Features
Daniel Raiskin, music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, discusses his life – from his boyhood in Soviet Russia to his coming to Winnipeg and his admiration for the Jewish community here
By BERNIE BELLAN Daniel Raiskin has been the music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra since 2018. This paper has been remiss not to have interviewed Raiskin until now, although to be fair to ourselves, he is an extremely busy fellow,
so finding a time when he could sit down and talk about his career, what life was like growing up in a Jewish family in Soviet Russia, and how he feels about spending a good part of his time in Winnipeg, was not easily arranged.
But then Covid-19 suddenly took over everyone’s lives – no matter who they are or where they live and, without much planning required, we were able to arrange to speak with Raiskin from his Amsterdam home.
At the outset of our conversation, which was conducted via WhatsAapp on Friday, April 3, Raiskin explained he’s “lived in Amsterdam for 30 years.” While he travels the world serving as guest conductor for many different orchestras, he “shares his time between Winnipeg and Amsterdam. My home is both in Amsterdam and Winnipeg,” he said.
I asked him, since he’s lived in The Netherlands for so many years whether he holds Dutch citizenship? Raiskin answered that he’s been a Dutch citizen for 26 years, although he still “has a Russian passport, too.”
At the present time Raiskin is also resigned, like the rest of us, to remaining in his Amsterdam home with his wife and two children (a son, 21, and a daughter, 16) for the foreseeable future..
“I was actually caught here between two projects – both of which were in Winnipeg,” Raiskin explained. “I was supposed to return to Winnipeg to spend 10 days there, but then things began to get really cloudy and we decided it doesn’t make any sense for me to fly into Winnipeg and get stuck there without my family, so I decided to stay here.”
We discussed how The Netherlands had taken a relatively hands-off approach to the Coronavirus to begin with, but as the danger has become more apparent, the liberal attitudes that most Dutch have in being uncomfortable with seeing their liberties restricted have begun to dissipate.
“People here are used to going to parks and to the seaside, but I’m afraid that on Monday (April 6) the lockdown is going to be announced,” Raiskin observed (on April 3).
Before we began to talk about Raiskin’s musical career, I said to him that I wanted “to take him back to his childhood in St. Petersburg.” I remarked to him that when I was a student in Israel (a very long time ago – 1974-75 to be exact). I became friends with a girl from St. Petersburg, who bragged to me that people from St. Petersburg were so much more sophisticated than Israelis, also that St. Petersburg had “the best ice cream in the world.”
I asked Raiskin whether the part about the ice cream was true.
“Yes, that ‘s very true,” he responded – “at least judging from my kids’ reaction any time we go to St. Petersburg, they say ‘this is really the best tasting ice cream.’ “
I wondered whether Raiskin was a musical prodigy as a child.
“I was not a prodigy at all,” he said. “I took up the violin when I was six – and I didn’t ‘take it up’. I was given it. It’s an old joke that with the wave of Russian Jewish immigration to Israel every second Russian landing in Israel at Ben Gurion Airport had a violin in his or her hands. Those that did not were piano players.”
“I was born into a Jewish family where music played a very important role,” Raiskin explained.
“My father is one of the foremost Russian musicologists (who is also a now retired physicist, Raiskin noted). One of the first sounds I heard when I was born was my brother (who tragically died at a the age of 34) practising his cello. By the time I was six – I like to joke my mother was so tired of carrying my brother’s cello around, she opted for something smaller for me: a violin.”
By the way, both Rasikin’s parents are alive and still living in St. Petersburg, he told me. His father’s first love was always music, Raiskin noted, but as part of the generation that grew up in the Soviet Union following World War II, it was unrealistic for anyone to make a career of music, he explained.
“He was teaching physics at a university in St. Petersburg when he was 35, but he graduated from a music conservatory when he was 40. That goes to show how important music was to him,” Raiskin observed.
“My mother stopped working a year ago (when she was 82),” Raiskin said. “She was a mathematician and a software programmer.”
I asked Raiskin whether his “parents ever endured any discrimination because they were Jewish that you can speak of? ” I added that “I didn’t want to seem naive by asking the question (since anyone who was following the fight of “refuseniks” in Russia attempting to leave Russia at the time that Raiskin was growing up would have known that anti-Semitism was rampant in that country.
