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First, Do No Harm: How Dr. Newman’s Valedictorian Speech to U of M Graduates Got History So Wrong

Dougald Lamont

Ed. note: This post was originally published in May, but given recent events in which the president of PARIM (the Professional Association of Residents and Interns of Manitoba) was forced to resign his position by the board of PARIM for criticizing remarks made by Dr. Gem Newman during his valedictory address to graduating medical students at the U of M, we thought it appropriate to repost this article to our home page.

By DOUGALD LAMONT I am compelled to respond to Dr. Gem Newman in his delivery of a valedictorian address to the medical graduates of the University of Manitoba medical school, which was shockingly ignorant of history.

Dr. Newman’s understanding is challenged by the facts of history, on every topic he touched on: Canada, Settler-Colonialism, the relationship with Indigenous people, and Israel’s founding.
It was a disservice to his peers, and to informed decision-making around the current crisis.

If we want a more just and peaceful world, we need to press for political solutions. I personally favour an immediate cessation of hostilities and release of Israeli hostages, and humanitarian aid to Gaza with oversight from the International Community. That is why we need a political process to peacefully negotiate a new political arrangement. If it is a two-state solution, I believe it must emerge from this process. It should be self-evident, just from the point of view of practical politics, that a single state that consists of two populations who are in the midst of a horrific war, will likely face insurmountable obstacles in trying to work and govern together.

Reasonable people should be able to agree that Israel should continue to exist, that the Palestinian people should be free, that the fighting should end, and those who have violated the rules of war should be held to account. To be blunt, neither side has a monopoly on virtue.

International Human Rights Law “prohibits attacks directed against civilians, as well as indiscriminate attacks, namely those that strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”

I also believe it’s reasonable to assert that the current leadership of Israel and Gaza should have no place at that table, given that they are responsible for the current crisis. The intelligence failures alone around October 7 should disqualify the current senior Israeli leadership, just as the attack of October 7 should disqualify Hamas.

Declaring recognition of a Palestinian state, with no defined or agreed-upon leadership or borders, short-circuits any such political process.

That is because while some support a two-state solution, others quite clearly favour a “one-state” solution that would essentially spell the end of the State of Israel. I have never seen the term “Zionist” tossed around as such a slur, as a kind of shorthand for holding an unacceptable view.

A Zionist is basically someone who thinks the State of Israel should exist – and the state of Israel does exist. Before Israel’s founding, debating whether or not it should exist was hypothetical. Now that it does exist, debating whether it should or not can be credibly interpreted as an existential threat.

For Israelis, and for many Jews, that clearly amounts to the destruction of their nation, including by violence. This, too, is exactly what many states and state-supported terror groups have committed to.

That is why the lack of clarity around some slogans seems to be calling for more conflict, not for a peaceful resolution.

When asked about the slogan “From the River to the Sea,” some have shrugged and said that it was Israelis who first came up with the slogan. This is true, but that is because the State of Israel does stretch from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Palestinian territories do not. It would require Israeli territory for Palestine to reach from the river to the sea, which again, can suggest that Israel will just become Palestine.

Dr Newman should know that for Israelis, and for many Jews, that clearly amounts to the destruction of their nation, including by violence. That is exactly what many states and state-supported terror groups have committed to, and have been promising for decades.
 
If we want a more peaceful and just world, we should strive to achieve those ends in ways that are peaceful and just, and that requires a political path.

It is not that the history is better than you might expect – it is worse.

The Nazi Holocaust was Modelled on the U.S. Killing of Indigenous People and Seizure of their Lands
 
There is an important link between the treatment of Indigenous North Americans and the Nazi Holocaust. Hitler believed that he could turn Germany into the a world dominating empire by emulating the way the United States had killed indigenous people and taken their property, except Hitler’s goal was to exterminate every Jew in the world.

“In the Nazi state, Lebensraum became not just a romantic yearning for a return to the East but a vital strategic component of its imperial and racist visions. For the Germans, eastern Europe represented their “Manifest Destiny.” Hitler and other Nazi thinkers drew direct comparisons to American expansion in the West. During one of his famous “table talks,” Hitler decreed that “there’s only one duty: to Germanize this country [Russia] by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins.”
 
As Nazi troops moved across Europe and the Soviet Union, Jews were rounded up, their homes, properties and businesses stolen. Some were murdered on the spot, lined up and shot.
Some were stuffed into the backs of trucks with the exhaust piped in, and driven back and forth until everyone inside was dead. Others still were gathered up, put on trains and sent to death camps where they were killed in factories purpose-built for killing human beings. Their stolen belongings were used to finance their own deaths, and the gold was retrieved from their teeth.
 
Jews were targeted by the Germans for complete extermination wherever the lived in the world, based both on pseudoscientific race theory about the supposed supremacy of the imagined “Aryan” race, and antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish global influence.
 
Jews were being rounded up and slaughtered in the millions, and as refugees, had no place to go. They were refused entry to country after country, including Canada.

That is one of the very major reasons the creation of the State of Israel cannot be compared to settler colonialism by European or Asian empires colonizing Africa, Oceania, the Americas. The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 occurred with the support of the United Nations, as well as the global left. The historical reason for that is relevant.

Clearly, after the Second World War, it created pressure for Jews to have their homeland, so that they would not always face being a minority in a country when, because of their stateless existence, they had faced pogroms, slaughter and discrimination for millennia.

The Palestinian Cause was Undermined Because its Leader was a Nazi Collaborator

There is no question that the at the time of the creation of Israel, the credibility of the Palestinian cause was undermined because Mufti Amin al-Husseini, the leader of Palestine, was a Nazi Collaborator. Al-Husseini received personal financial aid from the Nazi government, participated in Nazi propaganda broadcasts, and worked to find recruits for the Nazi SS.
 
In 1941, Al-Husseini travelled to Berlin and on November 28, met with Hitler.
 
“Al-Husseini began the conversation by declaring that the Germans and the Arabs had the same enemies: “the English, the Jews, and the Communists.” He proposed an Arab revolt all across the Middle East to fight the Jews; the English, who still ruled Palestine and controlled Iraq and Egypt; and even the French, who controlled Syria and Lebanon. 

(The British had secured a mandate for Palestine at the Paris peace conference in 1919, and made halting attempts to create a “Jewish national home” there without prejudicing the rights of the Arab population.) He also wanted to form an Arab legion, using Arab prisoners from the French Empire who were then POWs inside Germany. 

