Local News
Gray Academy excels at online teaching during pandemic with ‘Gray Away”
and Annie (Gr. 6)
By BERNIE BELLAN
It was March 13 when the Province of Manitoba announced that, effective March 23, all schools in Manitoba were going to close for three weeks – with the possibility that the closure might be extended.
While it shouldn’t have come as a major surprise, given the speed with which the novel coronavirus was sweeping across Canada and the United States, still, how do you prepare for something as huge as the closing of all schools?
For staff at Gray Academy, however, adapting to new technology has always been a strong suit. Within a period of days the school informed parents that almost everything that had been done in the bricks and mortar Gray Academy was now going to be carried over into what was titled “Gray Away”.
Now, after over two months of having transitioned to a totally new way of learning, the results are in – and it seems that everyone, from staff to parents to students themselves, are more than satisfied with how Gray Academy has managed to adapt so well to the demands that were thrust upon that school.
Staff forced to pivot to online learning in a very short time
On Friday, May 15 I spoke with three members of Gray Academy: Head of School and Gray Academy CEO Lori Binder, Director of Teaching and Learning Rob Dalgliesh, and Director, Marketing and Communications Andrea Ritter.
We discussed how Gray Academy has responded to the demands of taking an entire curriculum online and what the reactions of parents and students have been.
Lori Binder began the conversation by saying: “We’re phenomenally grateful to all of our staff for being able to pivot so quickly in the middle of March in caring for all of our students.
“No one could ever have imagined that within 48 hours we’d have to figure out an infrastructure to care for all of our students and our learning.
“It’s been going incredibly well. We have been able to solicit feedback along the way in the last eight and a half weeks. Feedback has been immensely helpful to help create “our Gray Away infrastructure.
“We had some things in place in the school before the pandemic hit that allowed us to pivot more successfully – especially in the upper elementary to the high school.
“I think it was caring for our littlest kids – nobody in this world would have fathomed children learning virtually at three, four, or five years of age, but I think the biggest drivers for us were insuring that our students in their isolation had very strong connections with their teachers and with their peers on a daily basis through having a timetable and live classes, also a solid structure.”
How the curriculum was developed
Rob Dalgliesh added: “Although our time line was very short, great care went into the creation of ‘Gray Away’ – our virtual academy. It wasn’t rushed. We spent a lot of extra time in the wee hours of the morning creating the pieces that went into it.
“We started with standard curriculum creation by looking at the principal foundations of what we would then carry forward. We looked at the research that is in the area of online learning.
“We looked at pillars – things that we could build on. We wanted to make sure that our kids felt that they were being cared for and safe, but to do that we wanted things to be somewhat familiar – that connection with their teachers, that connection with their peers.
“We also wanted to include a spiritual element. Being a Jewish school we wanted that to be there, so we have our ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’, we have things for holiday programming. Even during the Pesach break we had educators dedicate time to bring forward programming connected to the holiday.
“Another pillar was physical health. It’s easy for a kid not to get up and get going, so we wanted to make sure that there’s an expectation that we wanted them to continue with their phys ed programming.
(Another pillar was) “Mental health – we wanted to help kids with that; showing kids that there’s more to learning than reading a text book. We looked at calming exercises, at the integration of a variety of techniques that our teachers are great at using that help kids with their mental wellbeing.
“For instance, we had wonderful suggestions for creating art at home, also project based learning.”
Zoom for JK-Grade 2; Google Meets for students in Grade 3 & up
At that point I asked “whether the lessons for the kids are individually tailored or are they done in group Zoom sessions, for instance?”
Lori Binder answered: “We’re using the Zoom platform from junior kindergarten through to Grade 2 and we are using the Google classroom platform – which uses Google Meets, in Grades 3 through 12. There are live classes that occur every day – mornings and afternoons.
“We have also built in one-on-one time in our elementary so that teachers have a chance to connect with kids and do some assessment. In our high school there’s a little bit of one-on-time on a daily basis.
“We’ve also set aside blocks on day 3 for all teachers to have an open meeting.”
School still starts at 9 a.m.
I asked: “Can you give an idea how much time a typical student would be online – either individually or within a group setting?”
Lori Binder: “I’ll paint you a picture of elementary: At 9 a.m. every student comes on to Zoom – JK through elementary. The whole school is welcome, but it’s mostly elementary. There are live announcements and the anthems (both O Canada and Hatikvah), and then they head straight to their live classes. They start with a live class with their general classroom teacher, then they continue on either to a live specialist class, which could be French, guidance, music…and then they’ll continue on live.
