Local News
Congregation Shir Tikvah officially dissolves
By BERNIE BELLAN In our July 24, 2019 issue we broke the news that Congregation Shir Tikvah was ceasing operations. In that issue we reported that “A Winnipeg congregation that had been holding High Holy Day services for the past 16 years is ceasing operations. In that article we wrote that, in a letter sent to congregation members dated July 12, Congregation Shir Tikvah President Sharon Bronstone stated:
Dear Members of Congregation Shir Tikvah,
On behalf of the Board of Directors and myself, it is with great sadness that we inform you of our decision not to hold High Holy Days Services this coming year.
After sixteen years in operation we can only see the writing on the wall that our numbers have been declining and at this time we don’t see a viable option to move forward.
When we started out no one thought our “little congregation” would ever amount to anything nor did anyone think Shir Tikvah would become a household name to hold Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services for sixteen years.
While closing our doors is not what we had in mind, we do want you to know how important your presence, contributions and commitment has been to all of us. To be a part of an amazing group of people devoted to helping us thrive over the years has been incredibly heartwarming to everyone who has served on the Congregation Shir Tikvah Board as well as those behind the scenes. We applaud you for sticking by us!
As a follow-up to that story we were recently contacted by Sharon Bronstone to inform us that Congregation Shir Tikvah is now officially dissolved.
Among the several artifacts that the congregation had accumulated over the years were two Torah scrolls which had been donated to the congregation by Leonard Kahane in 2015. In a story I wrote that year I gave the explanation as to how those two Torah scrolls had ended up with Shir Tikvah. That story also told how the congregation had first come about:
It’s not often that a Jewish congregation in Winnipeg is able to commemorate something as momentous as the acquisition of a new Torah scroll. If memory serves correct, the last time any congregation here was able to mark such an occasion was in May 2012, when Temple Shalom celebrated the completion of the “Penn Torah scroll”, which was the crowning achievement of scribe Irma Penn shortly before her passing that same year.
Now, a congregation about whom we don’t hear very much is also about to unveil two new recently-acquired Torah scrolls. Congregation Shir Tikvah, which is in its 13th year, will be unveiling the two Torahs at its Rosh Hashanah service on Monday, September 15.
The Torah scrolls are the gifts of Dr. Leonard Kahane, in memory of his late wife, Hope Renee, who passed away in 2006.
Recently I sat down with three individuals who were instrumental in creating Shir Tikvah congregation and who have played vital roles in keeping that congregation alive every high holiday since 2003: Sid Ritter (the former executive director of Bnay Abraham Synagogue prior to the merger of that synagogue with the Beth Israel and Rosh Pina synagogues in 2002), his wife Hinda , and Sharon Bronstone (a past president of the Beth Israel congregation).
As much as I was interested in hearing the story of the Torah scrolls, I was even more interested in knowing what has led the various individuals who have gathered together each year at the Viscount Gort Hotel (save for two years at the old Blue and Gold room in the former Winnipeg Stadium) for high holiday services to stay together.
The story, for those not familiar with it, is that at the time that three north-end Winnipeg congregations – the Beth Israel, Bnay Abraham, and Rosh Pina, decided to merge into one in 2002, not all members of those congregations were enthused with the idea of the merger. According to Bronstone, “Some of us were not happy the way it (the merger) turned out…and Sid, David (Bloomfield, also one of the original movers behind the creation of Shir Tikvah and a past president of the Beth Israel), and I started getting phone calls from others, asking ‘What are you going to do?’ “
“Nobody really wanted to start anything,” says Bronstone, “but the phone calls kept coming in and we did start something – it was a one-shot deal, in 2003” (high holidays services in the basement of the Viscount Gort Hotel on Portage Avenue).
“The first year we had 83 people – which surprised us,” she notes. “It came around that we met a second year, also at the Viscount Gort.” Since then the number of people attending Shir Tikvah’s services has continued to grow, to the point where there are anywhere from 150-180 individuals now attending annually (although one year there were over 200 people in attendance, Bronstone notes.)
(Ed. note: In my conversation with Sharon Bronstone on March 10, 2021 Sharon offered the following observations about the original formation of Congregation Shir Tikvah:
“Some of us were younger people who weren’t comfortable going to a larger synagogue.
Rabbi Green (who was the rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel at one time) had suggested, when Shir Tikvah was first formed that (to paraphrase) “You’re doing something for people who do not want to belong to a synagogue, but wanted somewhere to go for High Holiday services.”)
