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Fringe festivals throughout North America – including Winnipeg, have become hugely hostile locations for anyone who has expressed support for Israel

Melanie Gall

By BERNIE BELLAN What happens when a fringe festival performer, who also happens to be Jewish, doesn’t shy away from voicing their support for Israel? In today’s world that performer is bound to be subjected to a torrent of hate – both online and in person.
Such was the case in Winnipeg recently when Melanie Gall, a longtime performer at Winnipeg’s Fringe Festival, found herself caught up in an organized campaign of harassment and bullying – culminating in calls to boycott her shows and defacement of her posters.
To begin, here’s a brief bio of Melanie which should give a good idea how accomplished she is: “Melanie Gall is a professional musician and music historian who holds advanced degrees from several academic institutions, including Manhattan School of Music in New York, Mozarteum University in Salzburg, and Glenn Gould School in Toronto. Melanie is an internationally-acclaimed performer and has sung at Lincoln Center and Royal Albert Hall. She has also written several plays featuring historic music and “Ingenue,” about Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland, had a sold out Off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse and won a Best Musical Award at the Adelaide Festival. Melanie divides her time between Alberta, Canada and New York City. She also hosts the Savvy Girls Podcast with her sister.”

As a personal aside I first met Melanie in 2015 at that year’s Winnipeg Fringe Festival. It has been my practice for years to give any Jewish performer at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival some advance publicity – both on this website and within the pages of The Jewish Post & News (now called The Jewish Post). I’ve had a chance to talk with Melanie before, but until this year she had never mentioned that her being Jewish had caused any problems for her.
This year was different, however. While there were several other Jewish performers at Winnipeg’s Fringe Festival I didn’t hear of anyone else being subjected to an organized campaign of harassment the way Melanie was. I did receive an email on July 20 from another Jewish performer by the name of Randy Ross who told me he was upset by seeing a pro-Palestinian demonstration march through Exchange Square – the centre of Fringe activity. Randy said that he and “another Jewish woman told fringe folks we were offended. Festival staff was nice and receptive.”

I hadn’t heard of anything else that might have been construed as antisemitic until I happened to be speaking to another Fringe performer by the name of Jem Rolls (who isn’t Jewish) after the Winnipeg Fringe was over. During the course of our conversation Jem asked me whether I was aware of what had been happening to Melanie Gall? When I said I wasn’t, Jem told me that not only had she been subjected to harassment in Winnipeg, but that she had encountered an even worse form of harassment in Edmonton, which is where she is scheduled to next appear.
As a result I contacted Melanie and asked her to describe what had happened to her in Winnipeg, also what was going on in Edmonton (where that city’s fringe festival is not slated to begin until August 15.)

Melanie explained that she has not been shying away from maintaining a very strong pro-Israel stance on social media, specifically Instagram. “Nobody (in the fringe circuit) has been quite as vocal online as I have the past nine months,” she said. Melanie added though that “I have not said anything against Palestinian rights. I have said ‘What about the hostages?’ “
But these day anyone who is brave enough to post support for Israel on social media is setting themselves up for vicious condemnation – which is something Melanie had been quite aware of, but which has not led to her backing down from her position.
Still, she realized that certain venues this year would be far too hostile for her to consider participating in those fringe festivals. As she told me, “I purposely didn’t do any shows on the West Coast because everyone (who’s a fringe festival performer) I know on the West Coast is a virulently anti-Israel performer.”
As well, Melanie ruled out performing in two other fringe festivals where she had performed in previous years: Halifax and Orlando.
“Halifax was posting antisemitic things so I wasn’t going to go to Halifax,” she noted. As for Orlando – “the Queers for Palestine came in,” so she decided not to go to Orlando either.
But, in contrast with those two fringe festivals, Melanie had been assured that Winnipeg’s Fringe Festival would not tolerate the kind of harassment that she knew she would receive in those other cities.
The director of Winnipeg’s Fringe Festival is Chuck McEwen, who has been in that role since 2008. (Prior to coming here McEwen was the director of the Toronto Fringe Festival.)
Winnipeg’s Fringe Festival has traditionally been the second largest fringe festival in North America, surpassed only by Edmonton’s.
And, to be fair, when Melanie Gall began to experience overt antisemitic behaviour on the part of some Winnipeg Fringe volunteers and online during her recent stay here, she did say that her interaction with Chuck McEwen was quite positive. “Chuck was wonderful,” she said. “I have a few emails from him apologizing for what had been happening.”

