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Some more reflections on that controversial medical school valedictory address – and why are there so few Jewish medical students?
By BERNIE BELLAN I wanted to return to the subject of Dr. Gem Newman’s valedictory address in front of an audience of graduating U of M medical students, their families, and other guests on May 16, which is almost three months ago.
While Newman’s controversial remarks continue to reverberate – most recently with the forced departure of the Professional Association of Residents and Interns of Manitoba President-elect, Dr. Matthew Bzura, in June of this year, there were several other aspects to the story of that valedictory address that deserve mention.
The first aspect – and one which may have been overlooked by many readers if they hadn’t read a very short column in The Jewish Post by Freda Glow about the graduation ceremony – which she attended because a granddaughter was a member of the graduating class, was Freda’s observation that there were only five Jewish students in this year’s graduating class.
I’m not sure about the accuracy of that observation; after all, as I’ve tried to show time and time again on this website – deciding who is and who isn’t Jewish these days is not at all easy.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s agree that, if not absolutely accurate, Freda’s observation was reasonably close to the mark. Now, I don’t have bona fide statistics on how many Jewish students have graduated from the Faculty of Medicine over the years, but prior to the quota system that was imposed upon Jewish students entering into Medicine by the then-dean, Alvin Mathers, in 1932, one out of every four incoming students in Medicine had been Jewish for quite some time. From 1932-1944, however, the number of incoming Jewish students was reduced to a little over 10 each year.
Even when the quota was lifted, it took some time before Jewish students began to enter into Medicine at the University of Manitoba in substantial numbers. Still, according to Eva Wiseman in her history of Jewish physicians in Manitoba, titled “Healing Lives” (published in 2019), more than 400 Jewish physicians have practised in Manitoba since 1881.
So, if Freda Glow’s observation about how few doctors who were part of this year’s U of M medical school graduating class were Jewish is true, it certainly says a lot about how different our community is today from what is was 30, 40, or 50 years ago when Jewish students comprised a huge chunk of the total medical school enrolment.
When you combine that observation with one that was made by Dr. Michael Boroditsky, who was the then-President of Doctors Manitoba, when he spoke to the Remis lecture group, also in May, that “in a 2023 poll of physicians here, to which one third of active physicians responded, 12% of physicians said they were likely to retire within the next three years; 14% said they were likely to leave Manitoba; and 26% said they were likely to reduce their hours,” we can expect the number of Jewish physicians practising in Manitoba in the near future to soon be a fraction of what it once was.
Which leads me back to Dr. Gem Newman’s valedictory address in May when he said, “I call on my fellow graduates to oppose injustice -and violence – individual and systemic. I call upon you to oppose settler colonialism, both at home and abroad. I call upon you to stand in solidarity with Indigenous people everywhere, here in Treaty One Territory, where an Indigenous man can expect a life ten years shorter than mine – and in Palestine (ed. note: loud cheers erupted at that point from among the students), where Israel’s deliberate targeting of hospitals and other civilian infrastructure has led to more than 35,000 deaths and widespread famine and disease.
“Many medical organizations, including the W.H.O. and Medecins sans Frontiere, and countless unions, including the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union, have repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, while there has been deafening silence from the Canadian Medical Association, Doctors Manitoba and PARIM (Professional Association of Interns and Residents of Manitoba), and so I call upon you to join me in calling for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza. Join me in calling for unrestricted humanitarian and medical aid in Gaza. Join me in calling for an end to the targeting of medical facilities, medical staff, and journalists.
“I’m sure that some of you here today are worried that you may face censure for speaking out against the genocidal war that Israel is waging upon the people of Palestine, that it could jeopardize your career before it’s even begun. I understand that fear…”
I noted in my report on that speech that “Dr. Newman’s speech was greeted with a standing ovation from his fellow graduating doctors.”
And that might be the most important aspect of what went down that day in May. In subsequent weeks Jewish physicians in Manitoba organized themselves into a new group, “The Jewish Physicians of Manitoba.” As Dr. Michael Boroditsky noted when I asked him about the reasons for the formation of that group, “Jewish physicians in cities across Canada and the U.S. have been forming formal associations in response to heightened antisemitism following the Hamas massacre of October 7.”
