Local News
Earl Barish “Pays it Forward” with Salisbury House
By BERNIE BELLAN
Earl Barish is a man who seems to thrive on taking on challenges – whether it’s resurrecting a troubled business or finding a way to fill the void in charitable donations to four of Winnipeg’s hospitals that is one of the byproducts of the current pandemic
With his “Pay it Forward” campaign involving Barish’s Salisbury House chain, he has come up with a thoroughly imaginative way that provides a real incentive for Sals customers to help out hospitals here (as well as individuals living in DASCH community homes) at the same time as they can still enjoy a meal from Sals.
With the typical organizational skill and attention to intricate details that mark Barish’s long and storied career as a businessman and philanthropist, he laid out his latest charitable endeavour for me during a phone conversation we had August 20th.
Here are the components of what Barish is doing, as he explained to me during our phone conversation:
“There are two things we’re doing,” Barish said. “One is Salisbury House focused, the other is B’nai Brith focused.”
“The B’nai Brith one is ongoing through the month of August, so every day there are one or two or three charitable institutions that are receiving lots of gifts.”(We’ll have a story about the B’nai Brith initiative in our next issue.)
But it’s been the Salisbury House “Pay it Forward” promotion of which Barish is particularly proud – since it was a totally new concept that involved a lot of brain storming and ingenuity to come up with a plan that not only provides a great deal of help to specific organizations, it also rewards donors to the program in a variety of ways.
Here’s how Barish describes the Pay it Forward program: “It’s a blend of business and charities working together to pay it forward and it’s a win-win-win for everybody that’s involved.”
“It does have two parts to it,” Barish explained. “The first part is the purchase of a gift card, so a person would go to one of the Salisbury House locations and buy a gift card for $25. For every $25 gift card that they purchase they can direct $7 to one of five charities.
“I reached out to charities in this city that wanted to partner with Salisbury House in this promotion,” Barish continued, “ and to be fully vested in this promotion – so that we didn’t want agencies that would just say: ‘Send us some money.’ “
The five charities that are participating in the program are: Health Science Centre Foundation, The Children’s Hospital Foundation, CancerCare Manitoba Foundation, St. Boniface Hospital Foundation, and the DASCH Foundation (Direct Action in Support of Community Homes).
The second part of the program is “what’s happening at the restaurants,” Barish said. “We’re a food source after all.”
“At the restaurants we have a special menu created that has six new items, two long-time favourites from our current menu, and two pick-up items – so there are 10 possibilities – and whenever you purchase anything off that menu you have a choice of directing $3 to one of those five charities. The serving staff can’t even ring up your order unless they designate which charity gets the $3.”
By the way, “you don’t have to use the gift card for that $3,” Barish explained.
“But, if you do buy a gift card for $25, $7 goes to the charity…you go to Salisbury House and order from the special menu…three more dollars go to the charity, so fundamentally $10 of the $25 you paid for the gift card has now gone to the charity.” (Barish adds there’s no expiry date on the gift card.)
On top of all that, since most meals, along with a beverage, are going to cost you a lot less than $25, not only are you contributing $10 to a charity, you’ll still walk out with some change in your pocket.
The program began on August 9 and will continue through October 3.
There is another component to the gift card program, which Barish explained:
“You buy a card, but instead of keeping it, you give it to somebody else; it could be a neighbour, a friend, maybe the caregiver who’s looking after your elderly parents.” Sals will still donate $7 to one of the five charities you can designate.
Finally, Barish said, there’s an entirely different aspect to the Sals Pay it Forward program – this time as a complete charitable donation. And – the person who is administering this program is none other than Earl Barish himself. Here’s how it works, in Barish’s words:
“Let’s say you decide to donate $100 to the Health Sciences Centre.” You call Earl himself at 204-837-8687. “You make the donation; you are entitled to a receipt because that $100 will be converted into four Salisbury House gift cards and those gift cards will go from the Sals to the charity. It’s considered a ‘gift in kind’. Your name will go with the gift cards and you’ll get a tax receipt.
“So, your $100 donation is costing you much less than $100 – depending on your tax bracket.”
