Local News
Stories of Hope project at Gordon Bell High School receives kick start from Peter Leipsic

Gordon Bell High School, located in Winnipeg’s inner-city, is a thriving Grade 7-12 school whose strength lies in the diversity and resiliency of the students it serves. “Our Stories of Hope” project honours the diversity of the Gordon Bell community, which includes representation from 57 cultural groups, and is dedicated to giving Gordon Bell students the opportunity to tell their personal stories.
In March of 2021, Peter Leipsic, local business innovator and philanthropist, whose father, Captain Barry Leipsic was an alumnus of Gordon Bell, reached out to Gordon Bell High School to come up with a project through which students would have the opportunity to lift themselves and others up through the power of their stories.
“Our Stories of Hope” project strives to empower students through the sharing of their history, culture, traditions, lived experiences, overcoming challenges, triumphs, successes and dreams for the future. Students are invited to share their personal stories through a variety of mediums, including: written text, oral storytelling, film, dance, song or visual art.
Every year at Gordon Bell, students will be given the opportunity to share and celebrate their stories with their peers and community members in the category that applies to them: Grades 7 & 8, Grade 10, Grade 12, English as an Additional Language (EAL), Community Access Program, Adaptive Skills Program (Special Education) and off-campus programs. It is our commitment that students will have the opportunity to share their story at least once throughout their time at Gordon Bell. Student projects will be submitted to and evaluated by a diverse panel of community members, teachers and administrators with expertise in a variety of fields that will reflect the diverse media of the final projects.
Through the dedication of community members and the commitment of our community partnerships, students will be encouraged to share their stories and have the opportunity to be rewarded for their efforts. Every entrant will receive $25 for submitting their story. A first place receipient for each category will receive $500 for their story, second place will receive $300 and third place will receive $150.
Each year, the project will culminate in a gala event, honouring each entrant and their story and celebrating the award winners in each category.
It is our hope that with the support of community donors, the dedication of community partners and the support of our teachers and administrative staff members, that the Our Stories of Hope project will become part of the legacy our current students leave to inspire and motivate our future generations of students, modeling the resiliency that we hold in high regard and promote within our community. We thank you greatly for considering supporting our students and this project.
Donations can be made to The Children’s Heritage Fund – Our Stories of Hope project c/o the Winnipeg School Division, contact:
Dawn Didur ddidur@wsd1.org
If you have any questions about the project, please contact the lead teacher:
Kelsey Shiaro @ 204-774-5401 or kshiaro@wsd1.org
Local News
Winnipeg Jewish Theatre to open season with world premiere of “Pals”

By BERNIE BELLAN The opening show of Winnipeg Jewish Theatre’s 2023-24 season promises to be a clever and poignant take on relationships between men and women, when “Pals” makes its world premiere on November 9 in the Berney Theatre, running until November 19.
“Pals” is the third two-person show created by the team of Diane Flacks and Richard Greenblatt. Interestingly, when I spoke with Flacks and Greenblatt while they took a break from rehearsing the play in Toronto, they told me that their previous two two-person plays also had one word titles – with four letters in both: “Sibs” and “Care.”
“Pals” is the story of two friends, told over a 25-year time period. Their friendship survives many tribulations, including both characters entering and exiting many other relationships. The play uncovers the underlying tensions that permeate all friendships.
“Pals” opens with the two characters meeting for the first time. I asked Diane and Richard whether the notion of their having sex ever enters into the plot, but Richard was quick to exclaim, “We don’t have sex.”
Diane also noted that, in the case of her character, she is married to another woman. (Diane is a lesbian in real life.)
The fact that the characters maintain a friendship though becomes a source of friction within their respective relationships. It raises the question: Can you have an intimate, albeit platonic, relationship, with a member of the opposite sex all the while you’re in a physical relationship with someone else?
I asked whether the characters in “Pals” are Jewish (which both Diane and Richard are), and the answer was “yes.”
Both Diane and Richard have had past associations with the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre. Richard’s goes back a very long time – when he directed the critically acclaimed “League of Nathans” in 1995.
Diane Flacks appeared in a one-night performance of a show in 2021 called “25 Questions for a Jewish Mother,” which was a part of that year’s Tarbut festival. There were no in-person events that year, due to Covid, but “Jewish Mother” was available on Zoom and had a huge audience.
In addition to writing for the stage, Diane Flacks has written for TV, including Working the Engels, Baroness Von Sketch Show, Young Drunk Punk, PR, and The Broad Side.
Richard Greenblatt has performed in theatres across Canada and abroad, as well as in feature films, television and radio. He co-wrote 2 Pianos 4 Hands, which played on five continents and in over 150 cities since it opened in 1996.
Pals is directed by the internationally acclaimed director Jillian Keiley. More information, tickets and 5-show subscriptions can be found at: www.wjt.ca. You can also reach WJT by phone at (204) 477-7478.
To watch a preview video from Pals, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2W0VmHHFbA
Local News
Simkin Centre introduces Friday afternoon Shabbat services – open to all

