Local News
Shaarey Zedek capital campaign is on pace to hit $17 million goal, but is hoping to obtain a further $2 million from donors
By BERNIE BELLAN It was in the October 27, 2021 issue of The Jewish Post & News that we first described the plan to renovate the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue. At that time the planned budget for the renovation was $14 million but, as with most construction projects these days, as costs have increased the total cost of the project has increased considerably.
The Shaarey Zedek website now contains the following information: “The Board previously approved an overall budget of $14 million in September 2021, representing an earlier projection of $12 million in hard costs and $2 million in soft costs. However, because of supply and inflation issues, as well as changes to the renovation plans, including the installation of an operable dumbwaiter (to replace the current inoperable one), as well as a daycare space, the current budget recently approved by the Board in August 2022, is $16 million.”
However, even that figure has now been supplanted by an even higher figure, according to Neil Duboff, Shaarey Zedek President and Chair of the L’Dor Va Dor Capital Campaign.
In an interview conducted with Duboff in his office on Monday, May 6, he said that the renovation project is now expected to cost $17 million. As Duboff explained, “All in, including architects, including furniture, including all of the soft costs, (the total cost) is going to be virtually what we always counted on, about 17 million.”
Of that $17 million though, the cost for a day care facility within the synagogue has not added to the overall goal of the capital campaign,” Duboff noted, as the $1 million for the daycare is being donated by the Vickar family, one of the very generous benefactors to our community.
As far as where the other $2 million in increased costs are coming from, Duboff explained that “what’s gone up is security has gone up. Windows have gone up…and one of the other things that has really gone up is AV. AV was more expensive, audio visual is more expensive than we counted on.”
In addition to those added construction costs, there is work being done to improve the drainage in the back. As Duboff explained, “The way I’m led to believe by the architects and engineers is we’ve had a flooding problem in the back. Water has, when it’s a really heavy rain, water comes in. So, it’s something that needed to be fixed regardless” (of the renovations to the building).
As well, during a tour of the renovations in which I was a participant (along with three others) on April 26, which was conducted by Shaarey Zedek Executive Director Rena Elbaze, Elbaze did say that the back entrance is going to be modified extensively – to make it quite a bit more welcoming than it had been previously.
I was quite impressed with how the construction is proceeding from what I saw during that tour, although upon reading the original timetable for completion of the renovations, I see that they were originally slated to be completed by this August. Elbaze assured that the renovations will be done by September 26 (for the community Kavod evening) – which would be a week in advance of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. (Fortunately for the construction crew, Rosh Hashanah is very late this year – which gives them quite a bit of a cushion to finish their work in case any unexpected problems crop up – as they usually do in projects this grand.)
During my interview with Neil Duboff, he was confident that the renovations will be completed well ahead of Yom Tov, saying “it could be as soon as August, and then they just have to make sure that our maintenance staff understands the building in terms of heating and air conditioning.”
The one aspect of the renovation though, that will probably not be completed will be the back entrance, Duboff noted. “One of the things that I was really pushing for is a grander entrance in the back,” he said.
“It’s going to have the same limestone as the front,” he noted “It’s going to be mirroring the front. The feeling of the front will be the feeling in the back.”
But, returning to the issue of finances, Shaarey Zedek members did receive a letter the first week of May in which they were told that the capital campaign is still $2 million short of what is now a $17 million goal. There was also a reference to the cemetery perpetual care fund which apparently left some congregation members concerned that funds set aside for perpetual care might be used for the renovation.
Duboff took the blame for causing some consternation among congregation members over the possible use of the perpetual care fund for the renovation. He said: “I don’t know if you can do this in a synagogue, but I’ll take a mea culpa. It was wrong. because all we were ever intending on doing is saving money by not borrowing money from the bank. That’s all it was ever intended to do. But the mistake that was made in that letter is it talked about the word perpetual care fund.” He added that there was going to be a meeting on May 8 in which the funding situation would be fully clarified for congregation members.
I asked Neil Duboff how much money exactly has been raised by the campaign. He did say that $3 million of the $17 million renovation cost is coming from the provincial government and that $12 million has been raised in pledges, but some of the individuals who have pledged to contribute to the campaign will be fulfilling their pledges over the next five years.
