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At Limmud: New University of Manitoba president Michael Benarroch speaks of the challenges presented by stepping into his role in midst of a pandemic
By BERNIE BELLAN While there were a great many interesting speakers at this year’s Limmud, the one speaker to whom I was looking most forward to hearing was Michael Benarroch, the new president of the University of Manitoba.
Since returning to Winnipeg last summer after having served as the provost and vice-president of Ryerson University in Toronto since the fall of 2017, Benarroch was thrust headlong into having to take over his position in the midst of a pandemic.
Naturally, there haven’t been many opportunities to see and hear Benarroch, nor to interview him since he returned to Winnipeg, so his appearing at Limmud allowed Limmud participants the chance to hear directly from a man whose career has seen him move steadily up the academic administration ladder in the past 30 years.
At times wistful – in speaking of his family’s having come here from Morocco, at other times contemplative, in discussing how important it is to include Indigenous students and faculty in reshaping the U of M, Benarroch told a story – of how he’s arrived at his present situation in life and what his goals are looking forward.
“My parents never had the opportunity to go to university,” Benarroch explained at the outset of his presentation.
“My family came to Winnipeg (from Morocco) because my mother’s brother was in Winnipeg. My father was a teacher, but when he came to Winnipeg he found a job as a shochet,” Benarroch said.
It was while he was an undergrad at the University of Winnipeg that Benarroch said he developed a “passion for economics”. He later went on to acquire a PhD in Economics from Carleton University – in 1992.
Upon completing his PhD Benarroch returned to the University of Winnipeg. At the time, he explained during his presentation, Lloyd Axworthy was President of the University of Winnipeg and Axworthy asked Benarroch whether the university should have a business school?
“I designed a vision,” Benarroch said, and eventually he became dean of the new Faculty of Business and Economics.
After 19 years at the U of W, Benarroch said he “interviewed for Dean at the Asper School of Business” at the University of Manitoba, which he became in 2011.
“The University of Manitoba is one of 50 research intensive universities in Canada,” Benarroch noted – something that was to prove a factor in his wanting to return here this past year.
In 2017, Benarroch became Provost and Vice-President Academic at Ryerson University.
For Benarroch, Ryerson was a good fit, he explained, because “it had a real focus on community engagement and entrepreneurship.”
As for moving to Toronto, Benarroch admitted that he and his wife, Kim (Bailey), “missed Winnipeg a lot – especially Kim.” Still, by the time they left Toronto this past summer, both their sons (Keenan and Aden) had also moved to Toronto, so returning to Winnipeg was a bit of a mixed blessing for Michael and Kim.
The story how Benarroch came to be president of the University of Manitoba is an interesting one.
When he applied for the position – in 2019, “I didn’t even tell my family I was applying,” he said. And, when he came to Winnipeg to interview for the position, he didn’t even tell his brothers he was here. (Al Benarroch is Executive Director of Jewish Child and Family Service, while Yosef Benarroch is Rabbi of the Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Congregation, although he also lives part of the year in Israel – during normal times. A fourth brother, Yamin, who is also a rabbi, lives in Vancouver).
Ultimately, Benarroch “was offered the position of president (of the U of M) in 2019,” he said, “then Covid hit and turned everything topsy turvy.”
At that point, the host of this particular Limmud session, Faye Rosenberg Cohen, asked Benarroch: “Did you plan out the career part?”
Benarroch responded: “I knew the presidency at the University of Manitoba was coming up. I kept my eye on it, but I thought that (moving to Toronto) was going to be my last move.
“There had to be a good reason for me to move from one institution to another.
“During my time at the Asper School I thought though that I really meshed well with the atmosphere at the University of Manitoba.”
As for Ryerson, Benarroch noted that the school began as a polytechnic institute and it still carries a very large imprint as a technical training school even though it is now a university.
“Ninety-five percent of the students have an experiential background – serving in apprenticeships” and work programs, while attending classes, Benarroch explained.
