Local News
Professor who fought back against rampant antisemitism at Columbia University speaks to large audience at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue
By BERNIE BELLAN Shai Davidai has established a reputation as a university professor who isn’t afraid to challenge what he perceives as unmitigated antisemitism – whether it’s coming from students, fellow professors or university administrators. A Management professor at Columbia University in New York City, Davidai, now 41, was in Winnipeg recently to speak to a crowd of around 300 at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue on October 22.
Last year, Davidai gained renown for a video that was posted to Youtube on October 19 in which he railed against the administrators of major US universities, including Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford, for allowing anti-Israel protests to be held unchecked.
It was still in the early stages of what would eventually become a trend sweeping campuses across both the US and Canada, during which students (often joined by non-students) held rallies denouncing Israeli “genocide” in Gaza, almost always employing the usual epithets in describing Israel as “settler-colonialist,” guilty of “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.” Those rallies would soon transform into encampments, striking fear into the hearts of many Jewish students.
During his speech to Jewish students gathered in the Columbia University courtyard on October 19, 2023, Davidai denounced the hypocrisy of university administrators, saying: “they won’t allow a pro-ISIS rally or a pro-KKK rally, yet, when it comes to Israeli and Jewish lives, they allow a pro-terrorist Hamas=ISIS rally… US prestige universities allow pro-terror rallies on their campuses; will not call Hamas a terror organization…American parents, your kids are no longer safe on ANY university campus. Jewish students on any US campus are not safe because the undercurrent on US campus is anti-Semitic and the presidents of US campuses give a hand to bigotry-Antisemitism and allow terrorist Hamas supporters to rally for violence and terror.”
From that point on, Davidai became a symbol of hope for Jews as a professor who refused to remain silent in the face of university administrators who remained passive while antisemitism was being allowed to run rampant on university campuses – or who even abetted antisemitic behaviour in some cases.
Most recently, although he has not been fired (and Davdai noted that he does not have tenure), Columbia University is refusing to allow him to appear on campus in person.
Davidai’s talk in Winnipeg was facilitated by several organizations, most prominently one called “Tafsik,” about which you can read here: Tafsik
The evening got off to a rocky start, however, when the person who served as moderator – but who never introduced herself to the crowd, asked her son to come up to the podium and recite the standard acknowledgment that the Shaarey Zedek is situated on the “ancestral lands of” various indigenous groups. Unfortunately, her son said, he didn’t know the words – and neither did his mother. Fortunately, Shaarey Zedek Executive Director Rena Secter-Elbaze stepped up to the podium and read the acknowledgment herself.
After Amir Epstein, the founder of Tafsik, gave some remarks in which he explained how he came to start that organization, he introduced Shai Davidai. Epstein said he had no problem if anyone wanted to record Davidai’s remarks, but the person who was apparently the moderator immediately contradicted Epstein, insisting that no recordings would be allowed.
(In fact, aware of the prohibition on recording the event that had been included in emails sent out to attendees beforehand, I had contacted Epstein in advance, asking him whether I could be granted an exception to the rule. He responded that he had no problem with me recording Davidai’s remarks and, based on that, I did record Davidai’s entire speech. What you are about to read is taken verbatim from a transcript of Davidai’s remarks.)
Early on in his remarks Davidai explained that, until recently, he had never heard of Winnipeg but, when his son was born, he and his wife became involved in a “mom and daddy group,” among whose members was a former Winnipegger by the name of Marley Book.
Davidai said he asked Marley where she was from, and she answered “Canada.”
“I said, oh, are you from Toronto? No? Are you from Montreal? She said ‘no.’ I said, oh, are you from Vancouver? So now I’m like, running out of cities. And then she said, I’m from Winnie Peg.
“And I’ve never heard of Winnie Peg. And I said, ‘I’ve never heard of Winnie Peg.’ And – she said, ‘I’m Jewish.’ And I was like, we are literally everywhere…and throughout the years, she’s described to me what it’s like being Jewish in Winnie Peg and, and in a small community. But I never really got it until I showed up here.There’s something unique about a community where it feels like everybody knows everybody.”
Davidai went on to describe the exact moment when he and his wife were first informed about what was happening in Israel on October 7. He said that the last video he had on his phone before his wife received a WhatsApp message from her sister in Israel shortly after the attack began was a video in which he was saying to his wife that “our lives are boring.”
“I wish I can go back to having a boring life,” Davidai told the audience. “I wish we could all go back to having a boring life. But one thing I don’t wish for is going back to the way things were for many, many, many months…And now I say, never, we’re never going back to the way things were, because the way things were were not good.”
“The only difference between what’s happening now in universities and city streets and in Parliament and in the media and everywhere, is that the hatred (that) was underground, is now above the surface.”
Davidai explained to the audience how he went from being a passive observer of events to an activist who has now become a lighting rod, both for critics and defenders of Israel. It was while watching an angry group of kaffiayh-wearing students at Columbia University on October 12, 2023 who were gathered opposite a group of 50 Jewish students who were holding a silent vigil for the hostages who had been taken to Gaza, he said, that a fellow Israeli academic, “leaned over and whispers in my ear and says, this is the anti semitism that our parents and grandparents warned us about, the moment he said that something changed inside my mind. And once it changed, I can never go back to seeing things the way they were.”
