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Professor who fought back against rampant antisemitism at Columbia University speaks to large audience at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue
By BERNIE BELLAN Shai Davidai has established a reputation as a university professor who isn’t afraid to challenge what he perceives as unmitigated antisemitism – whether it’s coming from students, fellow professors or university administrators. A Management professor at Columbia University in New York City, Davidai, now 41, was in Winnipeg recently to speak to a crowd of around 300 at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue on October 22.
Last year, Davidai gained renown for a video that was posted to Youtube on October 19 in which he railed against the administrators of major US universities, including Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford, for allowing anti-Israel protests to be held unchecked.
It was still in the early stages of what would eventually become a trend sweeping campuses across both the US and Canada, during which students (often joined by non-students) held rallies denouncing Israeli “genocide” in Gaza, almost always employing the usual epithets in describing Israel as “settler-colonialist,” guilty of “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.” Those rallies would soon transform into encampments, striking fear into the hearts of many Jewish students.
During his speech to Jewish students gathered in the Columbia University courtyard on October 19, 2023, Davidai denounced the hypocrisy of university administrators, saying: “they won’t allow a pro-ISIS rally or a pro-KKK rally, yet, when it comes to Israeli and Jewish lives, they allow a pro-terrorist Hamas=ISIS rally… US prestige universities allow pro-terror rallies on their campuses; will not call Hamas a terror organization…American parents, your kids are no longer safe on ANY university campus. Jewish students on any US campus are not safe because the undercurrent on US campus is anti-Semitic and the presidents of US campuses give a hand to bigotry-Antisemitism and allow terrorist Hamas supporters to rally for violence and terror.”
From that point on, Davidai became a symbol of hope for Jews as a professor who refused to remain silent in the face of university administrators who remained passive while antisemitism was being allowed to run rampant on university campuses – or who even abetted antisemitic behaviour in some cases.
Most recently, although he has not been fired (and Davdai noted that he does not have tenure), Columbia University is refusing to allow him to appear on campus in person.
Davidai’s talk in Winnipeg was facilitated by several organizations, most prominently one called “Tafsik,” about which you can read here: Tafsik
The evening got off to a rocky start, however, when the person who served as moderator – but who never introduced herself to the crowd, asked her son to come up to the podium and recite the standard acknowledgment that the Shaarey Zedek is situated on the “ancestral lands of” various indigenous groups. Unfortunately, her son said, he didn’t know the words – and neither did his mother. Fortunately, Shaarey Zedek Executive Director Rena Secter-Elbaze stepped up to the podium and read the acknowledgment herself.
After Amir Epstein, the founder of Tafsik, gave some remarks in which he explained how he came to start that organization, he introduced Shai Davidai. Epstein said he had no problem if anyone wanted to record Davidai’s remarks, but the person who was apparently the moderator immediately contradicted Epstein, insisting that no recordings would be allowed.
(In fact, aware of the prohibition on recording the event that had been included in emails sent out to attendees beforehand, I had contacted Epstein in advance, asking him whether I could be granted an exception to the rule. He responded that he had no problem with me recording Davidai’s remarks and, based on that, I did record Davidai’s entire speech. What you are about to read is taken verbatim from a transcript of Davidai’s remarks.)
Early on in his remarks Davidai explained that, until recently, he had never heard of Winnipeg but, when his son was born, he and his wife became involved in a “mom and daddy group,” among whose members was a former Winnipegger by the name of Marley Book.
Davidai said he asked Marley where she was from, and she answered “Canada.”
“I said, oh, are you from Toronto? No? Are you from Montreal? She said ‘no.’ I said, oh, are you from Vancouver? So now I’m like, running out of cities. And then she said, I’m from Winnie Peg.
“And I’ve never heard of Winnie Peg. And I said, ‘I’ve never heard of Winnie Peg.’ And – she said, ‘I’m Jewish.’ And I was like, we are literally everywhere…and throughout the years, she’s described to me what it’s like being Jewish in Winnie Peg and, and in a small community. But I never really got it until I showed up here.There’s something unique about a community where it feels like everybody knows everybody.”
Davidai went on to describe the exact moment when he and his wife were first informed about what was happening in Israel on October 7. He said that the last video he had on his phone before his wife received a WhatsApp message from her sister in Israel shortly after the attack began was a video in which he was saying to his wife that “our lives are boring.”
“I wish I can go back to having a boring life,” Davidai told the audience. “I wish we could all go back to having a boring life. But one thing I don’t wish for is going back to the way things were for many, many, many months…And now I say, never, we’re never going back to the way things were, because the way things were were not good.”
