By MYRON LOVE For much of the Jewish community’s early history in Winnipeg, it was men who were acknowledged as our community leaders – as was common in society in general – while the work of scores of women working diligently behind the scenes was largely overlooked.  While women’s organizations such as ORT, Hadassah, National Council of Jewish Women and many others raised money to help the needy in our community and Israel, noted Marsha Cowan, it was usually men who made the decisions.
On Tuesday, March 17,  the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada hosted a panel discussion: “Let Her Works Praise: Panel on the role of Women in Jewish Communal Life” (which was pretty well attended considering the wintry conditions) –  seeking to show our community’s appreciation for the work of countless women over the years behind the scenes,  as well as the growing number of women now working side by side with men in leadership roles.   
Marsha Cowan – one of the three panelists, has straddled both worlds – as a leader in National Council of Jewish Women, and later as the first woman to serve as CEO of the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.
Cowan began her presentation by reminiscing about her time at Peretz School and the old YMHA.  Her first vehicle of choice as a volunteer was with the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).  The latter’s major project was the Golden Age Club – Canada’s original drop-in centre for (largely) Jewish seniors.  For years, the club operated out of a building near Salter and Selkirk in what used to be the heavily Jewish North End.
“After 40 years,” she recalled, “we realized that we needed a new building.”
The site for the newly renamed Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre was a former tire store at Smithfield and Main.  Cowan chaired the successful campaign to raise the funds for the transformation of the building into the Gwen Secter Centre.
Cowan subsequently served as Vice-President of the National Council of Jewish Women. She also served as President of Jewish Child and Family Service;, Vice-President of the Women’s Division, Combined Jewish Appeal; and, most recently, as the first woman to be President and CEO  of The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba.
““I remember walking into my first board meeting at the Foundation and finding myself one of only two women among 18 men,” she recalled.  “But it was never a problem for me working in male-oriented organizations and institutions.” 
One of the first things that she did as a board  member though, was to push to establish the Foundation’s Women’s Endowment Fund in order to give women an opportunity to make philanthropic decisions involving  the distribution of funding.
The fund, she noted, started with $20,000 contributed by about 150 women. Today, 32 years later, the Women’s Endowment Fund has a capital base of $2.4 million and distributes more than $100,000 a year to women’s charities. 
In her presentation, Susan Turner began by recalling growing up in a traditional home in the North End, her early schooling, Shabbats spent with her father, Leible Hershfield, at the Rosh Pina Synagogue, and going to the YMHA, where Leible was the Athletic Director. The family moved south in 1958 so that her maternal grandfather, Lazar Tuberman, who lived with them, could be closer to the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, where he was the shames. In her teen years and then at university, Turner sang in the synagogue choir.
A lifelong professional visual artist in printmaking and in video, Turner has worked in a number of positions – by turn as a school librarian, an editor, a graphic designer, an art instructor, a lecturer at the School of Art, a researcher and curator in the area of multiculturalism, an exhibits curator and designer, a gourmet pastry chef for restaurants, and as a volunteer in the arts community.  
She noted that it was her mother, Babe, who got her involved working on projects in the Jewish community. “For many years Babe was Executive Director of the Jewish Historical Society. In the late 1970s, she recruited my husband Myron and me to be on the Programming and the Archives committees, and we remained active in one form or another for close to 40 years.”
“From 1999 to 2004,” Turner said,  “I was the Coordinator of Volunteers at the Sharon Home, where I learned so much about ageing, dementia, and respectful elder-care.”
In 2005, at the behest of Stan Carbone, JHC Programs and Exhibitions Director, she began working as curator and exhibitions designer at the Jewish Heritage Centre. Some of the major exhibits she worked on  were “The Jewish Wedding”, “Manitoba Synagogues”, “Jews in Manitoba’s Garment Industry”, and “Chief Justice Samuel Freedman.”
