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National Christian Zionist organization holds evening of solidarity with Israel, donates $125,000 to Israeli charities
By MYRON LOVE I have known John Plantz for 25 years or so. I first met him in the late 1990s when he was volunteering as a librarian at the old Jewish Public Library on north Main Street. While he is a devout Christian – for as long as I have known him, he is also passionate about supporting Israel and the Jewish People.
Along the way in his life’s journey, John Plantz did learn that his zaida was Jewish – a revelation that further strengthened his identification with the Jewish people.
On the evening of Thursday, November 14, in his long time role as the Friends of Israel Canada Church and Fields Ministries Canada director, Plantz emceed a “Stand With Israel Night”, the highlight of which was the presentation of $25,000 in cheques to five Israel-based charities.
The event, which was held in the Multipurpose room at the Asper Campus, attracted about 100 people – comprising both members of our Jewish community and Christian supporters of Friends of Israel. Plantz noted that the funds were raised over the past few months by FOI supporters across Canada.
The evening began with music by Myron Schultz and his Klezmer Trio.
“On October 7, 2023, the world changed” Plantz observed in his opening remarks, “not just for Israel. I have a lot of Israeli friends. Israelis are stressed out. They are not sure what to do. We at FOI are praying for Israel and also redoubling our efforts to help.”
Plantz then introduced Robert Gottselig, FOI’s Canadian director. Gottselig, who lives in Regina, pointed out that FOI was founded in 1938, fully ten years before the establishment of the Jewish State, in response to the plight of the Jews of Europe.
“At the outset,” Gottselig noted, ”FOI formed a relief committee to raise funds for food, clothing and shelter for Europe’s endangered Jews. We also worked to provide passports for those who wanted to escape.
“Our mission remains constant,” he continued. “Unlike some other Christian groups whose religious philosophy is based on replacement theology (that Christianity supersedes Judaism), we stand in solidarity with our Jewish brethren. After all, the Jews gave Christians both our bible and Jesus.”
Gottselig spoke about how his own passion for Israel developed. He also spoke about FOI’s recent successful efforts, along with Regina’s Jewish community and other national Jewish organizations, to persuade Regina City Council not to raise the Palestinian flag at City Hall.
Following a break for refreshments, John Plantz introduced one by one the recipients of the $250,000 in donations. The first was the Canadian Magen David Adom, Israel’s world leading, largely volunteer, national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service.
Accepting the cheque on behalf of Canadian Magen David Adom Canada was Israeli-born Sharon Fraiman, the Calgary-based CMDA director for western Canada.
“The Magen David Adom’s history reflects the history of Israel,” she commented. “Every dollar CMDA raises counts.”
She noted that CMDA raises money in Canada to buy ambulances, medical equipment, supplies and blood testing kits to support the life saving efforts of MDA in Israel.
The second recipient was the Jewish National Fund. Plantz observed that he himself has been a supporter of the JNF for many years. Speaking on behalf of David Greaves, the JNF’s executive director for Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Nola Lazar thanked the FOI and noted how much she appreciated being in a room full of welcoming allies.
The third recipient was an organization that I am not familiar with: Christian Friends of Leket Israel, which raises funds in support of Leket Israel – which has been feeding the hungry in Israel since 2003. In a video appearance, Ray MacDonald, the director of Christian Friends of Leket Israel, expressed his appreciation for FOI”s donation and spoke about the organization’s work on behalf of disadvantaged Israelis.
“We provide about 255,000 Israelis weekly with nutritious food and meals,” he reported. “We supply 330 non-profit partners that deal with poverty.”
He added that, surprising, there is a high level of homelessness in Israel and that 20% of Israeli children go to bed hungry, also that the situation has worsened over the past year due to the war.
MacDonald described Leket Israel as a “food rescue” organization that gathers its food from a variety of sources. “We work with 500 farmers (at least that was the situation before the war) that share their crops with us,” he said. “we also source food from hotel and resorts.”
According to the Leket website, “millions of tons of healthy, fresh food are wasted or destroyed because of excess quantity, minor imperfections, or financial cost.
“Food waste has severe consequences for society, the environment, and the economy. Food rescue addresses these problems by productively using surplus food instead of destroying it. With Leket’s fleet of 27 refrigerated trucks and vans, our staff and volunteers transport thousands of tons of rescued food throughout the country.
