Local News
Danielle Tabacznik is the Senior Concierge for the Winnipeg Jewish Community
By BERNIE BELLAN
When we last checked in with Danielle Tabacznik, she had just recently moved to Winnipeg in late 2016 to begin working as the program director at the Gwen Secter Centre.
At the time we reported that Danielle told us that the she had “a background in social work – in health…specifically working with older adults.” (Danielle noted at that time that she had a Bachelors in Social Work.)
“I used to work in ‘Circle of Care’, which is part of the Sinai Health System in Toronto,” Danielle added, “and when I worked there I worked specifically with Holocaust survivors. I’ve also worked with seniors – not necessarily Jewish seniors, as program facilitator in a personal care home.”
Although Danielle stayed in her position at Gwen Secter for only a little more than a year (to be succeeded by current program director Dan Saidman), while she was there, working in conjunction with the new executive director, Becky Chisick, the two women managed to create an expanded variety of programming for seniors that had seen the centre’s weekly program schedule packed with something for just about anyone every weekday.
In October 2018, however, Danielle returned to university to take her Masters degree in Social Work, which, she now tells us, she has completed, and would hope to receive in person (although that doesn’t look very likely) at this fall’s University of Manitoba convocation.
With such an impressive resumé – and especially with her extensive experience working with Jewish seniors, it seemed a natural fit for Danielle to become the first “Senior Concierge” for the Winnipeg Jewish community. Created by the Jewish Federation’s sub-committee on aging and jointly implemented by Jewish Federation and Jewish Child & Family Service, it is a position she has been in since the end of April.
While the term “concierge” is most commonly associated with someone working in a hotel who can arrange things such as making restaurant reservations, booking transportation, arranging porter services, and so on, the duties of a concierge don’t have to be limited to someone working in a hotel.
Thus, with the situation in which so many seniors now find themselves: more isolated than ever – and dependent upon others to provide services, such as grocery shopping, transportation to doctors’ appointments, and other such activities that they might have been able to arrange themselves pre-pandemic, JCFS saw the need for a person who could serve as a facilitator for those types of things on a regular basis – and Danielle was in a perfect position to fill that role, now that she had completed her Masters work.
Recently, Danielle and I had a phone conversation, during which I asked her to describe how she would describe her role as Senior Concierge at JCFS.
Danielle said: “I’ll be reaching out to seniors in the Jewish community who may or may not be isolated and who may not be connected to services. I’ll be checking in with them to make sure they’re doing okay…to see whether they do need referrals to services. I’ll also be asking them whether they’re feeling isolated, what programs or services might help them.”
As well, Danielle continued, she’s started some programs on her own since taking on the role of Concierge, which are specifically designed to lessen the isolation in which so many seniors find themselves as a result of the pandemic.
“Right now I’ve got the ‘Coffee Talk’ program, which is meant for people who are feeling disconnected from other people,” she gave as an example. “It’s just a chance for people to get together – over the phone” (and not through something like Zoom on a computer, which Danielle noted, is not something that every senior is comfortable in using).
Up to five people at a time are brought together for conversation over the phone, Danielle explained.
“I intentionally keep it small so that people can really have a chance to have a good conversation – to really get to know each other.
“I modeled it after how people used to get together at a shopping centre or a Tim Horton’s – over coffee. This is an alternative to that.”
I asked whether she repeats this type of “party line” with the same five people each time.
“Yes,” she said, “we do it every Friday morning. People can join in if they want. If they’re not able to, we say to them: ‘Okay, we’ll see you next week.’ ”
Danielle added that she’ll likely be expanding the “Coffee Talk” program to more than once a week because “it has proved quite popular” and, as the weather gets colder, there is going to be an even greater need for this kind of connection among isolated individuals.
I asked whether the individuals whom Danielle is contacting in her role as Concierge are JCFS clients already?
“Some are, but not necessarily,” she answered. “I’m reaching out to seniors in the Jewish community regardless how connected they might be. They might be synagogue members, for instance, but they might also be individuals who don’t have any affiliation to the Jewish community at all.
“I’m just making sure that their needs are being met, that they have what they need – and if they don’t, I can help refer them to services.”
Danielle admitted that the task can be daunting – trying to keep tabs on so many different people.
“I’m busy; I won’t deny that,” she said, “but it’s a good busy.”
I mentioned to Danielle that several months ago – when we were really just in the beginning stages of what, it’s now apparent, is a pandemic that shows no signs of abating, I had written an article about how JCFS was proving to be of great help to so many different individuals – not all of whom were seniors. (Among the individuals I contacted at that time were several individuals under the age 60 who had specific health concerns that prevented them from getting out to do shopping, although ordinarily they would have been able to do that.)