“When the four cards are given to the charity, a further $28 now goes from the Sals to the charity” (the same way as if you had bought the cards to keep for yourself).”
Barish then explained why the charities would want the gift cards: “They cannot take money that has been donated without specific direction (from the donor) and buy gift cards from the Salisbury House – or anybody. And yet, they have frontline workers, caregivers, transporters, maintenance people – in the hospitals – doing all these things through COVID, and they have no way of rewarding them other than saying ‘thank you’ – and they probably do say thank you, but there’s nothing more that they can likely do for their workers because they have no funds to take from to give to them.
“So, they’re actually quite thrilled to get these gift cards. The gift cards cost them nothing because they’ve been donated by someone – and they got $28 more in cash in the process.”
Even though this particular aspect of the program hasn’t been publicized in the media the same way the other component of the Pay it Forward program has, Barish said that various individuals had heard about the gift card donation program and contacted him.
“I had two calls yesterday from people,” Barish said, from people wanting to donate gift cards – “one for $1000, one for $1500, and today another for $1,000.”
In some cases it’s a combination of the two programs, Barish explained. Individuals buy some cards for themselves and give some to the charities – thus generating a tax receipt.
(In the specific case of the St. Boniface Hospital, that institution has actually set up on their website a link whereby an individual can make a donation and indicate that they want that donation to be used to buy a Salisbury House Pay it Forward gift card. It’s quite a long link so the simplest way, if you’d like to go to the St. Boniface Hospital website, is Google “make a gift to St. Boniface Hospital”. The other four charities do not have websites set up to buy Salisbury House gift cards.)
At that point I asked Barish whether all the Salisbury House locations are open.
“Nine of them are open,” he answered. “All of our full-serves are open. There are three of what we call ‘quick serves’ that aren’t open because we had no capacity for people. Unfortunately, Main and Matheson (a Sals that’s dear to the hearts of so many north enders and former north enders) is not open and one in Transcona isn’t open.”
A third quick-serve location – on King Edward, next to the Sals commissary, has been converted to a full serve restaurant, Barish noted. “It will now be our bulk wholesale location where individuals can get large dinners. Since we’ve introduced what we call our ‘heat and eat’ dinners…we have 17 different dinners on that menu; there are dinners that can serve from four to six people.”
At the end of our phone conversation Barish offered the following additional insight into what he is doing with the Pay it Forward program: “Most restaurants are looking for more ways to get subsidies and so on. I’m taking a completely different approach to this and saying ‘Look, we’re 89 years in this community, there’s no chain like ours – that’s Manitoba-based only, and I want to reach out to the community and have the community reach out to Salisbury House in return.’”
Local News
Fringe Festival star Melanie Gall to appear at Gwen Secter Centre July 16
By BERNIE BELLAN A veteran performer at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, Melanie Gall, will be making a special guest appearance at the Gwen Secter Centre on Thursday, July 16.
Melanie will be the featured speaker (and entertainer) for the Remis Speakers’ Series that day. The Remis Speakers’ Series is held every Thursday starting at noon and ending at 1:30. This year’s series began May 7 and will continue through the end of October. This year it has been attracting increasingly large audiences – ranging from 40-60 people, as it offers attendees the opportunity to enjoy a delicious – and kosher lunch, while listening to a very diverse variety of speakers – all the way from Gail Asper talking about returning the Ten Commandments to Assiniboine Park to Rabbi Matthew Leibl performing Christmas songs that were written by Jewish songwriters. At the same time it provides those attending a chance to make new acquaintances – or perhaps bump into old friends they haven’t seen in a long time.
Melanie Gall’s own story is sure to be riveting. I’ve written about Melanie in the past, but the past two summers had been especially nerve wracking for Melanie, as she was subjected to a torrent of antisemitic abuse over her support for the State of Israel.
You can read my story about what Melanie went through during the Winnipeg Fringe Festival – both in 2024 and again last year, at Melanie Gall subjected to antisemitic abuse.
Melanie, who will be entering her 13th year of performing at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, will be peforming in only one show this year – a departure from her past practice of performing in multiple shows (as many as three different shows) during the Fringe Festival.