“All rescued produce is brought to the logistics center or other cold storage facilities, where it is sorted, stored, and prepared for delivery to one of our 330 nonprofit partners.
“All rescued cooked food is either brought directly from where it was cooked to a recipient nonprofit partner, or brought to one of our regional hubs to be stored overnight and reheated the following morning for timely service of a hot lunch. The food rescued by Leket Israel is distributed to 296 nonprofit organizations, including homeless shelters, soup kitchens, elderly centers, battered women’s centers, community help organizations, and schools for at-risk youth.”
Ariel Karabelnicoff is well known to many in our community. He came to us from Argentina by way of Israel and held a series of high profile positions here – including as the State of Israel Bonds’ point man here, executive director of the local chapter of the Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev – followed by filling the same role for the JNF here. In 2019, he was lured to Toronto by former employer Israel Bonds to serve as national sales director.
About two years ago, Karabelnicoff left Israel Bonds for a new gig as executive director of Canadian Friends of Haifa University. It was in the latter capacity that he thanked FOI for its substantial donation to the university.
“We are honoured to be the recipient of your generous donation,” he said.
In an earlier interview with the Jewish Post, he noted that among the largest universities in Israel, the University of Haifa is the youngest. Fully accredited in 1972, the university has an enrolment of 18,000 students – with a student body that reflects the diversity of Israel’s population. About 40% of the students come from the Druze, Circassian and Arab communities and – among the Jewish students – there are many whose families are from Ethiopia.
The University of Haifa , he adds, also boasts the highest percentage among Israeli universities – of students who are the first generation in their families to attend university.
Among the feathers in the university’s cap is the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences that offers the only graduate program in Israel in that field..
Coming soon for the University of Haifa, Karabelnicoff reported, will be a new school of medicine. “There is a serious doctor shortage in Israel,” he pointed out. “The University of Haifa is proud to lead in the efforts to train medical doctors and to be able to serve and take care of the population in the North of Israel.”
The final recipient of the FOI’s largesse was another organization I am not familiar with: Operation Lifeshield. Operation Lifeshield’s mission is to provide bomb shelters for threatened Israeli communities. Rabbi Shmuel Bowman, Operation Luifeshield’s executive director, was in Winnipeg to accept the FOI cheque.
He reported that the organization was formed 18 years ago by a small group of American olim and Israelis who were visiting the Galilee during the second Lebanon war in 2006 and found themselves under rocket attack – along with thousands of others – with no place to go. Th y decided to take action.
“Our shelter construction design and manufacturing process conform with the strictest guidelines and approval of the Israel Defense Force Home Front command,” Bowman reported. “Several types of shelters are available in order to best protect schools, kindergartens, synagogues, parks, sidewalks, bus shelters and senior centres.”
He noted that Lifeshield’s more than 1,000 shelters have been donated by caring individuals and organizations – both jewish and Christian – from around the world.
He closed his remarks with a “dvar Torah” based on God’s admonition to King David that he “will not fear terror that comes by night or the arrow that flies by day”.
owman wondered aloud how that is something that Hashem can command? “David understood that to mean that he should find a solution that would remove the threat,” the rabbi commented.
This admonition also applies to Israel and Operation Lifeshield’s bomb shelters.
John Plantz concluded the evening with the hope that we can all gather again next year to celebrate other Israeli non-profits that will be benefitting from Christian Friends of Israel’s largesse.
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Rachel Fish, leader in combating antisemitism in academia, this year’s Kanee Distinguished Lecture series speaker
By MYRON LOVE The Jewish Heritage Center of Western Canada would seem to have hit another home run with the announcement that Dr. Rachel Fish, a leading voice in tackling anti-Zionism and Jew hatred in North American academia, is this year’s guest speaker at the JHCWC’s upcoming annual Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture – which is scheduled for Thursday, April 30, at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue.
The theme of her timely lecture will be“How the Academy Has Created a Fertile Ground for Antisemitism,” a topic in which she is well versed. Fish has an impressive resumé. She is the co-founder of the nonprofit “Boundless,” a think tank partnering with community leaders across North America to revitalize Israel education and take bold collective action to combat antisemitism. She also serves as Director for The Brandeis University President’s Initiative on Antisemitism; is an associate research professor at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies; and teaches Israeli history and society at The George Washington University as Visiting Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development.
