By MYRON LOVE Three and a half years ago Bernie Bellan wrote a story for The Jewish Post & News about a new service that had just started up earlier in 2022. That story told how two entrepreneurs, Dr. Norman Silver and Dave Berkowits, came up with the idea of providing online care with physicians to patients who weren’t in a position where they could visit a physician in person.
At that time, the story noted, QDoc began with only 144 patients in May 2022, but was growing at a rate of 1,000 new patients a month. Since then QDoc has been a roaring success and has been expanding its reach well outside Manitoba.
You can read the original story about QDoc on this website at QDoc.

Here now is an update to that original story:
Roughly four years ago, long time pediatrician Dr. Norman Silver and his brother-in-law, Dave Berkowits, a leading Canadian healthcare software developer, joined forces to create a virtual medical program that connects physicians and patients online.
“In our first couple of months, QDoc was able to connect 55 patients with our team of physicians, Silver reports.   “Last year, we had more than 124,000 patients sign in – or about 11,500 a month who signed in.
“We have working relationships with close to 200 doctors and 35 nurse practitioners who are in partnership with us.
“We also have almost 3,000 positive reviews online.”
Silver notes that while 70% of Qdoc’s patients are from rural and northern Manitoba, the system is also in operation in Nunavut and Northwestern Ontario.
For Berkowitz and Silver, Qdoc is akin to a match made in heaven.  The son of Rita and the late Ron Silver has been a pediatrician for 20 years.  His resumé includes many years as an ER doc at Children’s Hospital, as well as working out of the Pan Am Clinic for years.
According to a write-up abut Silver on the Doctors Manitoba web page, the innovative pediatrician has many accomplishment during his career aimed at improving healthcare in our province.  These include a nurse-initiated X-ray program in the Children’s ER, which decreased the length of stay for children with fractures by 1.5 hours; an oral rehydration program in the waiting room for children with gastroenteritis, which expedited their stay;  a pediatric sedation service at the Children’s Hospital; a pediatric locum program to provide uninterrupted service to children in Western Manitoba; and penicillin de-labelling clinics in both Brandon and Winnipeg.
As well, seven years ago, he and Berkowits and five other partners opened the Minor Injury and Injury Clinic – the first non-publicly owned urgent care center in Manitoba .
“We treat up to 50,000 patients a year at the clinic,” he reports.
Silver describes his QDoc founding partner and brother-in-law as “the best medical software developer in Canada.” The son of Sandra and the late Alex Berkowits earned his stripes working for Philips Canada (which, for most readers is probably best known for its electronic consumer products) in its medical products divisions, working with MRIs and CT Scan equipment. 
He then went on to work in Alberta  for 17 years  as part of the leadership team that implemented digital image sharing in Calgary. The team also created software that allowed radiologists based in Calgary to read CT and X-ray studies taken in Whitehorse and Yellowknife. That improved the time it takes for ER departments located up north to have radiology exams read so that patients could be taken care of quickly
It was the Covid lockdowns that led to Berkowits and Silver’s first collaboration – a drive-up, appointment based COVID testing site at Red River College.
 
Silver notes that certain regulatory changes in Manitoba made it possible for a business such as QDoc to deliver its medical services to the general public. During the lockdown, the then new virtual QDoc program allowed patients and doctors to stay connected and patients who were seen to be covered by Manitoba Health.
Berkowits points out that all you need to sign on to QDoc and connect with a physician is access to a camera, a microphone, an internet connection and a provincial health card.
A patient going onto the system would click ‘see doctor now,’ and be connected to one of several doctors who would receive the text message notifying them that a patient wants to be seen.
“Our goal is to have a doctor respond to the patient within 20 to 30 minutes,” Silver says.
Berkowitz notes that QDoc has separate programs for  virtual medicine, medical billing and medical booking.
For Silver, QDoc is Tikkun Olam in action on several fronts.  “One advantage of our program is that by connecting a patient who lives maybe 20 km outside of Neepawa with his doctor in Neepawa, you save driving time and reduce potentially harmful emissions.”
He further reports that QDoc  partners with the DCSP (downtown community safety partnership) to help deliver care to the homeless. 
He adds that last summer, during the large scale evacuation of northern communities due to forest fires, QDoc was approached to help connect evacuees with their regular doctors.
 
