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Jewish Heritage Centre lands CNN anchor Jake Tapper as next Kanee lecturer

Jake Tapper

The following is taken from a Jewish Heritage Centre release:
CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper to Deliver the 2022 Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture
The Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada is thrilled to announce that the 2022 Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecturer will be Jake Tapper.

CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent, Mr. Tapper is the recipient of three Merriman Smith Memorial Awards from the White House Correspondents’ Association for his work. He was also part of a team that was awarded an Edward R. Murrow Award for Video: Breaking News for “Target bin Laden: The Death of Public Enemy #1.” Mr. Tapper is also a best-selling author and has published both fiction and non-fiction works that have met with critical acclaim. His book, “Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor” and his reporting on the veterans and troops were cited when the Congressional Medal of Honor Society awarded him the “Tex” McCrary Award for Excellence in Journalism.

The 2022 Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture is slated for May 1, 2022 and will take place at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Buhler Hall. Ticketing and sponsorship information to be announced in early 2022.

Post script by Bernie Bellan: How Tapper came to agree to be the Kanee lecturer is an interesting story in itself. According to JHCWC Executive Director Belle Jarniewski, last year she received an email from Tapper, asking whether anyone at the Heritage Centre could help him find out whether he had any relatives in Winnipeg.
Belle says she told Tapper she would refer her request to Lynn Roseman, who was responsible for chronicling all Jewish grave markers in Winnipeg into a database.
It turns out that, according to Wikipedia, Tapper’s great-grandfather was someone by the name of David J. Dyson. Dyson was actually mayor of Winnipeg for a very short time – for four days, in 1917, until a recount of the votes determined that he lost by 18 votes. Dyson was a member of the United Church. According to Belle Jarniewski though, although Tapper’s mother was the granddaughter of David Dyson, she did convert to Judaism when she married Tapper’s father.
While Belle was talking to Tapper about his search for his Winnipeg roots, Belle says, she had the “chutzpah” to ask him whether he might be interested in being the 2022 Kanee lecturer. To her surprise – he readily agreed, provided the timing could work out for him, which it did.
So, once again, Winnipeg will play host to a world famous individual for the Kanee lecture – for the16th time. The 2020 lecture was postponed due to Covid and the 2021 lecture, featuring former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy, was held online, so this will be the first in-person Kanee lecture in three years.

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Winnipeg Jewish Theatre to open season with world premiere of “Pals”

Richard Greenblatt and Diane Flacks in rehearsal for "Pals"

By BERNIE BELLAN The opening show of Winnipeg Jewish Theatre’s 2023-24 season promises to be a clever and poignant take on relationships between men and women, when “Pals” makes its world premiere on November 9 in the Berney Theatre, running until November 19.
“Pals” is the third two-person show created by the team of Diane Flacks and Richard Greenblatt. Interestingly, when I spoke with Flacks and Greenblatt while they took a break from rehearsing the play in Toronto, they told me that their previous two two-person plays also had one word titles – with four letters in both: “Sibs” and “Care.”
“Pals” is the story of two friends, told over a 25-year time period. Their friendship survives many tribulations, including both characters entering and exiting many other relationships. The play uncovers the underlying tensions that permeate all friendships.
“Pals” opens with the two characters meeting for the first time. I asked Diane and Richard whether the notion of their having sex ever enters into the plot, but Richard was quick to exclaim, “We don’t have sex.”
Diane also noted that, in the case of her character, she is married to another woman. (Diane is a lesbian in real life.)
The fact that the characters maintain a friendship though becomes a source of friction within their respective relationships. It raises the question: Can you have an intimate, albeit platonic, relationship, with a member of the opposite sex all the while you’re in a physical relationship with someone else?
I asked whether the characters in “Pals” are Jewish (which both Diane and Richard are), and the answer was “yes.”
Both Diane and Richard have had past associations with the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre. Richard’s goes back a very long time – when he directed the critically acclaimed “League of Nathans” in 1995.
Diane Flacks appeared in a one-night performance of a show in 2021 called “25 Questions for a Jewish Mother,” which was a part of that year’s Tarbut festival. There were no in-person events that year, due to Covid, but “Jewish Mother” was available on Zoom and had a huge audience.
In addition to writing for the stage, Diane Flacks has written for TV, including Working the Engels, Baroness Von Sketch Show, Young Drunk Punk, PR, and The Broad Side.
Richard Greenblatt has performed in theatres across Canada and abroad, as well as in feature films, television and radio. He co-wrote 2 Pianos 4 Hands, which played on five continents and in over 150 cities since it opened in 1996.
Pals is directed by the internationally acclaimed director Jillian Keiley. More information, tickets and 5-show subscriptions can be found at: www.wjt.ca. You can also reach WJT by phone at (204) 477-7478.

