet, Elvis.
Didner wasn’t the only dialect coach for D’Onofrio and Schreiber; they had a separate one for English.
“Darren Aronofsky was very specific,” Didner said of “the boys” — how Aronofsky referred to the characters. “He didn’t want them to speak English with a Yiddish accent.”
Instead, they speak with Hank in a measured, yet still menacing, American aksent. It’s when they discuss how to handle him — and whether he deserves to be roughed up — that they revert to Yiddish.
There were also separate consultants, Didner said, to make sure the customs included in a bustling pre-Shabbat sequence at Bubbe’s house were authentic.
Didner saw the film over the weekend, and was happy to see diverse languages included in it.
“There’s also Spanish and Russian in there,” Didner said, adding he hopes that linguistic richness is “part of an increasing trend that people are looking for that sort of authenticity.”
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at grisar@forward.com and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
This story was originally published on the Forward.
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What led to the complete disappearance of Sabra Hummus from store shelves?
“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”
-from Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” (1970)
By BERNIE BELLAN I wasn’t actually thinking about Sabra Hummus until one day recently when I was sitting together with a group of guys – some of whom were Israeli-born when, out of the blue, one of them asked me if I knew why you couldn’t find Sabra Hummus anywhere in Winnipeg?
“Can’t find it?” I thought. Surely it must be available somewhere here. I said that I thought it must be on a grocery shelf at least in Sobeys on Taylor because if any store was going to have a product with as obvious an Israeli name as “Sabra,” it was going to be Sobeys on Taylor.
After all, going back a few years, anytime you went shopping for hummus the Sabra brand was ubiquitous.
So, I said to the fellow who had asked the question that I was now curious to delve further into whether Sabra Hummus had indeed disappeared from Winnipeg store shelves. I added that I would start by inquiring at the Sobeys store on Taylor – where I knew the manager, Dave McDonald, and that I would ask Dave whether it’s true that Sabra Hummus is no longer available at his store.
I emailed Dave asking him that question but, while I was waiting for a response, I began to search on the internet to see whether there might be an explanation as to what had happened to Sabra Hummus – and whether its disappearance from store shelves wasn’t something unique to Winnipeg.
Naturally, I began with a Google search for Sabra Hummus. While the search led me to discover many different things about Sabra Hummus, the one thing that I found most surprising is that Sabra Hummus, despite its Israeli name, is now wholly owned by PepsiCo.
It was when I received a phone call from a Sobeys representative in response to an email I had sent that it also emerged that, as has been the case with many other products that come from the US, Sobeys had decided to stop importing Sabra Hummus (which used to come in 30 different varieties) ever since Trump imposed his tariffs on Canadian exports going back to February of this year. (Sobeys, by the way, owns many different brands of stores: Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Foodland, FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, Farn Boy, Longo’s, and Lawtons Drugs.)
But, to my even greater surprise, I learned from a representative of PepsiCo that Sabra Hummus is not even being produced any more – at least not in the plastic tubs that had the very recognizable Sabra logo on them. I’ll have more about what the PepsiCo representative wrote in an email to me, but first – a brief history of Sabra Hummus – and the many problems it’s endured over the years.
Most of my information came from – where else? Wikipedia, but it turned out the Times of Israel also had a very interesting article – written in December 2024, that examined the effect that the Boycott Divest Sanctions movement (BDS) had on Sabra Hummus.
Yet, while both the Wikipedia and the Times of Israel articles did talk about the problems that the Sabra brand had been encountering in recent years, it was only when I received that email from a representative of PepsiCo that I was able to verify that, as of now, Sabra Hummus is no longer being manufactured altogether although, as I’ll explain later, Pepsico does plan on bringing it back into production in 2026.
What happened to Sabra Hummus then?
Here’s some of the information about Sabra Hummus that is largely taken from the Wikipedia article about Sabra Hummus:
“The company was founded in 1986 by Zohar Norman and Yehuda Pearl as Sabra-Blue & White Foods. The company was bought in 2005 by Israeli food manufacturer Strauss.
“In March 2008, Strauss entered a joint-venture partnership with Frito-Lay, a division of the multinational PepsiCo corporation. Strauss owned 50% and PepsiCo 50% of the company. In November 2008, the company announced the construction of a new $61 million plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia, expected to employ 260 people and come on line in mid-2010. The company grew over 50% between August 2008 and August 2009.
According to Wikipedia, by 2016, Sabra Hummus had become the dominant player when it came to selling hummus in the United States: “By 2016, Sabra had gained a 60% market share of hummus in the United States, and, through its co-ownership and sales channels with PepsiCo, was close to $1 billion in annual sales.”
The Times of Israel article noted that Sabra’s share of the hummus market in the US grew even more: “At the start of 2021, Sabra Dipping Company — which is jointly owned by Strauss Group and PepsiCo — sold US supermarkets nearly two-thirds of their hummus.”
Yet, it all seemed to start coming apart in recent years. By 2024, according to Wikipedia, Sabra’s share of the US hummus market had dropped to only “36%.”
