Local News
International President and CEO of Bridges for Peace, Rebecca Brimmer, visits Winnipeg
By BERNIE BELLAN Two years ago we ran a press release from Bridges for Peace, in which the organization announced that an interview that I had been planning on doing with BFP International President and CEO Rebecca Brimmer when she was slated to arrive in Winnipeg that April had to be postponed because of – you guessed it: the onset of Covid.
That seems like eons ago, but when I was invited to attend a luncheon at the Asper Campus to hear from Becky (which is what everyone who knows her calls her), along with other representatives of BFP, I was only too glad to do so (although, as I explained to the person who contacted me from BFP: I wanted to be absolutely sure that proper protocols were in place, including safe distancing, also that I would be wearing a mask. I said that I’m still not comfortable being in public places where there are large groups of people, when not everyone is masked.)
As it was, it was only a very small group of invited guests, representing various Jewish organizations, who were on hand to hear from Becky, also from Peter Fast, Executive Director of BFP Canada (and soon to be CEO of BFP International, taking over from Becky next year). We were also told that we were going to be hearing from one more speaker: Tom Brimmer (Becky’s husband), whom I had the pleasure of meeting – along with Becky, in 2011, when they were both here to attend a function at the Shaarey Zedek honouring then-Executive Director of BFP Canada John Howson, upon his retirement from that position.
Tom Brimmer, by the way, is a licensed tour guide in Israel. I told him that I recalled meeting him back in 2011 when he was wearing a plaid shirt and heavy boots. I told him that he looked like a lumberjack back then. If you take a look at his picture here, I think you’ll agree that he is still not likely to make the cover of GQ.
For those of you not familiar with Bridges for Peace, it’s a Christian organization whose purpose is to foster good relations between Christians and Jews and to provide a range of services for Israeli citizens (of all denominations) who are in need of assistance. Through food banks which it operates in two Israeli cities (Jerusalem and Karmiel), BFP provides over three tons of food a day to over 24,000 Israelis. Now, with the influx of refugees from Ukraine, BFP has stepped up its food donations to meet the needs of many of those refugees, also refugees who have arrived from Ethiopia, Becky explained during her talk. In addition to food banks, BFP volunteers also do home repairs, and help Israelis with medical and dental needs.
During Becky’s talk, she told of her own experiences with BFP in Israel, where she has lived since 1993 (although she and Tom have now moved to Missouri, she told me during lunch, but they both travel back and forth from there to Israel on a regular basis).
Explaining what it is that BFP is attempting to achieve, Becky said the primary purpose is “having a future when Christians and Jews are good friends. There are so many things we share in common.”
While Peter Fast’s role in Canada has been to promote good relations between Jews and Christians, primarily by reaching to members of over 500 churches across Canada, Becky noted, her role in Israel has been “on the other side of the bridge” – reaching out to Jews to demonstrate how supportive so many Christians are of the State of Israel.
By doing so, she continued, “We are doing everything we can to educate the Christian world to undo the damage done in the past. We want to show a different face (to Jews) by acts of kindness.”
While one may have thought that, with the advent of Covid in 2020, donations to BFP and subsequently, support for Israel, might have dried up, just the opposite has happened, Becky observed.
“Christians saw the need to give more,” she stated. In 2022 already, “we’ve raised 50% more than we had budgeted” as a result of the generosity of donors. Becky gave the specific example of BFP in Japan, which has only a very small Christian community. Since the war in Ukraine began, however, and thousands of Ukrainian Jewish refugees have arrived in Israel, over $500,000 has been donated to BFP Japan, she said.
Referring to the Holocaust and how few Christians intervened to help save Jewish lives, Becky noted that many people like to say: “If I had been alive then I would have helped.”
“Well, this is my time to help now,” Becky said. Bridges for Peace “will help as many Jews from Ukraine as we can, also Jews from Ethiopia.”
Since Bridges for Peace officially began (in 1976), it has helped over 100,000 individuals make aliyah to Israel, Becky noted.
Following Becky’s remarks, her husband Tom took the podium. Tom explained that he wanted to talk about tourism – and how much of a hit Israel has taken to its tourism industry since Covid first emerged worldwide in 2020.