To watch a preview video from Pals, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2W0VmHHFbA

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Simkin Centre introduces Friday afternoon Shabbat services – open to all

By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted Oct. 31) The Simkin Centre held its first ever Friday afternoon Erev Shabbat service this past Friday (Oct. 27), led by Rabbi Matthew Leibl.

There were more than 30 residents in attendance, along with various other outside guests. The service was approximately 45 minutes long and was filled with stories and songs associated with Friday evening Shabbats – some from Rabbi Leibl’s own childhood and some from more recent years.

The Friday afternoon Erev Shabbat services are now to become a regular features at the Simkin Centre and are open to anyone to attend.

To watch a short clip of Rabbi Leibl introducing his first Friday afternoon service click https://youtu.be/hLSrV18K58o

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The complete text of MP Marty Morantz’s speech at the community vigil for Israel on October 10

Marty Morantz at the community vigil for Israel October 10

Tonight we are all Israelis!
Conservatives stand with Israel.
Pierre Poilievre stands with Israel.
On Saturday we woke up to unspeakable images.
We must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel as it defends itself from these criminal and barbarous acts.
On Shabbat, Hamas brutally invaded Israel, invaded homes, killing hundreds, taking hostage hundreds.
More Jews were killed in Saturday’s attack than in any single day since the Holocaust.
Some 1500 human beings killed in a single day would be like 6000 Canadians being murdered in a single attack.
They were children, babies, men, women.
They were young people just out listening to music at a dance party.
This was an unprecedented brutal attack.
As we speak Hamas is threatening to execute innocent hostages.
This outrage cannot, must not stand.
Don’t let anyone tell you Hamas is the legitimate voice of the Palestinian people. It is not a government.
They are a genocidal murderous and evil death cult and they must be defeated.
But friends, we have seen evil before.
Jews have been persecuted for millennia, but we have survived.
Conservatives unequivocally condemn the invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists and the sadistic violence that Hamas has carried out against innocent civilians.
Now is the time for moral clarity. There is no moral equivalency between democratic Israel and the butchers of Hamas.
There is no response, no matter how strong, that would be disproportionate to the crimes Hamas has committed.
Israel has the right to defend itself against these attacks and respond against the attackers – as any other country would.
Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, said, “If you will it, it is no dream.”
In 1948 that dream became a reality – a homeland in Israel, the promised land.
Working together Israelis turned a desert into an oasis.
An island of democracy surrounded by a sea of autocracy.
A Jewish state where Jews could live in peace free from fear and persecution.
Let there be no doubt. Israel is the ancient and indigenous homeland of the Jewish people.
We will not let the butchers of Hamas take that dream, long realized, away from us.
Many politicians will stand with Israel when it is easy.
But listen to what they say when it is hard.
They will talk about “both sides.”
I’m here to tell you that there is only one side.
The side of morality.
The side of democracy.
The side of Israel.
We see too often politicians at the United Nations unfairly singling out Israel for criticism.
I will always stand against the unfair singling out of the Middle East’s only democracy.
Already there are calls for Israel to deescalate.
I ask you.
Would any country deescalate after having its people slaughtered in cold blood?
I wish the people of Israel and its brave soldiers Godspeed on their mission to defend the promised land from pure evil.
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper said:
Through fire and water Canada will stand with you.
Am Yisrael Chai!

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