He also asked Hitler to declare publicly, as the German government had privately, that it favored “the elimination of the Jewish national home” in Palestine.
 
The Fuhrer then made the following statement to the Mufti, enjoining him to “lock it in the uttermost depths of his heart”:


  1. He (the Fuhrer) would carry on the battle to the total destruction of the Judeo-Communist empire in Europe.
    1. At some moment which was impossible to set exactly today but which in any event was not distant, the German armies would in the course of this struggle reach the southern exit from Caucasia.
      1. As soon as this had happened, the Fuhrer would on his own give the Arab world the assurance that its hour of liberation had arrived. Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. 
In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations, which he had secretly prepared. When that time had come, Germany could also be indifferent to French reaction to such a declaration.”
         
        Al Husseini’s work was actively financed by the Nazi government.
         
        “From spring 1943 to spring 1944, Husseini personally received 50,000 marks monthly and Gailani 65,000 for operational expenses.” [Rashid Ali al-Gaylani was the Prime Minister of Iraq]. 

”In addition, they each received living expenses averaging 80,000 marks per month, an absolute fortune. A German field marshal received a base salary of 26,500 marks per year.”
         
        Along with other Arab broadcasters, al-Husayni disseminated pro-Axis, anti-British, and anti-Jewish propaganda from Berlin to the Middle East. In radio broadcasts, he called for an Arab revolt against Great Britain and the destruction of the Jewish settlements in Palestine.

        Al-Husayni spoke often of a “worldwide Jewish conspiracy” that controlled the British and US governments and sponsored Soviet Communism. He argued that “world Jewry” aimed to infiltrate and subjugate Palestine, a sacred religious and cultural center of the Arab and Muslim world, as a staging ground for the seizure of all Arab lands. In his vision of the world, the Jews intended to enslave and exploit Arabs, to seize their land, to expropriate their wealth, undermine their Muslim faith and corrupt the moral fabric of their society. He labeled the Jews as the enemy of Islam, and used crude racist terminology to depict Jews and Jewish behavior, particularly as he forged a closer relationship with the SS in 1943 and 1944. He described Jews as having immutable characteristics and behaviors. On occasion, he would compare Jewishness to infectious disease and Jews to microbes or bacilli. In at least one speech attributed to him, he advocated killing Jews wherever Arabs found them. He consistently advocated “removing” the Jewish homeland from Palestine and, on occasion, driving every Jew out of Palestine and other Arab lands.
         
        Al Husseini was directly involved in recruiting for the SS.
         
        “When the SS decided in February 1943 to recruit among Bosnian Muslims for a new division of the Waffen-SS, SS Main Office Chief Berger enlisted al-Husayni in a recruiting drive in Bosnia from March 30 and April 11. On April 29, Berger reported that 24,000–27,000 recruits had signed up and noted that the “visit of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had had an extraordinarily successful impact.” Both al-Husayni and the SS repeatedly referred to the success of the 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division (also known as “Handschar”).”
         
        After the Second World War, the 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division was charged with war crimes and the killing of over 5,000 Jewish and Serbian civilians. In the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war, hundreds of its members fought against Israel.
         
        All of this is critical historical context for Zionism of the time, and for the creation of the State of Israel. There can be no question that Al Husseini’s collaboration with the Nazis meant that his cause was treated with considerably less sympathy.  
         
        None of this negates the present-day mistreatment and injustice towards present-day Palestinians, but it does mean that their experience does not mirror that of Indigenous people, nor is the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 comparable to other “settler colonial” states, like South Africa, or Canada.

Tommy Douglas, Eugenics and Provinces’ Role in the Canadian Colonial State
 
This brings me to my second point about Dr. Newman’s valedictorian speech, which was his citing Tommy Douglas as a moral beacon in a speech where he also mentioned Indigenous health outcomes.

While Douglas enjoys a reputation as a paragon of political virtue, he and his party are responsible for one of the most horrifically damaging colonial systems for Indigenous people in Canada in the last 70 years: provincial child welfare systems. This is in addition to his promotion of eugenics-based sterilization, another aspect of his political career that is minimized and ignored

For all of the claims that the left in Canada is “woke,” the role of progressive politicians and parties in our country’s profoundest tragedies is not just forgotten and unknown, it is buried.
 
The New Democratic Party was created as a successor to the CCF party. While the NDP is today seen as a party of labour, and the “working man,” the CCF, as social gospelers, were evangelical Christians, often British, who promoted eugenics and forced sterilization as a low-cost solution to poverty, mental illness, and disability, and they did so for years.

In 1933, Tommy Douglas published his Master’s thesis from McMaster University, “The Problems of the Subnormal Family,” based on his time working at the Weyburn Mental Hospital. Weyburn Mental Hospital was not a small-town facility – at the time of its construction, it was the largest building ever built in the British Empire.

In the Making of a Socialist, Douglas passed off his thesis in a later interview as being on the subject of “Christian sociology,” when it endorsed the segregation and forced sterilization of people he deemed to be inferior.

Douglas’s thesis topic, in his own words was that:
 
“The subnormal family is an ever-increasing menace physically, mentally and morally, to say nothing of a constantly rising expense. Surely the continued policy of allowing the subnormal family to bring in to the world large numbers of individuals to fill our jails and mental institutions and to live upon charity is one of consummate folly.”
 
Douglas starts his thesis this way:
 
“The problem of the subnormal family is chiefly one for the State. Since the state has the problem of legislating in the best interests of Society, and since we have seen that the subnormal family is an ever-increasing menace physically, mentally and morally, to say nothing of a constantly rising expense, it is, surely the duty of the State to meet this problem.
 
The suggested remedies which the state might effect are three in number:
 
1)    The Improvement of Existing Marriage Laws;
2)    Segregation;
3)    Sterilization of Unfit, and Increased Knowledge of Birth Control.
 
He elaborates:
 
“Sterilization of the mentally and physically defective has long been advocated, but only recently has it seeped into the public consciousness. From the day when Plato wrote his Republic to the present, eugenicists have advanced various solutions to the problem of the defective, but sterilization seems to meet the requirements of the situation most aptly.
 
For while it gives protection to society, yet it deprives the defective of nothing except the privilege of bringing into the world children who would only be a care to themselves and a charge to society.
 
