Second Cup Café said that the anti-Israel protester had violated the chain’s “values of inclusion and community.”

(Nov. 24, 2024 / JNS) The Canadian chain Second Cup Café announced on Saturday that it shut down a franchisee’s cafe at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal and terminated its relationship with that person after the latter “was filmed making hateful remarks and gestures.”

“Second Cup has zero tolerance for hate speech,” the chain stated. “In coordination with the hospital, we’ve shut down the franchisee’s cafe and are terminating their franchise agreement.”

The person’s actions, the chain said, breach the franchise agreement and “violate the values of inclusion and community we stand for at Second Cup.”

Idit Shamir, the consul general of Israel in Toronto and western Canada, named the former franchisee as Mai Abdulhadi, and said that the latter had chanted “the Final Solution is coming” and performed a Nazi salute at Concordia University, “while running a café at Jewish General Hospital, a place built by Holocaust survivors.”

“Thankfully, Second Cup acted swiftly: café shut down, franchise revoked,” Shamir wrote. “Mai Abdulhadi—Hate speech isn’t just vile, it’s a threat, and it will be met with consequences.”

The company earned accolades—and some promises of business—from Paul Hirschson, the Israeli consul general in Montreal, and leaders at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“This great Canadian, Montreal-owned company has taken this principled stand at risk to their own business. In so doing, they are showing the courage and leadership Canada needs right now but is so desperately lacking from those in the highest of public offices,” stated Leo Housakos, a senator from Quebec. “I hope everyone goes out and buys their coffee tomorrow.”

Michal Cotler-Wunsh, the Israeli special envoy for combating antisemitism, wrote that it “turns out moral clarity is not so difficult.”

“Thanks Second Cup for showcasing Canadian values standing up to lethal hate speech and incitement,” she wrote. “Antisemitism is not a problem of Jews. It’s a problem of antisemites and the people and places that allow it to spread.”

“How is it that a coffee chain was able to put out a statement condemning antisemitism and racial hatred, faster, clearer and unambiguously better, than the prime minister of Canada?” wrote Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum.

By GERRY POSNER Add yet another name to the list of Winnipeg Jews who became psychiatrists and who have achieved fame elsewhere. I speak of none other than Dr. Charles Marmar, formerly of Montrose Street in the south end of Winnipeg. Some readers may well remember his parents, Dr. Maurice Marmar and Pearl (Brook) Marmar. In fact, it was Dr. Maurice Marmar, either intentionally or not, who influenced his son Charles to follow a career into medicine. Charlie wll recalls , going as a kid with his father, a family doctor and surgeon, on rounds at the Victoria General Hospital and deciding then and there that he wanted to follow a similar path as his dad. He just went down a different path.

Charlie grew up in the south end of Winnipeg, having attended River Heights School,then Kelvin High School. He also played hockey with the River Heights Cardinals. After obtaining a BSc at the University of Manitoba in 1966, he entered medical school at the U of M and graduated with his MD in 1970. He was all of 24 when he graduated medicine.
Marmar soon departed for Toronto, where he competed his residency in psychiatry. He obtained a fellowship from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation and studied neuropharmacology at the University of Toronto in 1976. Charlie then completed another fellowship in traumatic stress and grief in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco in 1978.
After that, Marmar’s career really took off. In 1978, He advanced being a junior faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF to becoming a professor there, then Chief of Psychiatry at the San Francisco VA Hospital in 1996. In 2009, Marmar made a major move across the continent to New York, where he assumed the position of Lucius N. Littauer Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the New York University Langone Medical Center.
Currently, he is Peter S. Schub Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychiatry, Director of the Centre for Precision Medicine in Alcohol Use Disorder, and Executive Director of the Langone Health Military Family Centre in the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Those are a lot of titles, but they clearly indicate that Marmar is one of the movers and shakers in this area of medicine.

Marmar’s list of hospital appointments started in 1983 and continues to this day. As mentioned above, he presently sits as the Director of the NYU Langone Center for Precision Medicine in Alcohol Use disorder and PTSD. Moreover, he has been deeply involved since 1982 with a variety of other professional positions and Major Visiting Appointments. You have to take my word when I say that the list is expansive, too long for the Jewish Post. Yet, that list pales in comparison to the honours and awards that have come Marmar’s way in his illustrious career as a psychiatrist. I could not help but notice the very first mention of achievement for Marmar was his Honours standing in genetics at the School of Medicine at the University of Manitoba in 1966. That was the start of many moments of distinction right up to the present time. I also note that, among the many prestigious honours bestowed upon Charlie Marmar was the 1999 J. Elliot Royer Award as the Outstanding Bay Area Psychiatrist from the University of California, San Francisco. As well, He has published over 400 (not an error) articles on the epidemiology, neurobiology and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2022, Charlie was named Master Clinician as the outstanding physician across all specialties at NYU Langone Health.

Let’s just say that Charlie Marmar has put in serious time with his work on committees, many of them major and continuing to this day. In fact, Charlie was and still is the Chair of the Disaster Psychiatry Centers Special Review Committee for NIMH. He has worked over a period of years with veterans and that work is evidenced by the many committees he has worked with, particularly in the field of PTSD. This is an area of psychiatry where Marmar has much experience and has attained much fame. His focus has ranged from combat related conditions in veterans, including veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to assisting refugees and earthquake victims suffering from PTSD.This kind of work has led Marmar to conduct studies in psychopharmacology, psychopathology, psychobiology, all relating to PTSD.