Elsewhere on this website we’ll be offering a preview of Melanie’s show (which is called “The Ballad of Isobel Gunn” and which is based on an incredible, but true story), along with previews of several other shows.
In the meantime, if you’re not already a member of the Remis Speakers’ Series group, but would ike to attend this coming Thursday, simply email us at jewishp@mymts.net and we’ll reserve a spot for you. The cost for the lunch is only $20.
The Gwen Secter Centre is located at 1588 Main Street (corner of Smithfield). There is parking available on a lot behind the centre or on the street.
Local News
Folk Festival Report
(Posted July 10) During this year’s Winnipeg Folk Festival we’re going to be running an ongoing blog report – with photos and blurbs from the festival, sent to us by Heather Silbert and Samara Ebanks.
Here’s Heather’s first entry (sent Friday at 3:33 pm): “It’s a hot hot day at the 51st Winnipeg Folk Festival! Lots of people; lots of good vibes; and an abundance of awesome music!!”
“We just moved to spruce hollow. Nice and shady. listening to Jacob Brodovsky.”
4:21 pm: “Jacob just announced that he lost his job and received a lot of vitriol from the Jewish Community because he’s a Jewish person who believes that Palestinian and Jewish lives are intertwined, and he is against the genocide. He is very deeply feeling, and expresses all these big feelings through his songs. I want to give him a hug, but it’s so hot outside!”
5:33 pm: The inscription in the plaque below begins with some lines from a Bruce Cockburn song called “Joy Will Find a Way (A Song About Dying)”: and continues with: “Memory Lane honours those who are no longer with us but whose presence lives on in the music, memories and moments we share here…”
7:06 pm “Gorgeous hand made polymer clay jewelry! Amanda Greisman makes gorgeous pieces that can be worn across many occasions! And she’s so so nice!” (See her booth called “Blue Sky Jewelry.”
(Keep checking for updates)
Local News
New GrowWinnipeg “Grow Together” highlights diverse origins of our growing Jewish community
By MYRON LOVE On Monday, June 11, about 120 younger Jewish Winnipeggers from diverse backgrounds came together at the Asper Campus for an evening of food and music, games and prizes and, most important, the opportunity to socialize with their peers from a growing community that reflects the long term success of our community’s 26-year-old GrowWinnipeg initiative.
“We are gathered here to celebrate your and your parents’ decisions to come to Winnipeg, build families and raise families here,” noted Dalia Szpiro, GrowWinnipeg’s director, in addressing the young adults in attendance.
To summarize, the GrowWinnipeg Initiative arose when our past community’s leadership recognized that our Jewish population was an aging and shrinking community with aging infrastructure.
The first stage was the planning and construction of the Asper Campus, which brought our major institutions and organizations under one roof in an attractive new building.
The next challenge was to attract more people to our community. GrowWinnipeg was created to take on the challenge. The initiative, which was officially launched in 2000, is unique in its efforts to reach out to young Jewish families throughout the Western world.
The first outreach efforts were directed at Argentina’s sizeable Jewish community at a time when the South American country’s economy was going through a very difficult period. Several of our community leaders visited the Jewish community in Buenos Aires and a website was established. Arrangements were made for local families to host Jewish Argentinians here on exploratory visits and the community helped the prospective immigrants navigate the then new Provincial Nominee Program, find jobs and establish themselves here.
Since then, many young families – from Argentina, as well as a great number of other countries – have chosen to make Winnipeg their new home. The young people at the recent GrowWinnipeg evening were reflective of the diversity of our growing community. During the course of the evening, I had the opportunity to speak with not only Israeli-born participants, also young people from Russia and Ukraine, Turkey and Uruguay – and a young lady who grew up in Ottawa.
Naomi Kirshenblatt Palansky originally came here from Ottawa to go to university. She met and married local entrepreneur Noah Palansky in 2023. (We wrote about Noah in the December 19, 2025 issue). That same year, the former competitive swimmer who competed in the Maccabiah Games in 2009 and 2013 served as manager of the Canadian Junior swimming team participating in the games. She is currently the director of operations and strategy for a company called CoinFlip.
