Local News
First year medical student Tim Rozovsky founds new association for local Jewish medical students
By MYRON LOVE In the face of a concerning surge in antisemitism over the past nearly three years, I am happy to report a good news story in that regard. Tim Rozovsky, the founder of the new Jewish Medical Students’ Association of Manitoba, reports that he and his fellow Jewish students enrolled in the University of Manitoba’s Max Rady College of Medicine are not experiencing any significant issues involving antisemitism.
Hopefully, the matter of the notorious Med school Valedictorian who used his podium to attack Israel was a one-off.
“My goal in forming the Jewish Medical Students’ Association of Manitoba,” says the first year medical student, “was to create a safe, supportive environment for my fellow Jewish medical students.”
He reports that the current first year class at the school has eight Jewish students – an increase over more recent years – with maybe a dozen more in the other years.
For a new medical student, Rozovsky already has an impressive resume. He was born in Russia and grew up in Israel. After the completion of his army service in 2018, the then-22-year-old rejoined his parents, Dr. Katya and Alexander, who had moved to Winnipeg a few years before.
Prior to coming to Winnipeg, Rozovsky had completed a personal trainer program out of The Academic College at Wingate in Jerusalem. Some readers may know the young man from his work as a Master Personal Trainer at the Rady JCC.
Shortly after arriving here, he enrolled in a kinesiology program at the University of Winnipeg. He graduated with a BKin Honours in 2023 and did post graduate work at the University of Manitoba. Last fall, he received his MSc in Physiology and Pathophysiology – earning two gold medals, along with 32 awards and scholarships in the process.
Rozovsky says that it was his mother who inspired him to pursue a career in medicine. Dr. Katya Rozovsky is an associate professor at the University of Manitoba and an attending radiologist, specializing in pediatric diagnostic imaging.
(Tim also adds that his wife, Irina Gelzin, whom he married about a year ago, is training to be a nurse.)
Insofar as the Jewish Medical Students’ Association of Manitoba is concerned, Rozovky reports that the group gets together multiple times a year. One of its programs was a joint Chanukah celebration with the Jewish Physicians Association of Manitoba.
There was also a joint program with the Christian Medical and Dental Students’ Association of Manitoba.
“More recently, we have been helping prospective Jewish medical students with their applications,” he says. “Hopefully we will be able to get together over the summer with the incoming Jewish students.”
As to his own future plans, Rozovsky notes that it is too early for him to be deciding on a specialty. “My goal,” he says, “is to work hard and get good grades and become the best doctor that I can be.”
Local News
Gray Academy to Represent Manitoba at National Reach for the Top Competition
By NOAH STRAUSS Posted June 6) Gray Academy’s Reach for the Top team is headed to Moncton, New Brunswick, to represent Manitoba at the National Reach for the Top tournament.
Reach for the Top is a Canadian school league that quizzes teenagers on a variety of different topics, from science and history to pop culture. Reach started out in 1961 in Vancouver, where a local CBC station broadcasted the new show; it eventually became a national broadcast starting in 1966. Alex Trebek, who famously hosted Jeopardy!, started out by hosting Reach for the Top.
Gray Academy’s very own team, made up of Grade 7 and 8 students, will travel to Moncton, New Brunswick, to compete as Team Manitoba. By winning the provincial Reach tournament, they secured their spot in the national competition.
Faculty members at Gray Academy are very supportive of the program. The Jewish Post spoke with three different staff members at the school. Coach and high school teacher Danielle Miller says she is excited for the trip; although she will not be accompanying the team herself, shehas coached them all year.
“This year we had over 20 students come to the club to join us, they practice twice a cycle at lunch,” Miller said. Due to the large turnout this year, two teams had to be formed. At lunch practices, students split into two teams of four where each player has a buzzer. The two teams compete to see who can answer the most questions correctly.
One of the two teams did exceptionally well at various tournaments throughout the year and will be traveling to nationals as the sole team representing Manitoba.
Co-coach Micah Doerksen described Reach as a great academic competition where young minds are tested on various topics through quick,fast-paced questions.
High school guidance counselor Lindsey Leipsic said, “We have athletes, non-athletes, we have students who are really involved and students who are not as involved at school, and we have quiet leaders, and we’ve seen friendships be built in Reach.” Some of her favorite memories of Reach involve seeing students from across Winnipeg come to Gray Academy and bond with one another. Lev Chisick, who is competing at nationals, agreed, saying, “Moncton is going to strengthen our school spirit and make us a better team.”
As the junior team makes their way to Moncton, the senior team will head to provincials. Later this week, students from the senior team will travel to Virden, Manitoba, to compete at the provincial level. The team qualified after placing high enough at their most recent tournament, which took place at St. Paul’s.