4.) Another effect of the abnormal family is the cost of maintenance: It may be a mercenary view to take of the problem, yet in view of mounting taxation, it is of importance to the average citizen to know the effect of the subnormal family on his tax bill.”
 
Douglas did not drop the subject. In 1934, Douglas proposed it with the youth wing of the CCF, and the next year, 1935, Douglas was elected MP for the first time.

The power of Douglas’ carefully cultivated political reputation is so great that for many, it creates a cognitive dissonance so profound that it is dismissed. They puzzle as to how a person they so greatly admire could have advocated for forced sterilization.

The question as to how Douglas and other eugenicists could express such concern and apparent love while also calling for sterilization is because they see people who are poor, mentally ill or who break the law as defective, and subhuman, because of their particular brand of radical Christian ideology. Treating people as subhuman means treating them as animals, where the usual rules of human morality no longer apply. It is a kind of cruel pity – and instead of alleviating suffering, they opt for ending it. 

Douglas was not a young man – He was an adult, in his 30s, calling for forced sterilization and segregation, just as his political mentor and family pastor, J. S. Woodsworth had done.

J. S. Woodsworth, Sterilization and the Bureau of Social Research
 
In 1909, Woodsworth published “Strangers Within Our Gates,” which was blatantly racist, ranking various groups according to their capacity to integrate into Canadian society.

Woodsworth’s treatment of Blacks is subhuman. He favorably cited U.S. progressive John R Common, who Woodsworth quotes saying, “The very qualities of intelligence and manliness which are essential for citizenship in a democracy were systematically expunged from the negro race through two hundred years of slavery.”
 
Woodsworth also endorsed Residential Schools as the solution for dealing with First Nations, favourably citing the Methodist Principal of the Brandon Residential School, where dozens of children had died, who said that “Both Church and State should have, as a final goal, the destruction and end of treaty and reservation life.”
 
Throughout the 1910s, Woodsworth ran the “Bureau of Social Research,” which publicly promoted eugenics and forced sterilization across Canada’s Western Provinces. Woodsworth’s editorials calling for eugenic sterilization were printed on the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press, and were considered as official recommendations to provincial governments.

According to a 2004 article in the Journal of Historical Sociology, Sterilizing the ‘Feeble-Minded’: Eugenics in Alberta, Canada 1929-1972, Woodsworth’s work directly informed the adoption of sterilization policies in Alberta.

“The eugenics platform was championed in western Canada by a number of influential social reformers including J. S. Woodsworth, a Winnipeg-based proponent of the “social gospel.” Woodsworth was concerned with the declining quality of immigrants arriving in the west. He translated his personal fear into a public crisis, spreading the idea that no segment of Canadian society would be left untouched by the influx of thousands of immigrants of inferior stock from central and eastern Europe. In time, his policy recommendations turned to eugenics and sterilization programs” (Chapman 1977: 13).
 
In 1928, Alberta and BC both passed forced sterilization laws. Researchers have directly attributed Alberta’s decision to adopt forced sterilization to Woodsworth’s advocacy. One of the Alberta MNA’s at the time who supported the bill, William Irvine, was a close friend and colleague of Woodsworth’s. When Irvine was later elected as an MP, it was in his office that the CCF was founded. 
 
From 1929 to 1972, when the Alberta eugenics board was finally disbanded, the Board saw 4,800 cases of proposed sterilization and approved virtually all (4,739) of these; 2,834 sterilization procedures were eventually performed, the majority on females.

That was not the only questionable judgment that Douglas made in his political career. In 1935, when Douglas won a seat as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons for the first time, he did so with an endorsement from the radical right Social Credit Premier of Alberta, which was considered by some to be fascist. The creator of the “Social Credit” economic philosophy, Major Douglas, was explicitly anti-semitic.  
 
The endorsement was arranged for Douglas’ by a key member of his campaign team, Daniel C. Grant, who had been the chief organizer for all of Western Canada for the Canadian Ku Klux Klan.
 
Grant had been a driver for J J Maloney, the head of the Ku Klux Klan, and had worked in Manitoba as a recruiter and organizer. In 1928 in Winnipeg, Grant had delivered a speech saying that
 
“The Klan strove for ‘racial purity. We fight against intermarrying of Negroes and whites, Japs and White, Chinese and Whites. This intermarriage is a menace to the world. If I am walking down the street and a Negro doesn’t give me half the sidewalk, I know what to do.” He then lashed out at the Jews and said that “The Jews are too powerful … they are the slave masters who are throttling the throats of white persons to enrich themselves.”
 
A 1974 biography by Doris Shackleton, a former CBC reporter and NDP staffer, entitled “Tommy Douglas” openly acknowledged Grant’s work organizing for the KKK.
 
In 1929, Grant and the KKK had helped elect the Conservative-Progressive coalition government in Saskatchewan, which had earned him a patronage post in charge of the labour office in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where Douglas met him. Grant was fired when a new government was elected, because they didn’t want KKK organizers working in the labour office.
 
There have been various attempts to minimize Douglas’ promotion of eugenics, saying that his views were changed by a trip to Germany in 1936. In fact, Douglas went to Germany because he wanted to see one of Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies.
 
In a 1956 interview, published in the book “The Making of a Socialist,” Douglas explained – when asked about his 1936 trip to Germany the year after he was elected a Member of Parliament:
 
“[Interviewer] You were in Europe for how long?
 
[Douglas] About three months. We went from Switzerland to Nuremberg, because I wanted to see the great annual festivity Hitler put on each year there. It was frightful. I came back and warned my friends about the great German bombers roaring over the parade of self-propelled guns and tanks, Hitler standing there giving his salute, with Göring and the rest of the Nazi bigwigs by his side.
 
There was no doubt then that Hitler was simply using Spain as a dress rehearsal for an attack on other nations.
 
[Interviewer] It was with very great difficulty that people were able to appreciate the anti-Semitism that was going on in Germany. Did you yourself see any examples of it?
 
[Douglas] I didn’t see any. Most of it was over by the time I got there.”
 
To suggest that in 1936, most of the anti-semitism in Germany was over defies reason and evidence.
 
“The New Residential Schools” Tommy Douglas and the creation of provincial child welfare

These are just some of the reasons that holding up Tommy Douglas as exemplar of political purity, is “problematic”. It is far from the only example of Douglas’ historic association with damaging policies that has been whitewashed.
 