” We lived in a country with a great rate of anti-Semitism,’ Raiskin answered. “My parents and my brother and me and friends all around us were all subject to state-sponsored anti-Semitism. At some point my family had also made the decision to leave (Russia), but it was too late. The Afghanistan war had broken out and everything was hermetically sealed. We got stuck.”
At that point I said to Raiskin that I wanted to talk about what it was like growing up as a young Jewish boy in Russia at that time – and how much love of music was inculcated into his and his peers’ lives.
“It was like – any given picture of Chagall has a violin in it,” Raiskin observed. “It’s part of the Jewish heritage and DNA; this whole ‘3,000 years of endurance’. Music was one of the things that kept us from getting alienated.”
At the same time though, Raiskin said that “music was not something that I particularly wanted to do. I wanted to play football and ice hockey with my mates outside. As a kid you don’t want to spend hours practising and doing scales for hours, looking out the window of your seventh-floor apartment while other kids are playing outside. I wanted to be more like them.”
“It’s very often a mistake to think that it’s the child who makes the decision at age six or seven to become a musician. Some kids are so incredibly gifted they show a unique talent at such a young age, there’s nothing else they want to do. I definitely don’t want to give the impression that I was one of those kids. I was pretty much normal and not very well behaved; I was pretty naughty.
“It was only later that I developed a real taste for music – and worked hard to become something.”
To that point we hadn’t discussed Raiskin’s particular musical interests. I noted that I had read in various articles and interviews that his favourite composer was Gustav Mahler (who was also Jewish, by the way). I wondered when Raiskin first became interested in Mahler’s music?
“You know, in fact, Mahler was not a composer whose music was very often played in my years in the Soviet Union,” Raiskin explained. “The performances of Mahler were always a great event,” but it was only one or two of his symphonies that were ever played, he noted.
“It was only with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Western orchestras that started to come on European tours that we really started to hear Mahler played. I’ll never forget the first time I heard Mahler’s Seventh Symphony played by the Pittsburgh Symphony…I think this was when it really hit me hard. This is the moment that I said to myself: ‘I’m going to conduct this once’…and I did, on many occasions…I try to conduct his music as often as I can.”
We skipped ahead to Raiskin’s first time coming to Winnipeg which, he said, was in 2015, as guest conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. There were two more appearances as guest conductor of the WSO in 2017 before Raiskin was appointed as music director in 2018.
“It was a lengthy process,” he said, “but I am, in fact, already looking back on five years of being associated with Winnipeg. It’s not like it started in 2018.”
Raiskin also observed that “no matter how successful a relationship a music director has with an orchestra – it’s never a relationship for life. It’s just the nature of the profession. It’s a marriage for a time…It’s not the conductors who play the music; it’s the orchestras. It’s about 67 musicians who play. It’s very important – the mandate we get from the musicians …and at a certain point it’s time for the conductor to go.”
However, Raiskin wanted to make clear that this is not something he is thinking about now. With his second season cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said that, |“more than ever our relationship and interdependency is being tested and I am confident we’ll get out if the crisis, whenever this might be, stronger than ever.“
Raiskin explained that, while he is contractually obligated to conduct the WSO for 12 weeks during the year, it is hugely important for any conductor to get out on the road as much as possible. He used the following analogy to illustrate his point: “A hockey player cannot perform at the highest level of his ability if he just plays home games. It’s also important how you perform outside.”
I noted at the outset of this article that, although Daniel Raiskin has been music director of the WSO for two years now, we still hadn’t interviewed him which, given that we’re a Jewish newspaper and he’s Jewish, is something that we should have done much earlier. But, since he’s now had time to get to know Winnipeg – and its Jewish community, much better, I asked him what his impression of our community was?
“I’m sure you’ve met Gail Asper,” I said (tongue in cheek; how could the music director of the WSO not have met one of the foremost supporters of the WSO – and arts in general in this city?)
“Yes, of course,” came Raiskin’s reply, “and many other people, like Laurel Malkin, and Michel Kay and Glenna Kay. You know, Winnipeg became a place where being Jewish for me suddenly started to matter in a very personal and positive way. Growing up in the Soviet Union was definitely not. I was once expelled from a music conservatory for visiting a synagogue – for the first time, just out of curiosity.