That does leave a bit of a “cash flow” problem, Duboff admitted. The congregation did approve taking out a “$9 million line of credit,” he added, and so far, “we haven’t used it at all,” he said.
And, while that line of credit is available, if necessary, the rate on that line of credit is approximately eight per cent. Shaarey Zedek does have investments, Duboff noted, but the average rate of return is “about five” percent, he said, which means we pay 8% and earn 5%. The goal of the board has been to find a way to avoid paying the approximately 3% interest costs charges in excess of what we earn.
The congregation also has a capital fund, Duboff explained, and $3 million from that fund has been used for the renovations, but Duboff said he’d like to “raise funds to put that back” because the “purpose of the fund” is to “sustain the congregation” to pay for things like “programming.”
One of the problems in raising funds, Duboff admitted, is that “some of our great philanthropists in our city still are considering their donations and need to kick the tire to believe the project and the future of the synagogue is real and viable. And we believe that when people come in to see the renovations and talk to the synagogue leadership, like Steve Kroft, (who was one of the people on the tour in which I participated on April 26) has now given a very, very generous gift.”
Yet, Duboff continued, “there are other people who are top donors in our city who haven’t. So some of the typical people you’d expect haven’t donated because they want to see if it’s real.”
I wondered though, whether the Shaarey Zedek’s not having a second rabbi will be an impediment to being able to grow the congregation – which would be necessary in order to sustain the congregation for the long term?
I said to Duboff that, during the tour Rena Elbaze conducted on April 26, she pointed to an area that will become an office for a second rabbi. I asked Elbaze: “So, you’re still looking for another rabbi?” She answered that she would fill me in on how the search is going, but as of the time or writing, Elbaze hasn’t responded to my request for further information.
The entire atmosphere surrounding the departure of Rabbi Matthew Leibl three years ago remains shrouded in controversy. Regardless what happened to lead to a parting of the ways between Rabbi Leibl and the Shaarey Zedek Congregation, there is no doubt that Rabbi Leibl’s leaving has had a negative impact upon the congregation.
You just have to take a look at the number of funerals, weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs at which Rabbi Leibl has officiated over the past four years to realize how immensely popular he remains as a rabbi within this community.
Neil Duboff isn’t the first person to whom I’ve suggested that it’s the congregation’s loss that Rabbi Leibl is not only not serving as a rabbi at the Shaarey Zedek, his being available to officiate at life cycle events outside of a synagogue venue and his having held High Holiday services at the Gates last year has been partly at the expense of the Shaarey Zedek in terms of people still making Rabbi Leibl their first choice for a rabbi in this city.
In response, Duboff said: “I think that the message has to be that I am a fan of Matthew’s. I think he does great work…
“But I have to sustain a strong Conservative synagogue. I can tell you that, regardless of who the Shaarey Zedek were to hire tomorrow, the synagogue, the congregation, the Shaarey Zedek, has to be bigger than a rabbi. Rabbis come and go. The institution doesn’t. Every synagogue is like that…
“Rabbis come and go. That’s the nature of an employee. But, it would be a tremendous solidifying thing, I think if Matthew would come back, I would open the door to it.”
Duboff admitted that there were conflicts between Rabbi Leibl and certain individuals (whose names he did divulge, but who will not be identified here), and that another prominent member of the congregation did reach out to Rabbi Leibl to see if there was a possibility of his returning to the congregation, but Duboff’s understanding is that “he’s not interested in working at the Shaarey Zedek.”
Looking ahead though, I wondered what the community’s demographics portend for the long-term future of the Shaarey Zedek? I said that I thought there would be an initial flurry of interest in coming to the Shaarey Zedek because of the novelty aspect – the same way Gray Academy attracted over 900 students the first year that the Asper Campus opened (in 1997), but that initial interest levelled off quickly after that first year.
And, with the Etz Chayim just having moved into new quarters on Wilkes, there is bound to be a competition between the two congregations for new members, I suggested. I asked Duboff whether, in hindsight, there should’t have been a merger of the two congregations 20 years ago when discussions of a merger ended in failure because of the apparent “culture clash” between the two congregations?
“Don’t you think that should have been the way to go?” I asked Duboff.