So, what happened to Melanie during her stay in Winnipeg, from July 17-28?
To begin with, Melanie explained, she “was told no one was allowed to wear pro-Palestinian symbols if they were on staff. I showed up to my first performance (at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People) and my tech was wearing a pro-Palestinian pin. The next day a volunteer at my venue was wearing a kaffiyeh.”
Still, even with that, Melanie wasn’t sure that she was being singled out for harassment.
However, on the third day, she said, “the site supervisor came and was wearing a pro-Palestinian symbol” and told Melanie that he was wearing that deliberately because he was coming to Melanie’s venue.
He told her, “that stance you’re taking (on social media) is a political symbol.”
“That person was relieved” from his duties after Melanie complained to the Fringe office staff, she noted.
Melanie was also the target of an organized campaign on pro-Palestine social media calling for her shows to be boycotted.

Posters for Melanie’s shows in Winnipeg that were defaced by pro-Palestinians

On her last day of performing at the Winnipeg Fringe, Melanie says, her “tech came wearing a pro-Palestinian symbol. He was walking back and forth with that symbol.” (She didn’t say what the symbol was.)
Yet, despite what was happening toward her, Melanie says “at no point did I ever demand that they (volunteers or paid staff) take off” their pro-Palestinian pins or other symbols of support for Palestine.
Notwithstanding Melanie’s not having demanded that anyone remove pro-Palestinian symbols, a site supervisor by the name of Eric Rae posted on social media words to the effect, “We have a Zionist in our midst harassing pro-Palestinians.”
As Melanie said during our phone conversation, “This is so ridiculous. I’m being harassed and bullied because I’m Jewish…it’s not about Israel.”
And, while Fringe Festival organizers in Winnipeg took her complaints very seriously, according to Melanie, “it still went to hell.”

The Edmonton Fringe Festival is adding an entirely new dimension of antisemitism to what she has already experienced, Melanie observed. The show she is planning on performing was actually written by her mother, Karen Gall. It’s a show about funny Alberta landmarks.
In order to enhance the show, Melanie and Karen asked the Edmonton Fringe for a designer who could contribute a digital component to the show.
But, as part of her show, Melanie wanted to include a picture of her working on a kibbutz in Israel. After she told that to the artistic director of the Edmonton Fringe Festival, Murray Utas, Melanie says, the next day she was told by Murray that “the designer had pulled out. It was against their ideology to work with us.”
What also concerns Melanie is the possibility that the pro-Palestine network in Winnipeg will have established contact with a similar network in Edmonton to call for boycotting Melanie and Karen’s show.
As she says, “it’s one thing for them not to work with me – which is egregious in itself” (as the designer who was supposed to work with their show decided), “now I’m known as a Zionist. I’m no longer under the radar here.”

