Local News
Former Jewish Child and Family Service client is new JCFS president
By MYRON LOVE When Elena and Konstantin Grinshteyn arrived in Winnipeg in 2006 with their one-year-old daughter, they were warmly welcomed at the airport by a settlement worker from Jewish Child and Family Service, who assisted them in settling in. This past June, at the JCFS’s Annual General Meeting, Elena was appointed the new president of the JCFS board.
“I have experienced first-hand the good work that the JCFS does in our community,” says the Red River College Polytech Senior Development Officer (responsible for student awards, and special initiatives), who joined the JCFS board in 2017.
Since Elena and her family settled in Winnipeg as a young couple with their one-year-old daughter, they have maintained a strong connection to the community by actively volunteering for the Grow Winnipeg program with the Jewish Federation, and later with JCFS. In their new country, Elena pursued a career in fundraising, working for the United Way of Winnipeg and Friends of Ralph Connor House before joining Red River College Polytechnic.
“The opportunity to work with visionary people who are shaping the community and creating a brighter future for the city is what makes being a Winnipegger special,” she says. Elena also sits on the board of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP).
Elena’s vision for the next two years at JCFS is to help move JCFS forward, ensuring the organization reaches as many clients as possible and continues to grow. As an immigrant to Canada, she feels a profound commitment to maintaining a strong connection with new immigrant families and raising awareness about all the services JCFS offers.
On Thursday, July 11, independently of her new role as JCFS Board President, Elena spoke to a small gathering of Christian friends of Israel – which was organized by Pastor Rudy Fidel of Faith Temple and his wife and partner, Gina. The reason for Elena’s presentation was twofold – to speak of her experiences being in Israel on October 7 – when she was not far from the epicentre of the Hamas attacks. As well, Al Benarroch, JCFS Executive Director, was invited to raise awareness with the group about JCFS’s support services for Holocaust survivors. During his presentation Benarroch noted that there was an unexpected shortfall in year’s funding for the program this year.
Grinshteyn began her talk with some biographical information. The daughter of a Ukrainian father and Jewish mother living in the now embattled Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the family decided to make aliyah in 1991, when Grinshteyn was 13. The family settled in Ashkelon in southern Israel.
Grinshteyn did her two years of service in the IDF, after which she earned a degree in Economics and Computer Science from Bar Ilan University.
“Israel is a multifaceted country – you hear many different languages on the street – and where people are generally happy despite the constant threat of terrorism and war,” she observed.
It was acts of terrorism – in particular, the bombing of the Dolphinarium Discotheque in Tel Aviv on June 1, 2001, that persuaded Elena and Konstantin to leave Israel. “It was a hard decision,” Elena recalls, “but we wanted to offer our kids a home where they would be safe.” The couple has two daughters – 19 and 13 years old.”
At the beginning of October, the Grinshteyn family returned to Israel to spend Sukkot with their extended family. “We enjoyed an amazing six days,” she told her audience. “We were surrounded by our loving family in Ashdod and Ashkelon.”
“Then, in the early hours of October 7, we heard rockets and the sirens going off ,“ she recounts. “Fortunately, my mother-in-law had a bomb shelter in her apartment building. Although everyone said we would be okay, the sounds of the rockets were terrifying.”
“By 9:00 A.M., we realized that a full-scale invasion was taking place.”
“By 10:30 am, over 2,000 missiles had already been fired into southern Israel.”
She proceeded to show slides of some of the destruction in Ashdod.
Elena and Konstantin immediately began trying to make plans to return home to Canada, but most flights were cancelled. They were able to get a flight to Greece on October 11 and were able to finally return to Canada five days later.
As was noted, the second part of the evening’s presentation for Christian friends of Israe saw Al Benarroch, JCFS’s Executive Director, speaking about the needs of local Holocaust survivors and the reductions in funding for the program at JCFS that supports them.
“This year, we are facing a $40,000 deficit,” he reported. Pastor Rudy Fidel and his congregants have pledged their own efforts to help raise money toward making up that deficit.
After WWII, Benarroch explained, the German government slowly accepted responsibility for what the Nazi Regime unleashed on the Jewish people and entered into negotiations to pay financial compensation to survivors. The negotiations (which continue to this day) and funding channels through the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (also known as the “Claims Conference”), a nonprofit organization with offices in New York, Israel, and Germany. Over the decades, Germany has paid out many billions of dollars to help Holocaust survivors all over the world.