For Tom Brimmer, tourism has given him the opportunity to show Christian tourists what Israel is all about, he said. “Tourism changes people,” he observed.
“Christians come to Israel with every kind of attitude you can imagine,” he said, “but they leave with a changed attitude.”
“The tourism industry,” in Israel, he added however, “has suffered a terrible blow the last two years.”
Yet, while it now appears that tourism is set to make a huge rebound in Israel, as Covid restrictions have been lifted, there is one huge problem, Tom suggested: Almost all the tour guides who lost their jobs as a result of Covid have found other jobs in the meantime. Will they want to leave those new jobs and return to being tour guides? he wondered.
Further, “90 percent of the restaurants that depended on tourists closed,” he added.
Something else Tom noted: Seven hotels were transformed into Covid hotels exclusively. Are they going to revert to normal hotel operations now?
Still, he was optimistic. “We’re going to make a comeback. It’s going to be okay,” he predicted.
As of this moment, “it’s hard to book a tour – they’re in such great demand,” Tom said. On top of that, he said, “we’re training a whole new crop of tour guides, but it does take two years to train a tour guide.”
At that point Tom switched gears and began talking about a Bridges for Peace program with which he’s been heavily involved since it first began in 2006, something called the “Zealous Israel Project.”
How that project began, Tom explained, was with his idea of taking a leaf out of the very successful Birthright program, and bring groups of from 18-30 young Christian adults to Israel for 10-12 days at a time.
In time the project morphed into something quite a bit more comprehensive when it was transformed into an 11-month internship program, based in Jerusalem, with ten different young adults participating at a time. (The mix is usually five males and five females, Tom noted, although it doesn’t always work out that way.)
“We want participants to see the land and experience training sessions with Israelis,” he added. “We teach young Christian adults why Israel is important.”
One of the first graduates of the program was none other than Peter Fast, who has gone on to become Executive Director of Bridges for Peace Canada and, as noted, is about to step into the role of International CEO of BFP.
In his own remarks, Peter Fast paid tribute to two of his predecessors who served as Executive Director of BFP Canada: John Howson, who was Executive Director from 1997-2011 (and who hardly looks much older than when I first met him over 15 years ago) and Eric Malloy, who served in that role until 2019.
Peter said that he and his young family will be moving to Israel in January next year and that he hoped to visit Winnipeg often once he moves into his new position in Israel.
Local News
Sold-out audience in attendance at Canadian Museum for Human Rights for event organized by Women Wage Peace
By BERNIE BELLAN On Sunday, April 26, a sold-out audience of over 150 people, consisting primarily of women, was in attendance at the Canadian Museum for Human Right for a program titled “Women for a Just Peace – in Palestine/Israel and at Home.” The program was organized by a group known as Women Wage Peace.
Information provided on the WWP website explained how the program came about and what the purpose of WWP is: “Women Wage Peace (WWP), the largest peace movement in Israel, was co-founded by former Winnipegger Vivian Silver, who was murdered on October 7, 2023. The local group, one of several international affiliates, was established to remember Vivian and carry on her legacy while also promoting respectful dialogue between Jews and Palestinians in Winnipeg. Members of WWP in Israel, as well as here in Winnipeg, are Jewish, Christian and Muslim women who, in spite of different faiths and political leanings, work together in the pursuit of a non‐violent, respectful and mutually accepted solution to the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict so that all children in the region can live in peace and security.”
” ‘Women for a Just Peace – in Palestine/Israel and at Home,’ brought together Winnipeggers from diverse backgrounds and all genders to dialogue and engage with one another as they learned about and are inspired by peace initiatives taking place in Israel/Palestine and in Winnipeg. The afternoon component of the event featured workshops devoted to storytelling and compassionate listening, while the evening program featured a conversation with WWP original member Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum, and a keynote address by the Bedouin Palestinian human rights activist, Dr. Amal Elsana Alhjooj. Both women were friends of Vivian.”
In addition to Women Wage Peace, the program was also sponsored by: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Women of the Sun, New Israel Fund, and Westworth United Church.