The reality of Canada as a colonial state is that provincial governments have played a direct role in the mistreatment of Indigenous people, in areas of jurisdiction that the provinces themselves asked for, and Tommy Douglas is one of the people responsible.
 
Again, in Shackleton’s biography, Douglas describes how, in 1951, the Federal Government began to shut down residential schools, “after a series of negative reports,” that at the urging of the CCF and Premier Tommy Douglas, the federal government transferred responsibility for First Nations child welfare to provinces.
 
The result has been 70 years of provincial governments seizing Indigenous children from their families and never returning them, in numbers greater than the total yearly attendance of Residential Schools.

The “60s scoop” meant thousands of children across Canada were taken from their homes and adopted out across North America and around the world.
 
“The department of Indigenous Affairs indicates that the number of Indigenous children adopted between 1960 and 1990 was 11,132,” though some research suggests it was over 20,000.”
 
CFS has been described by Cindy Blackstock as “the New Residential Schools” and the scale of it across Canada is colossal.
 
In the last decade, the number of Indigenous children apprehended and in custody of CFS in Manitoba alone exceeded the total population of every single residential school across Canada. By 2013, the province of Manitoba had 11,000 children in the custody of CFS.

According to the Lancet, it was the highest apprehension rate in the world. That is more, in a single province, than the entire “60s scoop” across Canada over 30 years. If that weren’t bad enough, governments in Manitoba and British Columbia also seized federal child allowances intended for those children.
 
This horrific policy is the direct cause of Indigenous misery, and shorter life expectancy. Over half of the homeless population in Winnipeg were at one point wards of CFS. Canadian provinces took Indigenous children from their families, took their money, and left them on the street at the age of 18 with no supports. Our jails, our runaways, our gangs, and tragedy after tragedy have the common thread of CFS involvement. Because CFS is not just about looking after the safety children, it has always also been about controlling and threatening parents.
 
That’s why the top five of 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are all concerned with children in provincial child welfare systems.
 
This absolute catastrophe of a social policy was conceived of, created and sustained, by provincial governments for decades, and directly contributed to the relentless trauma that provincial governments have inflicted on Indigenous people, and about which there is a deafening silence.
 
Why are children being seized? Largely because of First Nations and Indigenous poverty and neglect. Why is there Indigenous poverty? Because, for decades, provincial governments across Western Canada have approved megaprojects – dams, mines, oil and gas – much of it on First Nations land.
 
In Manitoba, there are dams that have destroyed Indigenous communities’ self-sufficiency by destroying the environment. Entire communities flooded out of existence, dammed rivers destroying lakes that were the source of successful commercial fisheries, wiped out by Hydro and the Government of Manitoba, without compensation.
 
What’s more, provincial governments are funded on a per capita basis – for every person who lives within their borders, including on reserve, yet provincial governments like Manitoba exclude First Nations from receiving that funding.
 
Indigenous people in Canada consistently face the most discrimination in provincial systems, and when a catastrophe or a tragedy inevitably happens, the response has always been to defend the system. Indigenous deaths in ERs, in jail, in CFS or as victims of crime are blamed on the victims. 
 
Together, provincial governments’ combined budgets are larger than the federal government, and Indigenous Canadians face terrible discrimination from provincial governments in economic supports, education, health, justice, child and family services and natural development.
 
Because the federal policies are the same everywhere: it’s the provincial policies that are different, which is why child and family poverty, and Indigenous incarceration in Manitoba are so much worse than any other province.
 
So, when Dr. Gem Newman lectures his fellow classmates on the injustices of Canada’s treatment of First Nations, he should know that one of the direct causes of homelessness, mental health, and forced poverty in Manitoba and across Canada is the direct result of decades of seizures of Indigenous children, which are a direct consequence of a policy brought in by Tommy Douglas to replace Residential Schools.

Tommy Douglas and provincial governments created some of the most damaging modern policies Indigenous people in Canada have experienced – and are still experiencing, every day.
 
As a valedictorian and as a doctor, Dr Newman is an authority, and he says a doctor’s advocacy is in a doctor’s job description. Advocates and authorities have a responsibility to work from evidence. That is why it is paramount for an authority, whether they are practicing medicine or politics, to ensure they know what they are talking about. Slogans are not solutions, and Dr. Newman’s facile understanding of history is a disservice to his audience.
 
It has to be said Dr. Newman’s ignorance about this should not be a surprise, because there is an effective conspiracy of silence which makes it a forbidden topic in Canada, because it is politically inconvenient.
 
Notably, it highlights the hypocrisy and moral double standards at work among high-profile Canadian progressives, Naomi Klein being the most prominent.

On Freedom of Speech, Civil Disobedience on Campus on Beyond
 
I write all of this as a strong supporter of freedom of expression, on and off campus including protest, investigative journalism, whistleblowing, satire, parody, speaking truth to power, and calling out corruption. I have personally done all of them. Rights have never been about doing and saying whatever you want, wherever and whenever.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms sets out the circumstances where you are guaranteed rights to free expression. The Charter generally only applies to Government, not universities, except in Alberta, where courts ruled otherwise.

The reason for this is university autonomy. Universities are workplace and a place of research and education, where the goal is to work to an ever greater understanding of the world, and that has always required discernment. It is not a public square or an unmoderated internet forum, and if you don’t abide by the rules, you do not have a right to stay.

A simple example of speech that can get you removed from campus is plagiarism. The university sets out rules around free inquiry and academic freedom, but you can’t plagiarize.

This is important in the context of campus protests and civil disobedience. Protestors are not being silenced because of the content of their speech, nor are they choosing to break unjust laws to show how unjust they are. 

The distinction here is one that was drawn by Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King. He was in favour of direct action and civil disobedience by having people be willing to be arrested and jailed, and face the consequences and punishment, because the unjust law they broke was asking for service at a segregated coffee shop, or sitting at the front of the bus. They actively discouraged and called out anyone who broke other laws as undermining the cause.

The laws that are being broken in this instance are ones that apply to everyone. It is not about the cause or the message, at all. It is about trespassing, or blocking a highway, or ignoring a court order.

There is a basic mistake that many commentators and protestors are making. When protestors say they mean “peaceful,” they think that if it is non-violent, that it must ,by legal definition be peaceful, and legal. You do not have to be violent to be “disturbing the peace.” Blocking highways and spamming 911 lines are not violent, but both are against the law, for obvious reasons, because someone could die. Canadian Supreme Court Precedent makes it clear, there are limits to protest, because other people have the right to be free from disruption.