Part of Benarroch’s mandate while he was at Ryerson, he noted, was to “rebuild the faculty.”
“We went from 700 to over 900 in the three years I was there,” Benarroch stated.
“We hired quite a few younger academics who brought a lot of energy with them,” he added.
Another major change that Benarroch said he helped to foster was a concerted effort to hire more Indigenous instructors.
“When I arrived there were only six Indigenous professors at Ryerson,” he observed.
“Working with students and elders we launched a reconciliation process. We made Ryerson a place where Indigenous people would feel welcome,” including by “hiring 20 new Indigenous staff,” Benarroch said.
“We also brought in a fair bit of scholarship money for Indigenous students,” he added.
Yet, when the opportunity to take over as president of the University of Manitoba presented itself, Benarroch noted, that despite his having fit in well at Ryerson, he said that “you never want to leave a job, but if I hadn’t taken that opportunity I don’t think it would have come up again.”
Rosenberg Cohen asked Benarroch “How has being a religious Jew worked for you, first as a professor, then as an administrator?”
Benarroch replied: “As a prof, it was great. As an observant Jew I was always able to schedule my time so as to be able to observe Shabbat.”
Benarroch mentioned that one of the two sabbatical years he took as a professor was at the University of Haifa, which was of particular significance for him – being able to spend the year in Israel.
However, upon becoming an administrator, Benarroch suggested, “my schedule was not mine as much as it was in the past…At Ryerson, the president was an observant Muslim, so I always I had to make sure I was on campus on Fridays while he was attending prayers.”
Further, Benarroch noted, while the advent of Zoom during the pandemic has certainly enabled teaching and meetings to carry on, Zoom has, in fact, “made it harder to remain Shabbat observant.”
Prior to the pandemic, he explained, if he had a meeting or conference to attend – even on a Shabbat, “I would be staying in a hotel and I could attend a meeting – without taking any notes.”
Now, it’s impossible to participate in a Zoom session during Shabbat, he said – and since the workday seems to have expanded to include almost any hour of the day, Benarroch admitted that, as much as technology has allowed meetings to be held relatively easily, it has presented problems for him having to decide between his obligations as a university president and his religious observance.
As for some of the other more noticeable effects that the pandemic has had on his role as president at the U of M, Benarroch said: “I have four staff members in my office; I’ve seen one of them in person.”
Benarroch told the Limmud audience that, prior to assuming his new role, he read a book offering advice on “how to be a university president”.
(Rosenberg Cohen asked the question that was probably on everyone else’s minds at that point: Are there enough people in the world who would be in the position that they were interested in becoming a university president that it would be worth it to write a book about that subject?)
In any event, Benarroch said that this particular book did offer two really good pieces of advice:
1. Don’t make a major decision during your first six months in the new position;
and 2. Go out and meet as many people as you can off the bat.
(Obviously, the second piece of advice was thrown out the window when Benarroch returned to Winnipeg during the pandemic.)
In terms of how the pandemic will change the way university courses are taught even following the pandemic, Benarroch suggested that what is likely to occur is that professors will teach classes where some students attend in person while other students will take those same classes online.
“We’re also looking to have classes for Indigenous students up north” offered online, following on the success of Zoom teaching during the pandemic, he suggested.
While “there has been a lot of resistance to teaching online among academics,” Benarroch admitted, “students have been adapting.”
With reference to how many students are actually enrolled at the university this academic year, Benarroch observed that, while there are “fewer first year students at the University of Manitoba, there have been more students return for second, third, and fourth year” than in previous years.
“Enrolment is definitely up,” Benarroch said, “and we expect to see the majority of students return again in the fall.”
Rosenberg Cohen asked: “If I were a parent, thinking of spending money to send my child to a university somewhere, why would I spend all that money when they can take their classes online?”
Benarroch’s response was that, while virtual classes will certainly be a major part of whatever format universities eventually evolve into becoming, there is going to be a greater emphasis on “more participation, more research, more experiential. There are going to be more opportunities outside the classroom”, but they are going to be in person, not online.