Arky Berkal has served as cantor from day one, while Sharon’s son Adam has served as “lay rabbi”, also from the very beginning. (Every year Adam Bronstone has come back to Winnipeg for two weeks during the high holidays, no matter where he may have been living anywhere in the world.) In recent years, Jared Trotman has also been contributing as “Ba’al Shacharit”, this year to be joined on the bimah by Avrom Charach.
As far as Torah scrolls have gone though, the congregation had been in the practice of borrowing two scrolls belonging to the Gray Academy each year. Later, when those Torahs were sent for refurbishing, Shir Tikvah was able to borrow two more Torah scrolls from the Talmud Torah-Beth Jacob congregation on Main Street. Most recently it had been borrowing two Torahs from the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue.
Bronstone notes that, even though there “were 48 Torahs” in the Etz Chayim as a result of the merger of the three congregations and that the Simkin Centre also had a surplus of Torahs, “no one wanted to give any to us.”
But, last year, explains Bronstone, while they “were breaking fast, Dr. (Leonard) Kahane said to me ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ I didn’t understand what he meant, so I said ‘I don’t think so.’”
“No, no, what I meant is ‘What are you short?’ “, Dr. Kahane continued, according to Bronstone. “Well, after Yom Tov, I called him,” she continues, and mentioned that they were short Torahs of their own, so “he made us a fantastic offer of two Torahs”.
At that point Hinda Ritter explains how Sid and Leonard Kahane went down to Florida to visit a store known as “Tradition”, whose owner specialized in the sale of Torahs “that have been reclaimed from the Holocaust”.
“The Torahs go to Israel,” Hinda adds, “where they’re vetted and fixed, and he (the owner of Tradition) gets them.” (The Torahs are kept near the Kotel, where authorized scribes are allowed to work on them, Sid Ritter explains later in the conversation.)
Sid Ritter adds: “There are two locations in the world where Holocaust Torahs are kept. One is in Jerusalem and the other location is London, England. My opinion is we ought to be getting Torahs from Jerusalem. Those Torahs are checked by an authorized scribe to make sure they are all kosher.”
(At this point I interjected, asking whether it was permissible to repair a Torah that had been severely damaged. According to Sid Ritter, it depends on the degree of damage.)
“I asked our contact in Florida whether it would be possible to obtain one Torah that came from Poland and one from Romania,” Sid continues, “because our donor’s family came from Romania.”
“After some back and forth, eventually two Torahs were found – one from Poland, and one from Romania – and that’s what we ended up with,” he says.
There was an added element to the purchase of the Torahs that entered into the equation, Sid adds: The weight of the Torahs. Theirs is an “egalitarian congregation”, he explains, and they didn’t want to acquire Torahs that would be too heavy for women to carry.
So, what are the components that go into adding to the weight of a particular Torah? Sid wondered. One obvious factor would be the weight of the scroller, or the “Etz Chayim,” as it is referred to. “It depends on whether it’s made of hardwood or softwood,” Sid explains. But, another added element is the type of ink used in creating a particular Torah. “The heavier the ink, the more massive the Torah – not so much the parchments – they’re largely the same,” he adds.
But, how do you know a Torah comes from Poland, for instance, while another comes from Romania? “It turns out that there are actually distinct styles,” Sid says, that can indicate where a Torah comes from.
I ask: “How much does a Torah go for anyway?”
Both Sharon and Sid chime in: “Lots!”
In addition to the actual scrolls, Dr. Kahane also paid for the Torah covers, which were made in Israel.
Since Congregation Shir Tikvah meets only for high holiday services, I ask where the Torahs will be kept during the rest of the year. It turns out that Sid Ritter will keep them in his own home – under conditions “that are reasonably temperature controlled”, he notes.
The ark and the podium used by Shir Tikvah were designed and built by Zvi Gitter, Sharon Bronstone says, and they’re meant to be easily disassembled. As a matter of fact, she notes, “ we have given them out when people have bar or bat mitzvahs in hotels.”
“We are, in my estimation, a real synagogue,” she adds, “because the only things we were lacking were our own Torahs”.
According to Sharon Bronstone, now that Shir Tikvah Congregation is officially dissolved, the two Torah scrolls that the congregation acquired in 2015 are to be given to the Chevra Mishnayes Congregation (about which we have a story on page 34.)
As well, Sharon adds, the ark and the podium mentioned in that 2015 story will be donated to Congregation Temple Shalom, along with the white gowns worked by the lay rabbi and cantor.
As far as the High Holiday books that had been accumulated by Shir Tikvah over the years, Sharon says, of the 160 books in the congregation’s possession, 60 have been able to find new homes in other congregations, but there are still 100 remaining to be donated. If anyone is interested in acquiring these books they are asked to contact Sharon at 204-338-5064.