If protestors are arguing that the injustice is so great, that they must break the law for justice to be done, then this is exactly the motivation behind what is known as “noble cause corruption” in policing. It’s just as unacceptable.

Freedom of expression is protected because it is powerful, and it is powerful for good and for harm. That’s why accuracy – especially at a university – matters. It means weeding out the lies, manipulation, dishonesty and deception. It means recognizing that human beings are contradictory, and flawed. It means working hard not to deceive others, or yourself, while we live in a world where armies of people are paid to deceive us, and recognizing that there may be more than two sides to every story. Two bitter opponents on either side of an issue can both be wrong.

“Resistance” that takes the form of attacks on civilians is just as unacceptable as reckless military actions that result in civilian deaths. Neither are morally or strategically defensible: to the contrary, they only further radicalize and inflame the situation.

 Dougald Lamont (B.A., M.A) is a graduate of the University of Manitoba and a former member of the Board of Governors. He is the past MLA for St. Boniface and the former Leader of the provincial Manitoba Liberal Party from 2017-2023.

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Former nominee for Jewish Athlete of the Year and Canadian Junior Curling champion Kyle Doering is the new general manager of the Granite Curling Club

By BERNIE BELLAN When I was doing a search for Kyle Doering’s name in the Jewish Post archives I discovered that Kyle’s name was actually first mentioned in our paper back in 2003 when he was a student in the Hebrew Bilingual program at Margaret Park School. Kyle, who was then in Grade 2 in the Hebrew bilingual program at that school, had written an explanation why we eat hamentashen on Purim – which was published in a March 2003 issue. (Kyle says that following his completion of the Hebrew program at Margaret Park after Grade 6, he did continue in the Hebrew program at H.C. Avery School until the end of Grade 8.)
Now – in an effort to emulate the style of the late, great Harvey Rosen (and maybe Gerry Posner as well), both of whom would never have missed an opportunity to take an extreme leap from one unrelated subject to another – as both those guys might have written: “It’s not too far a leap to say that a curling rock could be compared to a hamentash!”
And, to further emulate the writing style of both Harvey and Gerry, let me say that Kyle, who is of the “Hebraic persuasion” (as Harvey used to say) – on his mother’s side, has used some of the genes he inherited from his businessman grandfather, the late Bill LIfchus (who used to write a very amusing financial column for the Jewish Post), has now carved a career for himself using the degree in business he acquired from the University of Winnipeg in 2019 to become the general manager of Winnipeg’s oldest, and one of its largest curling clubs: the Granite Curling Club.

A further search of Kyle’s name in our archives reveals that he has been a finalist for Jewish Athlete of the Year twice, including last year, when he was the fifth for Canadian Brier champion Brad Gushue. Kyle had also been nominated in 2017 after his junior team won the Canadian championship and placed third in the world junior championship. (Kyle was also the fifth for Reid Carrothers’ Manitoba team this year.)

Following high school Kyle entered the University of Winnipeg, where he graduated with a business degree in 2019. All the while though he remained a very competitive curler. As a matter of fact, in 2016 I happened to run into Kyle at the Granite club one afternoon (where I am also a member). Kyle was practising mixed curling with his then-girlfriend, Ashely Groff. (Kyle and Ashley actually met at the Granite in 2016, Kyle tells me – when they were curling on separate sheets of ice. They were married just this past December.)

Left: Ashley Groff & Kyle Doering in 2016 when they became a mixed curling duo
Right: Ashley showing her sleeve with their sponsor’s name (and I never asked them to do that!)

During the course of that conversation in 2016 Kyle asked me whether I would consider sponsoring Ashley and him as mixed curlers? I asked him how much it would cost? He said: “$200” – which was far less than what I was expecting him to say, so I readily agreed.
What I didn’t expect though was that Kyle and Ashley would put the name “The Jewish Post& News” on their curling jackets. That was by far the cheapest form of advertising I have ever encountered!

Upon completion of his business degree at the University of Winnipeg, Kyle went to work for the Humane Society as its community relations officer, where he was employed up until the time he was hired as the Granite’s new general manager.
Kyle wasn’t given the job simply because he’s got such a strong background in curling though. He was among several candidates for the job and did go through an interview process, following which he was told he had been selected for the position.
For Kyle, it’s a dream position. As he says: “I can work in curling – which I love…and in this historic building and club (the Granite is 140 years old) – which has given me so much over the years. I met my wife here, learned to curl here…it’s very cool to get to manage it.”

Readers may be aware that the Granite Curling Club has been in the news a fair bit lately – but not for anything to do with curling, per se. The club is actually situated on land owned by the City of Winnipeg. (It’s a fairly complicated story how that came to be. At one time the Granite owned the land where the club is situated, but it ran into financial difficulty in the 1970s and was forced to sell the property to the city with a “lease back” arrangement.)
The city is currently in the process of redeveloping land on the west side of the club where a parking lot now exists for the purpose of building affordable housing. Most of the spaces in that parking lot are leased out to Canada Life, but the Granite has had 30 parking spaces allocated for members’ use. There is now a proposal to build a 12-storey apartment building on the parking lot. The loss of those 30 parking spaces is of great concern to many members of the Granite Curling Club.
It is into the midst of this imbroglio that Kyle Doering now finds himself. On a personal note I myself contacted the city councillor for the area, Sherry Rollins (who, by the way, also is Jewish), and a spokesperson for Canada Life. There doesn’t seem to be an easy way out to resolve the parking situation – and the future existence of the Granite Curling Club is in peril unless some sort of accommodation can be reached insofar as parking spaces for members are made available.
Kyle may be adept at putting a curling stone on to the button of a sheet of ice, but having stepped in as the brand new general manager of a curling club that has over 1300 members, he may find that the challenges that lie ahead are more than one might have expected just a few short months ago – when the city took the club by surprise when it announced its plan to develop the land where, until now, Granite curlers have been able to park their cars.

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Local MPs nominate additional Jewish community members for King Charles Coronation Medals

Shawna Forester-Smith receiving her medal in her hospital bed. Sadly Shawna passed away recently.