In the past, she has served as Senior Advisor and Resident Scholar at the Paul E. Singer Foundation in New York City and Executive Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, where she trained the next generation of academics in the field of Israel Studies. She has also served on the faculty at Brandeis University, George Washington University, and Harvard University. She has has written articles for several publications in the mainstream press and academic journals, and co-edited the book “Essential Israel: Essays for the 21st Century.”
I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Fish a couple of weeks ago. My first question to her was how she finds the time to do all that she does. Her response is that there are not enough hours in the day. Her multiple activities remind me of an expression I heard once years ago while I was a member of a short-lived Jewish international development group – “if you want to make sure something gets done, you give it to the busiest person you know.”
Fish observes that she has been explaining Judaism to non-Jews all of her life. “I was raised in Tennessee in a place called Johnson City in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains,” she recounts. “My parents were originally from Ohio. There were very few Jews where we lived. My family spent a lot of time teaching our neighbours, teachers in my school and others we associated with about Jews, our practices and the State of Israel.”
She recalls – as early as 2001 when she was studying at Harvard’s Divinity School, that she was noticing what she describes as a “strong undercurrent of anti-Israel feeling and Jew-hatred”.
“I was determined to pursue a career in higher education,” she notes, “in part because I believe that education matters, because I derive oxygen from teaching, and I particularly enjoy dealing with complex issues. As well, I appreciate the opportunities that teaching at the university level gives me to share what I have learned in public forums such as the Kanee Lecture.”
Ideally, she observes, a professor should not – as much as humanly possible – be sharing her political or personal opinions in class. Higher education should be about creating a space where students can debate freely and challenge each other’s ideas. Instead (as I am sure many readers are aware), too many educators are focused on indoctrinating their students in the teacher’s beliefs – with students with dissident opinion facing hostility and risking ostracism.
Too many universities have become ideological monocultures where critical thinking is discouraged and there is a litmus test for new hires. She cites a FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) report in which an overwhelming majority of the faculty at many leading universities share a leftist – anti-Israel, anti-Christian and anti-Conservative worldview.
That is particularly true with Ivy league and other elite universities in both the United States and Canada – and especially in their liberal Arts and Humanities programs. Much of the anti-Zionist and antisemitic atmosphere – such as the takeover of university quadrants in the wake of October 7 – has been created by outside agitators and foreign funders – notably the oil rich Islamic sheikhdom of Qatar.
“Where you have universities with strong administrative leadership,” she points out, “the level of hostility to Jewish students and threats of violence have not been allowed to take root. It has only been the case where the administration and the board are weak.”
So why, I asked her, do so many Jewish students not seek out alternatives to these compromised campuses?. She responded that some Jewish students have chosen to enrol in universities in the southern United States where there is a more welcoming environment.
But many Jewish students, she observes, continue to enrol in leading universities such as Harvard and Yale, Cornell and UCLA (or York or the University of Toronto in Canada). Many Jewish students still share the belief that being identified with being affiliated with a top flight university will benefit their future careers.
Sadly, she further points out, this poison has filtered down to the K-12 level. Many university education departments have graduated numerous indoctrinated teachers who have taken control of school boards and administrations and seek to impose their vile doctrines on susceptible young minds.
Nevertheless, there are a great many state and lesser known universities that provide a more welcoming attitude to Jewish students.
Rachel Fish suggest that, for too long, North American Jewish communities have been complacent and not recognized the danger in our midst. She does see some hopeful signs though. She has observed that more and more communities, parents and student s have woken to the danger and begun to fight back.
“It’s difficult,” she acknowledges. “It can feel overwhelming. But we have to keep chipping away and not just let the other side win.”
The Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture series was inaugurated by the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada in 2006 to celebrate Sol Kanee’s 95th birthday. In welcoming the audience to that first lecture, lecture series co-chair Harold Buchwald paid tribute to Kanee, who died on April 23 at 97, as a man who “cast a giant shadow” on world Jewish history in the second half of the 20th century. The former resident of Melville, Saskatchewan, who spent almost all of his adult life in Winnipeg, Kanee was a leader in the development of Israel and the Free Soviet Jewry movement as well as a macher in our Jewish community and across Canada.
I would encourage readers who may be interested in learning more about the current state of antisemitism in academia – and want to support the JHCWC to go online at jhcwc.org for further information or to order tickets. The price of admission is $50.