What I also noted though, was that several of the individuals with whom I spoke did not consider themselves to be part of the Jewish community in any way other than that they had Jewish blood, yet they were all deeply appreciative of what JCFS was able to do for them.
I asked Danielle whether she has had the same experience during the course of her duties thus far.
“Yes,” she said, “and I’ve also had people who have said, ‘I’m too young for that’ (in response to Danielle’s asking them whether they required any help from JCFS).
“I try to work around that,” she suggested. “I just try to make people feel included as part of the community – even if they don’t necessarily identify that way.”
I wondered then, if many of the individuals with whom she’s in touch aren’t involved with the Jewish community and are not JCFS clients, where does she get the names to call?
“I get them from a variety of sources,” Danielle responded. “I get referrals all the time from the community, so I’ll get someone’s daughter, for example, who might say, ‘Can you please check in on my mom?’
“I also get a lot of referrals from workers at JCFS, from the Jewish Federation, from Gwen Secter, from the synagogues…it really comes from everywhere.”
I asked Danielle whether she’s at all involved in the JCFS program that sees volunteers from the community keeping in touch on a regular basis with JCFS clients?
“No,” she answered, “my focus is more on people who are not already connected or who may need connection in terms of group socialization.”
If someone with whom Danielle is in touch does request help in a specific area, such as getting groceries or arranging handi-transit, then she says she will connect them with JCFS for their grocery delivery program or Gwen Secter’s medical transportation program.
If you would like to speak to Danielle, the number where she can be reached is 204-298-6677. She added that people “can call me with any questions or concerns and I will do my best to help them or to connect them to someone who can help them.”
Local News
Ida and the late Saul Alpern have donated 2 ambulances and a scooter to Magen David Adom in past 4 years
By BERNIE BELLAN Saul Alpern passed away in 2022, but before he died he and his wife Ida had decided to make Magen David Adom a major recipient of their generosity.
As Myron Love noted in an October 2020 article the Alperns had been contributing small amounts to the Canadian Magen David Adom for some time, but it was in that year they decided to donate $160,000 for the purchase of a Mobile Intensive Care Unit for Israel’s Magen David Adom.
As Myron wrote in that 2020 article, an MICUA (which is larger than an ambulance, is staffed by paramedics, and responds only to the most medically serious cases) was donated “to the people of Israel in memory of Saul Alpern’s parents and siblings who perished in the Holocaust.
“It is an expression of my love for my family and my love of Israel,” Saul Alpern said at the time.
In early 2022 the Alperns donated yet another $170,000 for the purchase of a second MICU for Magen David Adom.
Saul Alpern passed away in November 2022, but Ida Alpern has now continued the legacy of giving to Canadian Magen David Adom that she and Saul had begun several years before. Just recently Ida contributed $39,000 toward the purchase of an emergency medical scooter. According to the CMDA website, “the scooter, which is driven by a paramedic, can get through traffic faster than the Standard Ambulance or MICU and provide pre-hospital care. It contains life-saving equipment, including a defibrillator, an oxygen tank, and other essential medical equipment.”
I asked Ida whether she wanted to say anything about the motivation for her and her late husband’s support for CMDA. She wrote, “Having survived the Holocaust, and being a Zionist, Saul felt that supporting Israel was of the utmost importance.”
On May 7, CMDA will be honouring Ida and Saul z”l Alpern at a dinner and show at the Centro Caboto Centre. Another highlight that evening will be the announcement of the purchase of an ambulance for CMDA by another Winnipegger, Ruth Ann Borenstein. That ambulance will be in honour of Ruth’s late parents, Gertrude and Harry Mitchell. The evening will also commemorate the late Yoram East (aka Hamizrachi), who was a well-known figure both in Israel and here in Winnipeg.
For more information about the May 7 event or to purchase tickets phone 587-435-5808 or email sfraiman@cmdai.org
Local News
Simkin Centre looking for volunteers
We received the following email from Heather Blackman, Simkin Centre Director of Volunteers & Resident Experience:
Happy Spring Everyone! Hope you all are well. We have a number of upcoming volunteer opportunities that I wanted to share with you. Please take a look at what we have listed here and let me know if you are available for any of the following. I can be reached at heather.blackman@simkincentre.ca or 204-589-9008.
Save the date! The Simkin Stroll is on June 25th this year and we need tons of volunteers to assist. This is our annual fundraiser and there is something for everyone to help with from walking with Residents in the Stroll to manning booths and tables, event set up and take down and much more. Volunteers will be needed from 3 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on this day. Come and help for the full event or for any period within that timeframe that works for you.
Resident Store – This tuck shop style cart will be up for business shortly. Residents will be assisting to stock and run the store for 2 hours 2- 3 times per week in the afternoons. Volunteer support is needed to assist residents with restocking items and monetary transactions.
