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Rady JCC reports deficit of $377,994 for 2022 fiscal year

By BERNIE BELLAN As someone who has attended my fair share of Annual General Meetings over the years, my impression is that an AGM is not meant to serve as a forum where management is subjected to scrutiny over its performance.

 I especially recall attending AGMs of the Crocus Fund, during which management did its level best to conceal the true performance of the fund. It was at the 2002 AGM of the Crocus Fund, however, that I stood up and, undoubtedly much to the chagrin of the members of the management team who were there, I said that I thought the Crocus Fund was in deep trouble and that unitholders were being kept in the dark about the true picture of the Crocus Fund.

Even though it took another year and a half for my assessment to be proven true, eventually the Crocus Fund was forced to halt sales of its shares, and was subsequently placed into receivership.

So, when I attended the most recent AGM of the Rady JCC on November 28 I went in determined to ask some pointed questions, regardless what other individuals who were there thought of the temerity of someone disrupting what had been, to that point, an evening of self-congratulation.

Now, as anyone who has attended any Jewish organization’s AGM would well understand, the main part of the proceedings is to get through the very boring financial report as quickly as possible and move on to a celebration of volunteers and employees who are to be recognized for their contributions to those organizations. And, until Covid entered the picture, the highlight of every AGM was the pastry table where attendees could feast following the AGM. 

Serious affairs – those AGMS.

Well, for anyone who’s been paying attention the past two and a half years though, the Rady JCC has undergone what is undoubtedly the most harrowing period since it first opened its doors in 1997. Covid dealt a terrible blow to the Rady JCC, with a huge drop in memberships and a severe reduction in programming that began in March 2020 and which has continued through to the present day, although the situation has improved considerably in the past year.

That’s why, as I entered the multipurpose room of the Asper Campus on Monday evening, November 28,  I was anxious to see whether anyone else was interested in asking any questions about the true state of the Rady JCC. Without going into every little detail of that report, here’s the nutshell: The Rady JCC showed a loss of $377,994 in 2022 (year end August 31, by the way).

That compares with a profit of $1,124,950 for the 2021 fiscal year. How is that possible, you might ask, when 2021 saw the Rady JCC absolutely shellacked as a result of Covid? Consider this: Membership revenue in 2021 dropped to $706,823. In 2019, which was the last year before Covid, membership revenue was $2,090,933. That’s a 66% drop in membership revenue! The explanation, if you read on, is quite simple: Government assistance is what kept the Rady JCC alive in 2021.

So, when the 2022 financial report showed that membership revenue had climbed somewhat over the 2021 figure – to $1,152,489, but was still a long way off from the pre-Covid figure, I was anxious to ask this question of the person who was delivering the financial report, whose name was Kyle Ibbetson: 

“Just how many members does the Rady JCC actually have?” I asked.

As an aside, I was the only one to ask any questions at the AGM. I was told afterwards that if I had any questions I would have been better off to send them to Barry Miller, who is the Rady JCC’s Director of Finance and Administration.  Right – as I noted previously, an AGM is no place to ask serious questions. It destroys the levity of the moment during which everyone is looking forward to a celebration, not a serious probing of what’s really going on.

In any event, I was somewhat surprised that Ibbetson actually had some figures to report in response to my question: The Rady JCC has 1700 members, he said, down from 2500 pre-Covid. (In a subsequent email Rady JCC Executive Director Rob Berkowits clarified that the correct figure is “1750” units. By the way, a unit can refer to anything from an individual to a family. If you read on you’ll see that I’ve always had difficulty with that term.)

Be that as it may, however, as I pored over the financial report while everyone else was watching a series of awards being handed out, a major discrepancy occurred to me as I did some quick calculations: If the membership had dropped from 2500 to 1700, that represented a 32% drop in membership, but what was the actual membership revenue prior to Covid – not the number of member units?

For that I had to wait until I was able to get home and Google previous financial reports of the Rady JCC. That was when I found the figure for membership revenue for 2019, as noted earlier, was $2,090,933. Membership revenue for 2022, according to this year’s financial report, was $1,152,489. That represents a 45% drop in membership revenue from 2019. So, if member units were down 32% but membership revenue was down 45%, what could explain that fairly large discrepancy, I wondered? 