As an example, Benarroch said he’s planning on creating a “student start-up zone”, in which students will start their own businesses.”
“It’s better to fail at a business when you’re 23 than when you’re 55,” Benarroch observed.
Rosenberg Cohen asked: “What are your hopes and dreams?”
Benarroch said, “Here at the University of Manitoba we have a tremendous testing capacity. Winnipeg could become a testing centre for vaccines,” for instance he suggested.
Continuing on the thread of what his hopes and dreams are, Benarroch said: “I’d like to see the University of Manitoba become a global leader in certain areas.
“I’d like to see the university become a racist-free zone.” (He noted that the previous president of the U of M, David Barnard, “had launched a task force on Equality, Diversity, and Integration.)
“We know we can’t stamp out racism, on campus,” Benarroch observed. “The question is how to deal with it.”
Someone in the Zoom audience wondered how one can maintain a balance between stamping out racism while still allowing free speech?
“We’re still a university. We are going to have debate and disagreement,” Benarroch said in response.
Someone else wondered “How does the university compensate for lab work that can’t get done?
Benarroch answered that “We allow 20 percent capacity in some spaces…We’ve also developed a way to hold some of the labs virtually.”
As well, Benarroch said that, for ten days in January, students in the Faculties of Nursing, Science, Architecture, Engineering, and Agriculture, were allowed back on to campus” to conduct lab work – under strict Covid protocols.
I asked a question along these lines (although the names of questioners were not given): Professors are having to spend more time than ever before finding funding for their programs. With the emphasis on practical, results-oriented programs, where will that leave programs that don’t necessarily have practical applications? (My question was not worded precisely that way, but it was along those general lines.)
Benarroch’s response was that “the university brings in just under $200 million a year in research money – the vast majority of which comes from the federal government.”
He added that he has two goals as far as where the money for research goes: to allow students who were doing research prior to Covid to continue doing that work; and to obtain additional money to keep university labs running.
Benarroch also noted that there is now a “massive reinvestment in science in the US. We have to remain competitive in how we pay faculty and how we keep up our labs.”
It seems quite evident, therefore, that Michael Benarroch is going to be preoccupied with finding ever new sources of funding for the university, while trying to retain whatever sources have been in place until now.
It seemed fitting, therefore, that one of his final observations was that “one of my mandates as president is to speak to government”.
Still, lost in all the discussion about funding and research was any reference to the less practical aspects of a university education. Of course, that’s a subject that’s been debated for a very long time. I just wonder where faculties such as Arts are going to end up with the even greater emphasis on “research” oriented programs.
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Karina Gould – vying to be next leader of the Federal Liberals, has a Jewish father – and her parents met on a kibbutz!
By BERNIE BELLAN In January 2018 I conducted an interview with the late Jim Carr who, at the time, was Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources. I asked Carr whether there were any other Jewish members of the Cabinet?
Carr said that Karina Gould, who was the Minister of Democratic Institutions in 2018, had a Jewish father. I didn’t know much about Gould back then, beyond recognizing her name, but the recent announcement that she has decided to enter the Liberal leadership race might be of particular interest to Jewish readers.
Gould has held a number of portfolios within the Trudeau government, most recently as House leader.
Now 35, while Gould’s entry into the Liberal leadership race would be considered something of a long shot, her relative youth – along with her experience (she has been a Member of Parliament since 2015), might make her a plausible alternative to the two more prominent candidates in the race: Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney.
With Gould’s decision to enter the race to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader, I thought it might be interesting to explore her Jewish roots.
In a 2021 article on the CJN website, the following was written about Karina Gould:
Gould, the member for Burlington, was first elected in 2015. She has previously served as Minister of International Development and Minister of Democratic Institutions.
Jewish on her father’s side, Gould told The CJN in 2015 that while she’s not “an active practitioner of Judaism,” she maintains her heritage through celebrating Hanukkah, Purim, and Yom Kippur.