“I wanted to clarify that in an hour for instance in the high school, it’s not just live teaching.” (Later Lori explained that there is also time set aside for students to study on their own during the school day – just as if they were in the actual physical school.)
Rob Dalgliesh added: “One of the pillars (upon which the virtual school was built) was having a balanced day so that there is online collaboration, for example, small group work.
“At the high school level, there is a teacher giving a lesson, then there is Q and A time afterward – just like in a bricks and mortar school.
“Sometimes the collaboration with other students is just over the phone – like we are right now, having a conversation. It’s not necessarily in front of a screen.
“There are off line working sessions with students doing homework with paper and pen. There are research and innovation projects – personal passion projects that a student wants to research and carry on by him or herself.”
Lori Binder: “I would say it’s about 41/2-5 hours a day (spent in the virtual classroom), but again – it’s not sitting and staring at a screen.
“We’ve got some incredible things going. For instance, a couple of nights ago, the Grade 9 science teacher invited all the students at 9:30 (p.m.) to hop on to a live meeting to look at Venus. It was a particular night that Venus could be visible in the sky.
“Our younger kids would be spending less time (in the virtual classroom) – more around three hours a day, divided up into smaller chunks.”
Close monitoring of each student’s performance
I asked: “Are you able to monitor individual students to see how much time each student is actually spending online?” (I asked that question because I was skeptical that all students are responding with equal eagerness to adapt to the “virtual classroom”).
Lori Binder: “One of the most amazing ingredients to this has been the very close connection between the teachers, the students, and the families. Every three days there are phone calls home.
“If a child has not arrived in the classroom and we have not heard from the parents, then we’re following up. We have very high engagement. I would say that almost every kid is learning.
“Where there’s a differential is in the junior kindergarten – kindergarten, where it’s a little more challenging to be regimented. But, because of the technology (we’re using) all our classes are recorded (and remain on our password protected website for five days), so that if a child did miss a class the parent could go on at any time (and play that lesson for the child).”
Andrea Ritter explained that the younger children spend about 20 minutes at a time online, then they go off to do something on their own, such as art , music, or gym. The teacher is available live, but the student can go and do their work on the dining room table for instance. All the students may be doing their math work, but the teacher is on their screen if they need help.
I asked whether there is a full slate of classes, including Judaic studies, for all students?
Lori Binder answered: “Every single program is running, including English as an Additional Language, our special education department, our guidance department.”
I wondered whether the curriculum being followed thus far in the virtual classroom is keeping apace with what would have occurred in the actual physical classroom?
Lori Binder: “It’s hard to compare going completely virtual. I would say that we are confident we will have achieved the proper outcomes of the curriculum by year end.”
Rob Dalgliesh added: “We’re carefully mapping what’s being done, what’s completed and what’s not. We will be able to determine what a student hasn’t completed before the next year begins.
Rigorous timetable being followed
Lori Binder: “We made a decision to exceed the provincial requirements. We decided to have a rigorous timetable that was also balanced so that, for instance, the lunch hour is a little bit longer than what students would have had in the actual school because we thought the students would need a ‘quiet hour’ getting off the screen time.
“There’s a break of half an hour in the morning and afternoon for the elementary kids so that they can get up and stretch.
“The schedule ends around 3:15 instead of 3:40. Instead of starting at 10 to 9 we’re starting at 9 o’clock.”
I said: “What I’m getting from this is that the kids are adjusting to a situation that would be as comparable as possible to the actual classroom situation.”
Lori Binder: “Yes, we really felt that our kids needed routine, that in their isolation they needed to be connected to the school, to the school community, and to their classmates.”
She went on to explain how the timing of having to switch to the virtual classroom was quickly interrupted by the Pesach break: “In a normal Peasach break we would be off and relaxing, but we knew that our kids would not have the luxury of a Pesach break where they could go out of town so on the non-Yom Tov days we put together a program (with about 20 volunteer staff) where we went on Zoom and we had everything from a pet parade, story time for the young kids, we had an author (Jon Waldman) read from his Jets book, we had teachers eat lunch with the kids – because we just couldn’t go from 13 days of virtual school to a Pesach that was quiet.