That same evening I penned a fairly long email to Barry Miller, which was also addressed to Rob Berkowits, in which I asked that question, along with several others.

Here is what I asked about membership revenue:

“In the area of membership, according to what Kyle Ibbetson said, you’re down from 2500 to 1700 pre-Covid – a 32% drop. But when I look at revenues from membership in 2019 they were $2,090.933, while in 2022 they were only $1,152,489. That represents a 45% drop in membership revenue from 2019. Can you explain the discrepancy between a 32% drop in member units and a 45% drop in membership revenue?”

Here is the response I received: 

“The impact that the pandemic had on our membership and corresponding membership revenues has been drastic.

“When we were required to close the first time in March 2020, our membership units were at 2,628.  We hit a low of 1,232 in October 2021.  This represents a decline of 53%.  The climb back up was very slow at the beginning as people were not comfortable coming to a gym or congregating and there were still many restrictions on gathering sizes, gym capacity, etc put on by the provincial government.

“We have slowly climbed since that date and we are now aggressively marketing new memberships and win backs.  As of today, we are at 1,750 membership units, which is still down 33%.

“The revenue stream does not coincide with the drop in membership numbers.  As you stated, membership revenue for 2022 is down 45% from 2019.  As you are aware, we have memberships that range from $250 to $1,367 per year.  The pandemic more greatly affected our higher membership fee categories (families, adult and senior couples, one parent family etc).  If you lose a family membership as opposed to a child membership, yes, you are down one membership.  But you are down 5.5 times the revenue.  That is why it is very difficult to use the two statistics comparatively.”

I asked about the actual number of members, writing that “referring to membership units is rather vague. I know that’s the term that has always been applied when I’ve had discussions both with Gayle and with you, Rob, about memberships, but can you put it in actual terms of members, i.e., how many members were there in 2022 in comparison to 2019?”

The answer (and it is clear this was from Rob) was: “We have always referred to membership as a unit.  That is the manner that we budget and report.  The variables make it easier that way as each family unit or one parent family unit can have multiple individuals on it, non of which affect revenue.

“Just as information, the 1,750 membership units that we have today represents 3,076 individuals.  I am not able to obtain that statistic historically, it is a live data file.”

Another area of the financial report that stood out for me had to do with fundraising. Elsewhere in the Rady JCC annual report, Rob Berkowits wrote that the 2022 sports dinner was “the most financially successful event in its history, raising $400,000 after all bills were paid.”

Yet, while the financial report did say that total fundraising for the Rady JCC raised $976,763, as compared with $401,214 in 2021 (when there was no sports dinner), fundraising expenses in 2022 were $563,856, while they were only $77,7987 in 2021. As a result I asked this question in my email to Barry and Rob: “The total profit from fundraising was only $79,480 more in 2022 than in 2021. If the sports dinner raised $400,000 after all bills were paid,’ according to Rob’s report, why was there only $77,787 more raised in fundraising in 2022 than in 2021?”

The answer I received was fairly detailed – and quite complex, but here is the most salient point, written, I assume by Barry Miller: “In the areas of other fundraising, our costs associated with the donations were considerably higher this year than in 2021 ($156,000 in 2022 as opposed to $36,000 in 2021).”

 I suppose I might like to explore why that was at another point in the future – and by now, anyone reading my ongoing reports about the 2021 census would know that I like to crunch number, but for the moment, we’ll leave that aside.

Finally though, one figure in the 2022 financial report just jumped off the page, and that was the amount of government assistance the Rady JCC received in 2021: $1,690,109. (It dropped to $434,898 in 2022.)

I took a look at the 2020 financial report and saw that the Rady JCC also received a huge amount of government funding in 2020: $750,605. As a result the total amount of government funding the Rady JCC has received the past three years is $2,885, 612. 

I think it’s fair to say that, without that government funding, the Rady JCC would have had to close its doors permanently – and I suggested that in my email to Barry and Rob.

Here is the response I received and again, I assume it was written by Rob: “If it wasn’t for government assistance, there are many many many businesses and organizations, both for profit and not-for-profit that may not be around today.  Whether Rady would be one of them is very open to conjecture and opinion.  We went into the pandemic in a strong financial position and we have many very loyal members, donors and third party funders to support us.”