Her paternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia. Her grandfather was deported to Theresienstadt, then to Dachau and Auschwitz. Separated during the war, her paternal grandparents were reunited afterward.
Her father met her mother, who is from Germany, while both were in Israel volunteering on Kibbutz Naot, where the sandals are made.
Gould visited Israel on a Birthright trip and stayed longer for a personal visit. “Israel is a beautiful country,” she said. “It’s unique in the world. It has difficult challenges.”
She said she believes her family heritage plays a big role in shaping her political values.
“My family was accepted and welcomed into Canada after a difficult experience,” she said. “Canadian values of tolerance and diversity were not just important for my family, but for others. Canada provided the opportunity to grow and to thrive.”
Gould was front and centre during the 2019 visit to Canada of then Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
She noted to Rivlin that since the free trade agreement between Canada and Israel was signed in 1997, the value of two-way trade had tripled, to $1.9 billion.
And under the Canada-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation, the two countries have funded close to 60 projects over the last dozen years, she added.
Ties between Canada and Israel “are long, deep and mutually beneficial,” she said.
Local News
Multi-talented Kelly Robinson continues to shine both on stage and behind the scenes
By MYRON LOVE For regular readers of my articles in The Jewish Post & News over the years, Kelly Robinson’s name is most likely associated with the growing number of students she has taught who who have stood out from year to year at the annual Winnipeg Music Festival in March.
“I teach voice lessons,” says Robinson. “I’m grateful to have such a full studio — over 50 students each week — and it’s delightful to see each student progress and grow their confidence and ability. Many of my former (and some current) students perform professionally themselves. It’s lovely to see.”
The teacher, moreoverr, is also a performer on local stages and behind the scenes. In recent years, she has appeared on stage in performances with the Manitoba Opera Chorus and the Manitoba Underground Opera, Rainbow Stage, Little Opera Company, Dry Cold Productions, and the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. In August, she notes, she sang the role of “Mother” in the opera “Hansel and Gretel” with Manitoba Underground Opera at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Most recently, she was Music Director for the Manitoba Theatre for Young Peoples “A Year With Frog and Toad” in December.
Currently, she reports, in a real tour de force, she in playing a role on the production team in the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s new production of the musical version of the movie “Waitress” (which starts January 7 and runs until February 1) behind the scenes and she will also be appearing on stage. “I am the Assistant Music Director,” she says. “I worked on the music with the singers in rehearsal to help everyone to sound their best. I played the piano for rehearsals. I am playing keyboard in the orchestra for all of the performances.”
In addition, the “Waitress” band is on stage, interacting with the cast. “That should be a lot of fun,” she comments.
For the daughter of Terry and Freda, a musical career was not on her radar growing up largely in River Heights. The graduate of the Hebrew bilingual program at Sir William Osler School (which lately was transferred to Brock Corydon School) told Winnipeg Fee Press opera reviewer Holly Harris in an interview that appeared The Jewish Post & News in 2017 that her original career goal was to become a dentist.
She was introduced to musical theatre by her drama teacher at Grant Park High School, who encouraged her to audition for that year’s production of “All About Cats”. To her surprise, she was cast in a lead role.
Despite this early introduction to the world of musical theatre, Robinson was still largely fixated on a career in the sciences.
In university, she pursued a four-year degree in microbiology at the University of Manitoba – and excelled. Toward the end of her science program, she recounted to Holly Harris and, despite being awarded full academic scholarships and the prospect of her own prestigious research lab, Robinson realized that her true love was music. She changed course and auditioned for the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Music.
She did earn her B.Sc. – but she also completed a music degree with a major in Classical Voice Performance and a minor in Composition.
“It was really neat,” she told Harris – about composing music for a string quartet. “Hearing it performed was inspiring. I realized that, in music, there were endless possibilities.”
