Local News
JCFS report: Older adult, addictions cases continue to add heavily to JCFS workload
By BERNIE BELLAN Since the first lockdown as a result of Covid was imposed on Manitobans in March 2020 I’ve been reporting on how various organizations within our community have been adjusting to the new demands placed upon them both by clients and governmental authorities that monitor their activities.
Of the two organizations that have had to adjust the most – Gray Academy and Jewish Child and Family Service, while Gray Academy has certainly had to make wholesale changes in how it delivers services, it’s been JCFS that’s seen the most marked increase in demand for its services.
In July 2020 I reported that JCFS had received an allocation from the Jewish Federation for the 2021-22 fiscal year of $880,600, which represents an increase of $65,300 over the 2020-21 fiscal year.
In addition, JCFS had received a one-time increase in allocations of $185,000 as a result of an initiative taken by Jewish Federations of North America to provide increased funding to Jewish family service agencies.
Other information that I noted in my July report included mentioning that JCFS saw an increase of 66 older adult cases during the 2020-21 fiscal year (which ended March 31, 2021), along with a 40% increase in cases where addictions played a role.
With that information in mind, I spoke recently with JCFS Executive Director Al Benarroch, to talk about how JCFS has been coping with its increased workload and to ask whether he’s seen anything particularly new developing in terms of who is most in need of help from JCFS within our community.
Al began by noting that “We’ve been one of the more consistent agencies in the city. We’ve been well funded so that we could continue to provide a seamless service to clients.”
I asked Al whether there are any plans to have JCFS workers see more clients in person now that the provincial government has eased the restrictions on face to face contact among individuals who are double vaccinated?
“Now that the government” is modifying its rules for person to person contact, Al said, “we’re looking at a reopening plan. Over 90% of our work since April 2020 has been done remotely.”
The exceptions to that pattern have been child and family service care cases and some senior and Holocaust survivor cases – where it has been necessary to have some in person contact, Al explained.
I asked Al whether JCFS staff have been surveyed to see who’s been vaccinated?
He said that has not been the case (at the time of this interview), but that it will be a government requirement – for both staff and clients, if they are going to be coming into JCFS offices at some point.
As far as staff go, Al did note that the consensus among staff is that, while there “are aspects of their job they want to do from home, there are other things they prefer or need to do in the office.”
As a result, JCFS is looking at having staff come into the office on a rotating basis in the near future.
With reference to the allocations that JCFS received from the Jewish Federation for the fiscal year that ended, along with the special allocation from Jewish Federations of North America, Al noted that the funds received from both sources “made us the top receiving agency” of all the Federation’s 12 beneficiary agencies. (In my July 2021 report I noted that total revenues for JCFS in 2020-21 were $3,490,076, which included revenues received from sources other than the Jewish Federation.)
Also in my July report I noted that JCFS had taken on 66 new older adult cases during the 2020-21 fiscal year. Since the end of March, 2021 JCFS has taken on another 24 older adult cases.
As a result, JCFS has hired a new social worker on a one-year term who is working with older adults. That brings the total complement of social workers working on older adult cases to six, Al said, not including the Manager of Older Adult Services, Cheryl Hirsch-Katz, who supervises that program.
Many of the individuals who are now clients of JCFS are what Al described as “younger” seniors. “What we found is that the general age of these individuals was younger as a result of isolation,” Al explained, with many of the individuals having shown “a real decline” within the past year and a half.
Since the hiring of Danielle Tabacznik as JCFS “Senior Cconcierge” in April 2020 (a 2-year pilot program of the Jewish Federation), Danielle has been in contact with “over 230 seniors who are not connected to any programs in the Jewish community,” Al explained, many of whom have been suffering greatly from being isolated. As a result, half of JCFS’s new older adult clients have been referred through Danielle.
As far as other aspects of JCFS services go, Al made the following observations:
“Our caseload for children in foster care has declined.” This is in keeping with the “new approach” taken with family service agencies, which are “trying to engage families collaboratively”.
“The general trend within the province”, he added, is that while “the number of children in foster care is down”, “the number of families we’re working with is up…The system is much more proactive in reunifying children with their families…When we do have kids come into care, it’s a result of more dire indicators.”
In addition, a number of families from outside the Jewish community are referred to JCFS where there’s a “conflict of interest situation” where, for instance, one of the parents might be employed by another family services agency so that agency would not be able to become involved.
The headline for this article also refers to an increase in addictions cases for JCFS. Since the end of March 2021, six new addictions cases have been added to JCFS’s caseload, Al noted.
“Addiction is a disease of isolation and disconnection. The inability to non-communicate with others creates unbearable pressures for addicts,” he said.