(Women of the Sun is a Palestinian women’s organization founded in 2021, while the New Israel Fund is an organization dedicated to promoting “democracy and equality” within Israel.)
Following welcoming remarks from Manitoba Lieutenant Governor Anita Neville, the audience heard from CMHR CEO Isha Khan.
Ms. Khan said that “we like the museum to be a safe place where you can have a conversation.” She acknowledged, however, the tension surrounding holding an event that brought attention to tensions between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, noting that “talking about these things is hard…At a moment like this it is almost impossible to imagine what peace would look like.”
Ms. Khan observed though that “women have consistently shaped discussion, always insisting that a different future is possible.” We need “to try to understand that complexity exists,” she added, at the same tine admitting that “continuing to speak about peace without recognizing the incredible difficulty of what is going on in the world at this time” avoids dealing with the reality of the challenges faced by those advocating for peace.
“Spaces like this” (the CMHR) “are what help keep peace alive,” Ms. Khan said.
As noted, Women Wage Peace was co-founded by former Winnipegger Vivian Silver in 2014. Ms. Silver’s good friend, Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum, was also one of the founding members of WWP.
In addressing the audience, Rabbi Kirshbaum suggested that “the idea that there was a single founder of Women Wage Peace is a patriarchal idea.”
She explained that WWP “came out of a conference held in Sderot following the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in the summer of 2014.
The principles of WWP, Rabbi Kirshbaum said, are “no shaming, no blaming…A just peace is still possible when women unite and organize.”
Rabbi Kirshbaum noted that a Palestinian counterpart known as “Women of the Sun” was founded in 2021.
She told an interesting parable to explain how Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun view the challenge of trying to find a reason for optimism despite everything that is going on in the Middle East today:
The story is of a king who had three children: Two sons and a daughter. The king told the three of them that there was a hut nearby the palace that sat empty.
Whoever could fill that hut to the brim would inherit his kingdom, he said.
The first son filled the hut with rocks, but there was a sliver of empty space at the very top.
The second son filled the hut with feathers, but as the feathers settled, there was also a large space.
The daughter, however, brought only a plate and a candle into the hut. She invited her father to enter the hut with her and, as she lit the candle on the plate, the hut filled with light in every space.
Rabbi Kirshbaum went on to explain that Women Wage Peace was inspired greatly by a documentary film about the removal of a vicious warlord in Liberia by the name of Charles Taylor. That film was titled “Pray the Devil to Hell,” and it told how Liberian women working together led to Taylor’s peaceful removal from power and the restoration of democracy to Liberia.
Rabbi Kirshbaum also alluded to the example of Irish women, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, who joined forces to help end the years of violence that had long beset Northern Ireland.
The pivotal moment for Women Wage Peace came in 2016, Rabbi Kirshbaum explained, when 30,000 Jewish Israeli women and 3,000 Palestinian women walked together for two weeks in a “March for Peace” that culminated in a massive rally in Jerusalem.
The challenge for WWP, however, Rabbi Kirshbaum admitted, is: “How do we turn volunteerism and community service into political power?”
It’s a difficult challenge, she said, but there have been some successes working with some members of the Knesset in an effort to “put the brakes on a locally militarized conflict” and transform it “into a diplomatic effort.”
“A vibrant peace camp still exists in Israel,” Rabbi Kirshbaum insisted. “When women of conscience unite and organize, peace is possible.”
She alluded to the growth of Women Wage Peace around the world, saying we “are building a global network of women that is growing quickly and creatively.”
“Look at all of you here,” Rabbi Kirshbaum said to the audience, alluding to the sold-out crowd.
She referred to a petition that is being circulated online (and on paper at that evening’s event) called “Mother’s Call.” The petition lists points of commonality between Israeli Jewish women and Palestinian women. To sign the petition click here: Mother’s call.
In addition to what WWP has been doing in Israel, another 79 or so organizations there are united in the effort to bring about peace between Israel and Palestine in what is known as the “It’s Time Coalition.”
The motto of the coalition, Rabbi Kirshbaum said, is “Peace: It can be, it will be, it must be!”