While university administrators across North America (including here, both at the U of M and the U of W) cowered in the face of anti-Israel protests that shook their campuses and university teachers who added to the intimidation that Jewish students have been experiencing (such as that notorious teach-in about Israeli genocide and colonialism conducted by U of W professors in November, not too long after the Hamas massacre of October 7), some notable Jewish politicians have not been afraid to challenge the cowardice of university administrations.
Foremost among those politicians has been Josh Shapiro who, until quite recently, was considered the favourite to be Kamala Harris’s running mate in the U.S. presidential election.
By most accounts Shapiro had the prerequisite attributes that should have led Harris to choose him as her V-P candidate, but Shapiro had angered many in the left wing of the Democratic party over this overt support for Israel.
Here’s what the NY Times had to say back in May about Shapiro and his refusal to lay down before the leftist activists who had taken over so many university campuses across the U.S., including the University of Pennsylvania: “As university officials have struggled to define where free speech ends and hate speech begins, a tension upending the final weeks of the school year, Mr. Shapiro has issued stern warnings about their responsibility to protect students from discrimination. The issue hits close to home: On Friday, police cleared an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators off the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Shapiro had said it was “past time” for Penn to do so.”
Did Shapiro’s strong support for Israel cost him a place on the presidential ticket? In time, I suppose we’ll know.
To end this column, I wanted to return to my observation at the beginning of this column that “there were several other aspects to the story” of Gem Newman’s valedictory address that deserve mention.
Aside from the intimidating effect that the resounding cheers Newman received that day must have had on Jewish students (or other students who were made deeply uncomfortable by Newman’s remarks and the standing ovation he received from his fellow classmates), there were some very thoughtful and articulate responses to Newman that I published on this website.
One was by former Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont, titled “First Do No Harm,” which was a lengthy and well researched response to Newman. The other was a more impassioned response by former Winnipegger Dr. Solly Dreman, titled “We Must Not Be Silent.” Both those pieces have been viewed over 4,000 times each on this website since they were first published.
I know that I’ve been hugely critical of Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza from the get-go, but having said that I have nothing but admiration for members of our community, wherever they are, who have been taking strong stands denouncing the antisemitism that permeates so much of the criticism that has been a constant theme of much of the criticism of Israel – beginning the day after the October 7 massacre. Still, the chilling effect on Jewish student that the support individuals like Gem Newman received from his classmates is bound to reverberate for some time to come.
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Winnipegger Randy Wolfe reunites with founders of Israel program 44 years after having been in Tzfat, Israel
We received an interesting message from someone by the name of Michal Laufer, who wrote that he was “Communications Director for Livnot U’Lehibanot — an Israel-based nonprofit that has been connecting young Jewish adults from around the world to Israel and their Jewish identity for over 45 years.”
Michael went on to share a story about one of the earliest participants in a Livnot U’Lehibanot program – some 44 years ago, when Winnipegger Randy Wolfe was in Tzfat.
Here’s what Michael wrote, along with a video that he attached in his message:
“I’d love to share a heartwarming story that beautifully reflects the bond between the Jewish Diaspora and Israel.
“Reuven (Randy) Wolfe, from Winnipeg, Canada, recently returned to Tzfat — 44 years after participating in one of Livnot’s earliest programs — to reunite with the founders of Livnot U’Lehibanot and revisit the place that changed his life.
“It’s a touching story about roots, identity, and belonging that I believe would resonate deeply with your readers.
“Attached is the full story.
“A short video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ech3OOGO7ElnttWIWgaIQtQ2PIeQl2mT/view
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Winnipeggers recount experiences growing up in smaller communities
By MYRON LOVE “The place we call home,” observed Bruce Sarbit, “ – shtetl, town, city, country – is essential to who we are. We endow the place with personal meaning and it, in turn, provides us with a sense of identity and stability as we adapt to life’s circumstances in a rapidly changing world.”
For many Jewish Winnipeggers of an earlier era, like Sarbit, that sense of identity was first forged in smaller communities throughout Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northwestern Ontario where our parents and grandparents – my own father and his family among them – found general acceptance as farmers, merchants and professional people while they also successfully strived to retain their sense of Judaism.