That may indeed be true, but looming over this entire discussion of Rady JCC finances is this question: How many of the Rady JCC’s members who have not renewed their memberships (which, I submit, is evidenced by the 45% drop in membership revenue much more clearly than the 32% drop in “membership units”) may return to the Rady JCC at some point? Further, despite the notion that Covid is behind us, if at least one-third of Rady JCC members have not returned to the Rady JCC since Covid (and, as I would argue, the figure is likely much more than one-third based on the total drop in membership revenue), are former members staying away because they don’t feel sufficiently safe at the campus or are there other reasons? Perhaps some members have joined other facilities, while others installed home gym equipment. Regardless the reasons, there is no doubt that the drop in membership revenue is having a huge impact on the Rady JCC’s bottom line. 

Finally, if there should have been special awards handed out at this year’s AGM for service above and beyond, it should have gone to representatives from the provincial and federal governments for the assistance both levels of government delivered to the Rady JCC over the past three years. 

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Antisemitism has crept into grade school in Canada

Antisemitism in Canada has moved beyond protests and politics; it is now entering classrooms and altering how Jewish children see themselves functioning within them.
A a university student I have observed the experience of my younger brother in grade eight as a Jewish student. Over the past few months, his school has been at the center of several deeply troubling incidents that have made him feel unsafe in our parks, community, and even his school. Swastikas were drawn around the community, in parks and ponds. Additionally, an older man, who claims to be a pro-Palestinian influencer, stood outside his predominantly Jewish school wearing a keffiyeh, filming a video which then circulated between students on TikTok. 
This same man later showed up to our local Jewish community center in keffiyeh to allegedly watch his son play basketball where my brother and many of his classmates go for their lessons, basketball games, and Jewish events. These moments made him and his peers feel watched and targeted just for being Jewish. Local political representatives condemned the incidents and raised awareness about antisemitism, but the fear among students didn’t go away. The feeling of being targeted for simply existing has been taught to my brother, something my parents had tried their hardest to escape from. 
Most recently, my brother was chosen to represent his school at a regional science fair. When one of the judges arrived wearing a keffiyeh, he froze. For many, including my brother after the incidents he has faced, the keffiyeh represents a political message. But even more so for my younger brother, it is tied to the fear and intimidation he had already experienced. He felt nervous, distracted, and unsure of how to act.
This is not about silencing political expression. It is about a child who came to share his ideas and left feeling uncertain and afraid. It is about the atmosphere forming in Canadian schools, where Jewish students are being made to feel targeted and unwelcome.
His school made an effort to address the incidents, but the impact is lasting. Posts on social media, much can be very vague at times about inclusion cannot fully undo the feeling of being singled out. A kind word from a teacher does not erase the fear that builds when threats are left unspoken but deeply felt.
I am writing this as a sister who watched her younger brother lose a moment that should have been filled with confidence and pride. He deserved to feel safe. So do all Jewish students in this country.
Moving forward, schools must take concrete steps to protect all students. Antisemitism cannot only be addressed when it becomes violent or overt. It must also be recognized when it appears as intimidation, symbolic targeting, or political messaging that creates fear among students. Children should never have to question whether they are safe in their own classrooms or community spaces.
Events that are meant to support and celebrate students must remain focused on them. Individuals who feel the need to bring political symbols or messages into school grounds or children’s events should not be welcomed in those spaces. Schools must make it clear that their environments exist to support learning, safety, and inclusion, not to host agendas that can intimidate or isolate students.
Administrators and educators must develop clear guidelines for identifying and responding to antisemitic behavior in all its forms. This includes strengthening security measures, offering ongoing staff training, and engaging directly with Jewish families to understand their concerns. Inclusion is not a one-time statement. It is a responsibility that must be reflected in everyday decisions and actions. No child should ever feel unsafe or unwelcome because of their identity.

The author is a Campus Media Fellow with HonestReporting Canada and Allied Voices for Israel who lives in Toronto.