“Now, I had an explanation of what I was seeing. This was Jew hatred.”
Soon after, Davidai said, he posted what he was feeling to Instagram – where, until that point, he had only 900 followers. That soon changed, however, as he explained: “The next day, I wake up and I notice that all of a sudden I have more than 900 followers, and none of them are academics. And people are sharing what I wrote, and people are texting me, thank you for writing. And people are saying, if you want to know what it feels like to be a Jew in North America right now, read this.”
As the days passed, and as Davidai became increasingly prominent on social media – for his Instagram posts and Youtube video of October 19 (to which he later added more videos), as much as Davidai was being lauded for how brave he was to confront the kind of antisemitism that was becoming thoroughly pervasive on so many university campuses, he admits now that he was “afraid” then and he’s still afraid, saying: “You may not see it. It may not seem like I’m afraid. I am very afraid. When I confront protesters – waving Hamas flags…I saw today in the Canadian news, with a Taliban flag being waved…My knees tremble, but I’m not a Jew who will let his trembling knees control him. And I think that that is where we all need to be. We are refusing to simply hide and let them slaughter us.”
So, how do we fight back, Davidai asked? He gave three suggestions:
“We all have to understand, including myself, none of us are doing enough.”
Secondly – “no one is coming to save us.”
As for his third suggestion, Davidai said it was more complicated because we have “outsourced our ability to protect ourselves” to Jewish “organizations.”
And, while he had nothing bad to say about Jewish organizations, especially their ability to raise massive amounts of money at a time of immediate peril to Israel, he noted that “Jewish organizations are built to fundraise They are built to lobby. They are built to teach and educate, and are built to deal with the media. And they have been doing that work amazing in the past year, in a few weeks,” yet what they are not built to do, Davidai suggested, is to “mobilize people.”
It’s up to us, Davidai insisted, “to get out in the streets. It’s our job to save ourselves.”
If you are “waiting for someone else,” he said, “do you really believe that someone else exists?”
“It’s not enough to write a letter or an email. It’s not enough to cite a petition. Those are good things, but they are not moving the needle. What we need to do is show up. Show up publicly….You need to be focusing on one thing today. Did I throw a pebble into the water or not? And that’s it.”
There was much more to Davidai’s talk, including not being afraid to be “publicly Jewish” by wearing, for instance, a Star of David, a kippah, or a dog tag since, as he insisted, “because when they come for us and tell us to hide, the best response is never hiding, because hiding has never worked for us in our history.”
“But the other thing we want to do is being there,” he added. “And it’s scary. Protesting. Protesting does not come natural to most people.”
Davidai suggested though, something he called the “rule of minyan” (ten). As he explained, “When there’s one person shouting, that person gets targeted. When there are ten people shouting, those people get heard.”
At the end of his remarks Davidai posed a series of questions to the audience: “We have people that are walking around and openly supporting terrorist organizations. And the decision that’s facing each and every one of us is a simple decision: Do you stand with the people that believe in democracy, or do you stand with the people that believe in terrorism?
“Do you stand with the victim, or do you stand with the rapist?
“Do you stand with Western values, or do you stand with those that want to burn it all down?
“That’s not a complicated decision. How we solve this problem is complex.
“There is no one silver bullet. But where you stand on this issue is very, very simple.
“That is the message that I want to send, not to all of you here because you get it.
“But that’s the message that I want to send to every non Jewish comedian, every non Jewish American and every non Jewish person around the world, show up one time to our rallies, show up one time to their protests.
“And you tell me, where, which world do you want your kids to grow up in?”
Local News
Jewish Foundation Endowment Book Of Life program Sunday, November 1st
By BERNIE BELLAN The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba first launched its Endowment Book of Life legacy programme in 1998.
This charitable initiative allows donors to promise a future bequest to the foundation in exchange for having their personal history, family experiences, and philanthropic values permanently inscribed in a physical and digital archive.
On Sunday morning, November 1, the Jewish Foundation held its most recent Endowment Book of Life event followed by a brunch at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue. There were five new entries into the Book of Life, from: Brownie Fleishman – in memory of her parents, Beryl and Esther Pierce; Marilyn Goldberg – in memory of her husband, Dr. Norman Goldberg; Melissa Rice – in memory of her husband, Richard Rice; Sharon Wolchock, in memory of her husband, Sid Wolchock; and Anna and Lyle Silverman.
The signers were introduced by Jewish Foundation CEO John Diamond, who, in addressing the signers, said: “Your stories, your generosity, and your commitment to the future of our community will continue to inspire others for generations to come. Thank you for making this meaningful commitment.”
Diamond read excerpts from what the signers had written in the Book of Life or described what had led some of them to be motivated to want to be part of the Book of Life.
From Brownie Fleishman’s inscription about her parents, Beryl and Esther Pierce, Diamond read: “The story of the Pierce family began in Winnipeg in the early 20th century, when Beryl and Esther Pierce came to Canada to establish a new life for themselves and their children.