On Sunday, September 28, Sarbit was one of a group of four Winnipeggers who participated as part of the Jewish heritage Centre of Western Canada’s program “Beyond The Perimeter: Jews Outside of Winnipeg”, which was held at Temple Shalom. The four, in addition to Sarbit, were: David Greenberg, Sid Robinovitch and Lil Zentner – who began their lives growing up in Selkirk (for Sarbit), Portage La Prairie, Brandon and Esterhazy (Saskatchewan) respectively. The program grew out of the research conducted by Chana Thau, on behalf of the JHCWC, into Jewish life in smaller communities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
In Thau’s introduction, she noted the existence of several Jewish farm colonies that were established in the early years of the last century by German-Jewish Baron de Hirsch. At the same time, other Jewish immigrants (also all from the former Russian empire) to Canada were following the railroad and establishing themselves in the towns and cities that had grown up alongside the rail lines.
In the smaller communities, such as Shoal Lake – where I first lived (we were the only Jewish family) or Esterhazy (where Lil (Bober) Zentner’s family lived with two other Jewish families, the Jewish presence was minimal. In larger communities – such as Brandon, Portage and Selkirk – the number of Jewish families may have been between 20 and 30 at their peaks in the interwar years and into the 1950s. Brandon and Portage had their own synagogues.
The four speakers described many commonalities about Jewish life where they grew up. Their parents were storekeepers. Zentner’s parents, Max and Eva Bober, operated a general store in Esterhazy. Sid Robinovitch’s parents, Jack and Ethel Robinovitch, were proprietors of the Army and Navy Clothing store (which was a separate entity from the Army and Navy chain of stores which were headquartered in Regina, Sid pointed out) in Brandon. Sarbit proudly reports that his family’s Sarbit’s Department Store in Selkirk was, at one time, the largest independent store in western Canada. While David Greenberg’s father, the late I.H. Greenberg, was a lawyer in Portage la Prairie – and David and his brother, Barry, carried on the family legal practice in the community – his grandfather was first a journeyman lather who did plaster work on homes. The family later opened a second-hand store and subsequently constructed a grocery store – Greenberg’s Groceteria.
“The Greenberg grocery store extended credit to farmers and purchased their produce, which enabled it to thrive,” David Greenberg recalled. “I was once told by a friend years later that “Greenberg’s kept us alive” in the winter when they had virtually no money for food.
While the Greenberg, Robinovitch and Sarbit families arrived in Portage, Brandon and Selkirk respectively in the early 1900s – as part of the wave of Jewish immigration from Russia at the time –meaning the three were among the third generations in their communities, Lil Zentner’s parents, Max and Eva Bober were considerable later arrivals – having come to Canada respectively – in 1926 and 1930. They opened their general store in Esterhazy in 1936.
The Bobers, being newcomers, were more observant than Greenberg’s, Robinovitch’s, and Sarbit’s parents. Zentner was the only one of the four speakers who brought up the challenge of keeping kosher in a town far removed from shechita and kosher food. She recounted how her parents brought in kosher meat from Regina.
“We would buy chickens from local farmers,” she recounts. “We would take them to Melville (which numbered perhaps 30-40 Jewish families in the 1930s and 40s) to have them killed and then we would remove the feathers, cut off the heads and clean them at home.”
In Robinovitch’s telling, Jewish religious life in Brandon was “basic”. “We kept kosher in our home,” he remarks. “We brought in kosher meat from Winnipeg. We had a synagogue but, aside from the odd community event, it really only functioned on the High Holidays.”
David Greenberg noted that, for the first couple of decades, the Jewish community’s members davened in people’s homes. Portage’s Jewish community didn’t build a proper synagogue until 1950. Services were largely restricted to Friday evenings and the High Holidays. The merchants had to work on Saturdays. The community also made attempts to have a cheder, but with limited success.
While it would seem (from my own memories as well) that the general communities in those small towns respected the Jewish merchants in their midst – none of the four speakers mentioned any incidents of antisemitism – the Jewish families – even in the already more secular and integrated second and third generations – primarily socialized with other Jewish families.
In Portage – although the Jewish families did largely socialize with each other, the second and third generations also held leadership positions in the larger community. Greenberg noted that Jack Shindelman, Ben Kushner, and Irwin Callen all became aldermen, and Harold Narvey was re-elected chairman of the school board many times.
“My mother served as President of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE),” Greenberg noted, “and as a longtime volunteer at the Portage General Hospital Auxiliary. My father and his brother Allan became Exalted Rulers of the Elks Lodge, My Uncle Michael was leader of the Elks Band.”