“It was during the Pesach break that our leadership team formulated the next phase of Gray Academy, which was Gray Away 2.0, where we finessed our timetable and we finessed our learning hub, especially with the younger kids, so that we found a way to bring the families into a good structure.
“What about other schools that might not be in as good a situation as Gray Academy?” I wondered.
“Are kids in other schools going to have to repeat the year entirely because they might not have had access to the kinds of technology that Gray Academy kids have?” I noted that in Quebec, for instance, “they’re abandoning the school year for kids who live in Montreal.”
Lori Binder explained that “there is an answer from the province actually.” She asked Rob Dalgliesh to expand upon what the province has asked schools to do.
Rob Dalgliesh picked up: “The province does not want children to be held back based on what’s happening now.” There is a possibility that there may be summer schooling for students who have fallen behind, he noted.
Lori Binder also noted that the province has asked that in report cards at year’s end, for students in Grades 9-12, it will have to be cited whether a student requires recovery learning in the fall or whether they do not require recovery learning. That will help guide students who are moving between schools.
Plans being laid for eventual reopening of the school
“Are you making any plans at all for a possible return to the classroom with social distancing in place?” I asked, or “is that too far ahead to think about yet?”
Lori Binder: “We were just in a town hall meeting with Dr. (Brent) Roussin (Manitoba’s Chief Public Health Officer) yesterday, along with about another thousand administrators from across the province and they just released a draft guideline called ‘limited facility school use’. It’s incredibly limited; it doesn’t involve plans for the fall. It deals with a child needing to meet with a guidance counsellor one on one, for example, or with a therapist.
“We are anticipating planning for a number of scenarios and, therefore, we’re planning with about five or six different things in mind, such as: ‘Are we going to have fewer students in spaces?’ We’ve been looking at what social distancing might look like in a classroom, whether we’re going to have to look at mixed days.
“We are very, very involved with our Canadian accredited independent schools. We meet with the Department of Education weekly. We’re also very connected to the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools. (I happen to be vice-chair of that right now.) We’re all working together.”
Post script: Following my conversation with the three administrators from Gray Academy on May 15, the Province of Manitoba announced new guidelines for schools. We received the following note from Andrea Ritter on Friday, May 22:
“As you know, the provincial directives have changed since we spoke. Throughout the entire process of building and delivering Gray Away, we’ve had to be on our toes for ongoing changes!
“Right now we’re exploring possibilities of what we might be able to do in terms of allowing limited groups students into our building (and our outdoor spaces) for occasional group activities, one-one-one guidance, exams, etc. There will be no in-class learning; the Province has re-iterated that in-school classes are still suspended for all Manitoba schools. Gray Away remote learning will continue for the remainder of the year, but it could be wonderful to be able to give students the opportunity to visit their teachers and friends, with strict adherence to physical distancing, etc.
“Even with new directives from the Government of Manitoba, we will only open our doors to students when we are fully confident that we can meet all provincial expectations for protecting the health and safety of our school community – staff, students and families. While we do not have all the answers today regarding what will over the next month or so, we will definitely keep our families informed every step of the way.
Andrea also sent links to three videos that provide good illustrations of how Gray Academy has been adapting to the current situation:
Thank You Teachers –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnNg-dPmTdg
Gray Academy Grad 2020 Tribute –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTH9dET_Ig4
Song Festival Greatest Hits Vol. 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikx858JUxhU&t=1080s
Local News
Rachel Fish, leader in combating antisemitism in academia, this year’s Kanee Distinguished Lecture series speaker
By MYRON LOVE The Jewish Heritage Center of Western Canada would seem to have hit another home run with the announcement that Dr. Rachel Fish, a leading voice in tackling anti-Zionism and Jew hatred in North American academia, is this year’s guest speaker at the JHCWC’s upcoming annual Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture – which is scheduled for Thursday, April 30, at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue.
The theme of her timely lecture will be“How the Academy Has Created a Fertile Ground for Antisemitism,” a topic in which she is well versed. Fish has an impressive resumé. She is the co-founder of the nonprofit “Boundless,” a think tank partnering with community leaders across North America to revitalize Israel education and take bold collective action to combat antisemitism. She also serves as Director for The Brandeis University President’s Initiative on Antisemitism; is an associate research professor at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies; and teaches Israeli history and society at The George Washington University as Visiting Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development.