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Despite JNF Canada losing its latest appeal in the Federal Court of Canada to have its charitable status restored, it will continue the appeal process all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, if necessary

By BERNIE BELLAN (June 17, 2025) Readers may recall that last August, in what was a shocking decision by the Canada Revenue Agency, JNF Canada lost its charitable status, which meant that it could no longer issue tax receipts for charitable donations. Further, JNF Canada was facing the prospect of having to wind down its operations and disburse all its assets by November 13, 2024, or face a 100% tax.
At the time, Canadian Jewish News reporter Ellin Bessner wrote a detailed examination of what had happened and why it happened.
Bessner noted the following reasons that the CRA had revoked JNF Canada’s charitable status:
“The agency’s findings in the audit ranged from where the charity’s books and records had been kept in 2011 and 2012 (mostly in Israel, which was a no-no), to what language the paperwork and receipts were kept in (mostly in Hebrew, which is not illegal but makes work difficult for auditors), to the conclusion that JNF Canada’s founding charitable purposes of relieving poverty in Israel by paying the salaries of indigent labourers, were not being met.”

Why would the CRA not enter into negotiations with JNF Canada over a new compliance agreement?

Lance Davis, CEO, JNF Canada

In an email received from Lance Davis, CEO of JNF Canada, on June 6, 2025, however, Davis addressed the particular concern to which Bessner referred in her August 2024 article – that JNF Canada was not meeting its “charitable object.”
Davis wrote: “The revocation is based on the CRA’s belief that our current charitable objective is no longer an acceptable charitable objective (after being acceptable for almost 60 years). It is not that the objective isn’t being met. It should be noted that we offered 10 new charitable objectives, which were previously approved for other charities, but the CRA never acknowledged these new objectives and continued to reject our requests for a compliance agreement. “

The CJN article offers more reasons for the CRA decision to revoke

Bessner’s article continued: “Another major issue was that because of missing paperwork and superficial oversight on the ground in Israel, it was felt the Montreal-based JNF Canada hadn’t been in control of or directing its own operations overseas. CRA believed the charity was acting merely as a funnel of money to the Jerusalem-based agency, the Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, which ran the projects.
“A further red flag for auditors were several projects in 2011 and 2012 that benefited the Israel Defence Forces, such as construction of buildings and green areas on IDF military bases. Registered charities are not permitted to support a foreign military financially, under Canadian laws. Some other projects were located in the West Bank and on other disputed land, the CRA found, something which Canada’s foreign policy frowns on.
Bessner further noted that “JNF Canada disagreed with the CRA’s view of that last category—and still does. But in 2019, the charity assured the public that it had stopped funding both kinds of projects after 2016, in order to comply with CRA requirements in good faith.”

A 2019 internal CRA memo says JNF Canada’s charitable status would not be revoked until the appeals process was exhausted

Immediately upon learning that the CRA had revoked JNF Canada’s charitable status, representatives of JNF Canada launched a series of legal appeals to have that decision reversed.
What is even more perplexing, however, notwithstanding the various reasons the CRA may have given for revoking JNF Canada’s charitable status, is why the CRA took that step when apparently, in August 2019, senior administrators within CRA had decided not to revoke JNF Canada’s charitable status until such time as JNF Canada had exhausted all its appeals including going so far as appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada.
In an internal email circulated among three CRA employees in August 2019 (shown here), and which was written by Melissa Shaughnessy, who is currently listed as the “Acting /Manager, Charities Directorate, Compliance Division | Canada Revenue Agency,” Ms. Shaughnessy wrote: “I confirmed that our process would then be to await the decision of the objection and any possible subsequent FCA (Federal Court of Canada)/SCC (Supreme Court of Canada) appeals before taking any further steps toward revocation.” (emphasis ours)

As Lance Davis noted in an email sent to me on June 6, JNF Canada had already begun an appeal process to avoid having its charitable status revoked by the CRA. When the August 2024 decision to revoke its status was suddenly issued, notwithstanding the decision among CRA administrators, evident in the memo seen here, to await the results of the entire appeals process to which JNF Canada was entitled before revoking its charitable status, JNF Canada was blindsided.
Davis noted, with reference to what was written in that August 2019 CRA memo: “This approach was consistent with past practice of the CRA as reflected in its policies, publications and internal communications, and we relied on this assurance in our decision-making. Nonetheless, in 2024, the CRA published our revocation despite our Appeal 1 being active. …Appeal 2 is the appeal that we’ve now had two hearings on, both of which ruled on jurisdiction but not yet on the merits of revoking our status. We are currently determining with our leadership if we will proceed with another hearing to rule on the merits of our case, which we still believe are strong.”