“And when you’re in a very cosmopolitan city like Amsterdam, with a very tragic history of Dutch Jews – one needs to acknowledge that there were 150,000 Dutch Jews before the Second World War, and only 15,000 survived – so, for me, connecting to the Jewish community here…like the first Rosh Hashanah dinner I ever attended was…in Winnipeg! Because some friends just took me and my wife and said: ‘Come’. I really feel that it matters in a very positive way that I’m Jewish and I can connect to many people in Winnipeg and many in our audiences are Jewish.”
“I feel more Jewish than ever since coming to Winnipeg,” Raiskin suggested. “Jewish music is so important to me. One of the first things I recorded as a musician – as an instrumentalist, was a complete edition of music for viola and piano by Ernst Bloch, the foremost Jewish composer.”
At the end of our interview we discussed the devastating effect that the current crisis is having on people’s lives – in so many ways. Raiskin said that he was still fully involved in planning for the coming season of the WSO – and for the season after that as well.
In terms of assessing people’s hunger for music, he had this to say: “I think there will be a sense of growing hunger…our souls and our spirits are being so hollowed, there will be a growing need to fill in this gap – and this is where we can step in.”
Raiskin closed our interview with this observation: “I feel: today, more than ever, people feel how important arts and culture are to them. We suddenly realize that we use art to communicate with each other!“
Features
The Tech That Never Sleeps: Inside the Always-On Engines of No Limit Casinos
In communities across Canada, including Winnipeg’s dynamic Jewish community, technology has become an integral part of daily life, whether through synagogue livestreams, local cultural programming, or real-time coverage of global events affecting Israel and the diaspora. Modern digital infrastructure, while often unseen to the public, runs continuously behind the scenes, enabling information networks that never stop. The same notion of ongoing connectivity drives the 24-hour digital entertainment platforms.
One example of this infrastructure is seen in online gaming settings, where real-time data systems enable experiences that are meant to run without interruption. The global online gambling industry is expected to increase from around $97.9 billion in 2026, with internet penetration and mobile connectivity continuing to climb globally. As a result, readers interested in how these platforms work often consult a comprehensive list of No Limit casino platforms to gain a better understanding of the ecosystem.
While conversations about casinos sometimes center on the games themselves, what’s underneath the narrative is technical. Behind every digital table or interactive game is a network of servers, verification tools, live data processors, and uptime monitoring systems that must run continually. Unlike traditional venues that close at night, online platforms rely on always-on design, which means that their software infrastructure must run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, independent of player time zones.
Infrastructure That Never Closes
Although Winnipeg readers may be more familiar with the servers that power newsrooms, streaming services, and community websites, the technology center of global platforms shares similar concepts. Modern digital systems rely significantly on distributed cloud computing, which means that data is handled simultaneously over several geographical locations rather than in a single location.
This layout increases credibility while also allowing platforms to run consistently even when millions of people are actively accessing the system. Similarly, big cloud providers operate worldwide networks of data centers capable of providing near-constant uptime. According to reliability measures released by major cloud providers, such as Google Cloud infrastructure reliability overview, modern corporate systems typically aim for uptime levels greater than 99.9 percent.
That figure may sound abstract, yet it corresponds to only a few minutes of disturbance every month. In fact, ensuring such regularity needs sophisticated monitoring systems that identify faults immediately, quickly divert traffic, and maintain redundant backups across different continents. Unlike early internet platforms, which relied on a single server room, today’s large-scale systems function as interconnected worldwide networks.
Real-Time Data: The Pulse of Modern Platforms
While infrastructure keeps systems operating, real-time data engines guarantee that information is constantly sent between users and servers. These systems handle massive amounts of data per second, including player activities, system status updates, and verification checks. Although the public rarely observes these operations, they are the digital pulse of today’s internet platforms.
Real-time computing has also revolutionized industries known to Canadian readers. Financial markets, for example, use comparable high-speed data processing to quickly update stock values across trading platforms. The same logic applies to global logistical networks, airline scheduling systems, and even newsrooms that monitor breaking news as it occurs.
This is essentially one of the distinguishing features of modern digital infrastructure: information no longer moves in batches, but rather continuously over high-capacity data pipelines. Regardless of how complicated these systems are, they must stay reliable and safe, which is why developers invest much in automated monitoring and predictive maintenance.