She furthered her musical education with studies in contemporary vocal styles through Boston’s Berklee College of Music. (Coincidentally, her husband, Josh Eskin, whom she met while both were teaching at a St. Boniface music school, studied guitar at that same institution.)
As a singer, Kelly Robinson has demonstrated a remarkable versatility. In addition to opera and musical theatre, she has done Gilbert and Sullivan – winning the Winnipeg Music Festival’s Gilbert and Sullivan Society Trophy in 2002, a tribute to her Zaida, Harold King. She has fond memories of him singing songs from Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” to her when she was young.
Outside of music, Robinson enjoys crocheting, making jewelry, reading and spending time with Josh and their children – 15-year-old Juliet – also a Winnipeg Music Festival winner – and 11-year-old Dylan.
She is also the High Holy Day Choir Director at Congregation Etz Chayim.
After “Waitress”, Robinson reports, her next project will be serving as Music Director for Dry Cold’s production of “Dogfight,” scheduled for April. The musical – based on the 1991 film of the same name – revolves around another waitress and her encounter with three GIs about to be shipped out to Vietnam in the early days of the war – and the day before the assassination of President Kennedy.
According to the blurb from the theatre company, “ ‘Dogfight’ deals frankly with serious and important subjects that are still relevant in our fractious times of political instability, cyber bullying & intolerance of others”.
It sounds like another winner from the local musical theatre company that focuses on premiering the latest new musicals.
Local News
Beloved Chazan Sol Fink celebrates 100th birthday
By MYRON LOVE On December 24, Sol Fink, who both as shoichet and chazan served our community for many years, celebrated his 100thbirthday. In keeping with his low key approach to life, Fink commemorated the occasion only with those closest to him – his wife, Rachel, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as his last remaining sibling, Ruth Zimmer.
Sol Fink is a man who is infused with a sense of gratitude for his long life, his family and Canada – his adopted home which welcomed him, his three sisters and his parents after their experiences in the Holocaust.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Fink and his sisters is that he is now the third of the siblings to have turned 100. His older sisters, Sally Singer and Ann Novak, had previously passed the 100-year milestone – and Ruth is not far behind.
The four Fink siblings were the world’s oldest siblings to have survived the Holocaust.
The Fink family was among the lucky ones – although they wouldn’t have considered themselves “lucky” that day in 1940 when they, along with other Polish Jews who had moved to the Russian-controlled eastern half of Poland (as compared to those who were already living in the area) were forced by the Russians into rail cars and shipped off to Siberia.
The Fink siblings. the children of Shaindel and Zecharia Fink, grew up in the town of Sanok in southeastern Poland, where Zecharia Fink worked as a kosher butcher. In the early days of the Nazi invasion the family relocated across the San River to Shaindel’s parents’ home.
Sol and his sisters did have a younger brother, Eli. Sadly, when the rest of the family wasa about to board the train, the little boy ran back to stay with his grandparents. He perished in the Holocaust, along with 80 other members of the family.
Three years ago, Sol’s niece, Carol Sevitt, published a story in the Canadian Jewish News chronicling the siblings’ life’s journey. A year later, Anne’s son, filmmaker Allan Novak, created a documentary which was shown at the Berney Theatre – among other venues in North America and Poland.
The family spent a year in a prison camp in Siberia. After the Nazis attacked Russia the Fink family was freed, but had to remain in Siberia for the duration of the war. After the war the family ended up in Germany. `
“We had an aunt and uncle, Clara and Jack Linhart, who were living in Winnipeg and they brought us here,” Sol Fink says.
That was in 1948.
Fink’s first job in Winnipeg was working for a construction company putting down hardwood flooring – an occupation suited to his ability to fix anything. In Siberia, he had been a blacksmith.
What he remembers about this first job was sitting on the roof of the housing he happened to be working on, savouring a big bun stuffed with perogies, which he would wash down with a quart of chocolate milk. He spent every second of that precious half hour enjoying the luscious foods he had been denied for six years in Siberia.
“We were always hungry in Siberia,” he recalls. “To this day, I still love the taste of bread.”