Confidence is high as the school heads into these final tournaments. When Nath Goldenberg, who is also competing at nationals, was asked what he is most looking forward to, his answer was short and sweet:“Winning.”
Local News
Team Schvesters teammates Benji Harvey, Kim Gray once again among top ten fundraisers in this year’s CancerCare Manitoba Foundation Challenge for Life event
By MYRON LOVE This year’s annual CancerCare Manitoba Foundation’s Challenge for Life walk at Assiniboine Park is scheduled for Sunday, June 13 – and, once again, in terms of fundraising, Team Schvesters is sitting in second place overall – having raised just over $30,500 as of May 26 – which is $5,000 more than the team members had raised by the same time last year.
As well, team members Benji Harvey and Kim Gray are once again in the top ten among individual fundraisers. Harvey this year sits in fifth place, having raised a little over $16,000 as of May 17 – while Gray has raised just above $8,000 – putting her in seventh place.
Harvey reports that, -over the past 18, years participating in CancerCare Manitoba Foundation’s Challenge for Life, she has personally raised $180,000 for cancer research, while her team as a whole has brought in $367,000. In discussing her success as a fundraiser, Harvey says that she has made a lot of friends over the years and believes in giving back to the community.
The “Schvesters” are the Greenfeld sisters: Harvey and sisters Lesly Katz and Debra Lewis – the daughters of Lil and the late Ike Greenfeld. Two of the sisters are cancer survivors.
There is one other team member – in addition to Kim Gray. Judge Rocky Pollack first joined Team Schvesters in 2023. After a year away in 2024, he returned last year. Pollack lost his wife, Sharon, to cancer in 2014 after a multi-year struggle.
Nancy’s Nightingales has been a top 10 community fundraising team for Cancercare Manitoba and the Challenge for Life since its inception in 2008. As a team, they have walked together since 2006 when they walked 60 km in two days in the Weekend to End Breast Cancer.
Last year, the team – including Louise Raber, Joanne Katz, Rhonda Youell, Connie Botelho and Harriet Lyons – finished fifth in fundraising. So far this year, the team is again sitting in fifth place –having raised just under $12,500 (as of May 26) – a couple of thousand dollars more than last year, and just about $300 behind the fourth place team.
The Nightingales are named after a nurse who is a cancer survivor- and a friend of Louise Raber, Nancy’s Nightingales team leader.
“Our goal, as always, is to raise at least one dollar more than last year,” says Raber.
Team Jason’s Journey team leader Jason Gisser has experienced a more intimate and longer-lasting relationship with cancer than many of the other Challenge for Life participants. He was first diagnosed with cancer when he was 18. “I am a proud cancer fighter, having lived and battled a chronic cancer diagnosis for the last 23 years,” he said in an earlier interview. “I participate in the Challenge for Life not only to give back for the care and treatment which I have and continue to receive through CancerCare Manitoba, but to ensure that others do not have to endure the journey which I have endured.”
This is the ninth year that Gisser has taken up the Challenge for Life. His teammates are returnee Nora Fien, as well as friends Danial Sprintz, Wendy Martin White and Jason Roberts, also his mother, Judge Freda Steele. He has personally raised about $5,500 this year, while the team as a whole has raised just over $7,000.
“The Challenge for Life is great opportunity to raise valuable dollars for cancer research and treatment,” Gisser notes.
Readers can make donations to their preferred team by going online to CancerCarefdn.mb.ca and click on Challengeforlife.ca.
Local News
Government of Manitoba Recognizes Jewish Awareness Month
By MYRON LOVE Over nearly 150 years of Jewish life in Manitoba our community has produced a great many individuals who have enriched the life of our fellow Manitobans and beyond. On Monday, May 11, members of our community gathered in the rotunda at the Legislature to celebrate the province’s designation of May as Jewish Heritage Month.
In her remarks on the occasion, Carrie Shenkarow, Chair of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, noted that Manitoba first recognized May as Jewish Heritage Month in 2022 – joining the Federal Government and other Canadian provinces in celebrating the contributions of Jewish communities to our country ‘s history and identity.
“Early Jewish settlers,” she said, “arrived seeking opportunity and a fresh start. Through perseverance, hard work and a deep commitment to community, they helped build the province we know today.”
Shenkarow noted that “our community has contributed to Manitoba in countless ways through business, public service, education, healthcare, the arts, philanthropy and volunteerism.”
Following up on that theme, Belle Jarniewski, the Executive Director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada and the Manitoba Institute to Combat Antisemitism, enumerated many of those outstanding Jewish Manitobans, including – in the area of philanthropy, names such as: Asper, Gray, Rady, Blankstein, Niznick, Vickar, and Kanee.
