Features
Former Winnipegger Mira Sucharov bares her soul in new memoir
Reviewed by BERNIE BELLAN
There’s something strangely compelling about reading the memoir of a talented individual who has decided to lay it all out for total strangers to discover some of her innermost secrets.
A few years back I reviewed a memoir by Henriette Ivanans, who happens to now be living in Winnipeg (married to Kevin McIntyre, about whom we have written many times in this paper). In her memoir, titled “In Pillness and in Health: A memoir” Henriette revealed her long and arduous struggle with addiction to a panoply of different types of medications. She was so searing in her self-criticism that it was almost painful reading her amazing story of survival against all odds.
Now, in a different way, well known academic and commentator Mira Sucharov discusses her own long-held emotional struggles, first triggered by the divorce of her parents when she was five, in her memoir, titled “Borders and Belonging: A Memoir”.
I have to admit that I have only a passing acquaintance with Mira’s career – which might help me to be more objective in discussing her memoir. I hadn’t ever read anything else she has ever written – which would probably come as a surprise to her, since I am well aware that she is a prolific writer with a reputation as a Middle East expert.
It’s not that I’ve shied away from reading anything by Mira Sucharov – it’s just that I’ve never enjoyed reading academic articles about the Middle East, even though I myself have a background in Political Studies – as she does. Ever since I finished university – which was ages ago, I’ve preferred to distance myself from anything that’s footnoted.
But “Borders and Belonging” is no academic treatise. Mira Sucharov is a talented writer who certainly knows how to tell a story; in this case the story is one of anxiety and elation as she forged a deeply held love for Israel from a very young age. Yet, as much as her interest in Israel has been a central focus of her life, her determination to view Israel in as objective a manner as possible has taken its toll.
Her opening chapter relates a story that reveals the extent to which she’s been ostracized by a very good portion of the Canadian Jewish community for daring to question Israel’s behaviour vis-à-vis the Palestinians. During her career as an academic, for which she’s received multiple awards (not that she discusses any of those in her book; any Google search will readily disclose how well respected Mira is as a professor and a commentator), she’s received scorn from both the right and the left for daring to attempt to be even handed in her assessment of Israel and the Palestinians.
No doubt what many members of the Winnipeg Jewish community will find particularly interesting though are Mira’s recollections of growing up here, where she attended Jewish day schools and, more significantly for readers of this paper, where she attended a summer camp that had a Labour Zionist orientation (which, interestingly, she never refers to by its name: Camp Massad).
For anyone who’s attended Camp Massad, reading Mira’s reminiscences about camp life would be reason enough to want to read the book, as her descriptions of that camp are as well drawn as one could find anywhere in reading about a summer camp.
But, it’s in Mira’s painful discussion of the traumas she’s endured in her life – which is not really all that long yet, since she must either just be 50 or close to it, based on certain references she makes that she provides some of the most jarring passages. I’ve already referenced her parents’ divorce which, as she describes it, occurred without any rancor between her parents and was as civil a breakup as one could hope to have. For Mira, however, it was a life-shattering experience and reading about how that break-up still reverberate with her offers a salutary lesson in how a marital break-up, no matter how well behaved the parents may be toward one another at the time of the break-up, can be so devastating for children all through their lives.
One other chapter that hits home like a ton of bricks is when Mira recounts reading a newspaper article about skin moles and takes a more careful look at a mole on her arm. Lucky for Mira, her mother didn’t procrastinate for one moment and, as it turned out, the mole was cancerous and likely would have led to an early death had it not been caught in time.
Later, Mira discusses allergies she has developed to certain foods and her frequent bouts with overwhelming anxiety. When she describes the often extremely stressful situations which she doesn’t avoid as an academic who is not afraid to take unpopular stands, it’s easy to understand the psychological toll that the career path she’s taken has had on her.
The memoir is not written in chronological fashion; it flits back and forth between episodes that occurred at various times in Mira’s life. Of all her experiences, however, in addition to her love of Camp Massad, it is the many times that Mira has visited and lived in Israel about which she writes most evocatively.
Her first visit to Israel was in 1983 with her bobe, Marian Margolis. That visit led to such a deep affection for Israel that Mira was motivated to return over and over again where, at various times, she was a student, a resident of a kibbutz (also while she was a student), and an academic.
And although a search of her online biography reveals that Mira received her MA from the University of Toronto and her PhD from Georgetown, in her memoir she writes only about her time spent at McGill, from where she obtained her BA. She admits that she was drawn to McGill because that was the school her father attended and she wanted to emulate his experience as much as possible. While her mother is also referred to in very loving terms, it is Mira’s relationship with her father that resonates throughout this memoir.