We asked the CRA why that August 2019 memo which said revocation would not take place until JNF Canada’s appeals process in the courts was exhausted was reversed?

We contacted the CRA media department on June 10 to ask why, if the August 2019 memo gave clear indication that the CRA was not going to revoke JNF Canada’s charitable status until such time as all appeals by JNF Canada in the courts had been exhausted, the CRA had gone ahead in August 2024 and revoked JNF Canada’s charitable status? (We attached a screenshot of that August 2019 memo in case the CRA would take the position that there had never been any decision to await the results of JNF Canada’s appeals process.)
It took six full days for a media representative of the CRA to respond. In a typically Kafakaesque manner the CRA media representative simply entirely avoided dealing with the question about the memo, writing instead:
“The confidentiality provisions of the Act prevent the CRA from commenting on specific cases; however, we can provide you with the following general information.
“As mentioned in our response of August 30, 2024, we can confirm that the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada Inc. / Fonds National Juif du Canada Inc. (the Organization) was revoked effective August 10, 2024, in accordance with the Act.
“The CRA’s decision to revoke an organization’s charitable status is not taken lightly. Every organization facing revocation has the right to seek recourse.
“For more information about revocations, please visit: Revoking registered status – Canada.ca.
“The courts provide Canadians with an independent review of disputed issues, and court decisions serve to clarify the law or resolve disputes between the CRA and taxpayers. The CRA does not comment on the specific details of court cases to respect the confidentiality provisions of the Acts we administer. Publicly available information on this case may be obtained from the courts.”

However, as we noted in a previous article on our website, the CRA did release 358 pages of documents to us pertaining to its decision to revoke JNF Canada’s charitable status, following its decision to revoke. As Jonathan Rothman, writing on the CJN website, noted: “The communications branch of the CRA recently provided 358 pages of its correspondence with JNF Canada. Officials said that due to confidentiality restrictions in the Income Tax Act, the CRA can release this material only after revoking a charity’s status. ” 
So, it is somewhat specious for the media spokesperson to claim that “The CRA does not comment on the specific details of court cases to respect the confidentiality provisions of the Acts we administer” when, in fact, the CRA was quite willing to release 358 pages of documents explaining why it had suddenly revoked JNF Canada’s charitable status in August 2024. The question remains: What changed from the time that memo was circulated in August 2019 among CRA administrators and August 2024, when JNF Canada’s charitable status was revoked, without any prior notice given to JNF Canada that was about to happen?

The appeals process continues to take its course

It is somewhat confusing to follow the appeals process which JNF Canada undertook. One was an appeal through the Federal Court and another was an appeal through the Federal Court of Canada.

As Ellin Bessner explained in a November 10, 2024 article which appeared on the CJN website,
in November 2024 the Federal Court turned down JNF Canada’s request that the CRA’s decision to revoke its charitable status be reversed. Bessner wrote that “Jewish National Fund of Canada has lost its first major legal battle to stop the tax department’s revocation of its charitable status, which came into effect three months ago.
“Late in the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 8, a Federal Court judge dismissed JNF Canada’s application for a judicial review—and the judge also dismissed a request for an injunction to force the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to remove the official revocation notice that was printed in the Canada Gazette on Aug. 10.”
But, as Lance Davis noted in his June 6 email to me, “the November decision was not on the merits of our case. It was simply that the Federal Court was not the correct court to rule on our case and so the motion was dismissed and we were advised to take our case to the Federal Court of Appeal.”
However, early in June, JNF Canada lost its appeal to the Federal Court of Canada to have its charitable status restored.
Again though, as Davis explained to me, “This recent ruling was again only on jurisdiction. We appealed the Federal Court’s first decision that it did not have jurisdiction. The reason our lawyers chose this route was we truly believed the Federal Court was the correct place to start our judicial review. Time is of the essence as we do not want to operate as a non-profit indefinitely. Both CRA and JNF agreed that since the FCA was hearing our case, they should rule on the merits and not on whether or not the FC had jurisdiction. They declined to rule on the merits and instead, simply upheld the FC ruling that the FCA is the correct court to hear our case.”