Passover Volunteers
Volunteers are needed to assist with plating Seder plates for Residents (date to be determined for plating)
Volunteers are needed to assist Residents to and from Passover Services and Come and Go Teas.
Times volunteers are needed for services/teas:
April 22cnd – First Seder 1:30-3:30 p.m.
April 23rd – Passover Service Day 1 – 9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
April 23rd – Second Seder – 1:30-3:30 p.m.
April 24th – Passover Service – Day 2 9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
April 29th – Passover Service – 9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
April 29th- Passover Tea – 1:30-3:30 p.m.
April 30th – Passover Service – 9:30 -11:30 a.m.
April 30th – Passover Tea – 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Admin/Paperwork Volunteers – Volunteers are needed to assist with filing and other administrative duties. A monthly volunteering job is also available to input information on programming into Recreation activity calendars. Support would be provided for this.
Adult Day Program – A volunteer is needed to assist with the Mondays Adult Day Program Group. A regular ongoing weekly commitment on Mondays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Assist with Recreation programming and lunch supervision for our Adult Day Program participants that come in from the community for the day.
Biking Volunteers – Take our residents out for a spin on one of our specialty mobility bicycles. Training is provided and volunteers will be needed throughout the Spring, Summer and early Fall.
With summer coming there is also opportunity to assist with outings and other outdoor programming! Please let me know if you are interested!
Local News
From Argentina to Winnipeg – creating opportunities in the IT sector for marginalized groups
By BERNIE BELLAN The following article about Pablo Listingart borrows heavily from articles written by Rebeca Kuropatwa in 2019 and 2021 for The Jewish Post & News. It is also based on a recent phone interview I conducted with Pablo, as well as material we received from a publicist.
Back in 2012, husband and wife, Pablo Listingart and Solange Flomin began seriously thinking about leaving Argentina.
This, explained Listingart, was “because of the political situation and other aspects [that] were degrading. We also wanted to have the experience of living in another country.”
So, the couple began traveling to explore other countries. They went to the U.S., but did not feel it was a good fit. Then, they went to several countries in Europe, but with a similar result.
Next up was Canada. “My wife had a cousin living in Vancouver and she spoke really highly about Canada,” said Listingart. “We started doing our research and sent emails to several Jewish communities. A couple answered, but communication with Winnipeg was more responsive.”
In October 2013 Listingart visited Winnipeg (while Flomin was pregnant with their first child). “After only two days, I fell in love with the city, the brown of the trees, how quiet it was,” said Listingart. “So, I called Sol and told her that this was the place.”
When Listingart returned to Argentina, he and Flomin started working on their application. The process took 10 months, as their son was born in the middle of the process.
The family made their move to Winnipeg in early March 2015.
Flomin and Listingart feel at home in Winnipeg. “We feel more Canadian than Argentinean, with cultures, values, and everything,” said Listingart. “That is the reason we are here, actually. We did not come for economic reasons. We didn’t feel that comfortable in terms of values and principles back there. Once I came here, I fell in love with the Canadian culture and values.”
Listingart had started up a charity in Argentina in 2011 that taught participants how to do software development. In Winnipeg, Flomin urged him to create the same kind of start up.
Today, Listingart’s charities, called Comunidad IT & ComIT, have operations in Latin America and Canada.
As an immigrant himself, Pablo explains that he started ComIT after immigrating from Argentina to Manitoba and seeing a gap in Canada’s education system. He noticed many individuals working survival jobs to help support their families, unable to get the training they wanted to better their positions.
In response, he developed a market-driven curriculum that he initially delivered to students by covering expenses himself. In 2016, Pablo Listingart became the founder and executive director of ComIT, a Canadian non-profit organization that offers free technology and professional skills training to unemployed and underemployed Canadians, with a focus on Indigenous, immigrants, visible minorities, and underserved communities. The charity aims to develop a community that links people struggling to overcome employment barriers with companies looking for skilled workers.
Women take up the majority of his enrolment. Many of them feel they can’t enter into a traditional program to enhance their educational skills due to barriers like limited access to funding, training locations, professional requirements, also family obligations, and lack of childcare. ComIT’s curriculum is designed to appeal to people who fall into that category by being free of charge, available online, and taught for only parts of the day.
Listingart and Flomin began running the charity together around raising their two kids.
“I had worked for several companies, like Microsoft, IBM, and others,” said Listingart. “Back in 2011, I thought about giving back to the community and society, and so I decided to start this charity. Those years back in Argentina were kind of busy and, with all the political issues over there, we decided to migrate here to Winnipeg.”
With the perpetually expanding operation of their growing charity, Listingart, as the charity’s executive director, was kept busy, and for the first few years of operating ComIT he even found time to build mobile applications and websites, but these days Listingart says that running ComIT takes up his full time.