Local News

GrowWinnipeg celebrates 25th anniversary

GrowWinnipeg Director Dalia Szpiro

By MYRON LOVE On Wednesday, June 25, about 250 Jewish Winnipeggers  – comprising lifelong residents as well as newer arrivals, came together at the Asper campus to celebrate the 25th anniversary of GrowWinnipeg, an initiative that has revitalized our Jewish community – in our camps, school, synagogues and other institutions and given our community a much more international flavour.
Our community’s population peaked in terms of population in 1961 when Winnipeg Jewry numbered around 20,000.  The years after had been a period of steady decline.  By 1961, most of the Jews living in smaller communities  in the Prairie provinces – the source of much of our ongoing population replenishment up to that point – had largely disappeared.
A s Bob Freedman,  the former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg (and its predecessor, the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council),  noted  in his remarks at the 25th anniversary party, by 1986, community leaders recognized that ours was an aging and shrinking community with aging infrastructure.
“We recognized that something had to be done,” he recalled.
The first stage, he pointed out, 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. GrowWinnipeg is unique in its efforts to reach out to young Jewish families throughout the Western world .
The genesis was a chance meeting on an airplane almost 30 years ago between former Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor Janice Filmon – at that time the wife of then-Manitoba premier Gary Filmon, and a Jewish businessman from  Argentina who was contemplating moving to Toronto.  Filmon persuaded him to consider Winnipeg instead. He was impressed by what he saw and suggested that the community send representatives to Buenos Aires to meet with other Argentinian Jewish families who were considering leaving.
That planted the seed.
Shortly thereafter – in 1998 – Larry Hurtig – then the president of the Federation, his son, Jack, and a representative of the provincial government, made an exploratory visit to Buenos Aires to gauge what interest there might be among young Jewish families to consider moving to Winnipeg.
GrowWinnipeg was officially launched in 2000. Our community opened its arms in welcome to the new arrivals who began to arrive, hosting them in our homes and helping them become acclimatized to their new surroundings.
Evelyn Hecht became the principal contact for the newcomers.  “I was lucky that I happened to be working for the Federation when we opened the campus and turned our energies to repopulating our community,” Hecht noted in her remarks at the recent celebration.  “Fortunately, the pieces fell into place at just the right time.”
Those pieces, Hecht related, included: the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program – which allowed community support groups to recruit specific immigrants; the arrival of a small number of Jewish families from Buenos Aires who encouraged community leaders to look to their former home as a potential source of Jewish immigrants; and the availability of email and the internet. 
The initiative – led by Hecht – recruited a group of local Jewish families who were prepared to host potential immigrants who had begun to come for exploratory visits. The connections made by the new arrivals and their local hosts resulted in many long–lasting friendships, Hccht noted.
She praised Jewish Child and Family Service for helping the new arrivals to become established here and integrate into the community.
Efforts were also made to build a data basis of potential employers for the newcomers.
GrowWinnpeg was kicked off by two visits to Buenos Aires – visits Hecht describes as “exciting and exhausting” – in the early 2000s, when Hecht and other Winnipeg representatives met with potential immigrants and heard their concerns about life and personal safety in Argentina and hopes for the future that Winnipeg might be able to give them.
“I remember,” she said, “the numerous meeting I held in my office on the third floor here listening to people’s excitement and concerns  and answering questions about life in Winnipeg, our Jewish identity, schools, synagogues, employment, housing and especially, safety.  I always emphasized that they would encounter struggles, disappointment and possibly, crises – but I assured them that we would be here to help.
“And I remember feeling so much happiness when people would show up at my door to share good news about babies born, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations and new jobs – and the numerous times I was in Citizen Court where so many were so proud to receive their citizenship certificates. “
And they are still coming. Dalia Szpiro, Hecht’s successor, reports that, over the past 25 years just under 7,000 people have come here under the aegis of GrowWinnipeg – and not just from Argentina.  We have had families from  Brazil, Uruguay and other South American countries, Mexico, Europe, and, in more recent years, especially from Israel.

Marina Shapiro with son Adam


For former Israelis I spoke with on the 25th, such as Slava and Karina Pustilnikov, Irena Oz  and Marina Shapiro and her 19-year-old son, Adam,  all of whom have been here for 10 to 15 years, the primary motivation was being in a safer environment.
For Ori Rahima and his wife, Anna  Shapiro, who have been here for seven years and have three children under six, the pull was greater opportunity and a better standard of living.