There are many reasons for Sabra’s rapid descent from dominance of the US hummus market and both the Wikipedia and Times of Israel articles examine those reasons, but it does seem strange that, notwithstanding the drop in sales that Sabra might have suffered in the past few years, PepsiCo has simply stopped producing it altogether.
I wouldn’t have believed that until I received the email from a representative of Pepsico, to which I referred earlier. Here’s what I was told: “Regrettably, we are temporarily stepping back from full-size hummus tubs to improve product offerings. We know that’s a big disappointment since fans like you have been looking high and low for it!
“Our full-size hummus tubs are expected back in late 2026. In the meantime, our Guacamole and Hummus Snackers remain available at many grocery stores across Canada.”
After reading that email, one might be forgiven for thinking that something drastic – something beyond loss of market share, had happened to Sabra Hummus.
But Sabra had had huge problems in the past – from which it always bounced back.
Here’s what Wikipedia noted about problems Sabra had encountered in the past: “On April 8, 2015, Sabra recalled 30,000 cases of its classic hummus after a tub in Michigan tested positive for Listeria.”
Then, the Wikipedia article went on to say: “On November 19, 2016, Sabra voluntarily recalled multiple hummus varieties across the U.S. after Listeria was discovered at one of its manufacturing plants, though the company stated the bacteria had not been found in any of its actual products.
“In March 2021, Sabra recalled about 2,100 cases of 10 oz. Classic Hummus, following a routine inspection by the FDA in the US, due to a possible salmonella contamination. The recall affected 16 states in the U.S.”
Yet, despite all that, as has previously been noted, the Times of Israel article of December 2024 pointed out that, prior to that March 2021 product recall, Sabra Hummus still dominated the US market for hummus, to the extent that nearly two-thirds of the hummus sold by US supermarkets came from Sabra.
To this point we haven’t mentioned one other factor that certainly affected sales of Sabra Hummus, although to what extent is very hard to determine: The concerted boycott campaign which was part of the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) movement that targeted Sabra Hummus in particular, and which had been started at several different universities in the US, beginning in 2010.
According to the Times of Israel December 2024 article, the “campaign against Sabra hummus started on the US West Coast 14 years ago, when anti-Israel activists began denouncing Sabra for donating food to the IDF Golani Brigade.
However, despite that campaign having “kicked into higher gear”… with “hundreds of supermarkets and other stores in North America and Europe” having had stickers denouncing Israel placed on tubs of Sabra Hummus, the ToI article insists that the BDS campaign which was carried on mostly on US college campuses was not a major factor in declining Sabra Hummus sales.
Instead, the Times of Israel article claims it was the March 2021 product recall that was the decisive factor in Sabra Hummus sales plummeting. According to the ToI article, “a salmonella contamination recall on products made at Sabra’s Virginia factory took a devastating toll on the brand, which lost half its market share in just one quarter.”
And yet – to make matters even more complicated, an article in still another publication suggested that, notwithstanding that March 2021 product recall – which also led to a complete shutdown of Sabra’s primary manufacturing plant in Virginia, sales began to bounce back in 2022!
In a December 2022 article in an online publication titled “Manufacturing Dive,” Sabra CEO Joey Bergstein is quoted as saying that the brand has been “‘consistently climbing back,’ and it has regained its No. 1 position in the hummus category, according to IRI data cited by Sabra. When it was missing from shelves, he said more than half of consumers decided not to buy hummus instead of switching to another brand. Those who did switch are coming back to Sabra, the IRI data showed, and the brand is taking back market share.
“‘When you stop production, you open the door for a competitor,’ Bergstein said. ‘We’ve been able to grow back in a relatively short period following that disruption, which I think speaks to the health of the brand.’”
In the final analysis, there is a combination of factors that have led to the disappearance of Sabra Hummus from store shelves – not, as I first thought, perhaps only in Winnipeg but, as it turned out, everywhere in Canada and, as I learned after reading that email from the PepsiCo representative – in the US as well.
There were multiple incidents of suspected contamination of Sabra products; there was the campaign that was part of the BDS movement to boycott Israeli products – especially Sabra products; and finally, there was the decision by major Canadian grocers to stop importing products from the US.
Although I did like Sabra Hummus, I can’t say that I’m heartbroken to learn of its disappearance. But it is sad to think that a product which had such an identifiably Israeli name is no longer available – even if that product had stopped being manufactured in Israel years ago.
One more note: In 2018 PepsiCo acquired another well known Israeli food company: SodaStream. SodaStream still has a plant in Israel although, again after coming under fire for having a plant on the West Bank, SodaStream closed that plant in 2015 and opened a new plant within the green line. Chalk that one up to a victory for the BDS movement. I wonder whether, in the future, we’ll learn more about how much damage the BDS movement really did cause Sabra Hummus. It still seems strange to me that a product which was, until quite recently, the dominant player in its field, has simply disappeared. It suggests to me that the BDS movement had quite a bit more impact than one might be willing to concede.