Another episode though that will probably upset more traditional readers is when Mira describes her love affair with an Arab student at McGill. While she is hardly graphic in her description, she is certainly far more candid in what she writes than anything she has to say about her husband who, for all intents and purposes, comes across as a nice Jewish boy who would certainly meet with the approval of most bobes.
Toward the end of the book Mira summarizes the conflicting forces that have shaped her life in a paragraph that both offers a glimpse of the emotional currents that are still swirling within her, it also gives you an idea just how gifted she is as a wordsmith:
“Panic. It’s like being a child of divorce all over again as I try to pull the pieces together: safety and danger, reality and fear, swinging between houses with different carpets, between marriages and separations, between my real home and my dad’s home and the home-away-from-home that is summer camp, between the reality of the present and my nostalgia for the past, between Israel as a lived reality and my image of the place, between political poles, between parts of my community and between my community and that of others—as I try to locate a single, coherent, authentic narrative that is safe and secure and true.”
It’s not always easy reading a memoir where the author dissects her life in such an open and candid manner, and I’m not sure how many of the individuals whose paths have crossed Mira’s would be aware of the emotional angst which is so pervasive throughout this book, but it takes a very brave individual to have written such an open and, at times, quite raw, recounting of a life.
“Borders and Belonging: A Memoir”
By Mira Sucharov
Published by Palgrave Macmillan, September 2020
Features
Is This the End of Jewish Life in Western Countries?
By HENRY SREBRNIK “Globalize the Intifada” has been the chant echoing through streets since October 7th, 2023. It was never a metaphor, and we now see the gruesome results across the western world, from Australia to Canada: the rise of groups of large, active networks of Islamist and anti-Zionist organizations.
Jews in the West are discovering that the nations they defended, enriched, and profoundly shaped have become increasingly inhospitable. After the Holocaust, explicit Jew-hatred became unfashionable in polite society, but the impulse never disappeared. The workaround was simple: separate Zionism from Judaism in name, then recycle every old anti-Jewish trope and pin it on “the Zionists.”
We have seen the full legitimization of genocidal anti-Zionism and its enthusiastic adoption by large segments of the public. The protests themselves, as they began immediately on October 7th, were celebrations of the Hamas massacres. The encampments, the building occupations, the harassment campaigns against Jewish students, the open calls for intifada, the attacks on Jews and Jewish places have become our new norm. History shows us that antisemitism does not respond to reason, incentive or the honest appeals of the Jewish community.
Outside the United States, there is no Western political establishment with either the will or the capability to address this problem, let alone reverse its growth. I’m sorry to say this, but the future of Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is likely to be increasingly Jew-free.
Today, police stand and watch mobs chant for Israel’s destruction, call for the genocide of its people, harass visibly Jewish citizens, and drive antisemitic intimidation deep into urban life. They now believe their job is to enforce the law only if it does not risk upsetting violent constituencies. This makes Jews expendable, because defending them risks confrontation. This was very clear in the Bondi Beach massacre.
Jews are again donning caps instead of kippot, dressing generically with no cultural markers, and avoiding even a tote bag with Hebrew on it. A corrosive creep toward informal segregation in retail and service sectors is occurring, as Jewish customers report being refused service. A mezuzah hanging from a rideshare mirror leads to cancellations. When Jews express frustration, they are accused of exaggeration or attempting to suppress criticism of Israel. Jewish fear is not treated as a real problem.
“Jews Are Being Sent Back into Hiding,” the title of a Dec. 15 article in the New York Free Press by David Wolpe and Deborah Lipstadt, asserts that the attacks on Jews, including physical assaults, social media campaigns and, most tragically, the recent murders in Australia, are part of a purposive campaign designed to make Jews think twice about gathering with other Jews, entering a synagogue, going to kosher restaurants, putting a mezuzah on the doorpost of their apartments or dorm rooms, or wearing a Jewish star around their necks.
“We know of no one who would consider giving a niece, nephew, grandchild, or young friend a Jewish star without first asking permission of their parents,” they write. The unspoken, and sometimes spoken, question is: “Might wearing a star endanger your child’s well-being?”
Recently, a prominent American rabbi was entering a Target store in Chicago with her grandson, whom she had picked up from his Jewish day school. As they walked into the store the 10-year-old reached up and automatically took off his kippah and put it in his pocket. Seeing his grandmother’s quizzical look, he explained: “Mommy wants me to do that.”
Borrowing a phrase from another form of bigotry, they contend that Jews are going “back into the closet.” No public celebration of Hanukkah took place in 2025 without a significant police presence. Some people chose to stay home.
Lipstadt and Wolpe know whereof they speak. They are respectively a professor of history and Holocaust studies who served as the Biden administration’s ambassador tasked with combating antisemitism, the other a rabbi who travels to Jewish communities throughout the world, and who served on Harvard’s antisemitism task force in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 pogrom.