“The problem here,” Benarroch pointed out, “ is that the number of Holocaust survivors in Winnipeg served by JCFS now stands at 91 (an estimated 20-25 additional survivors have not sought services from JCFS). We have assisted as many as 160 over the years. (Some 1,050 or so survivors originally settled in Winnipeg after the war). JCFS assists them with filling out the various forms for reparations, which can be an emotionally daunting task for survivors. We also assist with emergency financial assistance for those most in need, and private homecare services to top up the few hours that the public healthcare system may provide. Funding from the Claims Conference covers all of this, including funds to employ two social workers to work with the survivors. Until recently, negotiations with the German government allowed for funding in a ratio of one social worker for every 50 Holocaust survivor clients. As a result of negotiations, and to establish more consistency worldwide, this ratio has now been changed to one worker for every 70 clients.
“JCFS currently receives and spends almost $900,000 a year total for the services to Holocaust survivors in our community”, Benarroch reported. “The funds allocated to financial assistance and homecare remain the same. However, the funds to cover the salaries of those 2 social workers at the new ratio of 1:70 cases is resulting in a deficit of $40,000.
“On principle, JCFS will not reduce the amount of social work time devoted to Holocaust survivors,” said Benarroch. “They deserve so much more than we already give them, and we will find a way to keep funding those positions.”
He singled out special praise for JCFS social worker, Adeena Lungen, herself the daughter of Holocaust survivors, who has been working with the survivor community for the past 20 years.
“Adeena’s dedication is remarkable. She is so committed and, as an example, she makes every effort to attend the funeral of any local Holocaust survivor who passes away,” Benarroch added. “It is estimated that in another 10-12 years, the last remaining Holocaust survivor in the world will pass away. What then will be their legacy?”
Referring to Elena Grinshteyn’s account of terrorism in Israel, Benarroch recounted his own parents’ narrow escape once – in Jerusalem. In the 1990s, Shlomo and Mary Benarroch were visiting in Jerusalem. They were shopping for a tallis – the kind with the rainbow stripes, for a younger Al Benarroch – before doing their Friday afternoon pre-Shabbat shopping at the nearby Machane Yehuda Market. They were delayed in that particular Judaica store and ,while waiting, a double suicide bombing occurred in the market.
“It was a miracle,” Benarroch said to the church group. “There is no other way to explain it. Israel is a special place. It is a land where miracles happen every day, and our very survival itself is a miracle. It is through the grace of God that Israel will continue to overcome hardships and survive.”
Local News
GrowWinnipeg celebrates 25th anniversary
By MYRON LOVE On Wednesday, June 25, about 250 Jewish Winnipeggers – comprising lifelong residents as well as newer arrivals, came together at the Asper campus to celebrate the 25th anniversary of GrowWinnipeg, an initiative that has revitalized our Jewish community – in our camps, school, synagogues and other institutions and given our community a much more international flavour.
Our community’s population peaked in terms of population in 1961 when Winnipeg Jewry numbered around 20,000. The years after had been a period of steady decline. By 1961, most of the Jews living in smaller communities in the Prairie provinces – the source of much of our ongoing population replenishment up to that point – had largely disappeared.
A s Bob Freedman, the former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg (and its predecessor, the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council), noted in his remarks at the 25th anniversary party, by 1986, community leaders recognized that ours was an aging and shrinking community with aging infrastructure.
“We recognized that something had to be done,” he recalled.
The first stage, he pointed out, was the planning and construction of the Asper Campus, which brought our major institutions and organizations under one roof in an attractive new building.
The next challenge was to attract more people to our community. GrowWinnipeg was created to take on the challenge. GrowWinnipeg is unique in its efforts to reach out to young Jewish families throughout the Western world .
The genesis was a chance meeting on an airplane almost 30 years ago between former Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor Janice Filmon – at that time the wife of then-Manitoba premier Gary Filmon, and a Jewish businessman from Argentina who was contemplating moving to Toronto. Filmon persuaded him to consider Winnipeg instead. He was impressed by what he saw and suggested that the community send representatives to Buenos Aires to meet with other Argentinian Jewish families who were considering leaving.
That planted the seed.
Shortly thereafter – in 1998 – Larry Hurtig – then the president of the Federation, his son, Jack, and a representative of the provincial government, made an exploratory visit to Buenos Aires to gauge what interest there might be among young Jewish families to consider moving to Winnipeg.
GrowWinnipeg was officially launched in 2000. Our community opened its arms in welcome to the new arrivals who began to arrive, hosting them in our homes and helping them become acclimatized to their new surroundings.
Evelyn Hecht became the principal contact for the newcomers. “I was lucky that I happened to be working for the Federation when we opened the campus and turned our energies to repopulating our community,” Hecht noted in her remarks at the recent celebration. “Fortunately, the pieces fell into place at just the right time.”
Those pieces, Hecht related, included: the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program – which allowed community support groups to recruit specific immigrants; the arrival of a small number of Jewish families from Buenos Aires who encouraged community leaders to look to their former home as a potential source of Jewish immigrants; and the availability of email and the internet.