 
Both Berkowits and Silver demonstrate Tikkun Olam in other ways as well.  For the past 27 years, Berkowits has been responsible for security  for Shalom Square. (Incidentally, he is the brother of Rob Berkowits, the Rady JCC’s executive director.)
Several years agoSilver (whose brother, Michael, has been president of the JNF for Winnipeg and Saskatchewan) along with his wife, Heather, started a family foundation.  “Initially, we distributed about 60% of our giving to non-Jewish charities,” Silver reports.  “Over the past two years, we have redirected our funding so that 90% now goes to Jewish causes.
“We have to look after our own,” he observes. “We can’t expect anyone else to.”
As for the future of QDoc, Berkowits and Silver have a vision for expansion – first throughout Western Canada and then, maybe the world.
“We think there may be opportunities in countries such as India and the Philippines,” he notes.  
Readers who may be interested in hearing Silver talk about QDoc can attend a presentation he will be giving on Thursday, February 5, at the Kingshead Pub under the auspices of the High Growth Ventures Initiative, a strategic scholarship and community engagement initiative housed within Mount Royal University’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. For more information about QDoc go to qdoc.ca

By MYRON LOVE Growing up in Israel, says Meytal Benjamin, you are immersed in Jewish history, heritage, ritual and traditions.  Jewish identity is second nature.  The schools, the public holidays, even the calendar reinforce knowledge of Judaism and a sense of Jewish identity.
That is not the case in the Diaspora.
Speaking for myself, I grew up in a secular home. Even having attended Peretz School, I knew virtually nothing about kashrut. All I knew was that we swapped out matzah for bread at Pesach and that you weren’t supposed to have a glass of milk after eating meat.  I only became a regular shul goer after I became an adult and married a wonderful wife who came from a somewhat more observant background.
To try to address this lack of Judaic knowledge in the Diaspora at least to some degree, the Israeli-born Benjamin has developed a new educational tool – a game – called “Jewish Holidays Trivia” – based on the popular Trivial Pursuit.
A financial planner and analysis manager for Winnipeg-based insurance company People Corporation,  Benjamin and her husband, Assaf, arrived in our city six  years ago.  She notes that she grew up in Rosh Ha’ayin in central Israel, the daughter of parents who came to Israel from Bombay around 1970. She earned her BA and MBA from Tel Aviv University. She adds that she worked as a flight attendant while attending university.
Benjamin and her husband, she notes, came to Winnipeg because they were looking for a home that was peaceful and they are quite happy in Winnipeg. In this, their adopted community, she says, they take part in different communal activities. Most notably, they were regular participants in the weekly rallies on Kenaston on behalf of the Israelis who were held hostage in Gaza up until a few months ago.
Benjamin reports that it took her about six months to develop Jewish Holidays Trivia. She finished  – fittingly –  around the time of Yom Hatzmaut.  The game – which comes in a small, square box – consists of 220 cards – colour-coded – divided into six categories – with questions and answers in English and Hebrew – testing participants’ knowledge about Rosh Hashonah, Sukkot, Chanukah, Purim, Pesach and Shavuot.
Some sample questions:
What agricultural aspect is celebrated on Shavuot?
Which portion of the Torah recounts the story of Pesach?
Who replaced Haman after his execution?
In which country is Chanukah a national holiday?
In what month of the Jewish calendar is Sukkot?
Which eastern European Jewish dish is associated with Rosh Hashonah?
The rules of the game are printed on the side of the box – choose teams and appoint a moderator to ask questions and keep score.  Each question is worth one point.
I warn you that not all the answers can be found in traditional sources. Some general knowledge is also required, e.g., Which Jewish astronaut celebrated Chanukah in space?
“I created the Jewish Holidays Trivia Game,” notes Benjamin on her website, “because I wanted to bring something joyful, meaningful, and just a little bit competitive to the Jewish table—especially for kids growing up outside of Israel.
“Jewish holidays are full of rich stories, beautiful traditions, and incredible moments worth celebrating. I wanted to capture all of that in a game that’s fun, easy to play, and full of surprises.”
Benjamin suggests that playing Jewish Holidays Trivia is an ideal way to spend family time and also engage the younger generation in learning about our traditions.
She reports that so far she has sold about 150 copies of her game – largely to fellow Winnipeggers – with a few buyers further afield in Canada and the United States.
Readers who may be interested in acquiring a copy of the game can go online to blackcherryplay.com.  She is selling each game for $29 Canadian.

By BERNIE BELLAN Disclaimer: The subject of this story is my daughter, but don’t hold that against me.
Shira Bellan is an intrepid adventurer when it comes to trying out new foods. A while ago, as she explained in an interview conducted with her by CJOB’s Hal Anderson on January 28, Shira was just laying on her couch scrolling through Facebook Marketplace when she came up with the idea of trying different foods and posting her reactions to them – first on Facebook, then when she developed a following – on Instagram, followed by a YouTube channel and, at my suggestion, on TikTok. She now has tens of thousands of followers all over the world, with her audience growing every day.

Following are excerpts from the interview:

Anderson: How did you come up with this idea?
Bellan: Honestly, I was just, uh, laying on my couch browsing Marketplace like I often do, and I kept seeing food pop up and I just thought it would be hilarious to start buying food and then reviewing it because I thought there were some very interesting food items on there. And I was pretty surprised that people were trying to sell them on Marketplace. And it just made me laugh. And so I thought, “Let’s do this.”