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Young tech entrepreneur Adam Fainman gathering accolades locally and internationally
By MYRON LOVE Winnipegger Adam Fainman is taking the world by storm. In fewer than three years his new AI start-up – Moonlite Labs – has attracted thousands of users in 550 cities in 95 countries world wide.
As he explained in an interview in the Winnipeg Sun last June, Moonlite Labs is “a creative content platform designed to make multimedia storytelling radically more accessible. With a few prompts,” he noted, “users can generate professional grade videos, animations, voiceovers, talking avatars, music-reactive visuals, and more.”
On Tuesday, February 24, the young entrepreneur garnered his newest accolade when Winnipeg-based North Forge, Canada’s only start-up incubator, accelerator and fabrication lab, gave Fainman its DARE Emerging Innovator Award at a reception at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.
“I dedicated the award to my zaida, Jacob T. Schwartz,” Fainman says, noting that his zaida was a prominent computer scientist and professor of Computer Science at the New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, and founder, in 1964, of New York University’s Department of Computer Science – which he chaired for 16 years.
At the awards evening, Fainman adds, he had the opportunity to meet many of the movers and shakers in the industry here.
The son of Shane and Rachel Fainman began his life in Toronto. “My father is from Winnipeg, my mother from New York. They met in the Sinai Desert at a music festival.”
The family moved to Winnipeg in 2006 when Adam was in high school. After graduating from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate he went on to earn a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Winnipeg.
“Performing was always my first love” he says.
Post university, he began a career as a rapper, beatboxer, and producer under the stage name Beatox, touring across Canada and central Europe with his rare ability to combine story-telling and singing.
In 2015, he enrolled in a two-year digital media and design program at Red River Community College. After graduation, on the encouragement of a University of Toronto professor, he continued his studies in Toronto earning a Masters Degree in Music Technology and Digital Marketing.
“During the Covid shutdown,” he recounts, “I began experimenting with AI and producing music videos combining music, story-telling and animation. I posted them on social media sites such as YouTube and TikTok. They went viral, garnering millions of views. People were asking me if I could help them with creating similar videos. I saw there was a gap in accessibility to this technology, so I decided I should create a platform as a solution”
“A friend of mine, Brayden Bernstein was involved in the tech scene in Winnipeg, saw the success I was having on TikTok and gave me some advice on how to go about this” Fainman continues. “As well, a few colleagues from the University of Winnipeg expressed interest in building a solution together.”
Wanting to create a platform that would make it easy for others to replicate what he was doing, Fainman sought out resources in Winnipeg that might be able to help him.
He pitched his idea first to NRC-IRAP (National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program), Canada’s leading innovation assistance program for small and medium-sized businesses,
“They loved the concept and traction I was getting, and agreed to help fund us,” Fainman says.
His next stop was North Forge – in 2024 – where Moonlite joined their Ascent Program and was matched with mentors.
In early 2025, Moonlite Labs made its official debut at the Manitoba AI Innovation Showcase where the new company was greeted with an award. “It was a massive confidence boost,” Fainman told the Sun in that earlier interview. “It was our first time sharing with the public what we’ve been up to for the last year. To win the award… that was very, very rewarding.”
Last June, the company made its presence known on the international stage at VivaTech 2025 in Paris — Europe’s largest startup and tech conference, with over 180,000 visitors.
Moonlite was selected as one of TechCrunch’s Top 30 Startups of the Year, a shortlist that included only two Canadian companies.
“Getting the AI Showcase award, getting into VivaTech, being selected as one of the top 30 startups of the Year by TechCrunch, that was pretty crazy,” Fainman told the Sun.“Backed by ScaleAI, Moonlite joined Canada’s official delegation at VivaTech, which had special visibility this year with Canada named Country of the Year at the conference.
“We had a massive space. The French president came through our whole area. It was the craziest thing,” Fainman recalled. “Everyone had their phones. It was like a mob… then we’re like, oh my God, it’s the French president. People were freaking out.”
As per the Sun story, Fainman was given two days to showcase Moonlite, with a booth for both the platform’s business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) offerings. But the most personal moment came on stage, where he delivered a presentation showcasing his journey from beatboxing artist to tech founder.
With Moonlite Labs growing exponentially, Faiman and his team of eight are hoping to become as ubiquitous as Adobe and Canva. “My ultimate goal is to help as many people as possible to create professional-grade videos and ultimately share their stories,” he comments.