The initiative – led by Hecht – recruited a group of local Jewish families who were prepared to host potential immigrants who had begun to come for exploratory visits. The connections made by the new arrivals and their local hosts resulted in many long–lasting friendships, Hccht noted.
She praised Jewish Child and Family Service for helping the new arrivals to become established here and integrate into the community.
Efforts were also made to build a data basis of potential employers for the newcomers.
GrowWinnpeg was kicked off by two visits to Buenos Aires – visits Hecht describes as “exciting and exhausting” – in the early 2000s, when Hecht and other Winnipeg representatives met with potential immigrants and heard their concerns about life and personal safety in Argentina and hopes for the future that Winnipeg might be able to give them.
“I remember,” she said, “the numerous meeting I held in my office on the third floor here listening to people’s excitement and concerns and answering questions about life in Winnipeg, our Jewish identity, schools, synagogues, employment, housing and especially, safety. I always emphasized that they would encounter struggles, disappointment and possibly, crises – but I assured them that we would be here to help.
“And I remember feeling so much happiness when people would show up at my door to share good news about babies born, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations and new jobs – and the numerous times I was in Citizen Court where so many were so proud to receive their citizenship certificates. “
And they are still coming. Dalia Szpiro, Hecht’s successor, reports that, over the past 25 years just under 7,000 people have come here under the aegis of GrowWinnipeg – and not just from Argentina. We have had families from Brazil, Uruguay and other South American countries, Mexico, Europe, and, in more recent years, especially from Israel.
For former Israelis I spoke with on the 25th, such as Slava and Karina Pustilnikov, Irena Oz and Marina Shapiro and her 19-year-old son, Adam, all of whom have been here for 10 to 15 years, the primary motivation was being in a safer environment.
For Ori Rahima and his wife, Anna Shapiro, who have been here for seven years and have three children under six, the pull was greater opportunity and a better standard of living.
Then there is Esther Barna, a teacher by training, newly arrived from Budapest. “Hungary is not a good place to be a Jew,” she says. “There is a lot of antisemitism. I was looking online for a better place to go and came across the GrowWinnipeg website. I love it here.”
In her concluding remarks, Dalia Szpiro, herself an immigrant from Uruguay about 20 years ago, thanked the many Jewish organizations and individuals in the community who have helped to make GrowWinnipeg the success that it is.
“Over 250 volunteers each year meet with our exploratory visitors – opening their homes, their hearts, their time, their insights and their networks,” she noted. “There is something very special about our community and our province. Every exploratory visitor who comes here as part of their immigration journey discovers it.
“This 25-year milestone is a reason for pride and celebration – and a renewed commitment to the future. We are already working on new strategies – to strengthen what we have built, support immigration, foster inclusion and create more opportunities for newcomers to grow and prosper.”
Local News
Long time community members Bryan Schwartz, Myriam Saitman receive rabbinic ordination
By MYRON LOVE On June 21, Bryan Schwartz and Myriam Saitman received their rabbinical ordination through the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute (JSLI) Rabbinical School – bringing the number of JSLI rabbinic graduates in our community to seven.
“I felt a calling,” says Saitman, who is the new spiritual leader of Temple Shalom, our community’s roughly 60-year-old Reform Congregation. Saitman notes that she is Temple Shalom’s fourth female rabbi.
Originally from Buenos Aires, Saitman and her family answered our community’s call for new young Jewish families that began with the Federation’s GrowWinnipeg campaign. They arrived here in 2003.
“We were attracted by a community that offered a safer environment for raising a family and better economic opportunities,” she recalls.
Although raised in a secular family, she notes that, as a young adult she was drawn to learning more about Judaism. “I took Hebrew classes in Argentina and started on a spiritual path,” she recalls.
Soon after coming to Winnipeg, she found her spiritual home at Temple Shalom. Over the last many years, she has served as a volunteer in several capacities at the synagogue – both at the school and as a long time member of the board. Since 2016, she was also one of the lay service leaders, often leading Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday evenings.
When her predecessor, Allan Finkel – also a JSLI grad – let it be known that he was planning to retire after six years as the congregation’s spiritual leader, Saitman put her name forward as a potential successor.
“Judith (Huebner) and Ruth (Livingston) (Temple Shalom’s president and past president respectively) were really supportive as were the board and the congregation,” Saitman says. “I began leading services.”
As for the JSLI program, Saitman notes that it is intensive. “It meets a need,” she observes. “It prepares us well for all the requirements of being a congregational rabbi.
“We at Temple Shalom want people to know that we are here and we welcome interfaith families,” she adds. “Our motto is that we follow tradition and embrace modernity. Our services (on Friday evenings) reflect the essence of Reform Judaism where we allow for individual choices. I’d like to stress that individual choices are informed by an educated interpretation based on knowledge of the laws and customs.”