A few months back we published a story on this website about several members of the Jewish community who had been awarded King Charles Coronation Medals. That story can be found at King Charles Medals

Since that time it has come to our attention that several other members of our community had also been nominated by local Members of Parliament to receive medals.

Following is an update to that earlier story, which was also written by Myron Love:

The medal, created to mark the coronation of King Charles III, is described in a press release as a “special commemorative honour awarded to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional service and dedication to their communities and Canada through volunteerism, leadership, and acts of courage or commitment, reflecting the values of service and unity upheld by the monarchy. It serves as a lasting symbol of appreciation for their selfless efforts in building a better society”.
At the time, I was working largely from a list of local honorees posted on the Lieutenant-Governor’s webpage.  Since then, it has been brought to my attention that other deserving members of our Jewish community have also been awarded the medals.  It seems that it was not only the Lieutenant-Governor’s office which submitted a list of prospective honorees, It seems that every Member of Parliament was also encouraged to nominate honorees among their constituents.
Thus, local MPS Ben Carr and Marty Morantz –subsequent to the Lieutenant-Governor’s medal presentations – have released their own slates of medal recipients.  Among the new Jewish honorees are two Jewish Federation of Winnipeg leaders – one fairly recently retired and a second who is still actively involved, a retired judge, a musician who has played a leading role in Winnipeg folk music circles,  a pioneering veterinarian and a long time advocate for the disabled.

Jessica Cogan


Jessica Cogan was actually presented with her medal (along with Einat Paz who appeared in the original story) – in mid-November in Marty Morantz’ constituency office.  Cogan has been volunteering with the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg in numerous capacities for decades.  Currently she is the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg’s Second Vice-President, a member of the board of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a member of the advisory/organizing team for the Holocaust Memorial Sites Study Tour for Educators. She is a Past President of the Jewish National Fund (Manitoba-Saskatchewan branch) and National JNF board member, as well as a former Folklorama adult ambassador for Shalom Square.
In the wider community, she has served as a director of the Women’s Health Clinic Board and co-chaired their capital campaign.

Elaine Goldstine


Elaine Goldstine admits to being “quite surprised” to have been nominated through Ben Carr’s office for the King Charles Award. Like Jessica Cogan, Goldstine has devoted most of her adult life first as a volunteer for the Federation and, over the past 20 years, as a senior member of our community’s “civil service”.  
But her volunteer efforts go back even further. As noted in an earlier issue of the Post – in an interview with her two years ago – just prior to her retirement as the Federation’s CEO,  as a teen, she was active in USY and was President of the Gabriels Chapter of BBYO. In 1979 she became involved with National Council of Jewish Women, and served as President of the Sarah Branch, President of the NCJW Winnipeg section, and as the organization’s National Treasurer and Vice President. She had also  served on the PTA of Ramah Hebrew School, the Business and Professional Development Committee of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, and on the Board of the Shaarey Zedek Sisterhood.
 She began volunteering with Federation after her two sons reached school age.  She started as a volunteer with the CJA’s Women’s Philanthropy Division. After a short time, she was offered a job with the campaign. Eventually, she was hired to become the campaign division chair. She assumed the reins of the CJA campaign in 2004 after her predecessor, Gerry Koffman,  passed away at a relatively young age.
 In 2015, after the retirement of long time Federation CEO Bob Freedman – and a successor who left after a year – Elaine was tapped to become the new CEO.    
Looking back over the course of her career serving our community, she feels a sense of satisfaction for a job well done – and gratitude for having had the opportunity.


Madame Justice Freda Steel with MP Ben Carr


Madame Justice Freda Steel also notes that she was “surprised and humbled” to have been nominated to receive the medal which, she reports, was presented to her at Ben Carr’s office – along with some of the MP’s other nominees – on Monday, March 3. “I do not know who nominated me for the medal,” she says. “I just got a letter from Ben Carr’s office telling me I was a recipient of the medal and that the medal was for community service.“
As with Goldstine and Cogan, Steel has a long history of leadership in our Jewish community.  She has been a board member and/or held leadership positions with the Federation, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, the Rady Centre, the Asper Jewish Community Campus and the Winnipeg Board of Jewish Education.
In her professional life, she has a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Manitoba and a Masters of Law from Harvard.  For much of her career, she was a Professor of Law – first in Ottawa, then at her alma mater.   She was appointed to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench in 1995 and to the Court of Appeal in 2000.  She stepped down from the court last year, but remains active as an arbitrator and mediator.


“My parents taught me that it was important to give back to your community and I have always tried to live up to the values that they inspired in all of us,” she says.

“I was honoured to be included along with so many accomplished individuals,” says Karen Dana, who was also one of Ben Carr’s nominees.
The daughter of Nate and Phyllis Dana was recognized for her lifelong contributions to the music scene in Winnipeg.  A social worker by profession, Dana’s avocation has been folk music, primarily as a member of the organizing committee of the annual internationally-known Winnipeg Folk Festival.  She began volunteering at the festival early on, serving for many years as backstage kitchen co-ordinator.  As well, 30 years ago, she established an apprentice program for the festival, aimed at bringing in younger volunteers.

Dr. Jonas Watson with Ben Carr

For veterinarian Dr. Jonas Watson, receiving the King Charles III Coronation Medal was “a tremendous honour”.  The award, he notes, was presented to him in recognition of his leadership  locally, nationally and internationally, in animal health and welfare.
In a profile I wrote about Watson for this newspaper six years ago, the associate at Tuxedo Animal Hospital at the Tuxedo Park Shopping Centre spoke about what he referred to as his philanthropic outreach, which was inspired, he recalled then,  by his participation in a spay-neuter clinic in the northern Saskatchewan community of Île-à-la-Crosse during his university studies, where he saw first-hand the critical need for veterinary services in remote communities.
Among the initiatives he has been part of over the past few years are quarterly clinics (combining veterinarians and other healthcare professionals) in neighbourhoods that have a disproportionately large number of vulnerably-housed or homeless people –  providing vaccinations and deworming for their pets and dental care, flu shots and other services for the pet owners. These are people who have strong bonds with their pets, but don’t have access to veterinary care.  Watson and others working with him provide vaccinations for those pets, deworm them, and also offer pet owners dental care, flu shots and other services.
As well, he and a team of volunteers regularly visit remote northern Manitoba communities to spay and neuter the dogs in these communities.  And, farther afield, he has been recruited “to provide his spay and neuter and vaccinations services to a poor community in Mexico and villages bordering near national parks in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar– to alleviate the dogs’ impact on endangered species – specifically lemurs,” he notes in an email.
The graduate of the Hebrew bilingual program at Brock Corydon Elementary School points out that “an entire section of Jewish law – the concept of ‘tsa’ar ba’alei hayim’- prescribes that all animals be treated with compassion, and spared any suffering”. 
”This notion has been the driving force behind everything I’ve done professionally over the last 25 years,” he says.  “It is in fact the reason I pursued a career in veterinary medicine in the first place. And so, to be awarded this medal for what has been my life’s work is truly humbling. The fact that this work is being highlighted now is, I hope, a promising sign for the animals themselves.”