Although born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Yael Borovich grew up in Winnipeg. She is the daughter of Dalia Szpiro and Eduardo Borovich (and younger sister of Vanessa) all of whom moved here in 2002. She is a graduate of the Asper School of Business and works as a senior client relationship manager for Scotia Bank’s commercial branch.
Siblings Igal and Edem Avimelek arrived here from Turkey six years ago with their parents, Etel and Moris. Edem is in her second year at the University of Manitoba while Igal is studying engineering at UBC.
They report that their father, Moris, has established the Upperwear Textile Agency – marketing textile products online – while their mother Etel, is senior IT Director, software development and data analytics and enterprise architecture at Standard Aero.
“Our parents were looking to move to a new country and came across the GrowWinnipeg webpage,” Edem says. “GrowWinnipeg has been really supportive of us in helping us move here and become established.”
More recent arrivals Alex Tsmokaliuk and Jane Hin are from Ukraine and Russia respectively and have been together since 2022. “We were looking for a peaceful place to start a family,”: Alex says. “We heard about GrowWinnpeg and here we are.”
Alex is a fitness trainer while Jane is working for WRE Development as a property manager.
Dora Bronstein, who is originally from Beersheva, is also a recent arrival to our community. “I came to Winnipeg because I wanted to get away from war – and I heard about GrowWinnipeg,” she says.
She is currently working for L.C. Taylor Licensed Insolvency Trustee as an estate manager.
Erele Tzidon and Daniel Mejnov
Last October, GrowWinnipeg introduced its new Youth Ambassadors program.
“Since October, we have been working to create an organized system and opportunities to help young newcomers find their people within our community,” wrote Youth Ambassador Erele Tzidon on Facebook.
“Our mission is to help young immigrants find a sense of home in Winnipeg and support a smooth and welcoming transition.
We are excited to help bring our young Jewish community together.
As reported in the Jewish Post about 18 months ago, Tzidon is originally from Moshav Ginaton in central Israel. She came to Winnipeg in 2018 with her parents Ofer – formerly regional manager for a car rental agency in Israel and now an RBC branch manager – and Sharon – an emotional therapist in Israel who is currently working as an educational assistant at Gray Academy – and three younger brothers.
The 20-year Gray Academy graduate has recently completed her third year in Science at the University of Manitoba. For the past three years, she has also been a member of Dr. Inna Rabinovich-Nikitin’s research team at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences (ICS), researching the link between pregnancy complications and the risk for heart disease.
In November, 2024, Tzidon was presented with the Dr. James S. McGoey Student Award – based on the quality of her cardiovascular research at the ICS, which operates out of the St. Boniface Hospital campus’s Albrechchtsen Research Centre.
Tzidon’s fellow Youth Ambassador is Daniel Mejnov. He was born in Beersheva but moved to Winnipeg with his parents, Dennis and Victoria (and younger brother Alon) 14 years ago. He is currently enrolled in an IT program at the University of Winnipeg.
Mejnov welcomed all those in attendance at the celebration and thanked the volunteers who helped him and Tzidon organize the event.
“It has been great being able to bring so many people together,” he said. “This is a good way to unite our community.
Two other individuals of particular note that I spoke with at the event were Orit Agabayev and Alina Plis, partners in three year old A and O Event Décor, who provided the balloon arches and walls, table settings and centre pieces for the evening.
Agabayev is originally from Netanya and Plis is from Yeruham (in southern Israel). The latter has been here for 18 years and operates a daycare. The former came 16 years. Her principal career is working in the field of animal nutrition.
In an Instagram PosI from four years ago, Plis noted that “I have always been passionate about planning parties and events. I started out with planning big surprise birthday parties for my kids. Eventually I began planning and decorating events for family and friends. Now I am taking the next step with my friend, Orit, who shares the same level enthusiasm as me. What drives me to go above and beyond is simply the excitement my creations bring to those who see my work.
On Facebook, Agabayev added that “Alina and I are so excited to start A&O event decor. We both love decorating and planning different events. We hope that you can put your trust in us to create or decorate an event for you. We do Birthday parties, anniversaries, bachelor/bachelorette parties, proposals, weddings and more..
“Message us with your ideas to get a free quote and you’re one step closer to having an unforgettable event.”