He himself, he adds, is hoping to get back to live performances as well. “I recently appeared at Festival du Voyageur and I have just completed my 4th studio album. I can’t wait to use Moonlite for all my videos and world building” he reports.
Readers who might want to try Moonlite for themselves can go to https://moonlitelabs.com
You can get in touch with Adam Fainman at adam@moonlitelabs.com
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Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder fund new MBA degree, annual real estate symposium, at Hebrew University
By MYRON LOVE Last October, the husband and wife team of Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder donated $1 million towards the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue’s ongoing capital campaign. Last month, the couple followed up with an equally generous donation – this time to the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, to establish a new degree program in real estate through the Hebrew University’s business school.
“We are long time supporters of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University,” notes Walder, who is a lawyer and former partner in the firm Myers LLP.
“We had funded some smaller projects at the Hebrew University, adds Morantz, the president and CEO of Globe Property Management, one of Canada’s leading privately-held residential real estate firms.
(Globe was founded in the 1920s by Richard’s grandfather, Morris. Richard became the company’s sole shareholder in the mid-1990s after buying out his father Saul, and his siblings. Under Richard’s leadership, the company has expanded steadily and strategically, acquiring and developing real estate almost every year for the past three decades. Over the last 30 years, he has built an impressive and diverse portfolio, which includes over 8000 residential and commercial properties, particularly notable given that Globe remains privately owned and independently operated.
“Two years ago, we approached the (Hebrew) University about doing something more impactful. Since I am a businessman in real estate, we wanted to work on a project with the business school.”
The first fruits of the relationship between Richard and Sheree and the university was the establishment the annual Richard Morantz Real Estate Symposium in the Hebrew University Business School (HUBS) MBA Program.
“I was able to attend the most recent symposium in November,” Morantz reports. “I wanted to see for myself how this was working.”
Morantz also used the occasion to arrange – with the help of CFHU executive director (and former executive director of the JNF office here) Rami Kleinmann – a meeting with HUBS officials about building on the symposium and creating a new MBA program at the university.
The Richard Morantz Major in Real Estate and Finance, in the words of Business School President Dr. Orly Sade, “will, together with traditional academics, feature non-academic practitioners and leaders in all aspects of the real estate industry, providing students an opportunity to expand their professional networks, while gaining real-world industry insights and bridging the gap between theory and practice.
In a press release issued on February 24, Seade added that “this investment is a defining moment in the evolution of the school. The importance of an academic discipline focused solely on the real estate sector has significantly increased, owing to an understanding of the sector’s unique position in the global economy and international finance. HUBS consistently ranks within the top five business schools in Eurasia & the Middle East. The addition of this major will further elevate HUBS academic offerings, and the annual symposium will help expand the Hebrew University and Israel’s footprint as a global hub for intellectual exchange in the sector, drawing diverse professionals from around the world, fostering cross-border collaboration, increasing visibility, and contributing to the potential to attract top-level investors.”
Kleinmann further pointed out that “Richard’s comprehensive industry knowledge, combined with his dedication to Israel and the University, has resulted in an innovative academic program that, combined with the Symposium, is setting a new benchmark for industry education. We are all extremely grateful and look forward to the outcomes.”
As reported in the Jewish Post in relation to the couple’s donation to the Shaarey Zedek, Morantz noted that it was the Hamas-led assault on Israel and subsequent tsunami of antisemitism worldwide that prompted Richard and Sheree to consider stepping up and contributing to the Shaaray Zedek campaign in such a magnanimous way.
“I have never been a religious person,” Morantz remarked. “While I may be more secular, I strongly believe in the traditions of Judaism. I had a charmed upbringing in the 60s and 70s in River Heights. It is not the case that I experienced no antisemitism, but those experiences were very minimal. Post-October 7th, I found myself, for the first time in my life, having to judge every situation and every person I came across before divulging the fact that I am Jewish or discussing Israel. I came to the realization, during the process of considering this donation, that a primary driver for us is that this synagogue is a safe place for Jews, where we can comfortably be ourselves.”
Walder pointed out that, while her mother’s large family were Jewish pioneers, her father was a Romanian Holocaust survivor, with almost no family after the war. “Family matters a great deal to us,” she said, “in addition to strongly agreeing with Richard that the tragedy of October 7th and continuing and growing antisemitism are big drivers for us in making these donations.”
“There will be an event celebrating the new MBA program at the Hebrew University’s Board of Governors meeting in June,” Morantz says. “We are looking forward to attending.”