The JCFS addictions program, however, which is now 10 years old, will be losing its coordinator, Ivy Kopstein, who has been coordinating the program since its inception, when she retires in October.
“She’s done so much to develop our program and raise awareness in our community” (of addictions), Al added.
In the area of mental health, Al said that “We pride ourselves that our mental health program has increased” – with the addition of eight new cases since the beginning of April. It means that people are reaching out for help.
One particular area of focus has been “in getting seniors to medical appointments and vaccinations.” Many seniors and clients with mental health concerns have been averse to taking public transit, but can’t really afford to take taxis. With a special grant from the Jewish Foundation, JCFS has been able to ensure that those senior clients are able to be transported safely to their medical appointments.
“There’s less stigma attached to mental health issues” now, Al observed, since Covid has raised awareness of just how much mental health has been adversely affected for so many individuals.
Finally, I asked Al whether there’s anything new to report about a new addictions facility – which has been talked about for years.
He responded that JCFS is awaiting the results of a consultant’s feasibility report on the business aspects of creating a sober-living facility “for Jewish people coming out of (drug) rehab” so that they can learn more recovery skills, and don’t have to re-enter society immediately.
“What we’ve found to be effective is that when people coming out of rehab can practice real world skills for an extended time, their chances for success are much better,” Al observed.
What is envisioned is “a Jewish milieu – not unlike a kid entering Gray Academywhere clinical services will be supplemented by Jewish cultural and spiritual supports,” he said, in closing.
Local News
Application filed by two former members of Etz Chayim Congregation against the congregation to have their memberships restored dismissed by judge
The following is taken from the Canadian Jewish News website: “Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench has dismissed Hadass Eviatar and David Hoult’s application challenging the termination of their membership at Congregation Etz Chayim. In his decision, Justice Vic Toews noted that, although Hoult’s letter describing a hypothetical attack on the synagogue may have lacked sensitivity given the political climate, he did not intend to threaten violence against congregants. However, the judge ruled that the court did not have jurisdiction to intervene in the membership dispute under Manitoba’s Corporations Act, finding that the couple had no financial, proprietary or economic interest that would entitle them to the remedies they sought. The judge concluded that religious organizations are generally free to determine their own membership rules and ordered each side to bear its own legal costs.”
If you would like to read the original article that broke the story about the battle between Hadaass Eviatar and David Hoult with Etz Chayim Congregation you can go to Epic Court Battle.”
Local News
Jewish Federation now says Jewish population of Winnipeg in 2021 (according to the census) was 13,940 – not the 16,000 figure that the Federation had been touting for years
By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted Oct. 27, 2026) Longtime readers of The Jewish Post & News (and this website) would probably know that I have long had a very strong interest in establishing as accurate figures as possible when it has come to reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish community.
For years I argued that our Jewish Federation was exaggerating the size of our Jewish population. I heard the figure of 16,000 bandied about by leaders in our community quite often when it came to reporting the size of our Jewish population – without any empirical evidence to back that figure up.
I had long maintained that the only reasonably accurate figures when it came to reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish population were those produced by the late Evelyn Katz, when she was the unofficial demographer for the Jewish Federation – over 30 years ago. What Evelyn would do is keep careful track of births, deaths, numbers of newcomers but, perhaps most important: the number of people who had left our community.
Thus, in August 2022 when I interviewed Faye Rosenberg Cohen who, at the time, was just about to retire as the Jewish Federation’s Chief Planning and Allocations Officer, I was somewhat astonished to hear Faye say, when I asked her what proportion of our Jewish community was made up of immigrants, she answered that “I can honestly say when I look at those numbers it’s somewhere around 1/3 of the community.”
In response, I asked: “So you’d say it’s somewhere between 4-5,000?”
Faye said: “I think it’s more than that.”
I wrote in that article, “I indicated my skepticism at that time, saying ‘You know that I’ve always been skeptical about the numbers that have been used by the Federation for the population of the Jewish community. I think though that it’s always been more of a case of identification – who identifies as Jewish.’ ”
Later, after the results of the 2021 census were released, I wrote that “if you take into account the results of the 2021 census, the Jewish community cannot be larger than 14,270 at a maximum. But that figure would also include anyone who had either said either their ethnic origin was Jewish or their religion was Jewish.”
Since many of the individuals who had said on the 2021 census that their ethnic origin was Jewish, but their religion was something else, I maintained that ascertaining the real size of our Jewish community was highly problematic.
Still, for the sake of argument I was willing to accept that, realistically, it was somewhere between 13,000-14,000 – but nowhere close to the figure of 16,000 that had come to be suggested by our then president of the Jewish Federation or by other leading figures in our community.