Security and Verification in the Always-On Era
Technology that never sleeps must also be self-verifying. Modern digital platforms use multilayer security systems to identify suspicious conduct, validate user identities, and safeguard critical data. Many of these procedures remain in the background, but they are extremely important for preserving confidence in online services.
Unlike older internet platforms, which depended heavily on passwords, newer systems often include behavioral analytics, device identification, and automatic danger detection. These technologies work silently, yet they examine patterns in real time, detecting unacceptable behavior before it spreads throughout a network.
The larger IT sector has made significant investments in these measures. Organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity framework overview give guidelines for software developers throughout the world in designing resilient digital systems. Similarly, academic research from universities continues to investigate how internet infrastructure can stay safe while yet allowing for large-scale connectivity.
Lessons for the Wider Digital World
Although talks regarding entertainment platforms often focus on user experiences, the underlying technology symbolizes a larger revolution in the digital economy. Today’s online systems must run constantly, expand fast, and stay safe even under high demand. While normal user may only observe the automatic interface on their screen, the real story is the engineering it takes to maintain that experience.
While technology develops very quickly, one thing remains constant: systems meant to function indefinitely need both intelligent engineering and meticulous management. Despite their complexity, these digital engines have become the silent basis for modern life, powering everything from local news websites to global platforms that never sleep.
Features
ClarityCheck: Securing Communication for Authors and Digital Publishers
In the world of digital publishing, communication is the lifeblood of creation. Authors connect with editors, contributors, and collaborators via email and phone calls. Publishers manage submissions, coordinate with freelance teams, and negotiate contracts online.
However, the same digital channels that enable efficient publishing also carry risk. Unknown contacts, fraudulent inquiries, and impersonation attempts can disrupt projects, delay timelines, or compromise sensitive intellectual property.
This is where ClarityCheck becomes a vital tool for authors and digital publishers. By allowing users to verify phone numbers and email addresses, ClarityCheck enhances trust, supports safer collaboration, and minimizes operational risks.
Why Verification Matters in Digital Publishing
Digital publishing involves multiple types of external communication:
- Manuscript submissions
- Editing and proofreading coordination
- Author-publisher negotiations
- Marketing and promotional campaigns
- Collaboration with illustrators and designers
In these workflows, unverified contacts can lead to:
- Scams or fraudulent project offers
- Intellectual property theft
- Miscommunication causing delays
- Financial loss due to fraudulent payments
- Unauthorized sharing of sensitive drafts
Platforms like Reddit feature discussions from authors and freelancers about using verification tools to safeguard their work. This highlights the growing awareness of digital safety in creative industries.
What Is ClarityCheck?
ClarityCheck is an online service that enables users to search for publicly available information associated with phone numbers and email addresses. Its primary goal is to provide additional context about a contact before initiating or continuing communication.
Rather than relying purely on intuition, authors and publishers can access structured information to assess credibility. This proactive approach supports safer project management and protects intellectual property.
You can explore community feedback and discussions about the service here: ClarityCheck
Key Benefits for Authors and Digital Publishers
1. Protecting Manuscript Submissions
Authors often submit manuscripts to multiple editors or publishers. Before sharing full drafts:
- Verify the contact’s legitimacy
- Ensure the communication aligns with known publishing entities
- Reduce risk of unauthorized distribution
A quick lookup can prevent time-consuming disputes and protect original content.
2. Safeguarding Collaborative Projects
Digital publishing frequently involves external contributors such as:
- Illustrators
- Designers
- Editors
- Ghostwriters
Verification ensures all collaborators are trustworthy, minimizing the chance of intellectual property theft or miscommunication.
3. Enhancing Marketing and PR Outreach
Promoting a book or digital publication often involves connecting with:
- Bloggers
- Reviewers
- Book influencers
- Digital media outlets
Before sharing press kits or marketing materials, verifying email addresses or phone contacts adds confidence and prevents potential misuse.