He agreed, saying “A hundred percent. I think that in our city, I still think at some point the congregations are going to have to join. Our city’s too small. And like you just said, there aren’t as many young families. When our generation goes, who are going to be the leaders?”
Local News
GrowWinnipeg celebrates 25th anniversary
By MYRON LOVE On Wednesday, June 25, about 250 Jewish Winnipeggers – comprising lifelong residents as well as newer arrivals, came together at the Asper campus to celebrate the 25th anniversary of GrowWinnipeg, an initiative that has revitalized our Jewish community – in our camps, school, synagogues and other institutions and given our community a much more international flavour.
Our community’s population peaked in terms of population in 1961 when Winnipeg Jewry numbered around 20,000. The years after had been a period of steady decline. By 1961, most of the Jews living in smaller communities in the Prairie provinces – the source of much of our ongoing population replenishment up to that point – had largely disappeared.
A s Bob Freedman, the former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg (and its predecessor, the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council), noted in his remarks at the 25th anniversary party, by 1986, community leaders recognized that ours was an aging and shrinking community with aging infrastructure.
“We recognized that something had to be done,” he recalled.
The first stage, he pointed out, was the planning and construction of the Asper Campus, which brought our major institutions and organizations under one roof in an attractive new building.
The next challenge was to attract more people to our community. GrowWinnipeg was created to take on the challenge. GrowWinnipeg is unique in its efforts to reach out to young Jewish families throughout the Western world .
The genesis was a chance meeting on an airplane almost 30 years ago between former Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor Janice Filmon – at that time the wife of then-Manitoba premier Gary Filmon, and a Jewish businessman from Argentina who was contemplating moving to Toronto. Filmon persuaded him to consider Winnipeg instead. He was impressed by what he saw and suggested that the community send representatives to Buenos Aires to meet with other Argentinian Jewish families who were considering leaving.
That planted the seed.
Shortly thereafter – in 1998 – Larry Hurtig – then the president of the Federation, his son, Jack, and a representative of the provincial government, made an exploratory visit to Buenos Aires to gauge what interest there might be among young Jewish families to consider moving to Winnipeg.
GrowWinnipeg was officially launched in 2000. Our community opened its arms in welcome to the new arrivals who began to arrive, hosting them in our homes and helping them become acclimatized to their new surroundings.
Evelyn Hecht became the principal contact for the newcomers. “I was lucky that I happened to be working for the Federation when we opened the campus and turned our energies to repopulating our community,” Hecht noted in her remarks at the recent celebration. “Fortunately, the pieces fell into place at just the right time.”
Those pieces, Hecht related, included: the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program – which allowed community support groups to recruit specific immigrants; the arrival of a small number of Jewish families from Buenos Aires who encouraged community leaders to look to their former home as a potential source of Jewish immigrants; and the availability of email and the internet.
The initiative – led by Hecht – recruited a group of local Jewish families who were prepared to host potential immigrants who had begun to come for exploratory visits. The connections made by the new arrivals and their local hosts resulted in many long–lasting friendships, Hccht noted.
She praised Jewish Child and Family Service for helping the new arrivals to become established here and integrate into the community.
Efforts were also made to build a data basis of potential employers for the newcomers.
GrowWinnpeg was kicked off by two visits to Buenos Aires – visits Hecht describes as “exciting and exhausting” – in the early 2000s, when Hecht and other Winnipeg representatives met with potential immigrants and heard their concerns about life and personal safety in Argentina and hopes for the future that Winnipeg might be able to give them.
“I remember,” she said, “the numerous meeting I held in my office on the third floor here listening to people’s excitement and concerns and answering questions about life in Winnipeg, our Jewish identity, schools, synagogues, employment, housing and especially, safety. I always emphasized that they would encounter struggles, disappointment and possibly, crises – but I assured them that we would be here to help.
“And I remember feeling so much happiness when people would show up at my door to share good news about babies born, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations and new jobs – and the numerous times I was in Citizen Court where so many were so proud to receive their citizenship certificates. “
And they are still coming. Dalia Szpiro, Hecht’s successor, reports that, over the past 25 years just under 7,000 people have come here under the aegis of GrowWinnipeg – and not just from Argentina. We have had families from Brazil, Uruguay and other South American countries, Mexico, Europe, and, in more recent years, especially from Israel.
