By MYRON LOVE Somewhere in the back of my mind, I dimly recall the maxim that it is preferable to be one who honours chase rather than he – or she – who chases after honours. The former is an apt description of both Michael Eskin and Ava Kobrinsky, two of the 2021 class of inductees into the Order of Manitoba.

By IRENA KARSHENBAUM What people have known for centuries - that good nutrition is positively correlated to good mental health has, in the last 60 years, been largely abandoned as a precept within Western society. Instead, it’s become standard belief that mental illness can only be helped through prescription medication.

By MYRON LOVE Seven years ago Jonathan Steinfeld rediscovered the pleasure of traditional wet shaving – an experience that he is successfully sharing with a growing number of satisfied customers who have logged onto his Stone Field Shaving Company website.

By GERRY POSNER One clear objective of a chiropractor is to improve flexibility. Well, Martin Gurvey has taken that concept well beyond his career and applied it to his own life. He had to be flexible to make the kind of major life change that he and his wife Brenda undertook in 2011, when he left his practice, friends, activities and history to move from Winnipeg to Toronto.

Editor's Introduction: Adina Horwich is a former Canadian (from Montreal) who's been living in Israel for over 46 years. When the most recent war started Adina began writing about her own experiences during the war. She will be continuing to provide updates now that the war is over - and as Israelis benefit from having their country open up as Covid restrictions have been removed.

By ADINA HORWICH 

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021

Another day of free entertainment for the Israeli public, thanks to its numerous wannabe leaders.

The Jerusalem Cinematheque - Israel Film Archive recently launched an innovative website featuring Israeli cinema through its generations. The new website provides a unique opportunity to browse through Israel’s visual history as documented in newsreels, home movies, and rare films from the late 19th century till the present day and the first ever virtual map enabling visitors from all over the world to locate films from Israel and the Jewish people, either by year or landmark on an interactive map, including 7000 topics, 4000 public figures, and more. The platform is accessible and free of charge in both Hebrew and English.

By PHIL SPEVACK

Back Ground
In 1948, one day after Britain gave up its mandate for Palestine and allowed the UN partition the Jewish State renamed Israel, the surrounding Arab countries attacked.

Egypt took the Gaza Strip.

Syria periodically rained bombs from the Golan Heights on the Jewish farms, Kibbutzim, below.

We received the following release from The Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame: The Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame is pleased to announce its Class of 2021.
In the team category four Raiders teams from JWC in the 1980s are to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Those varsity boys’ teams were 1982-83, 1983-84, 1985-86 & 1988-89, MHSAA Provincial ‘A’ Champions.

By BERNIE BELLAN In what must have come as a shock, not only for members of Shaarey Zedek Congregation, but for most of Winnipeg’s Jewish community as well, Gary Hyman, President of Shaarey Zedek Congre-gation, announced on April 27 that Rabbi Matthew Leibl will not be renewing his contract when it expires at the end of June this year.

By BERNIE BELLAN After a summer in 2020 that saw our two Jewish sleepover camps have to cancel all overnight stays for campers, this summer, our community’s camps are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
While some children may be unable to attend camp with their friends – which undoubtedly comes as a huge disappointment once again, this year both camps had prepared contingency plans quite some ago in anticipation of the possibility of not being allowed to have regular overnight camps.

By BERNIE BELLAN  For hundreds of Winnipeg Jews – both current and former, the name Norman Stein conjures up a multitude of memories.
For many of us, “Mr. Stein” was a teacher in the Jewish day school system during the 1950s and 60s who not only taught Hebrew subjects, he was also truly a Renaissance man with an extraordinarily broad knowledge of literature, art, films, and music.

By REBECA KUROPATWA Ukraine-born, Israeli-raised Eira Shoichet is working to shed light on body care products, and help explain that mainstream body care products may not be good, either for their users or the environment.

By BERNIE BELLAN Back in the fall – when our brief dalliance with the relatively loose Covid restrictions that had been in place over the summer started to come to an end, Kayla Gordon found herself with time on her hands.
Now, for anyone who knows Kayla, she’s constantly buzzing with ideas – whether it’s to create a new theatre project or, as has been more recently the case, to take her camera out somewhere and start taking photos.

By IRENA KARSHENBAUM Looking back, I can’t believe it’s been 12 years since The Little Synagogue came to Calgary’s Heritage Park Historical Village, the largest living history museum in Canada. It feels like another life.
I remember lying in bed at night, dreaming about this project, how I was going to put a synagogue in Heritage Park. Everything seemed so far into the future.

By JAMIE MICHAELS Ed. note: This article was sent to us before the latest round of coalition-forming attempts. In the pulsating balagan that is Israeli democracy, it can be difficult to pay attention to small details. At the time of writing, King Netanyahu—Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister—is attempting to cobble together an unstable coalition government. If he is able to do so his success will likely be short-lived.