Among the most recent members of our community to have been awarded the Coronation medal is Dan Saidman, the Gwen Secter’s popular program director.
“I was really surprised,” says Saidman, who was presented with the award this past Saturday by Raquel Dancho, the Member of Parliament for  Kildonan-St. Paul.  
The honoree notes that he has been recognized for his work at the Gwen Sercter Centre over the past seven years.  Previous to coming to the north Winnipeg seniors’ centre, he had served as director of BBYO for a time – followed by programming stints at  the Waverley Retirement Home and the Heritage Lodge personal care home.
Saidman describes his time working at the Gwen Secter as the best job he has ever had.  “It is a nice working environment and the staff and membership have been great,” he says.

A particularly notable honoree was the recently deceased Shawna (Shoshana) Forester Smith. I only learned about Smith – and her membership in our Jewish community when I was contacted by her husband, Brent, after my original report “Jewish  Coronation medal recipients” was published int this paper in early January.
Some readers may be familiar with Smith’s name from the regular column she wrote for the Free Press in her role as an advocate for hospitalized patients like herself in long term care.
Shoshana and Brent became part of the Temple Shalom family about 15 years ago.   “It was important to Shawna to explore her spirituality and find the right home and community for that aspect of her life and she found those things with Temple Shalom,” Brent recalls. 
“I first met Shawna when I subbed for Rabbi Karen in the Intro to Judaism class at Temple Shalom in 2011,” he says. Longtime Temple Shalom president Ruth Livinston recalled standing beside Smith’s bedside at the Deer Lodge Hospital on the occasion of Smith receiving the Coronation medal . “We had a good connection right from the start. Besides attending services, Shawna came to study watercolour and the read Hebrew program with me, she painted a couple of kippahs and even came to a challah baking class. I had the honour of sitting on her Beit Din and helped her prepare for her Bat Mitzvah. She was a member of Temple Shalom’s Board of Trustees and managed our social media presence.
 
“When she decided to live at Riverview, she changed our weekly visits to include a watercolour class which she shared with her ward…that went on until Covid. We continued to meet weekly after Covid, including after her move here, to Deer Lodge.  I treasure my visits with her – she had become family to me.”
In accepting the medal, Smith recounted her career in management for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority until she became ill in her late 20s and had to go on permanent disability.  Once she became a chronic care patient in the care of the health system, she used her public relations and healthcare background to advocate on behalf of patients with some success in bringing about positive change.
Sadly, Shoshana Smith passed away just about a month after receiving her Coronation medal.  “Shawna is the bravest person I have ever met,” Livingston says.  “In spite of ever increasing disability and agonizing pain, she made the decision to live to the best of her ability, to keep fighting for what she needs as well as for others.
“For one little woman with so many challenges, Shawna made an enormous and important impact on our community and beyond. I am thankful and delighted that she was honoured with the King Charles Coronation medal for her work in advocacy.”

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Shalom Residences’ Executive Director Mike Goldberg looks back on 3 years in the job

By BERNIE BELLAN Three years ago – almost to the date (March 30), I reported on the retirement of of one of the longest-serving executive directors of an agency within the Jewish community: Nancy Hughes.
Nancy had been serving as executive director of Shalom Residences since 1991. The very first Shalom Residence opened in 1980, which means Shalom Residences will be celebrating its 45th anniversary this year.
Among the 12 agencies that receive funding from the Winnipeg Jewish Federation, Shalom Residences though might have one of the lowest profiles, as it serves a fairly small segment of the community – adults with special needs intellectual disabilities. As previous editor of The Jewish Post & News and, prior to that, when my late brother Matt served as editor, we always tried to give Shalom Residences due recognition. One of the reasons, as current Shalom Residences executive director Michael Goldberg explained during a recent phone conversation we had, is that there are members of our community who may not be aware of what Shalom Residences provide – and who may have children who would benefit from living in one of the residences once they reach adulthood.

It may be hard to believe, but two of the original residents in that very first Shalom Residence (on Enniskillen Avenue) still remain residents of Shalom Residences. (There are five other homes that house Shalom residents: On Hartford Avenue and Seven Oaks Place – both in West Kildonan, McAdamCathedral Avenue – in the North End, Daffodil – in Garden City; and Oxford Street, in River Heights.)
The smallest home has three residents and the largest one – five.
Twenty-nine adults live in those homes, while another nine live in supported independent living apartments, and three adults are supported in community outreach.
When Nancy Hughes retired in 2022, the effects of the Covid-19 epidemic were still being widely felt. In fact, there were two vacancies within Shalom Residences at that time, as I explained in my March 30 article: “Nancy explained, with the onset of Covid in 2020 a number of parents who might otherwise have wanted to place a child in one of the homes drew back from doing so out of fears that their loved one might contract Covid.”

Actually, the term “child” in referring to residents of Shalom Residences is a misnomer. In order to qualify for residency in one of the residences, one must be at least 18 years of age, but the fact is there has been very little turnover among residents over the years. One of the original Shalom residents, Rochelle Bronstein, just passed away in July last year. Rochelle had moved into a Shalom residence when she was in her twenties. According to Shalom Residences’ annual report, the average age of residents is now 54.