For former Israelis I spoke with on the 25th, such as Slava and Karina Pustilnikov, Irena Oz and Marina Shapiro and her 19-year-old son, Adam, all of whom have been here for 10 to 15 years, the primary motivation was being in a safer environment.
For Ori Rahima and his wife, Anna Shapiro, who have been here for seven years and have three children under six, the pull was greater opportunity and a better standard of living.
Then there is Esther Barna, a teacher by training, newly arrived from Budapest. “Hungary is not a good place to be a Jew,” she says. “There is a lot of antisemitism. I was looking online for a better place to go and came across the GrowWinnipeg website. I love it here.”
In her concluding remarks, Dalia Szpiro, herself an immigrant from Uruguay about 20 years ago, thanked the many Jewish organizations and individuals in the community who have helped to make GrowWinnipeg the success that it is.
“Over 250 volunteers each year meet with our exploratory visitors – opening their homes, their hearts, their time, their insights and their networks,” she noted. “There is something very special about our community and our province. Every exploratory visitor who comes here as part of their immigration journey discovers it.
“This 25-year milestone is a reason for pride and celebration – and a renewed commitment to the future. We are already working on new strategies – to strengthen what we have built, support immigration, foster inclusion and create more opportunities for newcomers to grow and prosper.”
Local News
Long time community members Bryan Schwartz, Myriam Saitman receive rabbinic ordination
By MYRON LOVE On June 21, Bryan Schwartz and Myriam Saitman received their rabbinical ordination through the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute (JSLI) Rabbinical School – bringing the number of JSLI rabbinic graduates in our community to seven.
“I felt a calling,” says Saitman, who is the new spiritual leader of Temple Shalom, our community’s roughly 60-year-old Reform Congregation. Saitman notes that she is Temple Shalom’s fourth female rabbi.
Originally from Buenos Aires, Saitman and her family answered our community’s call for new young Jewish families that began with the Federation’s GrowWinnipeg campaign. They arrived here in 2003.
“We were attracted by a community that offered a safer environment for raising a family and better economic opportunities,” she recalls.
Although raised in a secular family, she notes that, as a young adult she was drawn to learning more about Judaism. “I took Hebrew classes in Argentina and started on a spiritual path,” she recalls.
Soon after coming to Winnipeg, she found her spiritual home at Temple Shalom. Over the last many years, she has served as a volunteer in several capacities at the synagogue – both at the school and as a long time member of the board. Since 2016, she was also one of the lay service leaders, often leading Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday evenings.
When her predecessor, Allan Finkel – also a JSLI grad – let it be known that he was planning to retire after six years as the congregation’s spiritual leader, Saitman put her name forward as a potential successor.
“Judith (Huebner) and Ruth (Livingston) (Temple Shalom’s president and past president respectively) were really supportive as were the board and the congregation,” Saitman says. “I began leading services.”
As for the JSLI program, Saitman notes that it is intensive. “It meets a need,” she observes. “It prepares us well for all the requirements of being a congregational rabbi.
“We at Temple Shalom want people to know that we are here and we welcome interfaith families,” she adds. “Our motto is that we follow tradition and embrace modernity. Our services (on Friday evenings) reflect the essence of Reform Judaism where we allow for individual choices. I’d like to stress that individual choices are informed by an educated interpretation based on knowledge of the laws and customs.”
Unlike Saitman, Rabbi Bryan Schwartz was not considering a career as a congregational rabbi when embarking on the JSLI program. For Schwartz, “rabbi” is the latest title in a lifetime of achievement. As this writer noted in a story in the Post about Schwartz last year, he “is the very model of a modern-day, Jewish, Renaissance scholar.”.A long-time professor at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law, he is also a passionate Zionist, student of the Holocaust and an in demand commentator on modern legal and constitutional issues. He has written or contributed to 34 books and over 300 publications in all – in a legal and teaching career that stretches back more than 40 years. His works within a Jewish context encompass the gamut of Jewish life from ancient times to the Holocaust to the current Jewish situation. In addition, he is a poet, playwright and songwriter.