“The only difference between what’s happening now in universities and city streets and in Parliament and in the media and everywhere, is that the hatred (that) was underground, is now above the surface.”
Davidai explained to the audience how he went from being a passive observer of events to an activist who has now become a lighting rod, both for critics and defenders of Israel. It was while watching an angry group of kaffiayh-wearing students at Columbia University on October 12, 2023 who were gathered opposite a group of 50 Jewish students who were holding a silent vigil for the hostages who had been taken to Gaza, he said, that a fellow Israeli academic, “leaned over and whispers in my ear and says, this is the anti semitism that our parents and grandparents warned us about, the moment he said that something changed inside my mind. And once it changed, I can never go back to seeing things the way they were.”
“Now, I had an explanation of what I was seeing. This was Jew hatred.”
Soon after, Davidai said, he posted what he was feeling to Instagram – where, until that point, he had only 900 followers. That soon changed, however, as he explained: “The next day, I wake up and I notice that all of a sudden I have more than 900 followers, and none of them are academics. And people are sharing what I wrote, and people are texting me, thank you for writing. And people are saying, if you want to know what it feels like to be a Jew in North America right now, read this.”
As the days passed, and as Davidai became increasingly prominent on social media – for his Instagram posts and Youtube video of October 19 (to which he later added more videos), as much as Davidai was being lauded for how brave he was to confront the kind of antisemitism that was becoming thoroughly pervasive on so many university campuses, he admits now that he was “afraid” then and he’s still afraid, saying: “You may not see it. It may not seem like I’m afraid. I am very afraid. When I confront protesters – waving Hamas flags…I saw today in the Canadian news, with a Taliban flag being waved…My knees tremble, but I’m not a Jew who will let his trembling knees control him. And I think that that is where we all need to be. We are refusing to simply hide and let them slaughter us.”
So, how do we fight back, Davidai asked? He gave three suggestions:
“We all have to understand, including myself, none of us are doing enough.”
Secondly – “no one is coming to save us.”
As for his third suggestion, Davidai said it was more complicated because we have “outsourced our ability to protect ourselves” to Jewish “organizations.”
And, while he had nothing bad to say about Jewish organizations, especially their ability to raise massive amounts of money at a time of immediate peril to Israel, he noted that “Jewish organizations are built to fundraise They are built to lobby. They are built to teach and educate, and are built to deal with the media. And they have been doing that work amazing in the past year, in a few weeks,” yet what they are not built to do, Davidai suggested, is to “mobilize people.”
It’s up to us, Davidai insisted, “to get out in the streets. It’s our job to save ourselves.”
If you are “waiting for someone else,” he said, “do you really believe that someone else exists?”
“It’s not enough to write a letter or an email. It’s not enough to cite a petition. Those are good things, but they are not moving the needle. What we need to do is show up. Show up publicly….You need to be focusing on one thing today. Did I throw a pebble into the water or not? And that’s it.”
There was much more to Davidai’s talk, including not being afraid to be “publicly Jewish” by wearing, for instance, a Star of David, a kippah, or a dog tag since, as he insisted, “because when they come for us and tell us to hide, the best response is never hiding, because hiding has never worked for us in our history.”
“But the other thing we want to do is being there,” he added. “And it’s scary. Protesting. Protesting does not come natural to most people.”
Davidai suggested though, something he called the “rule of minyan” (ten). As he explained, “When there’s one person shouting, that person gets targeted. When there are ten people shouting, those people get heard.”
At the end of his remarks Davidai posed a series of questions to the audience: “We have people that are walking around and openly supporting terrorist organizations. And the decision that’s facing each and every one of us is a simple decision: Do you stand with the people that believe in democracy, or do you stand with the people that believe in terrorism?
“Do you stand with the victim, or do you stand with the rapist?
“Do you stand with Western values, or do you stand with those that want to burn it all down?
“That’s not a complicated decision. How we solve this problem is complex.
“There is no one silver bullet. But where you stand on this issue is very, very simple.
“That is the message that I want to send, not to all of you here because you get it.
“But that’s the message that I want to send to every non Jewish comedian, every non Jewish American and every non Jewish person around the world, show up one time to our rallies, show up one time to their protests.
“And you tell me, where, which world do you want your kids to grow up in?”
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New Hillel Winnipeg director Lindsay Kerr happy to be home again
By MYRON LOVE Lindsay Kerr, the newly-appointed Hillel Winnipeg director says that – after having experienced Jewish life on both the east and west coasts – she is happy to be back in the community in which she was born and raised – although, she concedes, it feels a little strange not having her parents in Winnipeg any more.