“Beryl Benjamin Pierce was born in 1883 in Poltova, then part of the Russian Empire, and now Ukraine. He immigrated to Canada in 1912 and settled in Winnipeg, where he became a pioneer in the fur industry. A skilled designer and cutter, he established Pierce Fur Company in the Exchange District. The building that housed that business was later designated a municipal historic building.”
From Marilyn Goldberg’s inscription about her late husband, Norman: “Norman had a deep connection to Judaism and to the Jewish community. He attended synagogue regularly and served on the boards of both the Rosh Pina and the Shaarey Zedek synagogues. He was a leader in the efforts to change the Shaarey Zedek cemetery rules to allow interfaith couples to be buried together. His commitment to Tikun Olam extended to reaching out to the larger world. He helped lead the community’s efforts to settle refugees from Darfur.
“Our children characterized his faith this way: ‘His was a Judaism that was not orthodox in practice, but deeply rooted in Jewish values, tradition, and faith. This led him to good deeds, good words, a good life.’ “
From Melissa Rice’s inscription about her late husband, Richard: “Richard was immensely proud of his Jewish faith and heritage. He celebrated his bar mitzvah, participated in Kadima and AZA, and formed friendships that would last a lifetime.
“His close friend circle included and many who shared countless adventures, misadventures, and laughs over the years. Their friendships endured because Richard understood something important. Relationships require time, loyalty, and commitment.”
John Diamond spoke about Anna and Lyle Silverman’s long commitment to the Jewish community: “Both Anna and Lyle have always been strong philanthropic supporters of the local Jewish community, of Israel, and of Holocaust education.
“A commitment that was reinforced a few years ago after they had participated in an emotionally draining and unforgettable March of the Living trip that took them to the gates of Auschwitz. Their ongoing support of the Jewish community is also inspired by Anna’s memory of the tremendous help that her family received from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society when they landed in Montreal as refugees. Their story goes on to say they have been lucky in love and in business, and now as they continue to enjoy a long, comfortable, and well deserved retirement, they are eager to share their good fortune with others. ‘We have a wonderful life and couldn’t ask for anything more,’ Lyle says, ‘so now it is time to give back.’
“Through hard work, a commitment to education, and a strong connection to their Jewish community, they built a family whose succeeding generations continue to benefit from the opportunities they created.”
Diamond said this about Sharon Wolchock’s inscription about her late husband, Sid: “Sid was Sharon’s biggest supporter. Her volunteer work with the National Council of Jewish Women and the Jewish Federation mattered as much to him as his own legal career, and he backed it fully. He wanted Sharon and their daughters rooted in the Jewish community in whatever way suited each of them. In 1983, on Sid and Sharon’s first trip to Israel, Sid’s lifelong connection with the Jewish state was born.
“Sid’s love of aviation and history and his pride in being a Jew emerged during that trip. He became a passionate supporter of Israel’s soldiers and donated club rooms on two Air Force bases named for his brothers Harvey and Bernie so that the hardworking and often underappreciated technical crews had somewhere pleasant to relax.”
Following the ceremonial signing ceremony, guests in attendance were treated to entertainment by a quartet of talented singers: Julia Kroft, Josh Bellan, Alyssa Crockett, and Vinnie Alberto.
Closing out the day’s programme, current Jewish Foundation Board Chair Dafna Shore paid tribute to this year’s signers – and to the more than 800 signers of the Book of Life who had preceded them:
Shore said: “What makes this program so extraordinary and why it continues to resonate with so many people is the opportunity it gives us to share the stories that shape who we are, stories that might not otherwise have been told.
“Through the Endowment Book of Life, these stories are given a permanent home. Together, they form a living history of Jewish life in Manitoba, one filled with resilience, compassion, humor, and hope. These stories are more than a record of the past. They offer lessons for the future, showing generations to come, what it means to belong, to give, and to take responsibility for the strength of our community. Thank you for adding your voice and your vision.
“To this collection and for making a legacy commitment to the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, your generation helps ensure that the programs, schools, and organizations that sustain Jewish life here will continue to thrive for generations to come.
“One of the great privileges of serving as chair is helping advance the Foundation’s mission, securing our community’s future while supporting its growth today. The Endowment Book of Life embodies that mission beautifully. It reminds us that each of us in our own way has the power to make a lasting difference.
“As we reflect on the importance of leaving a lasting legacy, I’d also like to take a moment to remember two valued members of the Jewish Foundation and Manitoba family who we lost this past year, Sheldon Berney and Lillian Neaman.
“Both served as governors of the Foundation, demonstrating their commitment to our community through their leadership and service. We are grateful for their contributions and the role they played in helping strengthen the foundation. Their memories remind us that a lasting legacy is built through the generosity, dedication, and commitment of those that came before us. May their memories be a blessing.
“As long as members of our community continue to invest in tomorrow, through their generosity, their readership, and their willingness to share their stories, Jewish life in Manitoba will continue to flourish. Thank you all for being part of that story.”
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.