“My main purpose in taking the JSLI course,” he observes, “is to be better positioned to help deal with the challenge of Jewish survival. I want to be able to pass on Jewish tradition to the younger generation and impress upon younger Jews – who have grown up in largely secular homes – the value of our 2,500-year-old literature, culture and religious traditions.”
He observes that there is something for everyone in Jewish tradition. “There are many people who are looking for a spiritual community. I believe that Judaism provides us with a sense of our place in the universe.”
Schwartz – a lifelong student himself – notes that he has been building to this moment for a long time. In his early 20s, he notes, he audited a few courses at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In his 50s and 60s, he learned Hebrew at different ulpans.
“I had been looking around for a while for a rabbinic program,” he says. “JSLI seemed to be the best one. It was hard work – but well worth it. I learned a tremendous amount.”
So what is Schwartz – who is a member of the Shaarey Zedek – planning on doing as a rabbi?
“I would like to be able to offer weekly dvar Torahs,” he says.
He would like , among other things, to do creative and educational projects for the community, like his weekly dvar torah in the Times of Israel. The commentary that he gave on the weekend of his Smicha ceremony is called “From Burning Synagogue to Rising Lyon,” and can be found at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-burning-synagogue-to-rising-lion/
“I have also been writing books and musicals inspired by the Tradition, and hope to find forums to share them in the years ahead,” he adds. “My mission is to share in the radiance of our Tradition and help inspire the next generations to see its warmth and illumination”
Local News
Winnipeg Fringe performer Melanie Gall subjected to antisemitic attack – for second year in a row
By BERNIE BELLAN (July 20, 2025)
Melanie Gall is a talented performer who is a veteran of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival – having appeared here many times.
Last year Melanie found herself being subjected to antisemitic attacks that were initiated by a site supervisor for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, someone by the name of Eric Rae.
As I wrote on my story about Melanie’s experience, “…on the third day (of the Fringe Festival), she said, ‘the site supervisor (Rae) came and was wearing a pro-Palestinian symbol’ and told Melanie that he was wearing that deliberately because he was coming to Melanie’s venue.
“He told her, ‘that stance you’re taking (on social media) is a political symbol.
Rae also posted on social media: “We have a Zionist in our midst harassing pro-Palestinians.”
There was a concerted effort on social media last summer to boycott Melanie’s shows (She had three different shows altogether.)
As Melanie said during a phone conversation we had last summer about what happened to her, “This is so ridiculous. I’m being harassed and bullied because I’m Jewish…it’s not about Israel.”
Eric Rae was relieved from his duties after Melanie complained to the Fringe office staff, Melanie noted during our conversation.
She adds that other Fringe employees also complained about Eric Rae’s behaviour: “I wasn’t the only one who complained last year,” she wrote in an email sent today. “Several staff members complained, as Eric was not adhering to the Fringe policy that did not allow political symbols to be worn by staff. From what I heard, he refused to stop wearing it, and he did publicly target me. The Winnipeg Fringe upheld their safe spaces policy, and they were wonderful in the way they handled it.”
Further, Melanie was the target of an organized campaign on pro-Palestine social media calling for her shows to be boycotted.
(You can read the full story about what happened to Melanie, also to her mother during last year’s Edmonton Fringe Festival, at Melanie Gall.)
Just today we received another email from Melanie informing us that the same individual who targeted her last summer is targeting her again during this year’s Fringe Festival.
Melanie wrote: “Hi! Thanks so much for the mention in the preview article! I just wanted to let you know that Eric Rae is at it again.”
Attached to that email was a picture taken from Rae’s Instagram account.
As of the writing of this post, Melanie said that she is out of town for three days and is not aware whether any of her posters have been defaced – the way they were last summer.
She did add, however, that “I assume by ‘make her feel unwelcome’ (which is what is written on one of the pictures on Rae’s Instagram account) he is planning something. Ugh.”
Melanie also said that “The one post is too close to a threat to ignore.”
In a subsequent email Melanie also sent a screenshot of an exchange that took place on Rae’s Instagram account between him and someone who goes by the handle “Kat Cat.”
If we hear more about what’s been happening to Melanie we’ll update this article.
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