Kerr is the daughter of Jeff and Joyce Kerr. Joyce was a long time teacher and administrator at Gray Academy. In the summer of 2023, she and Jeff moved back to Calgary where she took up her new role as principal and head of school at the Calgary Jewish Academy – where she herself went to school.
Lindsay Kerr is a Gray Academy graduate and was also a BB Camp “lifer” – having spent 15 summers there – the first eight as a camper and seven more as counsellor. She was also a BBYO member in her teen years.
Lindsay left Winnipeg originally in 2017 to go to work for BBYO Passport Travel Experiences – a summer program open to Jewish teens that takes small groups to visit Jewish communities in other countries and combines touring with some community service. Over a period of five summers I(2015-2019), Kerr led groups on trips lasting from ten days to six weeks, to Israel, England and France, South Africa and different places in the United States and South America.
Before she began her work with BBYO Passport, Lindsay completed a degree in Education at the University of Winnipeg. On her return home in 2017, she quickly realized that teaching was not for her. “I found that I preferred community work,” she says.
“I had originally applied for a job as a Hillel director in Ontario,” she recounts. “While that didn’t work out, I was offered a job as Hillel director in Halifax.”
She arrived in her new posting in2017. While Lindsay was based in the Nova Scotia capital, she was also responsible for organizing Hillel activities in New Brunswick and Newfoundland.
Halifax has a Jewish population of about 2,000, she reports, with much smaller Jewish communities in Fredericton – New Brunswick’s capital – and St. John’s. The Jewish university student population in Halifax, she estimates, was between 200 and 300 – with between 40 and 60 active in Hillel.
“It was a nice mix of local students and students from away,” Lindsay notes.
While Kerr says that she did enjoy living in Halifax – and that she had the opportunity to see much of the Maritimes – it was too far from home. Thus, after three years, she left Halifax for the position of Director of Student Life at UBC Hillel in Vancouver.
Vancouver’s Jewish population is between 35,000 and 40,000. While the bulk of Jewish university students on the west coast attend UBC, she points out, her duties also included representing Hillel at the other post-secondary institutions in the Vancouver area as well as the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island. Lindsay estimates that there are perhaps 800 Jewish students enrolled at UBC and roughly 200 at the University of Victoria.
Lindsay’s timing, however, was not the best though. “Two week after I arrived,” she recalls, “we were shut down by the Covid lockdown.
“I came to really appreciate the weather on the West Coast. Despite the restrictions, we were able to have outdoor programs – and we organized a number of programs online. We were able, for example, to share Shabbat dinners on Zoom. We delivered Shabbat meals to participating students beforehand.”
After three years with Hillel in Vancouver, Lindsay found that she longed to come back to Winnipeg. She returned about a year ago, she notes, and subbed at Gray Academy last year.
“I am seeing a lot of interest in Hillel here,” she says. “Jewish students know that it’s a place where they can feel safe. Hillel’s role on Winnipeg campuses in these times is increasingly related to advocacy while continuing to build community through social and cultural programming as well.”
Lindsay reports that her first program this year as Hillel director was a barbecue on September 22 at Assiniboine Park. “We played some games,” she says. “We had kosher hot dogs. We had about 30 students participating.”
She looks forward to the continued growth of Hillel’s presence on campus, at both the University of Manitoba and University of Winnipeg, in addition to ensuring students at Red River College know they are part of Hillel Winnipeg as well.
Local News
Award winning architect Ed Calnitsky adds Theology degree to resumé
By MYRON LOVE Ed Calnitsky has recently added a notable entry to his resumé. At an age when most individuals—myself excluded—are contemplating retirement, the accomplished architect chose to return part-time to university and pursue studies in theology. About a year ago, he graduated from the University of Winnipeg with a Master of Arts in Theology and was honored with the Gawthrop Prize for achieving the highest grade point average in Theology at the University’s United Centre for Theological Studies.
Calnitsky, a graduate of the former Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, is only one of a select few of our Jewish community to earn an MA in Theology from the University of Winnipeg.
Calnitsky has been an architect for more than 30 years, and we have been friends since high school. In the fall of 1971, the two of us—along with a mutual friend—embarked on a trip to Europe. In London, our first stop, he secured a position with a British architectural firm, where he worked for three months. Afterwards, he traveled to Israel, where an opportunity arose to work for a leading architectural firm in Caracas, Venezuela. Calnitsky spent the subsequent summer working in Caracas for that company. “Working for architectural firms in both London, England and Caracas gave me the opportunity to understand how architecture is practiced in different countries,” he recalls.