So, it was with a sense of satisfaction that I heard Sharon Graham, who is now the Jewish Federation’s Community Planning and Allocations Lead say to an audience of over 50 people who were at the Gwen Secter Centre on Thursday, October 22, that the Jewish community in 2021 was – at a maximum: 13,940.
Sharon was at the Gwen Secter Centre to speak to Remis Lecture attendees. Her presentation preceded a presentation by Jewish Federation CEO Jeff Lieberman. Sharon used a PowerPoint presentation to provide some very interesting insights into where our Jewish community was at in 2021- and I’m offering some parts of her presentation here for you to read because I thought they were so interesting.
I had actually made many of the same observations about the results of the 2021 census in my own reporting back in 2022, but seeing what I had written confirmed by the Jewish Federation’s point person on planning told me that Sharon has a much more realistic view of our community than did Faye Rosenberg Cohen.
Here, for instance, is a slide that shows the proportion of our Jewish community that is made up of immigrants. It’s slightly under one fifth, not the one third percentage that Faye had suggested.
But, what really set Sharon’s presentation apart from anything else I’ve ever seen presented by someone from the Jewish Federation – other than the aforementioned Evelyn Katz, was the slide she projected which showed that, while there had been a large influx of newcomers to Winnipeg’s Jewish community between 2016-2021 there had also been a significantly high number of people who had left our Jewish community in those same years, as you can see in the following slide:
That is something we just don’t hear discussed by leaders of our Jewish organizations, but let’s be realistic: For many newcomers who came to Winnipeg and were counted as new members of our Jewish community, Winnipeg – for a variety of reasons, was a stepping stone to other communities. It may have been for reasons of better job opportunities, moving closer to other family members, or – the reason that we hear so often when it comes to people saying they want to leave Winnipeg: the weather.
But, whatever the reason, Sharon’s figures show that, as much as GrowWinnipeg may have been an abiding success when it’s come to attracting newcomers to our Jewish community here, getting them to stay long term is a different story.
And, while there were other aspects of Sharon’s presentation that certainly merit discussion, especially the figures she produced about intermarriage, rather than delving into them here, I thought it useful simply to insert them for you, the reader, to see – and draw your own conclusions.
Local News
Marty Green expands his protest against extremist Jewish settlers to two more venues – and is arrested twice more
(Tuesday, October 27) We received the following press release about Marty Green being arrested again, both at the University of Manitoba and at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue:
Both sides came to blows on Saturday, October 24, at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue as security personnel sought to prevent Marty Green from interfering with synagogue traffic as he protested just outside synagogue grounds against the actions of religious settlers in Israel’s occupied West Bank territory. Synagogue Executive Director Rena Secter Elbaze quickly intervened to prevent further escalation. Police arrived shorty thereafter and detained Green for 45 minutes before driving him home and releasing him. It is not clear whether their decision not to lay charges was the result of their own onsite investigation or whether it was at the request of the synagogue executive.
Green has now been arrested four times in the last month and faces multiple charges for disturbing the peace, including two episodes at the Asper Campus and one more this past Friday (Oct. 23) at the University of Manitoba. While Green says initially he was merely handing out leaflets (at the Asper Campus), since his first arrest on September 23, he has returned to the campus with a large placard and an acccordion, accompanying himself while singing songs with lyrics that include such phrases as “The Jews Are Bananas….B-A-N-A-N-A-S”. In addition to listing actions of the religious settlers as including arson, vandalism, and theft, he pointedly alleges that the IDF has been backing up the settlers in their actions.
Green had earlier notified the Shaarey Zedek that he was contemplating bringing his protest to the synagogue. He was told that if he attempted to enter the grounds he would be prevented from doing so. At that time, Secter Elbaze told Green that his intentions were inappropriate, declaring the synagogue to be “a house of worship dedicated to prayer, learning, community, and spiritual engagement.” Green responded that if the synagogue were willing to contact the Crown and inform them that “that there was never any legal basis for their claims that I was conducting myself inappropriately at the Asper Campus” (with regard to his earlier arrests) that he would “voluntarily refrain from carrying his informational campaign to the synagogue(s).”
Green further argues that the recent “psak” (religious ruling) by leading Israeli rabbi Rov Dov Lior, in which Lior declares that it is not merely permissible but praiseworthy for Jews to steal olives from Arab orchards….that this ruling brings his protest within the proper realm of religious discourse. He says further that if the local rabbis were willing to speak out to their congregations against the aforesaid psak, that he might have refrained from taking his campaign to their grounds.
Although Green was released on Saturday without charges, police confiscated his placard. They explained that it was being held as evidence pending an investigation by Major Crimes as to whether it constituted hate literature.
There was no further information given as to what happened at the University of Manitoba.