Another observation that Rabbi Kirshbaum made is that it is not only women who have exerted “moral authority,” the same can be said of clergy.
Yet, “peace is still possible when women unite and organize,” she argued. “We are not naive. We are claiming our moral authority.”
Rabbi Kirshbaum was followed by Winnipegger Chana Thau, who noted that the first chapter of Women Wage Peace in Canada was started by former Winnipegger Nomi Fenson in Vancouver, in 2024.
The Winnipeg chapter of WWP was the result of Chana Thau working with Esther Blum to organize here in 2025. Later, three more women helped to organize the Winnipeg chapter: Sharon Chisvin, Loraine Mackenzie Shepherd, a retired United Church minister, and Zhila Naghibzadeh, a Persian Muslim.
Esther Blum referenced a quote from one of the organizers of WWP in Israel, Regula Alon: “While we are each one drop of water, together those drops of water can form a sea.”
The final speaker of the evening was Dr. Amal Elsana Alhjooj, who explained that the name “Amal” means “hope” in Arabic. She noted that she comes from a Bedouin village in Israel’s Negev Desert. Her speech was very personal, as she told of growing up in a household where she was the fifth girl born in her family. She said she was given the name “Amal” because her father was hoping that he and his wife could finally have a boy. Amal’s birth was followed by the births of five boys, she said. (There were later five more girls added to the family, according to Wikipedia.)
Even though she was older than her brothers, “when my mother would serve chicken on Friday night,” she noted, “the boys would get the good pieces while I only got the wing.”
Dr. Alhjooj also noted that when she was younger her grandfather sent her out to look after the family’s flock of sheep. She observed that “working with sheep and working with people is very similar because you have to organize them both,” which led to her having a career as a community organizer.
She noted that she grew up discriminated against on two counts: both as a girl and as a Palestinian living within Israel. “Our village had no electricity, no water, no roads,” Dr. Aihooj commented.
She said that even though all Bedouin residents of Israel are citizens of Israel, “the gaps between us and the Jewish majority are huge.”
Her talk focused on her experience advocating for Bedouin women. Dr. Alhjooj said that she founded the first organization for Bedouin women, called “Desert Embroidery.”
She went on to acquire a bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Ben Gurion University. She then enrolled in a master’s program at McGill University.
The following information about Dr. Alhjooj is taken from Wikipedia:
“While at McGill University in Canada, Elsana Alhooj became more familiar with Jews and Judaism. After finishing her master’s degree in 1999, she returned to Israel, where she resolved to begin building bridges between Israeli and Palestinian communities, particularly through women. She worked at a community advocacy center in an underserved Jewish neighbourhood in Beersheba, where she continued to build connections and learn.”
In 2000, Dr. Alhjooj founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation (AJEEC), which later, she was to run in conjunction with the late Vivian Silver.
In 2012 Dr. Alhjooj moved to Montreal. She is currently an Associate Professor at McGill University’s School of Social Work. She is also a feminist activist specializing in minority rights, gender equality, and community organizing.
Following Rabbi Kirshbaum and Dr. Alhjooj ’s presentations, there was an all too brief period allowed for questions.
Here are the three questions that were posed to the two women, along with summaries of their answers:
1. How do you keep fighting your fight for peace and not fall into despair?
Dr. Alhjooj answered that “I never had that privilege. Peace is the language of the oppressor. Liberty and justice are the languages of the oppressed.”
Rabbi Kirshbaum said that she “came from the opposite place. All I can say is that I that there is a thirst among our members for a kind of tranquility that we used to know.”
2. How can we, as mothers, teach our children to be proud Jews and yet, at the same time, realize we are oppressors?
Rabbi Kirshbaum observed that “in Israel there’s just conflict. We’re in a period driven by passions. Here (in Canada) there’s a conflict about the conflict.”
3. Have you received backlash from your own communities?
Dr. Alhjooj responded that she “never presented my work as coexistence; I presented it as a partnership.” She went on to say that there was “real pushback” from within her own (Bedouin) community, not only about her role in trying to further dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, but also for her role in advancing women’s rights.