Upon returning to Canada, he was hired to teach design at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. After three years, he returned to Winnipeg, where he met Linda, his future wife, and decided to return to university to earn a degree in architecture.
In 1986, he established Calnitsky Associates Architects Inc., a multidisciplinary architectural and interior design firm, focusing on commercial and institutional projects across Canada and in the United States.
Some of Calnitsky’s most prestigious projects have included the Canadian Embassy Reconfiguration in Kyiv, Ukraine and the Canadian High Commissioner’s Residence and CIDA Offices in Bridgetown, Barbados. Other notable projects include the new Gillam Town Centre with PSA Studio Inc. – which received a Canadian Architect Award; the Manitoba Law Courts Building renovation involving the restoration of all courtrooms and judge’s chambers; and a major retrofit and upgrade to Assiniboine Park Pavilion in Winnipeg.
Notably, Calnitsky was also the architect for the new Congregation Etz Chayim Synagogue on Wilkes Avenue. Working together with lead architect Carlos Schor and interior designers Bernice Chorney and Frances Winograd, they converted the former Khartum Shriners Temple into a beautifully functioning synagogue. Calnitsky notes that “I’ve never been a solo practitioner, I’ve always sought out a group. Designing the new Etz Chayim Synagogue epitomizes this approach.”
Among his clients are an increasing number of church groups, and in this regard, Calnitsky was recently invited by Ruth Ashrafi to speak to this aspect of his practice in a presentation to Winnipeg’s Catholic-Jewish Dialogue Group. The presentation was appropriately titled “Lessons from a Jewish Architect Designing Churches.”
“I designed my first church about 20 years ago for a Christian Reformed Church congregation in Northwestern Ontario,” Calnitsky recalls. “I had to design it from scratch and knew virtually nothing about Christianity or Church architecture.”
Determined to educate himself, he began researching these subjects and found his interest deepening. “I gained valuable insights into the relationship of Christian theology and church architecture. Church architecture is a reflection of Christian theology, and its understanding is integral to the design.”
Currently, Calnitsky is working on churches in Winnipeg for Coptic Christian, Ethiopian, Nigerian, and Eritrean congregations—the latter involving renovations to the former Rosh Pina/Congregation Etz Chayim building on Matheson Avenue.
What surprised him most, Calnitsky notes, is the significant influence of Judaism on Christian theology, as well as the historical animosity that Christianity has often held towards Judaism. He points to an example of this hostility in the placement of stained glass windows within churches. As worship is oriented east to the altar, stained glass windows are typically located in the north and south walls, with the south walls receiving more sunlight and therefore, appearing brighter. Consequently, scenes from the Hebrew Bible are often depicted in the windows of the darker north wall, while the New Testament windows bask in sunlight.
“While the Romans violently suppressed the Jewish rebellion in 70 AD, they largely tolerated Jews throughout the rest of the empire,” Calnitsky observes. “It was only after Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire that widespread demonization of Judaism began.”
Calnitsky notes that “for centuries, Christian scholars and theologians perpetuated a distorted view of Judaism as a legalistic religion of “works-righteousness” filled with empty rituals and practices that earned one salvation through a merit-based approach. Christianity, in stark contrast to Judaism, was portrayed as a moral, universalistic religion of grace, love, and forgiveness. Generation after generation, Christian teaching of contempt towards Jews characterized Judaism as the perfect dark background against which Christianity could shine all the more brilliantly.”
He notes that it was only after the Holocaust that Christian theologians began to reconsider their views about Jews and Judaism. Pope John XXIII and the Vatican Council in 1963 began shifting Catholic attitudes towards Jews. However, the true turning point occurred in 1977 with the publication of Paul and Palestinian Judaism by New Testament scholar E.P. Sanders. Calnitsky highlights how Sanders’ research into Jewish scriptures debunked the long-standing misrepresentations of Jews and Judaism by Christians, often without ever engaging with Jewish perspectives.
His own master’s thesis examined Pauline scholarship and Jewish-Christian dialogue, emphasizing the need to read the Apostle Paul within a Jewish context. “Paul did not convert to Christianity, nor was he anti-Jewish,” Calnitsky asserts. “He understood his calling to be turning pagans from their own gods to the god of Israel through Christ; he didn’t believe the Jews needed saving.”