How ClarityCheck Works
While the internal system is proprietary, the user workflow is straightforward and efficient:
| Step | Action | Outcome |
| 1 | Enter phone number or email | Search initiated |
| 2 | Aggregation of publicly available data | Digital footprint analyzed |
| 3 | Report generated | Structured overview presented |
| 4 | Review by user | Informed decision before engagement |
The platform’s simplicity makes it suitable for authors and publishing teams, even those with limited technical expertise.
Integrating ClarityCheck Into Publishing Workflows
Manuscript Submission Process
- Receive submission request
- Verify contact via ClarityCheck
- Confirm identity of editor or publisher
- Share draft or proceed with collaboration
Collaboration with Freelancers
- Initiate project with external contributors
- Run ClarityCheck to verify email or phone number
- Establish project agreement
- Begin content creation safely
Marketing Outreach
- Contact media or reviewers
- Verify digital identity
- Share promotional materials with confidence
Ethical and Privacy Considerations
While ClarityCheck provides useful context, it operates exclusively using publicly accessible information. Authors and publishers should always:
- Respect privacy and data protection regulations
- Use results responsibly
- Combine verification with personal judgment
- Avoid sharing sensitive data with unverified contacts
Responsible use ensures the platform supports security without compromising ethical standards.
Real-World Use Cases in Digital Publishing
Scenario 1: Verifying a New Editor
An author is contacted by an editor claiming to represent a small publishing house. Running a ClarityCheck report confirms the email domain aligns with publicly available information about the company, reducing risk before signing an agreement.
Scenario 2: Screening Freelance Illustrators
A digital publisher seeks an illustrator for a children’s book. Before sharing project details or compensation terms, ClarityCheck verifies contact information, ensuring the artist is legitimate.
Scenario 3: Marketing Outreach Safety
A self-publishing author plans a social media and email campaign. Verifying influencer or reviewer contacts helps prevent marketing materials from reaching fraudulent accounts.
Why Verification Strengthens Publishing Operations
In digital publishing, speed and creativity are essential, but they must be balanced with security:
- Protect intellectual property
- Maintain trust with collaborators
- Ensure financial transactions are secure
- Prevent delays due to miscommunication
Verification tools like ClarityCheck integrate seamlessly, allowing authors and publishing teams to focus on creation rather than risk management.
Final Thoughts
In a world where publishing is increasingly digital and collaborative, verifying contacts is not just prudent — it’s necessary.
ClarityCheck empowers authors, editors, and digital publishing professionals to confidently assess phone numbers and email addresses, protect their intellectual property, and streamline communication.
Whether managing manuscript submissions, coordinating external contributors, or launching marketing campaigns, integrating ClarityCheck into your workflow ensures clarity, safety, and professionalism.
In digital publishing, trust is as important as creativity — and ClarityCheck helps safeguard both.
Features
Israel’s Arab Population Finds Itself in Dire Straits
By HENRY SREBRNIK There has been an epidemic of criminal violence and state neglect in the Arab community of Israel. At least 56 Arab citizens have died since the beginning of this year. Many blame the government for neglecting its Arab population and the police for failing to curb the violence. Arabs make up about a fifth of Israel’s population of 10 million people. But criminal killings within the community have accounted for the vast majority of Israeli homicides in recent years.
Last year, in fact, stands as the deadliest on record for Israel’s Arab community. According to a year-end report by the Center for the Advancement of Security in Arab Society (Ayalef), 252 Arab citizens were murdered in 2025, an increase of roughly 10 percent over the 230 victims recorded in 2024. The report, “Another Year of Eroding Governance and Escalating Crime and Violence in Arab Society: Trends and Data for 2025,” published in December, noted that the toll on women is particularly severe, with 23 Arab women killed, the highest number recorded to date.
Violence has expanded beyond internal criminal disputes, increasingly affecting public spaces and targeting authorities, relatives of assassination targets, and uninvolved bystanders. In mixed Arab-Jewish cities such as Acre, Jaffa, Lod, and Ramla, violence has acquired a political dimension, further eroding the fragile social fabric Israel has worked to sustain.
In the Negev, crime families operate large-scale weapons-smuggling networks, using inexpensive drones to move increasingly advanced arms, including rifles, medium machine guns, and even grenades, from across the borders in Egypt and Jordan. These weapons fuel not only local criminal feuds but also end up with terrorists in the West Bank and even Jerusalem.