Esther Barna


Then there is Esther Barna, a teacher by training, newly arrived from Budapest.  “Hungary is not a good place to be a Jew,” she says. “There is a lot of antisemitism. I was looking online for a better place to go and came across the GrowWinnipeg website. I love it here.”
In her concluding remarks, Dalia Szpiro, herself an immigrant from Uruguay about 20 years ago, thanked the many Jewish organizations and individuals in the community who have helped to make GrowWinnipeg the success that it is.
“Over 250 volunteers each year meet with our exploratory visitors – opening their homes, their hearts, their time, their insights and their networks,” she noted.   “There is something very special about our community and our province.  Every exploratory visitor who comes here as part of their immigration journey discovers it.
“This 25-year milestone is a reason for pride and celebration – and a renewed commitment to the future.  We are already working on new strategies – to strengthen what we have built, support immigration, foster inclusion and create more opportunities for newcomers to grow and prosper.”
 

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Long time community members Bryan Schwartz, Myriam Saitman receive rabbinic ordination

Bryan Schwartz/Myriam Saitman

By MYRON LOVE On June 21, Bryan Schwartz and Myriam Saitman received their rabbinical ordination through the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute (JSLI) Rabbinical School – bringing the number of JSLI rabbinic graduates in our community to seven.
“I felt a calling,” says Saitman, who is the new spiritual leader of Temple Shalom, our community’s roughly 60-year-old Reform Congregation. Saitman notes that she is Temple Shalom’s fourth female rabbi.
Originally from Buenos Aires, Saitman and her family answered our community’s call for new young Jewish families that began with the Federation’s  GrowWinnipeg campaign. They arrived here in 2003.
“We were attracted by a community that offered a safer environment for raising a family and better economic opportunities,” she recalls.
Although raised in a secular family, she notes that, as a young adult she was drawn to learning more about Judaism.  “I took Hebrew classes in Argentina and started on a spiritual path,” she recalls.
Soon after coming to Winnipeg, she found her spiritual home at Temple Shalom. Over the last many years, she has served as a volunteer in several capacities at the synagogue – both at the school and as a long time member of the board. Since 2016, she was also one of the lay service leaders, often leading Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday evenings.
 When her predecessor, Allan Finkel – also a JSLI grad – let it be known that he was planning to retire after six years as the congregation’s spiritual leader, Saitman put her name forward as a potential successor.
“Judith (Huebner) and Ruth (Livingston) (Temple Shalom’s president and past president respectively) were really supportive as were the board and the congregation,” Saitman says.  “I began leading services.”
As for the JSLI program, Saitman notes that it is intensive.  “It meets a need,” she observes. “It prepares us well for all the requirements of being a congregational rabbi.
“We at Temple Shalom want people to know that we are here and we welcome interfaith families,” she adds.  “Our motto is that we follow tradition and embrace modernity.  Our services (on Friday evenings) reflect the essence of Reform Judaism where we allow for individual choices. I’d like to stress that individual choices are informed by an educated interpretation based on knowledge of the laws and customs.”
Unlike Saitman, Rabbi Bryan Schwartz was not considering a career as a congregational rabbi when embarking on the JSLI program.  For Schwartz, “rabbi” is the latest title in a lifetime of achievement. As this writer noted in a story in the Post about Schwartz last year, he “is the very model of a modern-day, Jewish, Renaissance scholar.”.A long-time professor at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law, he is also a passionate Zionist, student of the Holocaust and an in demand commentator on modern legal and constitutional issues. He has written or contributed to 34 books and over 300 publications in all – in a legal and teaching career that stretches back more than 40 years.  His works within a Jewish context encompass the gamut of Jewish life from ancient times to the Holocaust to the current Jewish situation. In addition, he is a poet, playwright and songwriter. 
“My main purpose in taking the JSLI course,” he observes, “is to be better positioned to help deal with the challenge of Jewish survival. I want to be able to pass on Jewish tradition to the younger generation and impress upon younger Jews – who have grown up in largely secular homes – the value of our 2,500-year-old literature, culture and religious traditions.”
He observes that there is something for everyone in Jewish tradition.  “There are many people who are looking for a spiritual community. I believe that Judaism provides us with a sense of our place in the universe.”
 Schwartz – a lifelong student himself – notes that he has been building to this moment for a long time. In his early 20s, he notes, he audited a few courses at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  In his 50s and 60s, he learned Hebrew at different ulpans.
“I had been looking around for a while for a rabbinic program,” he says.  “JSLI seemed to be the best one.  It was hard work – but well worth it.  I learned a tremendous amount.”
So what is Schwartz – who is a member of the Shaarey Zedek – planning on doing as a rabbi?
“I would like to be able to offer weekly dvar Torahs,” he says. 
He would like , among other things, to do creative and educational projects for the community,  like his weekly dvar torah in the Times of Israel.  The commentary that he gave on the weekend of his Smicha ceremony is called  “From Burning Synagogue to Rising Lyon,” and can be found at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-burning-synagogue-to-rising-lion/     
“I have also been writing books and musicals inspired by the Tradition, and hope to find forums to share  them in the years ahead,” he adds.   “My mission is to share in the radiance of our Tradition and help inspire the next generations to see its warmth and illumination”