Unlike Saitman, Rabbi Bryan Schwartz was not considering a career as a congregational rabbi when embarking on the JSLI program. For Schwartz, “rabbi” is the latest title in a lifetime of achievement. As this writer noted in a story in the Post about Schwartz last year, he “is the very model of a modern-day, Jewish, Renaissance scholar.”.A long-time professor at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law, he is also a passionate Zionist, student of the Holocaust and an in demand commentator on modern legal and constitutional issues. He has written or contributed to 34 books and over 300 publications in all – in a legal and teaching career that stretches back more than 40 years. His works within a Jewish context encompass the gamut of Jewish life from ancient times to the Holocaust to the current Jewish situation. In addition, he is a poet, playwright and songwriter.
“My main purpose in taking the JSLI course,” he observes, “is to be better positioned to help deal with the challenge of Jewish survival. I want to be able to pass on Jewish tradition to the younger generation and impress upon younger Jews – who have grown up in largely secular homes – the value of our 2,500-year-old literature, culture and religious traditions.”
He observes that there is something for everyone in Jewish tradition. “There are many people who are looking for a spiritual community. I believe that Judaism provides us with a sense of our place in the universe.”
Schwartz – a lifelong student himself – notes that he has been building to this moment for a long time. In his early 20s, he notes, he audited a few courses at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In his 50s and 60s, he learned Hebrew at different ulpans.
“I had been looking around for a while for a rabbinic program,” he says. “JSLI seemed to be the best one. It was hard work – but well worth it. I learned a tremendous amount.”
So what is Schwartz – who is a member of the Shaarey Zedek – planning on doing as a rabbi?
“I would like to be able to offer weekly dvar Torahs,” he says.
He would like , among other things, to do creative and educational projects for the community, like his weekly dvar torah in the Times of Israel. The commentary that he gave on the weekend of his Smicha ceremony is called “From Burning Synagogue to Rising Lyon,” and can be found at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-burning-synagogue-to-rising-lion/
“I have also been writing books and musicals inspired by the Tradition, and hope to find forums to share them in the years ahead,” he adds. “My mission is to share in the radiance of our Tradition and help inspire the next generations to see its warmth and illumination”
Local News
Winnipeg Fringe performer Melanie Gall subjected to antisemitic attack – for second year in a row
By BERNIE BELLAN (July 20, 2025)
Melanie Gall is a talented performer who is a veteran of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival – having appeared here many times.
Last year Melanie found herself being subjected to antisemitic attacks that were initiated by a site supervisor for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, someone by the name of Eric Rae.
As I wrote on my story about Melanie’s experience, “…on the third day (of the Fringe Festival), she said, ‘the site supervisor (Rae) came and was wearing a pro-Palestinian symbol’ and told Melanie that he was wearing that deliberately because he was coming to Melanie’s venue.
“He told her, ‘that stance you’re taking (on social media) is a political symbol.
Rae also posted on social media: “We have a Zionist in our midst harassing pro-Palestinians.”
There was a concerted effort on social media last summer to boycott Melanie’s shows (She had three different shows altogether.)
As Melanie said during a phone conversation we had last summer about what happened to her, “This is so ridiculous. I’m being harassed and bullied because I’m Jewish…it’s not about Israel.”
Eric Rae was relieved from his duties after Melanie complained to the Fringe office staff, Melanie noted during our conversation.
She adds that other Fringe employees also complained about Eric Rae’s behaviour: “I wasn’t the only one who complained last year,” she wrote in an email sent today. “Several staff members complained, as Eric was not adhering to the Fringe policy that did not allow political symbols to be worn by staff. From what I heard, he refused to stop wearing it, and he did publicly target me. The Winnipeg Fringe upheld their safe spaces policy, and they were wonderful in the way they handled it.”
Further, Melanie was the target of an organized campaign on pro-Palestine social media calling for her shows to be boycotted.
(You can read the full story about what happened to Melanie, also to her mother during last year’s Edmonton Fringe Festival, at Melanie Gall.)
Just today we received another email from Melanie informing us that the same individual who targeted her last summer is targeting her again during this year’s Fringe Festival.
Melanie wrote: “Hi! Thanks so much for the mention in the preview article! I just wanted to let you know that Eric Rae is at it again.”
Attached to that email was a picture taken from Rae’s Instagram account.
As of the writing of this post, Melanie said that she is out of town for three days and is not aware whether any of her posters have been defaced – the way they were last summer.
She did add, however, that “I assume by ‘make her feel unwelcome’ (which is what is written on one of the pictures on Rae’s Instagram account) he is planning something. Ugh.”
Melanie also said that “The one post is too close to a threat to ignore.”
In a subsequent email Melanie also sent a screenshot of an exchange that took place on Rae’s Instagram account between him and someone who goes by the handle “Kat Cat.”
If we hear more about what’s been happening to Melanie we’ll update this article.
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