Among the top ranks of outstanding Jewish Winnipeggers were: Sol Kanee – a force in national politics and a leader of world Jewry for half a century; Maitland Steinkopf, the first Jewish provincial cabinet minister (in the 1960s Duff Roblin Government) and the man who built the Centennial Concert Hall; Mr. Justice Samuel Freedman – the first Jewish Chief Justice of Manitoba;. Israel Asper, who not only served as leader of the provincial Liberal Party – but was also the visionary – along with his daughter, Gail – to build the Canadian Museum for Human Rights: Jim Carr, who was both an MLA and leader of the provincial Liberal Party as well as a prominent cabinet minister in the Justin Trudeau Government; Anita Neville, former Federal Liberal member of Parliament and our first Jewish Lieutenant-Governor; and the incomparable Monty Hall – the longtime host of “Let’s Make a Deal” and arguably our community’s best known export.
Jarniewski further listed outstanding doctors and lawyers, author and artists, musicians, composers, artistic directors, actors and performers whom our Jewish community has produced over the decades.
Carrie Shenkarow noted that the story of Jewish life in Manitoba has always been one of renewal and growth. “When our community faced population decline late in the 20th century, community leaders took action,” she recalled. “The opening of the Asper Jewish Community campus in 1997 and the launch of the GrowWinnipeg initiative helped revitalize Jewish life in our province.
“Working in partnership with the Provence of Manitoba,” she continued, “our community welcomed Jewish families from around the world. Since the GrowWinnipeg launch, more than 6,000 people have made Winnipeg their home, strengthening both our Jewish community and Manitoba as a whole.
“As we reflect on the first Jewish settlers who arrived here generations ago,” she commented, “I believe they would be proud to see the vibrant thriving community that exists today and to see Jewish Heritage Month recognized here at the Manitoba Legislative Building.”
Even amidst the warm feelings expressed by all the speakers at the event – including Gustavo Zentner, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ vice president, Manitoba and Saskatchewan; Liberal member of Parliament Ben Carr (Winnipeg South Centre); NDP MLAs Mike Moroz (River Heights) and Carla Compton (Tuxedo) – who served as emcee – both Shenkarow and Jarniewski raised the troubling concerns about an upsurge in antisemitism that we have been facing in recent years.
“All is not well for Jewish Manitobans today” Jarniewski observed. “We worry about the safety of our children and grandchildren.”
She reported that Jewish Canadians are 25 times more likely to experience a hate crime than any other group. “We have witnessed protests that include Holocaust inversion and even outright threats,” Jarniewski said. “We have been victims of harassment, demonization and hate crimes. Jewish children in public schools have suffered emotional and physical violence and are blamed for a war happening half a world away. Security has become an important and even overriding issue at all our community institutions.”
On the other hand, Shenkarow commented, recent events have “galvanized Jewish communities around the world and strengthened our connection to Jewish identity, community and peoplehood.”
She also spoke of the “tremendous solidarity here in Manitoba from friends, neighbours, elected officials and community partners who have stood with us and reaffirmed our shared values of respect, inclusion and dignity.”
Final remarks were delivered by MLA Mike Moroz: “Jewish heritage is not merely an amalgamation of celebrations,” he observed, “but a testament of difficulties, conflict, and ultimately, the truth. And the truth is that antisemitism is not a historical tale of the past. It still rears its ugliness today, through stereotypes, online hate, acts of vandalism and violence. The truth is also that antisemitism evolves, adapts, and even at times may disguise itself in language that may be difficult to immediately recognize. This is where our collective action towards creating awareness and education matters.
“Any group of people targeted because of their identity or ethnicity is an affront to the core values of respect, equality, diversity, and dignity that so many Manitobans cherish,” he continued.
Moroz added that “here in Manitoba, we have a collective responsibility to confront all forms of hate or discrimination for any targeted group. Awareness not only includes education but also understanding and challenging the many forms of antisemitism. It requires us to collectively confront misinformation, speak up when we are faced with harmful language and together – stand against indifference. It is important to know that while silence may allow prejudice to grow, creating awareness will disrupt it.
“Jewish Heritage Month,” he concluded, “invites us to engage more deeply in the values that continue to advance humanity for the common good. To understand traditions and values that positively impact on our communities. To collectively honour the past, while shaping a better future for us and leaving a proud legacy for those who come after us”.
“As we mark Jewish Heritage Month, I hope that each of us will not only commit to commemoration but to action as well. Together, we can celebrate accomplishments, confront hate with truth, and strengthen our resolve to build a Manitoba where everyone feels safe, valued, and welcomed.”