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!
Local News
Celebrated University of Manitoba professors reap new accolades
By MYRON LOVE This past November, a pair of internationally renowned University of Manitoba professors received further recognition for their storied careers.
In early November, Dr. Michael Eskin, chazan, singer/songwriter and Distinguished Professor in the University of Manitoba’s Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, was inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame.
In June of 2023, he was inducted into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame. He is also a member of the Order of Canada, the Order of Manitoba and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Toward the end of the month, Dr. Haskel Greenfield, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Manitoba, co-director (with his wife, Professor Tina Greenfield) of the university’s Near Eastern and Biblical Archaeology Lab, and head of the University’s Judaic Studies program, became just the third Canadian to be invited to become a member of the prestigious Academia Europea, the Pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters and Sciences, which was founded in 1988 with the goal of “advancing and propagating excellence in scholarship in the humanities, law, the economic, social, and political sciences, mathematics, medicine, and all branches of natural and technological sciences anywhere in the world for the public benefit and for the advancement of the education of the public of all ages in the aforesaid subjects in Europe”.
Greenfield was welcomed into Academia Europea at the organization’s annual yearly conference which, this year, was held from November 26-28 at Wroclaw in Poland. He was one of close to 100 new inductees – among well over 1,000 Academia Europea members in attendance.
“There were numerous presentations for members, both old and new, talking about their research,” he reports, “ a lot of it cutting edge material.”
He is looking forward to next year’s conference – which is scheduled for Barcelona.
Greenfield joined the teaching staff at the University of Manitoba in 1989. As noted in an earlier article in the Jewish Post & News, his introduction to archeology came in 1973 when he was involved as a student at an excavation at Tel Gezer in Israel. Following this, he conducted archaeological work in the Balkans, Romania and Greece – work that was cut short when conflict broke out in the region in 1992. Subsequently, his research took him to South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Egypt and Israel,
Rather than focusing on a specific region in his studies, Greenfield noted in that previous interview, he has always pursued “the big picture” – how we have come to be who we are today from our earliest origins to growing our own food, domesticating animals, developing towns and cities and adapting new technology.
One of his special interests, he said, has been researching the beginnings of metallurgy and its effects on daily life. His other major interest is in the evolution of domestic animals and how they have changed the way in which we live and feed ourselves.
In recent years, his work has been mainly focused on archaeological sites In Turkey and Israel. From 2008 to 2017, he co-directed excavation work at and analyzed findings from Tel es Safi – in ancient times known as Gath (the Philistine city that was the home of Goliath who fought David nearby)– between Ashdod and Beth Shemesh. He has also analyzed material from other sites in Israel (such as Tel Beth Shemesh and Tel Shiloh) as well as in Turkey, where he worked on a site in west central Turkey called Catalhoyuk, a site that was first settled about 9,500 years ago.
Now that he has reached 71, he says that his days of leading excavations into the past are behind him. He is not entirely abandoning field work though. Rather, while still finishing reports from his past research, he notes that he will be providing his analytical expertise to other professionals’ excavations.
“There is still a demand for my areas of expertise,” he says.
Currently, he reports, he is analyzing material from a Hebrew University archaeological team at the famous archaeological site of Tel Beit Mirsim, which was excavated 100 years ago by the father of Biblical Archaeology, William Foxwell Albright. He is also providing assistance to a Hebrew University archaeological team helping to analyze findings from a site of the Biblical town of Shiloh, where the Ark was temporarily housed after Joshua led the people of Israel into the Promised Land.
Michael Eskin’s induction into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of fame came via Zoom in early November. As a recipient, his portrait hangs in a special gallery which can be accessed online, together with a 4-minute video.
In a congratulatory letter from Senator Robert Black, Chair of the Senate committee on Agriculture and Forestry, the senator commented on Eskin’s pioneering research on canola oil and its impact on Canada’s agricultural industry and the health of consumers. Black noted, “Your work has not only improved the quality and stability of canola oil, but also expanded its market on an international scale.
“Your efforts in establishing canola oil as a heart-healthy addition to the Canadian diet have had far reaching benefits for producers, the economy and consumers.”
Black furthered praised Eskin for his role in mentoring the next generation of researchers and industry leaders.
During the course of his career, Eskin has published 19 books, over 250 research articles, book chapters, monographs and abstracts.
In an earlier interview, Eskin – who also served our Jewish community as a chazan for many years, quoted his late mother-in-law as saying that “you should never retire.” She was right, Eskin observed. “If I had retired at 65, I am not sure if I would have accomplished all that I have.”
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