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Winnipeg Fringe performer Melanie Gall subjected to antisemitic attack – for second year in a row

By BERNIE BELLAN (July 20, 2025)
Melanie Gall is a talented performer who is a veteran of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival – having appeared here many times.
Last year Melanie found herself being subjected to antisemitic attacks that were initiated by a site supervisor for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, someone by the name of Eric Rae.
As I wrote on my story about Melanie’s experience, “…on the third day (of the Fringe Festival), she said, ‘the site supervisor (Rae) came and was wearing a pro-Palestinian symbol’ and told Melanie that he was wearing that deliberately because he was coming to Melanie’s venue.
“He told her, ‘that stance you’re taking (on social media) is a political symbol.
Rae also posted on social media: “We have a Zionist in our midst harassing pro-Palestinians.”
There was a concerted effort on social media last summer to boycott Melanie’s shows (She had three different shows altogether.)
As Melanie said during a phone conversation we had last summer about what happened to her, “This is so ridiculous. I’m being harassed and bullied because I’m Jewish…it’s not about Israel.”

Eric Rae was relieved from his duties after Melanie complained to the Fringe office staff, Melanie noted during our conversation.

She adds that other Fringe employees also complained about Eric Rae’s behaviour:  “I wasn’t the only one who complained last year,” she wrote in an email sent today. “Several staff members complained, as Eric was not adhering to the Fringe policy that did not allow political symbols to be worn by staff. From what I heard, he refused to stop wearing it, and he did publicly target me. The Winnipeg Fringe upheld their safe spaces policy, and they were wonderful in the way they handled it.”
Further, Melanie was the target of an organized campaign on pro-Palestine social media calling for her shows to be boycotted.
(You can read the full story about what happened to Melanie, also to her mother during last year’s Edmonton Fringe Festival, at Melanie Gall.)

Just today we received another email from Melanie informing us that the same individual who targeted her last summer is targeting her again during this year’s Fringe Festival.
Melanie wrote: “Hi! Thanks so much for the mention in the preview article! I just wanted to let you know that Eric Rae is at it again.”
Attached to that email was a picture taken from Rae’s Instagram account.


As of the writing of this post, Melanie said that she is out of town for three days and is not aware whether any of her posters have been defaced – the way they were last summer.
She did add, however, that “I assume by ‘make her feel unwelcome’ (which is what is written on one of the pictures on Rae’s Instagram account) he is planning something. Ugh.” 
Melanie also said that “The one post is too close to a threat to ignore.”

In a subsequent email Melanie also sent a screenshot of an exchange that took place on Rae’s Instagram account between him and someone who goes by the handle “Kat Cat.”

If we hear more about what’s been happening to Melanie we’ll update this article.

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