In Zentner’s remembering, although she had many non-Jewish friends among the girls in her classes – her parents only got together socially with the other two Jewish families in town or Jewish families in nearby towns.
“In the summers, we would join other Jewish families at Round Lake, vacationing at Round Lake,” she recalled. “One summer, my parents sent me to a Habonim camp in the Qu’Appelle Valley where I met a lot of other Jewish kids.”
“For their social life, my family mixed almost exclusively with other members of Brandon’s Jewish community,” Robinovitch said. “There were Saturday evening poker nights and Sunday afternoon gatherings at Crystal’s Delicatessen. On Saturday afternoons, I would go to the movies and a couple of other Jewish kids in my school and I belonged to the Cubs and Boy Scouts.
“I had a few friends from school, but I always felt that I was different,” Robinovitch continued. “I was aware of being Jewish – although I had no real sense of what Jewishness was all about. I would say that the only time that I had any exposure to Jewish culture was when my parents sent me one summer to Herzl Camp in Wisconsin when I was 12 years old. It was a real eye opener being in an environment with so many other Jewish youngsters. I was exposed to a lot of Hebrew songs and, to this day, I still remember the Birkat Hamazon and V’ahavtah prayers that I learned there.”
The next year, the Robinovitch family moved to Winnipeg and young Sid quickly became immersed in Jewish life here. “In Brandon, I felt that we were defined by what we didn’t do,” he observed. “We didn’t go to school on the High Holidays. We didn’t have a Christmas tree. And we didn’t go to visit grandpa and grandma on the family farm.
“It was in Winnipeg where my identity as a Jew really began to take shape. Brandon was a nice place to live, but it could not provide the strong Jewish community values that emanate from a lager centre. A remnant of Jewish values still prevailed from the shtetl, but by my generation, they had worn thin.”
For Lil Zentner, the end of her time in Esterhazy came when she began dating a local boy. Her parents wouldn’t tolerate it when they found out. After a mighty blow-up, she challenged them to send her to Winnipeg where she could meet fellow Jews. Her older brother, Harold, was already here, going to university. Her parents agreed and they followed a year later.
For the Jewish community in Selkirk, Bruce Sarbit noted, being so close to Winnipeg, it was almost an extension of the larger city. His remarks were as much about nostalgia for Winnipeg as they were about Selkirk. “In my case,” he said, “I came into Winnipeg for everything Jewish – Hebrew lessons. Sunday Jewish history classes and YMHA clubs.”
The smaller city, he observed – at its peak home to perhaps 20 Jewish families, “fostered a strong sense of community among the Jewish families and helped them to hold onto their cultural and religious traditions, celebrate Shabbat, observe holidays, practise kashrut and maintain their Yiddish language as they ran businesses that necessitated interactions with the non-Jewish population”.
He added that his own father, Syd, who came to Portage at the age of three, was immersed in the general community as well – having twice served as president of the Chamber of Commerce, was also a member of the Rotary club, and once ran for election to the Legislature.
Unlike Portage and Brandon, though. Selkirk was close enough that the Jewish residents of Selkirk often drove into Winnipeg, attended High Holiday services here, visited relatives and, in general, partook of the activities, Jewish and otherwise, that the larger city provided.
Unlike Robinovitch and Zentner though, Sarbit did not spend all of his adult life in Winnipeg. He left Selkirk at the age of 18 for Brandon. For 40 years, the psychologist turned playwright served as a counsellor at Brandon University.
“The descendants of the first residents chose not to remain in Portage,” Greenberg concluded – in summing up the decline and disappearance of the other Jewish communities on the Prairies – with the exception of Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon. “Intermarriage was frowned upon and the children were too few in number and not close enough in age to socialize, so for girls to meet Jewish boys they were required to move to alarger centres, primarily Winnipeg. I believe culture was the motivating factor in their decision.
“Only my Uncle, Allan Greenberg, a bachelor, Harold and Mildred Narvey, and their son Bruce, who opened a chiropractic practice, remained. Bruce Narvey, as I mentioned, was the last of the resident descendants, before leaving after his mother died.”
Although Greenberg himself – and his brother, Barry – have lived most of their lives in Winnipeg, they continue to practise law in Portage and have had a history of community involvement in the Portage community. In recent years, David co-chaired the Portage and Area Beautification initiative committee through the Chamber of Commerce, resulting in seven years of service in the planning and implementation of the project. As a result, the committee was awarded its Citizenship of the Year award by the community. As for Barry Greenberg, he is a past president of the Portage & District Chamber of Commerce.