Recently, Calnitsky was invited to present a paper on the Apostle Paul at the annual conference of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies at McGill University. His paper, entitled “The Architecture of the Apostle: Reconstructing Paul,” affirms the position that Paul was not a Christian, and should be understood within the framework of Judaism. Paul had no issues with Jews and Judaism, and his gospel was about messianic salvation for Gentiles and pagans, leaving the Jewish covenant with God intact, with no supersession of Judaism by Christianity and no end of days conversion to Christ.
Despite this evolving attitude among Christian theologians and scholars towards Jews and Judaism, Calnitsky remains cautious, expressing skepticism about whether the persistent scourge of anti-Semitism will ever fully dissipate.
As for architecture, Calnitsky has not lost his love or enthusiasm for his work, stating that “I believe that you should never stop doing what you love.”
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Lorne Bellan, Winnipeg’s first oculoplastic surgeon, looks back on nearly 35 year-career
By MYRON LOVE Ophthalmologist Dr. Lorne Bellan, Winnipeg’s first oculoplastic surgeon has retired. He stepped down at the end of June after a career spanning almost 35 years.
“One issue was that I was finding the physical aspects of my work becoming increasingly difficult,” he says. “It was particularly hard on my neck and shoulders.
‘I also felt that it was time for me to make way for new people.”
Lorne Bellan is the son of the late Ruben Bellan, a greatly respected economist and University of Manitoba professor, and his equally accomplished wife, Ruth. The future ophthalmologist grew up in River Heights. He attended Ramah in his early years and, later, River Heights School and Grant Park.
“I did my Grade 12 year in England,” he recalls. “My dad was on a sabbatical year in England.”
In university (at the U of M), his interests were in Math and Science. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after graduation,” he notes. “Some of my friends encouraged me to consider medicine.”
Berllan graduated from UBC with a specialty in oculoplastic surgery and, in 1991, joined the staff of the Health Sciences Centre as Winnipeg’s first oculoplastic surgeon.
He relocated to the Misericordia Eye Centre in 1994 when all surgical eye care in the city was consolidated there.
“Basically, an oculoplastic surgeon deals with all structures pertaining to the eyelids and orbit,” Bellan explains -“conditions such as tearing issues, droopy eyelids, traumatic injuries and cancers.”
He shared an anecdote about one case that stood out. “I had a patient who was deaf and mute,” he recounts. “He communicated by writing. But his cataracts were so bad that he had to use crayons and his letters were really big. After the surgery, when he returned to see me, he was using a fine pen and much smaller print.”
Bellan was not only a surgeon but also an educator and leader in his field. He taught in the Maxwell Rady School of Medicine’s Ophthalmology Department for 33 years. In 2001 he became Department Head and served as the chair for 20 years. He was the driving force in establishing the Ophthalmology Residency Program in Manitoba. He also created and ran the undergraduate teaching curriculum.
Bellan was recognized nationally for his research interests in Ophthalmology health human resources and wait times and was a leader in promoting ergonomics for ophthalmologists.
At the national level, he has served with the Canadian Ophthalmological Society (COS) in numerous capacities over the years. He chaired the Council on Provincial Affairs and the COS Clinical Practice Guideline for Cataract Surgery committee. Bellan was the COS representative to the Wait Time Alliance where he was elected by the 14 medical societies to be chair and spokesperson. He served on the COS Board of Directors for 9 years and was the COS President in 2009-11. During his term he commissioned the first guideline for ethical charging for uninsured ophthalmic services.
For the past six years, Bellan has been the chair of the Royal College Ophthalmology Specialty Committee and has served on that committee for over 20 years. He notes that he will be stepping down from that position at the next AGFM in June, 2025.
Last year, the COS recognized Bellan with its Lifetime Achievement award.
In retirement, Bellan is looking forward to spending time reading, exercising and spending winters in the south. For now, Bellan and his wife of 43 years, Dr. Bonnie Cham, are busy packing up their house for the move to their new condo.
Bonnie, he notes, was a pediatric oncologist who was also chair of the Canadian Association of Medical Ethics. She retired a few years ago.
Bellan is proud to report that – as is often the case in families – two of the couple’s three sons have gone into the “family business”. Eldest son, David, is an ER doctor in Vancouver while second son, Gary, is a family doctor at the St. Boniface clinic. Youngest son, Jonathan, has chosen to pursue a career in engineering.
Lorne Bellan does have one regret. It is that the young doctor from England who was supposed to replace him bowed out two weeks before he was scheduled to arrive.
“There are efforts underway to recruit another oculoplastic surgeon,” he reports. “There is an Israeli doctor in training whom we hope will be coming here soon.”