We received the following email from Morgan VanDam: My name is Morgan Van Dam (formerly Micay), I’m living in Calgary, AB but am originally from Winnipeg, MB. I wrote and illustrated “Pandemic Baby” as a fun momento for my son but quickly realized that my sister and many friends are going through the same motions of being a new parent in a pandemic. Like me, they are looking for a moment of levity in an otherwise difficult time.

The following is taken from B’nai Brith Canada’s most recent audit of antisemitic incidents in Canada, which was released April 26:
On average, more than seven antisemitic incidents occurred per day in Canada in 2020.
This is one of several disturbing facts revealed in the 2020 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, released today. The Audit is produced by B’nai Brith Canada’s advocacy arm, the League for Human Rights.

 

By MYRON LOVE In 1993, then University of Manitoba physics student Melanie Schachter had the honour of being one of just two Canadian students chosen by an organization called the Youth Science Foundation to represent our country at the Nobel Prize ceremonies and the 18th annual Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar that year. 

In an online induction ceremony held April 29, Dr. Harvey Chochinov was one of six new inductees into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
Following is information taken from the CMHF website: "Six Canadian medical heroes are inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame each year. Their work may be a single outstanding contribution or a lifetime of meritorious achievement. Pioneers in their field, they are role models of excellence in the health field, in Canada and around the world."

By MYRON LOVE In the (Saturday) April 17 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press, the Manitoba Medical Service Foundation (MMSF) took out a half page ad to highlight the organization’s 2021 grant recipients. Among the 12 researchers approved for grants this year were two members of our Jewish community – Drs. Aleeza Gerstein and Zach Raizman.

 

By BERNIE BELLAN Four young Jewish women, three of whom are from Winnipeg, one from Toronto, have joined forces to produce a “zine” aimed at a Jewish audience, titled “SIMCHA Zine”.

The four are: Erin Meagan Schwartz, Adi Farage, (both of whom live in Winnipeg), Sophie Hershfield, (who is from Winnipeg, but currently living in Toronto), and Liesje Rolia (who is a Torontonian - and who is the graphic designer for the zine.

By BERNIE BELLAN Elsewhere on this website you can read an article by Gerry Posner about all the Jewish psychiatrists who have come from Manitoba (http://jewishpostandnews.ca/8-features/785-what-s-with-the-jews-of-winnipeg-and-psychiatry). In his column, however, Gerry explained that, for reasons of brevity, he did not include the names of Jewish women psychiatrists. Their names were actually given in Eva Wiseman’s book, “Healing Lives - A Century of Manitoba Jewish Physicians”.

By GERRY POSNER It was not hard for me to jump on the Harry Prosen bandwagon for at least three reasons:
First, his last name is so very close to mine that I felt a kind of a brotherly connection to him. After all, Prosen and Posner have the same letters, just rearranged.
Second, Harry Prosen is likely the oldest Jewish graduate of the University of Manitoba Medical school still working in the area of psychiatry . He will be 91 in June and still counting.
Third, Prosen has serious credentials.

By BERNIE BELLAN When we saw the announcement in our print edition by the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg that the Combined Jewish Appeal’s final tally for 2020 was $6,439,994, we were pleasantly surprised. After all, no one needs to be reminded how difficult a year 2020 had been for most people. So, we decided to ask Rebecca Brask, who is Chief Development Officer at the Federation, if she could answer some questions about last year’s campaign.

By MYRON LOVE Lissie Rappaport is playing a leadership role in the campaign to end homelessness in our community. The daughter of Lynn and Alan Rappaport – and granddaughter of Rabbi Sholom and Elaine Rappaport (oleh hasholem) is currently the Manager of Housing Supply at End Homelessness Winnipeg, a position that she has held for more than two years.

(San Francisco, CA) — The INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARDS recognized Prairie Sonata by Sandy Shefrin Rabin as the winner in the category of Best Young Adult Fiction.
The competition is judged by experts from different aspects of the book industry, including publishers, writers, editors, book cover designers and professional copywriters. Selected award winners anddistinguished favorites are based on overall excellence.

By BERNIE BELLAN The Covid pandemic has often led to the convergence of several wacky conspiracy theories into one larger massive conspiracy theory, promulgated by right wing conspiracy theorists. As I noted in another article elsewhere on this site (http://jewishpostandnews.ca/local/798-notorious-anti-masker-and-holocaust-denier-slated-to-speak-at-teh-forks-on-sunday), I had been alerted by a caller to the dangerous conspiracy theories being promulgated by a notorious anti-vaxxer (and virulent antisemite) who goes by the name of "Chris Sky".