What the world has seen over the past two years is a continual, often systematic attempt to terrorize Jews. When political leaders fail to condemn rather than merely “discourage” chants of “globalize the intifada,” we are seeding the ground for massacres like the Hannukah one in Sydney.
If each Jewish holiday will now be seen by antisemites as an opportunity for terror, then the prognosis for diaspora Jewry is bleak. There will be fewer public events, more alarms, more bag checks at doors; there will have to be more security and more police. Unless things change, Jewish life in the diaspora will become more sealed off from the larger society.
Why has this failure come about? Confronting antisemitism, stopping the mobs, challenging the activists, and disciplining antisemitic bureaucrats all carry electoral risk for politicians; Jews are demographically irrelevant, especially compared with Muslim voters, with the U.S. being the only partial exception.
There are those who suggest Jews stop donating funds to educational and other institutions that have turned against us. At this point, I doubt very much that withdrawing dollars will have an impact. For every dollar withdrawn, there will be 100 from Qatar and other sources in its place.
Throughout history, the way a society treats its Jews predicts its future with unerring accuracy. If Jews leave, it will be because a civilization that will not defend its Jews will also defend next to nothing and may itself not survive.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island
Features
Canadian Travel Trends 2025 and the Forecast for 2026
Canadians planning to travel in 2026 should keep an eye on shifting trends and learn what’s coming their way in the new year.
Canadian travel has seen a fair amount of change and instability over the last few years, thanks mostly to the country’s southern neighbours. In 2025, and likely into 2026, travel trends in the Great White North have stabilized significantly, with more Canadians than ever choosing to travel within their own borders. And with 2026 nipping at our heels, let’s take a look at what trends in 2025 have been the most prevalent and how these will shape travellers’ decisions and travel plans in the new year.
Canadian Travel in 2025
Thanks to many factors, including politics, inflation, and airline competition, the majority of travellers opted to explore their own country rather than go abroad in 2025. More local travel money is remaining within the local economy, further bolstering it and making it an even more attractive travel choice. Thanks to the accessibility of private jet charter travel across Canada, luxury local travel has increased as well, with more people looking to immerse themselves in luxury from the start of their journey to the end. When travelling abroad, the U.S. is now the least favoured destination for most Canadian travellers, but Europe saw a significant increase in interest as 2025 progressed.
As local Canadian travel increased this year, it brought with it a drive for local tourists to find their own “Secret Canada” destinations. Far more “off the beaten path” trips were taken, resulting in more travel spending going to smaller or more boutique destinations rather than big city experiences. In 2025, travellers have sought out the wonderful diversity in destinations and landscapes, allowing themselves to access more grounded and authentically Canadian experiences.
Canada’s Government has also encouraged and benefited from local tourism, with initiatives like the Canada Strong Pass offering extra benefits. Initially implemented in the summer, but reintroduced from December 12, 2025, until January 15, 2026, this is a ticket to enjoying the richness of their own culture (iconic natural destinations, museums, train trips) at a discounted rate or even in some cases free of charge.
In the second quarter of 2025, locals took a total of 90.6 million trips that included at least some time spent travelling domestically, which indicated a rise of 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. Of these trips, 58.6 million were day trip experiences (an increase of 12.4%), and 32.0 million were overnight trips or longer (an increase of 8.4%).
Between April and June of this year, Canadian residents spent $20.3 billion on local tourism, which represented a 13.5% year-over-year increase. When undertaking day trips, Canadians spent approximately $101 per visit. On overnight trips, locals spent around $449 per trip, with an average trip length of 2.6 nights. The Great White North is clearly holding its own, and then some, in the international travel market.
Canadian Travel in 2026
As we move towards 2026, many trends from 2025 will remain the standard, but some will evolve to fit changing demands. Across the board, though, the outlook for the coming year is that Canadian travel will become a far more personal thing, with trips being customized to fit travellers’ requirements and desires more closely than ever before. From choosing a hotel that they feel smacks of a beloved destination in their favourite novel, to taking a trip to a destination just to try a snack that’s famously made there and only there, travel is stretching and shifting for the traveller rather than the other way around.
Here are some slightly more specific predictions for the coming year based on the answers of polled Canadians.
- One Gen Z-led trend is the idea of “glowmad travel”. Beauty and skincare are now influencing the places that Gen Z travels, and their trips are far more likely to include visits to skincare and beauty destinations like spas and luxury stores.
- Gen Z adults are helping to drive another trend: family travel as a way to save money. 345 of Gen Z adults polled say that they would take this route.
- More than 70% of Canadians are considering some sort of mountainous getaway in 2026, specifically in summer or autumn.
- 48% of polled Canadians say they would book or consider a destination thanks to the influence of literature.
- More travellers than ever are choosing their destinations based on the accommodations available. 44% of polled travellers say that in 2026, accommodation and what it can offer comes first, and the surrounding destination comes second.