In the past, she has served as Senior Advisor and Resident Scholar at the Paul E. Singer Foundation in New York City and Executive Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, where she trained the next generation of academics in the field of Israel Studies. She has also served on the faculty at Brandeis University, George Washington University, and Harvard University. She has has written articles for several publications in the mainstream press and academic journals, and co-edited the book “Essential Israel: Essays for the 21st Century.”
I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Fish a couple of weeks ago. My first question to her was how she finds the time to do all that she does. Her response is that there are not enough hours in the day. Her multiple activities remind me of an expression I heard once years ago while I was a member of a short-lived Jewish international development group – “if you want to make sure something gets done, you give it to the busiest person you know.”
Fish observes that she has been explaining Judaism to non-Jews all of her life. “I was raised in Tennessee in a place called Johnson City in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains,” she recounts. “My parents were originally from Ohio. There were very few Jews where we lived. My family spent a lot of time teaching our neighbours, teachers in my school and others we associated with about Jews, our practices and the State of Israel.”
She recalls – as early as 2001 when she was studying at Harvard’s Divinity School, that she was noticing what she describes as a “strong undercurrent of anti-Israel feeling and Jew-hatred”.
“I was determined to pursue a career in higher education,” she notes, “in part because I believe that education matters, because I derive oxygen from teaching, and I particularly enjoy dealing with complex issues. As well, I appreciate the opportunities that teaching at the university level gives me to share what I have learned in public forums such as the Kanee Lecture.”
Ideally, she observes, a professor should not – as much as humanly possible – be sharing her political or personal opinions in class. Higher education should be about creating a space where students can debate freely and challenge each other’s ideas. Instead (as I am sure many readers are aware), too many educators are focused on indoctrinating their students in the teacher’s beliefs – with students with dissident opinion facing hostility and risking ostracism.
Too many universities have become ideological monocultures where critical thinking is discouraged and there is a litmus test for new hires. She cites a FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) report in which an overwhelming majority of the faculty at many leading universities share a leftist – anti-Israel, anti-Christian and anti-Conservative worldview.
That is particularly true with Ivy league and other elite universities in both the United States and Canada – and especially in their liberal Arts and Humanities programs. Much of the anti-Zionist and antisemitic atmosphere – such as the takeover of university quadrants in the wake of October 7 – has been created by outside agitators and foreign funders – notably the oil rich Islamic sheikhdom of Qatar.
“Where you have universities with strong administrative leadership,” she points out, “the level of hostility to Jewish students and threats of violence have not been allowed to take root. It has only been the case where the administration and the board are weak.”
So why, I asked her, do so many Jewish students not seek out alternatives to these compromised campuses?. She responded that some Jewish students have chosen to enrol in universities in the southern United States where there is a more welcoming environment.
But many Jewish students, she observes, continue to enrol in leading universities such as Harvard and Yale, Cornell and UCLA (or York or the University of Toronto in Canada). Many Jewish students still share the belief that being identified with being affiliated with a top flight university will benefit their future careers.
Sadly, she further points out, this poison has filtered down to the K-12 level. Many university education departments have graduated numerous indoctrinated teachers who have taken control of school boards and administrations and seek to impose their vile doctrines on susceptible young minds.
Nevertheless, there are a great many state and lesser known universities that provide a more welcoming attitude to Jewish students.
Rachel Fish suggest that, for too long, North American Jewish communities have been complacent and not recognized the danger in our midst. She does see some hopeful signs though. She has observed that more and more communities, parents and student s have woken to the danger and begun to fight back.
“It’s difficult,” she acknowledges. “It can feel overwhelming. But we have to keep chipping away and not just let the other side win.”
The Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture series was inaugurated by the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada in 2006 to celebrate Sol Kanee’s 95th birthday. In welcoming the audience to that first lecture, lecture series co-chair Harold Buchwald paid tribute to Kanee, who died on April 23 at 97, as a man who “cast a giant shadow” on world Jewish history in the second half of the 20th century. The former resident of Melville, Saskatchewan, who spent almost all of his adult life in Winnipeg, Kanee was a leader in the development of Israel and the Free Soviet Jewry movement as well as a macher in our Jewish community and across Canada.
I would encourage readers who may be interested in learning more about the current state of antisemitism in academia – and want to support the JHCWC to go online at jhcwc.org for further information or to order tickets. The price of admission is $50.