Anderson What have you found out?
Bellan: Yeah, I kind of think that it’s a bunch of family members that say to each other, “This is so good. You should sell this.” And it’s not easy to get your food into a restaurant or into a bakery. And Facebook Marketplace is thriving and it’s super easy to use for anyone of all ages, and I think Facebook is just super well known.
So I think people started putting super simple food items up there and I really think my page has made it explode a lot bigger as of lately. But I think there’s always been food on there. I just don’t think it was as big until very recently.
I’ve always seen people selling food, and I’ve gone, “Well, I wouldn’t want to try that, that doesn’t look very good, or man, that looks great. I would love to try that.”
And I think in many cases it’s food tied to an ethnicity of one kind or another that maybe we wouldn’t normally get to try in a restaurant in Winnipeg.

Anderson: Right. So good for you for doing this because you’re sort of, without me having to do it, you’re saying, “Yeah, this is worth it, or, or this one isn’t.”
Bellan: That’s exactly what I’m doing. And it’s been interesting. I’m loving chatting with the different people, the different languages, and just exploring all the foods and, and there’re some foods that I’m trying that people from that specific ethnicity are saying, “Oh God, do not eat that.”
I’ve had some good ones, I’ve had some bad ones. And for the most part though, it’s really good. I think it’s just cool to learn about other people’s heritage and what they eat and like.

Anderson:  So you said – in the clip I just played (referencing a clip he played before Shira came on the air) I love that one – the butter chicken. But if you had stuff that you bought that you went, “Oh man, this is a miss.” What would you say?
Bellan: I’m quite nervous to post some of the ones I don’t like because I’m called racist multiple times a week. And I’ve tried to make it clear that when I don’t like something, it has absolutely zero to do with the culture,  ethnicity, or country that the food’s from, it has everything to do with how the food tastes.
And I need to remind people that these are home chefs. I don’t know how they made the recipe. I don’t know that they followed a recipe. I don’t know that they didn’t put dog food in it. So, if I don’t like something, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It means that I personally did not like it.
 I try to be very open-minded to foods. I don’t eat meat. I’ll occasionally eat chicken – so that kind of eliminates a lot of the foods that I’m able to buy on there. But I am very interested in all the different ethnicities and their foods. Some of ’em are very scary ’cause they’re not foods I would eat every day, but it would be very boring if I was just buying chicken fingers and fries off marketplace.

Anderson: Well, that’s how I feel sometimes, right? I mean, even, you know, even with these delivery apps now, if we decide, well, we’re gonna order in, we’ll spend sometimes way too long deciding what we’re gonna have. Because it feels like even though we have all these incredible choices, it feels like it’s the same, four or five things and we don’t feel like it.
So I I like what you’ve done. Listen, on people being critical when you say you don’t like a certain food. You’re gonna have those people – trust me, being in the business I’m in, you’re gonna have people that are gonna make that connection. And just based on what I’ve seen of your stuff I don’t get a hint at all that it’s about the people you bought it from or their ethnicity.
It’s just you aren’t a fan of that particular food. And they may have made it perfectly, but you’re just not into that food.
Bellan: Exactly, and I’ve tried some North American foods that just tasted disgusting, too. And again, it’s home chefs and as for myself – I am the worst cook on the planet.
If I put something on Marketplace and someone ate it, they wouldn’t be ridiculing me. They’d be ridiculing my horrible cooking skills. What’s more fun for me is trying these foods that I consider strange. I had a really interesting one today. It was like a slippery, slimy, gooey shrimp. I couldn’t do it.
Someone might like it, but nope. Wasn’t for me.

Anderson: Yeah, and you’ve had some really cool ones, like a fairly recent post is the marshmallow flowers. I mean, incredible, incredible.
Bellan: They tasted unbelievable too. They did not taste like a store-bought, packaged marshmallow. They had a very unique flavour and texture.
They tasted amazing. I would eat them every day and the girl who makes them puts so much time and love into them. She told me that it takes about two days to make with all the processing and all the different steps it takes, and they were so beautiful. I didn’t want to eat them, but of course I did.

Anderson:  Here’s the other thing too, about what you’re doing it, and you tell me, you probably didn’t realize this when you started doing it, but in some cases where you do this and you got a lot of followers, you’re getting a lot of views.
And when you say, “man, this is really good.” That person then gets maybe more orders than they can handle, but many of them are really happy about that. You had them call you up in tears after the fact and say, you know, “I was selling  these dishes to make a couple of bucks ’cause my, my family is struggling” and now they’ve got more orders than they know what to do with.
And, you have really helped them make ends meet.

If you would like to see any of Shira’s food review videos you can look for them on Instagram by entering winnipegmarketplacefoodfinds or on YouTube enter @shira_time