Letter sent to JNF Canada supporters on June 4 about the most recent court decision

However, with that most recent court decision going against JNF Canada, a letter was sent to JNF Canada supporters on June 4 by Lance Davis, and Nathan Disenhouse, President, JNF Canada. That letter noted that “This week, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed our appeal, concluding that the Federal Court did not have jurisdiction over our claim that the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) actions deprived JNF Canada of procedural fairness. 
“The merits of our case – our arguments as to why the process afforded to us lacked procedural fairness – have still not been ruled on.
“While we are, of course, disappointed by this result, and while it is not the result we had expected, we always knew it was a possibility. For this reason, we have been actively planning next steps.  
“When the revocation of our charitable status was published in the Canada Gazette on August 10, 2024, we indicated that we had been blindsided. This is because in 2019 the CRA clearly and explicitly assured JNF Canada that the CRA ‘would not proceed with a revocation until JNF had exhausted their appeals process in Federal Court of Appeal or Supreme Court of Canada.’ (emphasis ours) This approach was consistent with past practice of the CRA as reflected in its policies, publications and internal communications and we relied on this assurance in our decision-making. 
“It is also important to emphasize that over the past decade JNF Canada has attempted to engage without success with the CRA in the hope of finding a mutually acceptable path forward. Approximately two weeks ago, JNF Canada made a settlement offer in advance of this hearing, which was rejected without a counteroffer or any type of dialogue. We urge the CRA, under the leadership of the newly appointed Honourable Wayne Long Secretary of State, Canada Revenue Agency and Financial Institutions, to engage with us in the hope of our arriving at a mutually satisfactory agreement.    
“In looking ahead, JNF Canada will continue to challenge the CRA’s revocation of JNF’s charitable status and its decision to publish notice of the revocation when it did in 2024. We have a multi-pronged strategy in place which will ensure that all reasonable legal processes are engaged to protect JNF Canada’s rights. 
 “While the court ruling was surprising and disappointing, please rest assured that we remain committed to helping address the needs of Israelis during these troubling times and to pursuing justice through the judicial process.”
Davis added this, in his June 6 email to me:
“While we are disappointed with the outcome of our appeal, it is important to clarify that our main/underlying appeal is still in the court system at the Federal Court of Appeal. While we do not have a set date yet, we are expecting our case to be heard in late 2025 or early 2026.”

What has the impact of the CRA decision been on JNF Canada the past 10 months?

So, how have JNF Canada’s operations been affected since that August 2024 decision by the CRA to revoke its charitable status?
Davis wrote, in his email to
“JNF Canada has certainly experienced difficulties since we were revoked on August 10, 2024. It is evident that our revenue has diminished. For example, major gifts from charitable foundations cannot be donated to JNF Canada as these gifts can only be sent to a registered charity. However, we are pleased to share that thousands of Canadians from coast to coast have made contributions to JNF Canada without a charitable receipt. They believe in our mission and mandate so much that they forgo the benefits of a charitable receipt. To us, this demonstrates strong support from our community, and we are as motivated as ever to find a resolution.
“In the meantime, JNF is continuing to proudly operate as a non-profit and support the projects and programs we know are of deep importance to our community here in Canada. Thankfully, we have collaborated with like-minded charities. We are pleased to support three critical projects right now: the rehabilitation of Canada Park’s forests, the Ashdod Rehabilitation & Therapy Centre and the Sderot Resilience Centre. “