“The head of my tribe didn’t like my encouraging women to go to university,” she observed.
Rabbi Kirshbaum noted that backlash in Israel had “cost me a job and made me more aware of the danger of saying what I really think.”
The evening concluded with entertainment by Israeli-Canadian singer Orit Shimoni, followed by a reception in the foyer of the CMHR.
Here is some information about an upcoming event meant to galvanize support for peace:
Dear friends,
Thank you for signing up to join the People’s Peace Summit.
In just a short while, people across the world will be tuning in, amplifying the urgent voices of those working on the ground for a just peace across homes, communities, and public spaces around the globe.
April 30 at 19:00 Tel Aviv | 17:00 London | 12:00 New York | 09:00 Los Angeles
🎥 Watch the livestream here:
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/Z6nOTkXzQHI?feature=share
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1299320968820425/
Whether you’re joining on your own or hosting a watch party, your presence helps extend the reach of this work – ensuring that the voices, ideas, and partnerships emerging from this Summit are seen, heard, and carried forward.
A special thank you to those hosting watch parties – your leadership is helping create space for conversation, connection, and collective action in communities around the world.
This event is organized by It’s Time – an unprecedented coalition of over 80 peace and shared society organizations that work tirelessly to advance a just and peaceful future for everyone in this land and have come together to build the collective power needed to turn this momentum into real change.
If you’d like to support the work moving forward – strengthening this growing movement, expanding international engagement, and helping translate this momentum into sustained action – you can donate here. Anything helps!
And if you haven’t yet, you can follow us on our English updates whatsapp group , facebook and instagram.
Thank you so much for being with us!
Warmly,
Timna Medovoy
The It’s Time Coalition
P.S. To those of you who indicated you’d like to organize a post-summit zoom with It’s Time leaders, we will be following up with you after the summit!
Local News
Rady JCC Ken Kronson Sports Dinner to feature two heroes from Toronto Blue Jays World Series Championship teams of 1992 and 1993
By MYRON LOVE This year’s 52ND annual Rady JCC Ken Kronson Sports Dinner – scheduled for Thursday, June 4, at the Convention Centre – will feature as special guest speakers two heroes from the Toronto Blue Jays World Series champion teams of 1992 and 1993: former player Joe Carter and former manager Cito Gaston.
The dinner will also mark the launch of a new athletic scholarship in memory of the late Evelyn Golden – a truly remarkable role model for living a healthy life.
Born to Russian immigrants who had the courage and foresight to immigrate to Canada, Evelyn married Dr. Norman Moss and moved to Calgary, where her husband established a dental practice. In Calgary, she raised her three sons, Les, Mortie and Richard (who passed away at a young age) and was an active member of the local Jewish community. After her husband passed away in1970, she moved back to Winnipeg, where she met and married Don Golden.
Evelyn was an active recreational athlete all her life. Remarkably, her last golf outing was at age 100 with her second son. She walked the Glendale Golf Course three times a week until age 88 and had a hole-in-one at age 75. Growing up, she enjoyed tennis, and played well into her 70s. Evelyn was a wonderful homemaker and a dedicated community volunteer. She lived well, with an attitude of leaving disappointments behind, while living for today and planning for tomorrow.
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Throughout her long life, Evelyn never experienced a serious health crisis, nor had any surgeries.
Incredibly, Evelyn lived until the age of 103, passing away in 2019.
Her children feel that the Evelyn Golden Memorial Fund Scholarship is a fitting tribute to their mother. The scholarship will be awarded each year to one Jewish female between the ages of 11 and 17 who has shown a passion for athletics in general and golf in particular, and who also has some financial need.
The scholarship is the second new award to be established in the past two years. Last year saw the introduction of the Meyer Rypp Memorial Basketball Scholarship – reflecting the lifelong passion that the late Winnipeg businessman had for basketball. The scholarship is open to Jewish athletes – male or female – who have excelled in basketball at the school level.
The Max Labovitch Ice Hockey Scholarship is named for quite likely the only member of our Jewish community who made it to the NHL. The right winger played professional hockey for ten years – throughout the 1940s – including a stint with the New York Rangers – and is a member of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame.