Local News
Young tech entrepreneur Adam Fainman gathering accolades locally and internationally
By MYRON LOVE Winnipegger Adam Fainman is taking the world by storm. In fewer than three years his new AI start-up – Moonlite Labs – has attracted thousands of users in 550 cities in 95 countries world wide.
As he explained in an interview in the Winnipeg Sun last June, Moonlite Labs is “a creative content platform designed to make multimedia storytelling radically more accessible. With a few prompts,” he noted, “users can generate professional grade videos, animations, voiceovers, talking avatars, music-reactive visuals, and more.”
On Tuesday, February 24, the young entrepreneur garnered his newest accolade when Winnipeg-based North Forge, Canada’s only start-up incubator, accelerator and fabrication lab, gave Fainman its DARE Emerging Innovator Award at a reception at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.
“I dedicated the award to my zaida, Jacob T. Schwartz,” Fainman says, noting that his zaida was a prominent computer scientist and professor of Computer Science at the New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, and founder, in 1964, of New York University’s Department of Computer Science – which he chaired for 16 years.
At the awards evening, Fainman adds, he had the opportunity to meet many of the movers and shakers in the industry here.
The son of Shane and Rachel Fainman began his life in Toronto. “My father is from Winnipeg, my mother from New York. They met in the Sinai Desert at a music festival.”
The family moved to Winnipeg in 2006 when Adam was in high school. After graduating from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate he went on to earn a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Winnipeg.
“Performing was always my first love” he says.
Post university, he began a career as a rapper, beatboxer, and producer under the stage name Beatox, touring across Canada and central Europe with his rare ability to combine story-telling and singing.
In 2015, he enrolled in a two-year digital media and design program at Red River Community College. After graduation, on the encouragement of a University of Toronto professor, he continued his studies in Toronto earning a Masters Degree in Music Technology and Digital Marketing.
“During the Covid shutdown,” he recounts, “I began experimenting with AI and producing music videos combining music, story-telling and animation. I posted them on social media sites such as YouTube and TikTok. They went viral, garnering millions of views. People were asking me if I could help them with creating similar videos. I saw there was a gap in accessibility to this technology, so I decided I should create a platform as a solution”
“A friend of mine, Brayden Bernstein was involved in the tech scene in Winnipeg, saw the success I was having on TikTok and gave me some advice on how to go about this” Fainman continues. “As well, a few colleagues from the University of Winnipeg expressed interest in building a solution together.”
Wanting to create a platform that would make it easy for others to replicate what he was doing, Fainman sought out resources in Winnipeg that might be able to help him.
He pitched his idea first to NRC-IRAP (National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program), Canada’s leading innovation assistance program for small and medium-sized businesses,
“They loved the concept and traction I was getting, and agreed to help fund us,” Fainman says.
His next stop was North Forge – in 2024 – where Moonlite joined their Ascent Program and was matched with mentors.
In early 2025, Moonlite Labs made its official debut at the Manitoba AI Innovation Showcase where the new company was greeted with an award. “It was a massive confidence boost,” Fainman told the Sun in that earlier interview. “It was our first time sharing with the public what we’ve been up to for the last year. To win the award… that was very, very rewarding.”
Last June, the company made its presence known on the international stage at VivaTech 2025 in Paris — Europe’s largest startup and tech conference, with over 180,000 visitors.
Moonlite was selected as one of TechCrunch’s Top 30 Startups of the Year, a shortlist that included only two Canadian companies.
“Getting the AI Showcase award, getting into VivaTech, being selected as one of the top 30 startups of the Year by TechCrunch, that was pretty crazy,” Fainman told the Sun.“Backed by ScaleAI, Moonlite joined Canada’s official delegation at VivaTech, which had special visibility this year with Canada named Country of the Year at the conference.
“We had a massive space. The French president came through our whole area. It was the craziest thing,” Fainman recalled. “Everyone had their phones. It was like a mob… then we’re like, oh my God, it’s the French president. People were freaking out.”
As per the Sun story, Fainman was given two days to showcase Moonlite, with a booth for both the platform’s business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) offerings. But the most personal moment came on stage, where he delivered a presentation showcasing his journey from beatboxing artist to tech founder.
With Moonlite Labs growing exponentially, Faiman and his team of eight are hoping to become as ubiquitous as Adobe and Canva. “My ultimate goal is to help as many people as possible to create professional-grade videos and ultimately share their stories,” he comments.
He himself, he adds, is hoping to get back to live performances as well. “I recently appeared at Festival du Voyageur and I have just completed my 4th studio album. I can’t wait to use Moonlite for all my videos and world building” he reports.