ComIT in Canada began by running pilot programs in Winnipeg and in Kitchener-Waterloo. In Winnipeg, Listingart ran the classes with the support of ICTAM (now TechMB), and, in Kitchener-Waterloo, two of the main Canadian sponsors were Communitech and Google.
“That went really well, in terms of people getting jobs, so I kept doing it,” said Listingart. ComIT jumped from offering two courses to 22 courses per year – covering all the Canadian territory.
By 2023 Comunidad IT and ComIT had helped 4500 people find jobs (1200 in Canada). “Unfortunately,” Listingart explained, “people drop out for different reasons through the process, so we are not able to help everyone who joins the courses.” During our phone interview Listingart said that his charities have now trained over 6,500 students altogether.
“About 70 percent get jobs within six months of the training,” said Listingart. “We follow up with them, help them with their resumés…We have a free platform companies can access and see the resumés.”
Training is conducted in classrooms and online. “The impact is always bigger in person”, said Listingart. “We started developing content to be delivered online prior to the pandemic, mostly for Latin America, as a way to reach people we couldn’t physically reach, not having the funds to go to 15 countries, and then during the pandemic we developed even more content to continue running our training.”
While Listingart would love to be able to operate everywhere around the world, financially, that is not yet viable, but he was able to expand what he offers to all of Latin America and across Canada.
Listingart is no longer teaching in the program, due to a lack of time, though he does visit the classes when he is able. While only two years ago, ComIT was training 300 people a year in its courses in Canada, it has now grown to the point where 600 people a year are taking courses from ComIT.
As Listingart told me, “We actually doubled the number of students we had when I talked to Rebecca (in 2021). What happened, he explained, was “we were in the middle of the pandemic and we moved all the training online due to COVID. We are still running courses online, and that has allowed us to reach out to more people.”
“So nowadays we have students from Prince Edward Island to the Yukon,” Listingart added.
I asked Listingart where the funding for ComIT comes from?
He answered that most of it comes from the private sector, but a portion comes from a federal government agency known as PrairiesCan.
So, how exactly does ComIT conduct classes? I wondered.
Training is conducted by instructors in classrooms or online, where they reach their students via Zoom.
At ComIT, all training is provided free of charge. Trainees can hold a full-time job, while training in the evenings or mornings for only a couple of hours a day for three months.
While right now ComIT is conducting eight different classes, Listingart explained,\ – “with eight different instructors,” because “we run different topics along the year, it’s usually between 12 to 15 people that get involved in teaching courses.”
And what do students learn in those courses?
The program consists of three months of intensive instruction in various fields related to software programming.
“Most of the people that we train go on to be programmers,” Listingart said, adding that the majority of our graduates become software developers or website designers,” adding that “some are working in cybersecurity or other hardware related fields.”
The minimum age to register for a ComIT program is only 18 and there is no prerequisite level of education required.
While a good many of ComIT students are immigrants who may lack the kind of English language skills necessary to be hired by many employers, ComIT also has many Indigenous students as well as non-indigenous Canadians who are struggling.
Still, as Listingart says, students in the program have to be able to communicate. They “don’t need perfect English,” he adds, “they don’t even need a mid-level English,” but they do need “some basic communication skills.”
But it’s not simply a matter of someone applying to take ComIT courses and being automatically accepted, Listingart explained.
“We ask them (prospective students) a lot of questions,” he said. “We ask them what their goals are, like, if they are pursuing a career in IT or if they are interested in that… many things to gauge their interest. Those conversations help us understand whether these people can communicate with others.”
When it comes to finding jobs for graduates of the ComIT program, Listingart says that he and other members of his team meet with local employers who are looking for IT talent and discuss their exact needs within the industry.”
“We train them in what companies need right now,” said Listingart. “So, let’s say I go to Saskatoon and I talk to 10 or 15 companies over there…about 70 percent get jobs within six months of the training,” he noted. “We follow up with them, help them with their resumés…We have a free platform companies can access and see the resumés.”
Skip the Dishes, for instance, was on the fence for a very short time. They hired five out of seven ComIT trainees almost on the spot after they were interviewed – and soon after, the company became one of the charity’s local sponsors. To date, Skip the Dishes has hired 55 ComIT-trained students.
“My goal, so to speak…is to give opportunity to people who can’t afford other types of training and give them a first chance,” said Listingart. “We mention this at the beginning of every course. They only have one chance with us. We don’t give second chances. If they drop out for any reason, regret it, and want to come back, they can’t. I have hundreds of people on the waiting list to take courses. For me, this is a way to teach the value of work and, while doing it, you have the chance to work a job that pays well, that you can grow and learn…And, it’s not just for nerds, it’s creative work.
“My goal also has been to make the biggest impact that I can and …I’m happy with the results.”
If you are an employer interested in finding out more about ComIT or you know someone who might benefit by taking the program, visit
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