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Obituary: Dianne Kipnes, 81, a philanthropist who transformed Edmonton’s hospitals, arts and Jewish community
A passion for helping people and her empathy for those who were suffering propelled Dianne Kipnes into becoming one of Edmonton’s most significant philanthropists supporting scores of charities locally, nationally and internationally with her husband Irv.
She died in Edmonton on Dec. 26. She was 81.
Dianne and Irv Kipnes donated millions of dollars through their family foundation to numerous charities.
“One thing that comes through for all of us who had a chance to work with Irv and Dianne on anything was Dianne’s interest in making sure that what was done was done right,” friend Howard Sniderman said. “She was a very elegant and graceful woman and everything she did had a touch of elegance and grace.”
The couple embraced charities in healthcare, the arts, and education both locally and nationally and were recognized as transformative leaders in Edmonton’s Jewish community of approximately 5,000.
They were major benefactors of Edmonton’s University Hospital Foundation, the Dianne and Irving Kipnes Urology Centre, and created chairs in Radiopharmaceuticals, Lymphatic Disorders and Finance and Development at the University of Alberta. They also helped fund programs in music, engineering and Jewish studies.
In the early 2000s Dianne developed lymphedema in her legs after treatment for cancer. At the time there were very few options available, and she established the Dianne and Irving Kipnes Chair in Lymphatic Disorders—the first position of its kind in Canada—with an $5-million donation. When the announcement was made, Kipnes described lymphedema as an ‘underdog disorder,’ which was originally misdiagnosed when she was in Europe as “either an allergy, an insect bite or a psychological reaction to the horrors of visiting Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The despair was worse than the illness,” she said. “But the antidote to despair is action.”
Kipnes met her husband in 1977 when he stopped in Montreal for dinner with his first wife on a return trip to Edmonton from Israel. Dianne and her first husband joined them with mutual friends. Several years later Dianne had relocated to Edmonton with her husband—and when her marriage ended, she reconnected with Irv, who was also single again.
“Theirs was a true partnership,” said Sniderman. They did it hand in hand together.”
Fielding Graduate University mourns the passing of Dr. Dianne Kipnes (PSY’98), a distinguished alumna and former trustee whose profound contributions left an enduring legacy within our community: https://t.co/C1NXrrsBMj
— Fielding Graduate University (@FieldingGradU) January 2, 2025
Kipnes was a psychologist by profession. She had a master’s degree in social work from McGill and a PhD in clinical psychology from the Fielding Graduate University. She worked at the University of Alberta’s psychiatric walk-in clinic from 1984-1994.
“In her practice she was healing people in difficult straits. And she wasn’t prepared to let this go,” Sniderman said. “She took significant steps to help people. For example, she wanted to see a place where veterans, and later first responders, could get treatment, but in a respectful place, not an institutional setting. She was very concerned that they be treated with dignity. So, she and Irv established the CapitalCare Kipnes Centre for Veterans. It’s no surprise to see that someone who is a healer by profession can reach out in the rest of her life and find other ways to heal people.”
In 2022, Irv and Dianne were honoured by Jewish Federation of Edmonton “as among the most influential and largest lifetime donors in the history of Edmonton UJA.”
They supported a variety of Jewish initiatives including a Holocaust symposium for Edmonton high school students, provided bursaries for teens to go on March of the Living and funded a classroom in Israel at Bar-Ilan’s Azrieli medical facility in Safed. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Kipnes’ provided a leadership gift to the federation’s fund for food and medical care for Jews in the Ukraine.
Stephen Mandel, a former mayor of Edmonton, said that Kipnes was always looking for ways to give back to the community, and helped transform the city into a hub for the arts.
“Dianne was very quiet and reserved but knew how to get things done in a remarkable way. She set a standard in Edmonton for things our city would never, ever have seen. She was the creator of the Edmonton Opera Gala, a fundraiser which became one of the key events of the year in Edmonton. It was Dianne’s vision to create something special. Ballet Edmonton only exists today because of Dianne and Irv. It was ‘typical Dianne’ to come up with a way they could really give back to the community. She had an uncanny ability to see what was needed to get it done. It was Dianne’s way. It’s no different when you look at the National Arts Centre’s Kipnes Wall in Ottawa. They came up with that idea.”
The five-storey Kipnes Lantern rises above the National Arts Centre’s front entrance and incorporates transparent LED screens to display images of Canada’s leading artists and productions. It is North America’s largest transparent LED wall and was illuminated with Dianne’s image when she died.
In a statement the National Arts Centre said, “The Dianne and Irving Kipnes Foundation has done immeasurable good in the world, supporting various causes including cancer research, veterans, education and the arts. The NAC’s five-story architectural glass tower is named the Kipnes Lantern in recognition of their extraordinary philanthropic support. Today, it honours her lifetime of work effecting change.”
“The community is going to miss her,” said Mandel. “We are a small community, and you need real leaders and it’s hard to find them. Dianne was one of them.”
She was the recipient of the Alberta Centennial Medal, the Peter Lougheed Award for Community Service and the Order of Canada.
She leaves her husband of 35 years, Irving, her sister Brenda and daughter Kendra as well as her stepchildren, Harry, Rozanne and Ronee, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The post Obituary: Dianne Kipnes, 81, a philanthropist who transformed Edmonton’s hospitals, arts and Jewish community appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.