Needless to say, Marmar has been a member of professional societies all over the world and, moreover, he has been involved with editorial boards and has authored many articles and been the editor for many publications.

With all that said, what I got a kick out of was when I asked a psychiatrist with whom I am friendly in Toronto, if he knew a Charles Marmar and he answered, “ Charlie, I remember him well from his days in Toronto (now over 50 years ago). He was a rising star.”

So, you take a kid from Montrose Street and without even a shove, years later he is settled in New York, regarded as one of the leaders in his field. He is still at it. And of course, a big part of his success he attributes to his wife Anne (Stern) whom he met at the University of Manitoba Health Sciences Centre where she was studying Dental Hygiene. They married in 1971 and are the proud parents of two sons, Eli and Daniel. They also have five grandchildren: Amalya, Liyora, Tziyon, Noah and Isaiah. The couple remains close to their family and friends from Winnipeg, now living in Toronto, New Jersey, Northern California, Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere in the Winnipeg diaspora.

By GERRY POSNER When you talk medicine and family connections to medicine, one of the families you have to think of almost immediately is the Berbrayer- Kraut family. There are three generations of doctors now in this family, starting with Dr. Peter Berbrayer, of blessed memory, an orthopaedic surgeon (and father of Karla); Dr. Allan Kraut (husband of Karla Berbrayer, an internal medicine and occupational health physician; and Allan and Karla’s son, Dr. Eyal Kraut, an endocrinologist, who now lives in Toronto. Not to be overlooked as part of the Berbrayer-Kraut family medical team is Dr. David Berbrayer, son of Peter, and a medical director in rehabilitation redicine in Toronto. Each of these men has made contributions in his respective field and I expect many readers are well aware of that. Perhaps, because he is still young, Eyal, one of four children of Allan and Karla, is less known – although, because of his participation in the community, I am betting younger readers will know him.

Eyal Kraut was born and raised in Winnipeg. He is a product of the then Ramah Hebrew School and later the Gray Academy. It is fair to say that Eyal was exposed to the Jewish world right from the start in many aspects, not the least of which was by way of his mother Karla’s having run the Music and Mavens Programme at the Campus for many years, as well as being a musical impresario of great renown. In his high school years, Kraut was active in multiple leadership positions, including student council and the Jewish Federation’s P2K committee ( now P2G).
And, he was not just limited to school activities as he was what might be called a “player” at the Herzlia Synagogue, where he often led services, not to mention his talent as a shofar blower ( no small skill; I know that from trying for a week without making a sound). Moreover, Kraut taught Bar/ Bat Mitzvah lessons, was on staff at the Rady JCC during his school days, also staff at Camp Massad. In short, Kraut was the full package coming out of high school. He attended the University of Manitoba and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. While at the university, he served as president of Hillel. Subsequently, he entered the University of Manitoba Medical School.

In 2014, Eyal Kraut graduated with his MD degree. During his time as a medical student he participated in the Manitoba Medical Students Association and also sat on numerous committees. Upon graduation, Kraut was off to Queen’s University for his residency in internal medicine. It was in Kingston that he met his future wife, Zoey Katz, who was from Toronto. The couple returned to Winnipeg for Eyal’s clinical fellowship in endocrinology, which is the specialty focussing on diabetes and hormones. While he was busy with becoming a doctor, his wife Zoey was a nurse at Children’s Hospital. Now that is taking togetherness to a new level. Even then, Eyal and Zoey helped to lead services at the Simkin Centre.

In 2019, the couple made the decision to move to Toronto. Currently, Eyal works at a clinic in downtown Toronto, while at the same time he also has a weekly clinic at Mount Sinai Hospital. Yet, even with the move to Toronto, Eyal retained his medical license in Manitoba and for several years, he returned to Winnipeg for several days every two months to run a small endocrinology clinic in Winnipeg, located at Confusion Corner, called Cardio 1 Lifesmart. That is what I call staying connected to your roots. Even then, Eyal used his spare time to head to the Rady JCC, as JCC memberships are honoured everywhere there is a JCC. The routine of trips to Winnipeg ultimately concluded just recently – at the end of October. Eyal and Zoey now have a two-year-old son, Asher, with another baby on the way, so the trips to Winnipeg are no longer as feasible as they were. Still, Eyal is clear that he intends to make regular visits (to see family of course,) also to show his kids what life is like in Winnipeg. This is one guy who appreciates from whence he came.

Even with his impressive background, what really makes Eyal stand out is a talent that no one likely knows about and that is Eyal’s ability to recognize people. It was at Beth Tzedec Synagogue in Toronto not long ago – at Yom Kippur services, and with a full sanctuary, when out of the blue, a guy whom I did not know tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was Gerry Posner. He just picked me out from my photo in the Jewish Post. That photo has me with a baseball cap on my head, but at synagogue I had a kippah on. Now, that is a rare talent. (Ed. note: Oh come on Gerry – you’ve written before how Winnipeggers, including the equally famous Rabbi Matthew Leibl – before he became a rabbi, have spotted you in baseball stadiums across North America and come up to you . You’re world famous for sure!)