The scholarship is intended to provide some financial support to a young Jewish male hockey player (aged 12-16) “who demonstrates dedication, perseverance and growth in the sport of hockey.”
A second Labovitch scholarship – named for Max Labovitch’s wife, Loretta – is awarded annually to one Jewish female athlete – aged 12-16 – “who has dedicated a strong commitment to sport and personal growth.”
The Brent Knazan Award recognizes two Jewish young athletes – ages 13-16 – who model “fair play, respect and consideration for others and who positively influence teammates and peers both on and off the field of play.”
Then there is the granddaddy of them all – the Idy and Max Nusgart Jewish Athlete of the Year Award – the Rady JCC’s highest athletic honour. Each year, a winner is chosen from five nominees by an independent committee of sports journalists. The award celebrates athletes whose commitment, discipline and performance distinguish them from among their peers while representing the values of sport and community at the highest levels of competition.”
The winner of the Nusgart award – which has been given out since 1986, also receives a bursary from the Fred Glazerman Memorial Fund.
With the exception of the Nusgart and Rypp awards, athletes cannot nominate themselves.
Rob Berkowits, the Rady JCC’s CEO, notes that all of the funds listed above are administered by the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba. “We work cooperatively with the donors and the Foundation in regard to the criteria and framework of the awards and scholarships,” he says.
Berkowits points out that the Rady JCC Ken Kronson Sports Dinner – which was founded by the late Ken Kronson – a long-time member of the Rady JCC and its predecessor the YMHA – is our community’s largest single fundraising event.
“We normally draw about 1,300,” he reports, “and we are expecting another sellout this year.”
Another regular feature of the event will include honouring someone special – this year’s honourees being long time Rady JCC members and supporters Sally and Jeff Peel.
Berkowits reports that the Rady JCC – which opened in 1997 – currently has more than 5,000 members – two thirds of whom are not Jewish – from all ages and backgrounds. In addition to its physical fitness activities, the Rady JCC also supports an array of cultural programs, including Shalom Square (our community’s Folklorama pavilion), the annual upcoming Jewish Film Festival, the Music and Mavens programs, and the annual Yiddish Festival.
Readers who are interested in attending the dinner, being a sponsor or supporting the Rady JCC with a donation can contact Zac Minuk at 204 4806562 or online at zminuk@radyjcc.com.
Local News
Beloved former Gray Academy teacher Sharon Freed honoured by appreciative former students
By MYRON LOVE Nicole Freed was inspired to become a teacher by her mother’s example. “I remember the moment I decided to become a teacher,” the daughter of the late Sharon Freed, who passed away suddenly in December 2019, told a gathering of some of her mother’s former colleagues and students. The event, which was held to share memories of Sharon Freed took place in the Kaufman-Silverberg Library at the Asper Campus on Thursday, March 26.
As Nicole Freed recounted, “I was sitting at the kitchen table. Mom was helping me with my homework when she suddenly got up to call a parent. I remember my mom asking if a particular student was okay because she had missed two days of school. After she hung up, I asked her while she called. I suggested that the student was probably just sick. My mother’s response was that she cared about all of her students and wanted to make sure the girl was alright. That moment stayed with me. I wanted to be a teacher – like my mom – who cared about all of her students.”
Sharon Freed hold the record for the longest serving teacher in our Jewish school system. When she retired in 2015, she had taught continuously for 47 years, starting at the former I.L. Peretz School, then moving on to Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, and finishing her career at Gray Academy. Over that time, she inspired two generations of students. Among them were former students Josh and Samantha Morry and their father, Howard. (Their mother, Hope, grew up in the south end.) In appreciation, the Morry Family has established the Sharon Freed Collection at the Kaufman-Silverberg Library in their former teacher’s memory.
Books and words were very important to Freed, recalled Kaufman-Silverberg head librarian Ana Esterin. “Sharon liked multigenerational novels, historical fiction, romance, and Russian novels, Esterin noted.. “She would frequently come in and ask what well-written new novels were in.”