Readers who might want to try Moonlite for themselves can go to https://moonlitelabs.com
You can get in touch with Adam Fainman at adam@moonlitelabs.com
Local News
Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder fund new MBA degree, annual real estate symposium, at Hebrew University
By MYRON LOVE Last October, the husband and wife team of Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder donated $1 million towards the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue’s ongoing capital campaign. Last month, the couple followed up with an equally generous donation – this time to the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, to establish a new degree program in real estate through the Hebrew University’s business school.
“We are long time supporters of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University,” notes Walder, who is a lawyer and former partner in the firm Myers LLP.
“We had funded some smaller projects at the Hebrew University, adds Morantz, the president and CEO of Globe Property Management, one of Canada’s leading privately-held residential real estate firms.
(Globe was founded in the 1920s by Richard’s grandfather, Morris. Richard became the company’s sole shareholder in the mid-1990s after buying out his father Saul, and his siblings. Under Richard’s leadership, the company has expanded steadily and strategically, acquiring and developing real estate almost every year for the past three decades. Over the last 30 years, he has built an impressive and diverse portfolio, which includes over 8000 residential and commercial properties, particularly notable given that Globe remains privately owned and independently operated.
“Two years ago, we approached the (Hebrew) University about doing something more impactful. Since I am a businessman in real estate, we wanted to work on a project with the business school.”
The first fruits of the relationship between Richard and Sheree and the university was the establishment the annual Richard Morantz Real Estate Symposium in the Hebrew University Business School (HUBS) MBA Program.
“I was able to attend the most recent symposium in November,” Morantz reports. “I wanted to see for myself how this was working.”
Morantz also used the occasion to arrange – with the help of CFHU executive director (and former executive director of the JNF office here) Rami Kleinmann – a meeting with HUBS officials about building on the symposium and creating a new MBA program at the university.
The Richard Morantz Major in Real Estate and Finance, in the words of Business School President Dr. Orly Sade, “will, together with traditional academics, feature non-academic practitioners and leaders in all aspects of the real estate industry, providing students an opportunity to expand their professional networks, while gaining real-world industry insights and bridging the gap between theory and practice.
In a press release issued on February 24, Seade added that “this investment is a defining moment in the evolution of the school. The importance of an academic discipline focused solely on the real estate sector has significantly increased, owing to an understanding of the sector’s unique position in the global economy and international finance. HUBS consistently ranks within the top five business schools in Eurasia & the Middle East. The addition of this major will further elevate HUBS academic offerings, and the annual symposium will help expand the Hebrew University and Israel’s footprint as a global hub for intellectual exchange in the sector, drawing diverse professionals from around the world, fostering cross-border collaboration, increasing visibility, and contributing to the potential to attract top-level investors.”
Kleinmann further pointed out that “Richard’s comprehensive industry knowledge, combined with his dedication to Israel and the University, has resulted in an innovative academic program that, combined with the Symposium, is setting a new benchmark for industry education. We are all extremely grateful and look forward to the outcomes.”
As reported in the Jewish Post in relation to the couple’s donation to the Shaarey Zedek, Morantz noted that it was the Hamas-led assault on Israel and subsequent tsunami of antisemitism worldwide that prompted Richard and Sheree to consider stepping up and contributing to the Shaaray Zedek campaign in such a magnanimous way.
“I have never been a religious person,” Morantz remarked. “While I may be more secular, I strongly believe in the traditions of Judaism. I had a charmed upbringing in the 60s and 70s in River Heights. It is not the case that I experienced no antisemitism, but those experiences were very minimal. Post-October 7th, I found myself, for the first time in my life, having to judge every situation and every person I came across before divulging the fact that I am Jewish or discussing Israel. I came to the realization, during the process of considering this donation, that a primary driver for us is that this synagogue is a safe place for Jews, where we can comfortably be ourselves.”
Walder pointed out that, while her mother’s large family were Jewish pioneers, her father was a Romanian Holocaust survivor, with almost no family after the war. “Family matters a great deal to us,” she said, “in addition to strongly agreeing with Richard that the tragedy of October 7th and continuing and growing antisemitism are big drivers for us in making these donations.”
“There will be an event celebrating the new MBA program at the Hebrew University’s Board of Governors meeting in June,” Morantz says. “We are looking forward to attending.”