 In addition to her work with the JHC, Turner noted that she and Myron volunteered through Jewish Child and Family Service with newcomers from Argentina and with Yazidi refugees. “However much Myron and I were able to assist them, our own lives were enriched by the experience,” she added.
Turner also showed images of her current art as well as a poetic video she produced using voice, music, image, and Yiddish about the final days of her mother Babe’s life.
 
Leah Craven, the third member of the panel, is representative of a younger generation of women who have assumed leadership roles in our community.  A lawyer by training, she currently serves as President of the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada, Winnipeg Section. She is also a Board member of the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba – serving on their Governance and Grants Committees. She has previously been actively involved with Shalom Square, Gray Academy of Jewish Education, Congregation Etz Chayim, and Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University.
“I was raised in a traditional Jewish home where volunteering was simply part of life,” she recalled.  “My (late) father, Mel Craven, was deeply involved in community work, and my mother, Reva, continues to volunteer actively. In our home, contributing wasn’t an ‘extra.’ It was just… part of being Jewish.
“As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, I grew up with a strong awareness of how vital community support systems are,” she continued. “I understood early that people struggle — and that communal care matters. I also understood I was fortunate, and that being able to give comes with responsibility.”
Craven recounted her first independent volunteer experience. While still in elementary school (Ramah), her father asked if she would teach basic Hebrew to a colleague’s church youth group.
“I took it very seriously,” she said.  I made a Hebrew alphabet chart with transliterations and created name cards in Hebrew letters for each participant.  It was my first time in a church and it was a welcoming experience, genuinely enjoyable. Looking back, I learned an early lesson. I stepped forward because someone asked me. Someone opened a door and trusted me.”
 That pattern, Craven noted, has occurred repeatedly throughout her life.
In her university years, she was active in Jewish student organizations, Craven said.  She was involved in advocacy for Soviet Jewry and spoke out against antisemitism.
“At university, I learned that community life isn’t only programming and events,” she observed.  “It’s visibility, engagement, and standing up when it matters.”
As a working mother, she has continued to show up for our community – volunteering over the years at Folklorama (Shalom Square) and synagogue.   “Helping to set up, clean up and greeting people (at shul) may not be glamorous, but it is foundational,” she noted. “Community is sustained by everyday acts of showing up.”
Craveb pointed out that formal barriers for women have changed over generations. “Many women are now invited to leadership tables,” she noted.  “We are asked to chair, lead, speak and make decisions. That progress is real and important.
“At the same time, many women still carry the day‑to‑day responsibility for home and family,” Craven added. “As well, single mothers and women without job flexibility often face additional challenges in participating in volunteer roles.”
 
Craven said the biggest challenge for women volunteering in community is “capacity”. “In my experience that looks different at each stage of life”, she observed.  “As a student, I had to balance community involvement with academics.  As a young professional, there weere early career demands. As a parent, I sought involvement that fits naturally into family life – such as children’s programming at synagogue or volunteering at school.”
 It was during that time – when her kids were babies – that Craven joined National Council.  “I welcomed the opportunity to be part of a Jewish women’s organization dedicated to service, education,and social action,” she said.
Crave also noted the help her own children have given her. She would bring them to meetings and on deliveries.  When they were a little older, they helped sorting ribbons and wrapping paper, stuffing envelopes and assembling mishloach manot.
“These small tasks mattered,” Craven said.  “It allowed me to stay engaged and my children learned that community involvement isn’t separate from daily life,” she added. “It’s part of how we live — for me, it’s part of being Jewish.”
The balance between work, family and community is never fully resolved, Craven observed. “Involvement looks different at different times,” she noted.  “Sometimes it’s leading. It can be making a phone call, delivering a meal, sitting beside somebody and saying – there is a place for you here – or just showing up.
“It often just begins because someone asks, invites or makes room.”
 In conclusion, Craven expressed gratitude to ” the women who paved the way” and to “a community that values women’s leadership”.