Freed’s choice of literature is reflected in the new Sharon Freed Collection at the library The collection – behind glass doors in a bookshelf in the library’s foyer sits across from a giant mural with Freed’s visage in the centre of it and a table with a scrabble board with the former teacher’s name spelled out. (Scrabble was another of her passions.)
In formally introducing the Sharon Freed Collection, Lori Binder, Gray Academy’s Head of School and CEO of the Winnipeg Board of Jewish Education, welcomed Freed’s family members, friends and former colleagues and students in attendance either in person or via Zoom. Binder (who is also a former student of the beloved teacher) said the tribute to Freed was “a deeply moving afternoon filled with laughter, tears, and the tradition of storytelling that Mrs. Freed cherished so dearly.
“As we continue to reflect on Sharon’s impact, we are reminded of the words of Rabbi Sacks (z”l), who said that to be a Jew is to know that those who came before us live on in us. Yesterday was a testament to the truth of those words. Sharon lives on in the books we have curated in her honour, the students she mentored, the friends and family she loved, the colleagues she confided in, and the community she helped build.
Thank you for helping us ensure that Sharon’s story continues to be told. That is the thing we can all hope for, that when someone passes, they are remembered through stories.”
Speaking from Israel via Zoom, Freed’s older daughter, Andrea, remembered her mother as “a very special person. It seems that everywhere I go, I run into former students of my mother who want to share with me fond memories of her.”
Nicole added that “it is evident from today’s wonderful event that my mom truly did care about all her students and had special relationships with them. I realize now more than ever what a lasting impact a teacher can make.”
She also thanked Binder and Skye Kneller (Gray Academy’s Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations) for including Freed’s two daughters in the planning of the event. “It meant a lot that you both wanted to make sure that our opinions and thoughts were heard,” she noted.
Marilyn Beloff, Freed’s younger sister, flew in from Vancouver for the inauguration. “It’s clear to me why I’m here,” she said. “I’m here because of this deep love and respect for my sister and how much she’s taught me and lives within me each day.”
“The best way to honour her is to speak about her and keep her in your mind’s eye whenever you can…this wonderful collection will live on.”
Former colleague Lawrence Goldstine spoke about his service with Freed on the Jewish school teacher’s union leadership team. “Sharon was dedicated to fighting for the benefit of Gray Academy’s teachers,” he noted. “I considered her a mentor to me in that regard.”
Former student Ben Waldman credited Freed with how she inspired him to pursue a career in journalism. “Within this school, there’s a tradition of storytelling that begins the moment we enter,” noted the Winnipeg Free Press reporter. We become a part of the Winnipeg Jewish community in such a meaningful way, and I don’t think I fully understood how much Mrs. Freed had to do with that until after I graduated.
“As a teenager, I, like many other young people, was still trying to figure myself out,” he continued. “We were malleable and Mrs. Freed was very much a fixed entity. She knew who she was. And when you came into her room, she knew that she could help shape you, even if you weren’t ready to be shaped.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to remember her than with this gift of a collection in her memory… A celebration for Mrs. Freed is a celebration for this institution that we really do care about and love. I’m happy that a new generation of kids who may not have had the chance to be in her class will now at least know her name.”
Speaking on Zoom on behalf of the Morry family, Josh Morry said that “we had been talking for a long time about doing something to honour her memory. I’m so happy. This collection is so perfectly themed for what she loved, which is books and imparting that to other people. I do hope that her memory will live on. I am sure it does through all of us.”
Morry also spoke of wanting to create a “Mrs. Freed commemorative Scrabble tournament.” “I remember we used to come to her classroom and we would play Scrabble at lunch,” he recalled. “We would talk about the Queen, and we would try to impress her with the way in which we read when she called on us.
“I think as a lawyer, I use a lot of the writing skills that she taught us.”
Lori Binder concluded the presentation with a “very special thank you” to the Morry family, who joined the launch virtually. “Their generous gift made this collection and this launch possible,” she said.
She also thanked the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba for their ongoing and vital support of the library.
Librarian Ana Esterin reports that the initial Sharon Freed Collection includes 13 books. The library is encouraging individuals to consider a donation to the library to add to the collection.