For those readers not familiar with Shalom Residences, its Mission and Vision are stated on the organization’s website:
“To support people with intellectual disabilities in the mainstream of community life so that they may conduct their lives in a meaningful dignified way.To empower adults with intellectual disabilities to live meaningful, dignified lives in community based homes in Winnipeg, enriched by Jewish values.
“Shalom envisions a community where individuals with intellectual disabilities are fully included, self-actualized, and valued in all aspects of life.
“Their values are:
“Inclusion: Shalom believes in the right of every individual to have opportunities to be an active, respected member of their community.
“Empowerment: Shalom supports adults in building capacity to achieve their individualized goals.
“Jewish Heritage: Shalom is committed to providing support that reflects the values and traditions of the Jewish community. They also support individuals to participate in the richness of their chosen religion and culture.
“Awareness & Acceptance: Shalom strives to foster understanding and acceptance of individuals with intellectual disabilities as valued members of the community.
“To enable people with intellectual disabilities to become as self-sufficient as possible.
“To create and maintain Judaic oriented programs for people with intellectual disabilities which reflect the philosophy of Shalom Residences Inc.
“To develop community awareness of, and increase community acceptance of, people with intellectual disabilities as full and equal citizens.
“To enable the persons in Shalom Residences’ programs to achieve their potential as contributing members of our community, and to become as self sufficient as possible.”

In 2022 Michael Goldberg took over as executive director of Shalom Residences. In my March 2022 article about Nancy Hughes’ retirement I noted that Michael was the son of Mark and Kathryn Goldberg, had attended Ramah Hebrew School, Gray Academy, and the University of Winnipeg Collegiate. Michael had also attended Winthrop University in South Carolina, where he had obtained a bachelors degree in Psychology. (He noted that he had actually gone to university on a golf scholarship!)
Later, Michael said, he obtained his masters degree in Gerontology in Regina.
Since 2015, he had been working at Palliative Manitoba in the Deer Lodge Centre Palliative Care.
Even before coming to Shalom Residences, Michael says that he had developed a familiarity with the program, as he “was able to facilitate courses in compassionate care for Shalom Residences staff members.”

Recently, I had a chance to talk with Michael Goldberg – to ask him now that he’s had to gain some experience, how he’s found working as executive director of Shalom Residences?
Michael echoed Nancy’s observation that, as residents of Shalom residences have aged, dealing with aging residents has led to different challenges.
“We want to make sure they’re aging with dignity,” he said, “and that they’re comfortable.”
As well, Michael noted that with the closure of the Manitoba Developmental Centre in Portage and the St. Amant Centre in Winnipeg, the goal now, more than ever, is ” to integrate people (who had previously been institutionalized) “into the community” – something which has been a leading purpose of Shalom Residences since its inception.

I asked Michael how someone who has a child with an intellectual disability and that child is approaching adulthood (or is already an adult) would go through the process of having that child placed in a Shalom Residence?
Michael explained that a parent with a child under 18 who has an intellectual disability has most likely already been in touch with the Department of Families in the provincial government “because they receive funding” from that department “to support their family member.”
“So that’s the first step to make sure you’re eligible to receive funding from Community Living Disability Services, ” he said, “and once people are deemed eligible, and that process involved getting documentation from a physician or psychologist insuring that intellectual impairment was perceived prior to the age of 18, then they can gain access to resources from Shalom Residences if they’re over the age of 18. We have to make sure that they require personal care when it comes to basic needs, management of property, also they have to be Canadian citizens.”

According to its annual report, only 55% of Shalom Residents are Jewish. (Yet, just as the Simkin Centre has a very high proportion of non-Jewish residents, adherence to kashrut is considered a fundamental value of Shalom Residences. I’ll offer no further observations on how important it is for non-Jews to be forced into adhering to the rules of kashrut since I don’t want to elicit another angry letter to the editor of this paper from the Winnipeg Council of Rabbis.) The funding allocated to Shalom Residences from the Jewish Federation, by the way goes to subvent the often extraordinarily high cost of kosher food.
In fact, over 90% of Shalom Residences funding comes from the province. A good chunk of that funding goes to pay the salaries of the 83 staff who work for Shalom Residences, including both part-time and full-time staff.

One of the issues I raised with Michael is the problem raised by the aging of our own Jewish community. As parents of children who have intellectual disabilities may find it increasingly difficult to care for those children – who are now adults – within their own homes, Shalom Residences might be a viable alternative for parents who, until now, would have been reluctant to see their children leave the home.

I wondered whether there is a “wait list” then, of individuals waiting to move into a Shalom residence. I was somewhat surprised to hear from Michael that there is not a wait list.
Again – that might be more of a reflection of a general unawareness of Shalom Residences than anything else because, since Shalom Residences began with only 17 residents in 1984 and has remained constant at roughly 30 residents for several years now – what with the Jewish Federation claiming that our Jewish population has grown hugely in that past 20 years (despite census figures that would show that not to be the case), one would have expected a growth in demand for placements in Shalom Residences, commensurate with that “huge” growth in our Jewish population. (The Federation actually cites the figure of 16,000 in reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish population. The 2020 Canadian census has it at no more than 12,500, but who am I to argue with the Jewish Federation when it comes to embellishing population figures?)

I wondered too whether there were Shalom residents who didn’t have any relatives who had provided care for them – perhaps because those relatives were in need of care themselves or had passed on already – and those Shalom residents were the responsibility of the Public Trustee of Manitoba?
Michael answered that not only is that the case in several instances, it has also been the case that living relatives have considered handinged over responsibility for the care of their children to the Public Trustee because they simply wanted to “relinquish” responsibility for care of a child with intellectual disabilities.

I asked whether there had been any major improvements made to any of the Shalom Homes recently? Michael noted that there had been a major renovation of the kitchen in the McAdam Avenue home – thanks to a donation from the Silver family. (In October 2022 I had reported on another addition to that home when, thanks to a donation from form the Ian and Rochelle Laing Family Foundation, the unfinished basement of that home had been transformed into a beautiful recreation centre, complete with an arts and craft table, exercise equipment, new flooring, a sink, and a chairlift.)
That led me to ask Michael whether perhaps newer members of our community who might have children who would be well served by living in a Shalom Residence are totally oblivious of what Shalom Residences have to offer?
Michael said that, “in fact, we’ve just welcomed a new resident” whose family is from Russia.
“We got in touch with them. There was a vacancy in one of our homes and he actually just moved in.”
Partly in reaction to the unawareness though that exists within many members of our Jewish community about Shalom Residences, Shalom Residences will be “doing a community outreach information night program on Wednesday, April 9, at the Asper Campus in the Kroft Boardroom at 7pm,” Michael said.

Shalom Residences used to hold an annual lottery as well – but it no longer does that. There will be a donor appreciation evening though on May 27 at the Adas-Yeshurun Herzlia Synagogue.

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