The World Is Your Nova Scotia Lobster Roll
Choose something a little different when you vacation this year. Oysters are great, but a Nova Scotia lobster roll might be more to your taste! Canadians know good travel, so take a maple leaf out of their book and experience something new this year.
Features
Fake IDs and Underage Bettors: The Growing Problem for Sportsbooks
The expansion of legalized sports betting worldwide has resulted in sportsbooks grappling with a problem that they can no longer overlook: the increase in underage individuals using counterfeit identification to place bets. As more and more ways to bet through mobile apps and online sign-ups emerge, minors who are set on their goal are inventing ways to get around age limits. The emergence of this trend is a breach of the law and morality; however, it is also an enormous problem that threatens the very existence of the platforms, which are forced to rigorously obey the regulations .
Why Fake IDs Are Becoming More Sophisticated
Conventional fakes used to be quite simple to recognize—low-quality printing, different fonts for the text, and inconsistent holograms would make them not very reliable for any kind of verification. But counterfeit documents have changed significantly over time. Nowadays, fakes are made better with the help of printing technology and software, and they can even copy barcodes and other scannable features, so their IDs look almost real.
This fact complicates things significantly for sportsbooks, especially those operating online. Most of the time, automated identity verification systems capture a user’s photo and perform basic data matching. In cases where a very good fake ID is used by a teenager who looks older, some systems cannot recognize the trick. Therefore, young bettors have found ways to be able to place wagers through these loopholes.
The Influence of Social Pressure and Online Culture
Social media is a major factor in the increase in risky behavior that minors are engaging in. On various platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit, teenagers come across betting slips, parlay wins, and big-payout screenshots that are shared, most probably, by other users. The glamorization of sports betting is leading young people to copy the behavior of influencers, older friends, or even celebrities, as they think that it is the right thing to do.
The competitiveness usually associated with sports is one of the reasons some minors decide to bet on sports. For many, betting becomes another way to engage as a fan—by predicting outcomes, challenging friends, and experiencing the same excitement that adult fans enjoy. Unfortunately, only a small number of minors fully understand the financial risks involved, making them more vulnerable to developing harmful patterns that could continue into adulthood. This is why choosing the most responsible sportsbook, which you can discover more here, is essential. Such platforms provide guidance, enforce safe practices, and ensure regulated play, allowing fans to engage with sports betting in a more informed, secure, and controlled manner.
Sportsbooks Facing Regulatory Pressure
The sportsbooks are being given the task of more closely monitoring and preventing minors from betting on their platforms. If they fail, harsh penalties are possible, including severe fines, loss of a gambling license, and negative publicity that undermines a brand’s trustworthiness. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to verify their identities, although this also inconveniences those who are, in fact, legitimate users.
Sportsbooks have to decide between two options that are in conflict with each other: on the one hand, they have to keep the registration process as simple as possible, and on the other hand, they have to carry out age verification in a very thorough manner. The work of balancing is tough, and the underage gamblers are trying all methods to find a way out.
The Rise of Identity Fraud Services
An alarming trend is the emergence of online vendors who openly advertise fake IDs and identity documents. These vendors often claim their products can pass standard sportsbook checks. Some even tailor IDs to specific regions, knowing that certain provinces, states, or countries use verification systems that rely heavily on image comparison rather than live validation.
The availability of these fraudulent services not only empowers minors but also exposes sportsbooks to risks related to stolen identities, money laundering flags, and fraudulent accounts that may later become legal liabilities.
The Consequences for Underage Bettors
While a minor might think that gambling is just a bit of fun without any harm, the outcome can be quite serious. If there is a catching, accounts are closed right away, winnings are confiscated, and parents or guardians, in some cases, are made legally liable for any financial disagreements. Besides that, the risk of developing a gambling problem in the future increases with early exposure to gambling, especially since teenagers are more impulsive and less capable of handling financial risks.
The majority of minors are not aware that sportsbooks keep very detailed records of their activities, including device information and IP addresses. In case a fake ID works one time, using it multiple times will definitely lead to getting caught.
A Growing Problem That Requires Joint Action
Fake IDs and underage betting are issues that have become a major challenge in the industry, and no single stakeholder can solve these problems on their own. Sportsbooks need to enhance their identity verifications, regulators should get prepared for new types of fraud, technology providers have to come up with new solutions more quickly, and parents should always be aware of what their children are doing online. The industry’s rapid development is making this problem more and more urgent because the number of minors trying to get around the safety measures is increasing.
Sports betting can serve as a fun and legal form of entertainment for adults, but the need to protect the youth is what defines the industry and ensures its survival in the long run. As the quality of fake IDs keeps improving and the online culture is more and more inclined to consider betting as a normal activity, sportsbooks must ensure that underage users do not have access and that the environment is safe for all users. They need to do this now more than ever.