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Holocaust survivors group “Cafe Europa” celebrates 25th anniversary
By MYRON LOVE On October 12, 2000, the Jewish Child and Family Service (JCFS) invited Holocaust survivors in our community to attend an information session at the Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre to discuss how the community could better serve the needs of that segment of our community. What grew out of that meeting was the establishment of the Winnipeg chapter of Cafe Europa, an international organization originally established by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which brings together Holocaust survivors to forge connections and community with others who have shared their experience.
On Thursday, October 23, 2025, a small group of our community’s rapidly dwindling survivors joined some of the JCSF staff who have been involved with the program over the years – including current president and CEO Al Benarroch, his predecessor, Emily Shane, JCFS seniors case worker Adeena Lungen, recently retired Cheryl Hirsh Katz, along with Keith Elfenbein and Heather Kraut – the current JCFS staff overseeing JCFS seniors programming – also Shelley Faintuch, who was the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg’s Director of Community Relations 25 years ago – for the for lunch at the Gwen Secter to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Winnipeg’s Cafe Europa.
“It is a really special moment for me to stand before you today as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of our Holocaust survivors’ social lunch program,” said Adeena Lungen, JCFS social worker. Lungen herself is the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
Al Benarroch, President and CEO of JCFS, added, ““Our Holocaust survivors are truly precious jewels, the living legacy, resilience, an embodiment of Jewish survival, and of ‘Am Yisrael Chai’. We owe them so much for their stewardship of Jewish truth and justice. They are truly righteous among us.”
Lungen continued: “It began with a simple idea to bring Holocaust survivors together and evolved into a regular biweekly group where survivors meet, share a meal, enjoy a program and find comfort in each other’s company. It has grown into an environment where survivors have been able to come together year after year supporting each other through illness, loss, and hardship, as well as celebrating together successes and family simchas.”
Lungen was one of two JCFS social workers who were at that original meeting 25 years ago, along with Shelley Faintuch – also the child of Holocaust survivors – representing the Federation. “Our initial idea was just to create a space where survivors could come together as a community of people with shared experiences and history,” Lungen recounted.
The name, “Cafe Europa”, she explained, comes from a cafe of the same name in Stockholm where survivors met in the early years after the war in the hopes of finding family and friends who had also survived the Holocaust.
Lungen recalled that the survivors who attended that first meeting were very clear about their vision for the group. “They weren’t looking for a therapy or support group – nor did they want to talk about their wartime experiences,” she said. “They simply wanted a program where they could socialize with other survivors. I came to understand their needs and desires to meet with others who understood loss and suffering in a way that only other survivors could.”
Speaking directly to the 15 survivors at the 25th anniversary lunch, Lungen praised them for their “indomitable will to live a life of purpose and meaning. You have shown all of us – in very real ways – what it means to rebuild your lives, to persevere and to believe in the possibility of goodness after unimaginable loss.
“We at JCFS are grateful for the opportunity to work with you, to learn from you and to be inspired by you.”
As the number of survivors in our community continue to decrease year after year, so too do the numbers attending Cafe Europa programs. Keith Elfenbeinn noted, “when Heather (Kraut) and I began working with the survivors 12 years ago, we had close to 50 attending our bimonthly programs (which feature lunch followed by speakers or performers). Now we get fewer than 20.”
He added that most survivors are in their late 80s or 90s now – including 100-year-olds Charlotte Kittner and Saul Fink.
Lungen in particular noted Elfenbein’s role in co-ordinating all aspects of Cafe Europa’s programming, including phoning survivors to arrange transportation, booking the speakers and entertainment, and liaising with the Gwen Secter Centre.
Shelley Faintuch delved into Canada’s sorry history with regard to largely having banned Jewish immigration here before the war and limiting the numbers after the war. She provided an overview – in her years as the Federation’s Community Relations director – to reach out to governments and build bridges to other faith and ethnic communities –as well as high school students, aimed at raising awareness of antisemitism and taking measures to fight this pernicious hatred.
The 25th anniversary program finished with a musical performance by Rabbi Matthew Leibl and Cantor Steven Hyman.