After a short stint in construction, Fink took his handyman skills to work for Adelman Furniture (which later became Penthouse Furniture). “I was doing repairs and servicing,” Fink remembers. “I was given a company truck to drive and went all over the city.”
In the mid-1950s, Fink went into business with his brother-in-law, Morris Singer. They purchased a corner grocery called Lloyd’s on Sargent and Langside. Later, they operated a store on Inkster and McPhilips.
It was while operating Lloyd’s Grocery that Sol Fink was introduced to the love of his life. “George Rubenfeld had come to work for us,” Fink recalls. “One day, he tells me that his sister is arriving from France. He said that she was beautiful and brilliant and wanted me to meet her. He invited me to Shabbat supper with the family.”
Fink was smitten with Rachel Rubenfeld. After a short courtship, he proposed to her one evening at St. John’s Park. She said that she couldn’t marry him because she had to look after her parents. His response – “we will look after them together.”
He was true to his word. After his father-in-law passed away in 1971, his mother-in-law came to live with Sol and Rachel and spent the last 22 years of her life with them.
He was equally solicitous of his own parents.
It was only after retiring in 1985 that Sol Fink began his second career as a chazan, Torah reader and shoichet. In an earlier interview with The Post, five years ago, Fink said that he became a chazan “out of necessity”.
“The chazan at the Bnay Abraham Synagogue had just quit,” he recounted. Rabbi Weizman and the president asked me if I could come to shul on Shabbats to help out.”
When, shortly after, they asked him to lead Yom Tov services, he remembers being unsure whether he could do it. “I went to ask my uncle, Moshe Langsan, his opinion. He knew the niggunim. He listened to my davening and encouraged me to take up the challenge.”
Rabbi Weizman also encouraged his new chazan to become the Torah reader for the Shul.
Around the same time, the community’s shoichet quit and moved to Toronto. “My brother-in-law, Morris, suggested to the rabbi that I might be a suitable replacement,” Fink recalled. “In the grocery store, we sold a lot of meat.”
Fink remembered being really disturbed by the scene at the slaughterhouse the first time that he went with Rabbi Weizman. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to go back.
“Rabbi Weizman encouraged me to come back with him and help out,” he says. “After three or four days, I was used to it.”
Fink and his partner, the late Shlomo Benarroch, worked as the community’s shoichetim for 20 years – usually going out one day a week to the slaughterhouse in Carman– until the community stopped schechitah about 20 years ago.
After the Bnay Abraham merged with two other Conservative congregations (the Beth Israel and the Rosh Pina) in north Winnipeg in 2002, Fink moved to the Chavurat Tefila. For a number of years, he led Yom Tov and Shabbat services and was one of the regular Torah readers on Shabbat at the small congregation. About fourteen years ago, he and Rachel sold their north Winnipeg home and moved into a condo in south Winnipeg. Despite living south, he continued to lead Yom Tov services at the Chavurat Tefila. (Over Yom Tov, he and Rachel used to stay with his sisters (whom he always called “the maidlach”) who lived nearby.
The last Yom Tov service that he led at the north end shul was just six years ago when – at the age of 93 – he had the pleasure of leading the services with his grandson, Avi Fink-Posen.
When leading services, Sol Fink always tried to daven with kavanah. “I was always aware that I was praying to Hashem for the congregation and the Jewish People as a whole,” he says.
As a father and grandfather, if you ask Sol’s children or grandchildren their opinion of him, they will tell you that he is the most loving, positive, caring, honest and hard-working person they know. What you see is what you get.
At the age of 100, Sol Fink is still hale and hearty and he and Rachel still look much younger than they are. Up until a couple of years ago, Fink was still swimming every day at the Rady JCC. Fink looks at least 20 years younger than he is. He and Rachel still keep fit exercising daily at home and Rachel makes sure they eat healthily. And he still puts on tefillin and davens every morning.
As the saying goes – may they both live to 120!
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