By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted Oct. 31) The Simkin Centre held its first ever Friday afternoon Erev Shabbat service this past Friday (Oct. 27), led by Rabbi Matthew Leibl.
There were more than 30 residents in attendance, along with various other outside guests. The service was approximately 45 minutes long and was filled with stories and songs associated with Friday evening Shabbats – some from Rabbi Leibl’s own childhood and some from more recent years.
The Friday afternoon Erev Shabbat services are now to become a regular features at the Simkin Centre and are open to anyone to attend.
To watch a short clip of Rabbi Leibl introducing his first Friday afternoon service click https://youtu.be/hLSrV18K58o
Local News
The complete text of MP Marty Morantz’s speech at the community vigil for Israel on October 10

Tonight we are all Israelis!
Conservatives stand with Israel.
Pierre Poilievre stands with Israel.
On Saturday we woke up to unspeakable images.
We must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel as it defends itself from these criminal and barbarous acts.
On Shabbat, Hamas brutally invaded Israel, invaded homes, killing hundreds, taking hostage hundreds.
More Jews were killed in Saturday’s attack than in any single day since the Holocaust.
Some 1500 human beings killed in a single day would be like 6000 Canadians being murdered in a single attack.
They were children, babies, men, women.
They were young people just out listening to music at a dance party.
This was an unprecedented brutal attack.
As we speak Hamas is threatening to execute innocent hostages.
This outrage cannot, must not stand.
Don’t let anyone tell you Hamas is the legitimate voice of the Palestinian people. It is not a government.
They are a genocidal murderous and evil death cult and they must be defeated.
But friends, we have seen evil before.
Jews have been persecuted for millennia, but we have survived.
Conservatives unequivocally condemn the invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists and the sadistic violence that Hamas has carried out against innocent civilians.
Now is the time for moral clarity. There is no moral equivalency between democratic Israel and the butchers of Hamas.
There is no response, no matter how strong, that would be disproportionate to the crimes Hamas has committed.
Israel has the right to defend itself against these attacks and respond against the attackers – as any other country would.
Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, said, “If you will it, it is no dream.”
In 1948 that dream became a reality – a homeland in Israel, the promised land.
Working together Israelis turned a desert into an oasis.
An island of democracy surrounded by a sea of autocracy.
A Jewish state where Jews could live in peace free from fear and persecution.
Let there be no doubt. Israel is the ancient and indigenous homeland of the Jewish people.
We will not let the butchers of Hamas take that dream, long realized, away from us.
Many politicians will stand with Israel when it is easy.
But listen to what they say when it is hard.
They will talk about “both sides.”
I’m here to tell you that there is only one side.
The side of morality.
The side of democracy.
The side of Israel.
We see too often politicians at the United Nations unfairly singling out Israel for criticism.
I will always stand against the unfair singling out of the Middle East’s only democracy.
Already there are calls for Israel to deescalate.
I ask you.
Would any country deescalate after having its people slaughtered in cold blood?
I wish the people of Israel and its brave soldiers Godspeed on their mission to defend the promised land from pure evil.
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper said:
Through fire and water Canada will stand with you.
Am Yisrael Chai!