Local News
Jewish Child and Family Service programs help people recovering from addiction within Jewish context
By MYRON LOVE With the financial stress and uncertainty that many people have been experiencing over the past year as a result of Covid lockdowns, there has been a nationwide increase in alcohol and drug use (source: Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction) and – according to Ivy Kopstein, Jewish Child and Family Service’s Substance Use and Addiction Services Coordinator – members of the Jewish community have been affected parallel to the larger community.
While these uncertain times are proving difficult for us all, they are presenting greater challenges and risks to people with substance use disorders and/or mental health issues.
Kopstein adds that she and her co-worker, Dorit Kosmin, are seeing increased use of cannabis use as well during the pandemic. “A lot of people think that they’re not at risk if they use cannabis, but if you are using more frequently then it can impact your health.” For some people opioids and other dangerous drugs have replaced methamphetamines – most likely because the supply of meth has been diminished as a result of the lockdown measures. Unfortunately, adulteration of street drugs can and have caused dangerous and fatal outcomes (source: Addictions Foundation of Manitoba). No community is immune to these risks, as we have seen in our Jewish community in the past year.
And, while the Winnipeg chapter of JACS (Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others) – which was an independent self-help group supported by JCFS in terms of space and resources – disbanded a couple of years ago, Kopstein reports that the JCFS’s own Substance Use and Addiction Support Service continues to provide services – as has been the case sine since 2012 – to individuals who struggle with, or are in recovery from, substance use or other addictive behaviors, and to loved ones, who want help to understand how to support their family member.
“Our goal,” she says, “is to provide support and resources, including Jewish recovery resources, to people in our community. One of the issues even pre-pandemic, has been isolation. People who may not have found a comfort level in 12-step or other self-help groups, or even if they have, may find connection with others in our community and discover what Judaism has to say about recovery. Therefore, our goal became to create a Winnipeg Jewish Recovery community. To that end, we organize group gatherings around Jewish holiday themes to provide support, community, and a Jewish perspective on recovery.”
An example of one such gathering, Kopstein notes, was a Chanukah program in 2019 featuring a Zoom session with Rabbi Mark Borovitz, the founder of Beit T’Shuvah, a Jewish Addiction Treatment Center in Los Angeles. “While we munched on latkes and salad at the AJCC, Rabbi Mark Borovitz led a discussion on what Chanukah can teach us about recovery,” Kopstein recalls. “Zoom was a new concept for us then. Who would have thought it would become a household name and so much part of our lives?”
To meet the needs of loved ones who are seeking ways to support a family member with substance use or addiction issues, Kopstein notes, JCFS has a program called CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training). CRAFT has been conducted with individuals or couples, but now is being offered in a virtual group format (The most recent 10-week weekly group session began last Wednesday.), so that family members have a safe and supportive “space” to learn a new approach, possibly different from what they have been doing, and share experiences with other families grappling with similar issues. Life can be filled with worry, frustration, and exhaustion – and an important part of CRAFT is to ensure loved ones practice their own self-care, while supporting their family member.
“When the pandemic hit and restrictions were imposed, our services had to shift to phone and video calls.” Kopstein adds. “Only when there are periods of relaxing public health orders, can we meet ‘in person’ while following protocols. The challenge is that what is often needed to heal, is connection. JCFS continues to find ways to help people find connection even in Covid-imposed isolation. “
As a result of the new circumstances, she adds, the focus with clients has shifted somewhat, to managing the daily challenges of recovery during a pandemic. “With that in mind,’ she says, “we planned “Recovery Talk” (which began on February 26), which is a virtual “drop in” group every Friday morning at 10 am, to provide a safe and supportive “room” to discuss any issues that relate to living in recovery, being Jewish, and healthy coping with a pandemic. We want to support the work towards resilience, strength and wellness that our clienthave begun.
As much as the global pandemic has resulted in isolation and sometimes tragedy, Kopstein notes, “in many ways, the world has opened to us virtually. More programs in other places are being conducted on-line and are widely available”.
She cites as examples Virtual Substance Use Awareness programs that were conducted in November 2020, in which, along with local experts, guests from Beit T’Shuvah (a Jewish addiction treatment centre in Los Angeles) and JACS Toronto were invited to speak. And for Chanukah (2020), clients participated in a virtual interactive program arranged by Chicago JACS, which was followed by a virtual “gathering” of our Winnipeg community complete with the delivery of latkes and Chanukah snacks to participants’ homes.
“We are currently developing an inspiring virtual Passover experience featuring Rabbi Joseph Shamash from the Elaine Breslow Institute at Beit T’Shuvah, which will also include an actual taste of Passover with seder items,” she reports. “We continue to connect with our colleagues across the US and Canada. JCFS Winnipeg is a partner in a Pre-Passover Jewish recovery retreat called “Stepping into Liberation” (March 13th& 14th), organized by Jewish recovery programs (including JACS Toronto and JACS Vancouver) across North America.”
Relatively new is the Winnipeg Jewish Recovery Facebook page where you can find recovery related postings, local programs and relevant programs from other communities, such as those mentioned above.
“Although there has been some progress,” Kopstein says, “we believe that there is still plenty of stigma in our Jewish community. This makes asking for help for a substance use or any kind of addiction and/or mental health issue, difficult for many. Addiction is a health issue. It’s hard to imagine someone not seeking help for cancer, diabetes, or a heart attack, yet it happens regularly with addiction. Connection with others and a supportive community, is so important for hope and healing, and for some, those life-saving phenomena may be more difficult to find.”
For more information about any of the above programs or services, or if you are concerned about your own or someone else’s substance use or addiction, please call JCFS Winnipeg @ 204-477-7430 or e-mail Ivy at ikopstein@jcfswinnipeg.org or Dorit at dkosmin@jcfswinnipeg.org
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.