Getting weapons across the border used to be dangerous and complex but is now relatively easy. Drones originally used to smuggle drugs over the borders with Egypt and Jordan have evolved into a cheap and effective tool for trafficking weapons in large quantities. The region has been turning into a major infiltration route and has intensified over the past two years, as security attention shifted toward Gaza and the West Bank.
The Negev is not merely a local challenge; it serves as a gateway for crime and terrorism across Israel, including in cities. The weapons flow into mixed Jewish-Arab cities and from there penetrate the West Bank, fueling both organized crime and terrorist activity and blurring the line between them.
The smuggling of weapons into Israel is no longer a marginal criminal phenomenon but an ongoing strategic threat that traces a clear trail: from porous borders with Egypt and Jordan, through drones and increasingly sophisticated smuggling methods, into the heart of criminal networks inside Israel, and in a growing number of cases into lethal terrorist operations. A deal that begins as a profit-driven criminal transaction often ends in a terrorist attack. Israeli police warn that a population flooded with illegal weapons will act unlawfully, the only question being against whom.
The scale of the threat is vast. According to law enforcement estimates, up to 160,000 weapons are smuggled into Israel each year, about 14,000 a month. Some sources estimate that about 100,000 illegal weapons are circulating in the Negev alone.
Israeli cities are feeling this. Acre, with a population of about 50,000, more than 15,000 of them Arab, has seen a rise in violent incidents, including gunfire directed at schools, car bombings, and nationalist attacks. In August 2025, a 16-year-old boy was shot on his way to school, triggering violent protests against the police.
Home to roughly 35,000 Arab residents and 20,000 Jewish residents, Jaffa has seen rising tensions and repeated incidents of violence between Arabs and Jews. In the most recent case, on January 1, 2026, Rabbi Netanel Abitan was attacked while walking along a street, and beaten.
In Lod, a city of roughly 75,000 residents, about half of them Arab, twelve murders were recorded in 2025, a historic high. The city has become a focal point for feuds between crime families. In June 2025, a multi-victim shooting on a central street left two young men dead and five others wounded, including a 12-year-old passerby. Yet the killing of the head of a crime family in 2024 remains unsolved to this day; witnesses present at the scene refused to testify.
The violence also spilled over to Jewish residents: Jewish bystanders were struck by gunfire, state officials were targeted, and cars were bombed near synagogues. Hundreds of Jewish families have left the city amid what the mayor has described as an “atmosphere of war.”
Phenomena that were once largely confined to the Arab sector and Arab towns are spilling into mixed cities and even into predominantly Jewish cities. When violence in mixed cities threatens to undermine overall stability, it becomes a national problem. In Lod and Jaffa, extortion of Jewish-owned businesses by Arab crime families has increased by 25 per cent, according to police data.
Ramla recorded 15 murders in 2025, underscoring the persistence of lethal violence in the city. Many victims have been caught up in cycles of revenge between clans, often beginning with disputes over “honour” and ending in gunfire. Arab residents describe the city as “cursed,” while Jewish residents speak openly about being afraid to leave their homes
Reluctance to report crimes to the authorities is a central factor exacerbating the problem. Fear of retaliation by families or criminal organizations deters victims and their relatives from coming forward, contributing to a clearance rate of less than 15 per cent of all murders. The Ayalef report notes that approximately 70 per cent of witnesses refused to cooperate with police investigations, citing doubts about the state’s ability to provide protection.
Violence in Arab society is not just an Arab sector problem; it poses a direct and serious threat to Israel’s national security. The impact is twofold: on the one hand, a rise in crime that affects the entire population; on the other, the spillover of weapons and criminal activity into terrorism, threatening both internal and regional stability. This phenomenon reached a peak in 2025, with implications that could lead to a third intifada triggered by either a nationalist or criminal incident.
The report suggests that along the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, Israel should adopt a technological and security-focused response: reinforcing border fences with sensors and cameras, conducting aerial patrols to counter drones, and expanding enforcement activity.
This should be accompanied by a reassessment of the rules of engagement along the border area, enabling effective interdiction of smuggling and legal protocols that allow for the arrest and imprisonment of offenders. The report concludes by emphasizing that rising violence in cities, compounded by weapons smuggling in the Negev, is eroding Israel’s internal stability.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.