Manitoba/Saskatchewan division of JNF Canada carrying on

David Greaves, Executive Director, JNF Canada, Manitoba/Saskatchewan,

We also contacted David Greaves, Executive Director, JNF Canada, Manitoba/Saskatchewan, to ask him what impact the CRA August 2024 ruling has had on the Winnipeg office?
Greaves was upbeat in his response. He noted, for instance, that rather than laying off employees in the Winnipeg office, the number of positions there had increased from 3 1/2 to 4.
As well, Greaves observed that the Manitoba/Saskatchewan division was coming off a very successful Negev Gala – despite not being able to issue tax receipts for attendees at the Gala or donors who did not attend the Gala but still wanted to support JNF Canada, and that the office here was already planning next year’s Gala.
Finally, Greaves explained that JNF Canada was now working with a charitable organization called the Israel Magen Fund (which is also known as “Zaka”) to continue working on two projects that JNF Canada had already initiated within the past couple of years and had not been completed: the Ashdod Rehabilitation Centre and the Sderot Rehabilitation Centre.
Greaves advised that anyone wanting to donate to either of those two projects contact the Israel Magen Fund of Canada.

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Simkin Stroll founder Bill Brownstone honoured prior to this year’s stroll

By BERNIE BELLAN (Photos courtesy of Keith Levit) On Thursday, June 12, the Simkin Centre held its 13th annual Simkin Stroll.
Over the years the Simkin Stroll has grown into a huge event incorporating entertainment, food, children’s activities, a silent auction and, of course, the actual stroll itself, which sees residents accompanied by friends, family members, or Simkin Centre staff members walking – or being pushed in wheelchairs around the beautiful LInden Ridge neighbourhood.

Petting zoo for the kids; Bryan Clyne Indigenous Hoop Dancer; McConnel Irish Dancers

Bill Brownstone

This year marked a special occasion as the individual, Bill Brownstone, who actually came up with the idea for the Simkin Stroll, was honoured in a ceremony held in the adult day program lounge prior to the stroll.
In the past, Brownstone has served on the Simkin Centre board, also as interim Chair for a time.

We were able to catch up with Brownstone before he was honoured to ask him how he came up with the idea for the stroll.
“I came up with the idea (in 2011) because I had friends at the Baycrest in Toronto,” he said. “They had what they called the ‘board walk’ where members of the board would walk to raise money. And when they raise money in Toronto – they raise money!
“So the first year (which would have been 2012) I came up with the idea for people walking. That first year we had about four people walking.
“The next year I came up with the idea for the ‘Simkin Stroll’ – and boom, we had walkers and it began to take off.
I said that I remembered Murray Gilfix was always manning a barbeque in those early years.
“There was no barbeque that first year” of the Simkin Stroll, Bill clarified. The barbeque came later. The past couple of years the barbeque has been replaced by volunteers and Simkin staff serving food indoors as the number of people attending would have led poor Murray to be overwhelmed for sure.

At the ceremony in which Bill Brownstone was honoured with what Rabbi Matthew Leibl said was the Simkin Centre’s inaugural “community leadership honour,” Rabbi Leibl paid tribute to Bill Brownstone’s ongoing dedication to the Simkin Centre. “What began as his vision to raise vital community funds has blossomed over the past 13 years to become a joyful, vibrant, and popular event,” Rabbi Leibl said.
“This event connects residents, family, staff, and the broader community in support of a place we all hold dear. Bill’s contributions have enriched the lives of so many and his legacy of compassion and community spirit is deeply felt. As such, it is only fitting that he is the first recipient of our first community leadership honour.”
Rabbi Leibl also acknowledged Bill’s wife Fay, and his children, Rob, Gary, Lisa, and Andrea.
“The Brownstone children in particular have each contributed generously and creatively this year in honour of their dad,” Rabbi Leibl noted.

Volunteers Lawrie Marmel (left) and Irwin Corobow


This year’s Simkin Stroll ended up setting a new record for fundraising with over $100,000 raised – both through donations and the silent auction. Thanks were also issued to two major sponsors of the event: The Asper Foundation and Ellery Broder.
Funds raised will go to support recreation and quality-of-life programming.

3 members of the Simkin staff (l-r): Aujah Fowler-Thomas, Admissions; Alanna Kull, Director of Care; Laurie Cerqueti, CEO

Past Chairs of the Simkin Centre Board
(Sitting:) Bill Brownstone & Gordon Pullan

Standing (l-r): Jonathan Kroft, Ted Lyons, Saul Greenbeg, Selma Gilfix, Avrum Senensky, Gerry Kaplan, Al Benarroch

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