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U.S. military expert John Spencer to speak in Winnipeg Sept. 11… argues Israel isn’t committing genocide in Gaza

(Canadian Jewish News Sept. 10, 2024) Maj. (Ret.) John Spencer is an American army veteran who heads the Modern War Institute at the U.S. military’s prestigious West Point Academy in New York State. His books and courses about fighting historic urban and tunnel wars have been widely quoted—he’s even interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who name-dropped the former combat officer’s research during his speech to Congress in July. The Israel Defence Forces like Spencer’s work so much that they’ve brought the Iraq veteran with them three times inside some of the captured Hamas tunnels under Gaza.
Ahead of two speaking engagements in Canada this week—in Winnipeg on Sept. 11 and Toronto on Sept. 12 —Spencer joined The CJN Daily podcast to share his eyewitness accounts of three research tours with the IDF inside the terrorists’ tunnels. Spencer explains why the Philadelphi corridor and 100 tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are what’s holding up a ceasefire deal that some believe could free the hostages.
Although Spencer wasn’t present 10 days ago when the IDF discovered the bodies of six executed hostages under Rafah, he understands why the entrance to that tunnel was actually hidden in the bedroom of a Palestinian child’s room in Gaza. Despite the latest heinous war crime that has rocked Israel and people around the world, Spencer feels Israel is still winning the war against Hamas.
The CJN: Readers may not have been following your prolific writings about what’s been happening in Israel since Oct. 7, but they may have seen when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu name-dropped you in his speech to Congress. Can you just give our listeners a bit of background on what role, if any, you are playing officially or unofficially advising the Israeli government in this war?
Spencer: Sure. So I’m playing absolutely no official or unofficial role, but my research and my writings have been used significantly to fight the disinformation. I have done multiple visits to Israel and three visits into Gaza with the IDF since Oct. 7, which has informed my writing and research, but no official or unofficial role.
My research has been, including by the prime minister, many, many times, used to fight the disinformation about what the IDF are actually doing in Gaza to pursue the political objectives provided by the government for the war against Hamas.
The CJN: We’re interviewing you just a few days after the bodies of the six Israeli executed hostages were discovered in a 20-metre deep tunnel under Rafah. What can you tell us about this particular tunnel, and what is significant about it?
Spencer: There’s a lot of unknowns about it, but we know that it was in conjunction to the IDF recent discovery of a living hostage. Nobody knew that in those targeted operations, because intelligence drives operations. Israel was conducting this operation in the Rafah area, successfully retrieving the live hostage in a tunnel, but without knowing nearby Hamas saw and heard the IDF and then entered another tunnel without the IDF’s knowledge, basically in very close proximity. And because of that IDF operation, I believe that Hamas entered their deep tunnel that they were holding the hostages for all their reasons that are illegal and not in accordance with the law of war, and brutally murdered each one of those six hostages. Then we saw the release of the videos that were very recently filmed.
We don’t know if that was filmed in the tunnel, but we do know where the bodies were found was in this 20-metre deep tunnel in Rafah, which does pain a lot of people because of the different delays in the Rafah operation to basically search and clear the areas in which now where this all occurred, where they were later discovered through the IDF operation and brought home, finally to their families.
The CJN: You’ve been in the tunnels. Tell us what you saw. Where did you go?
Spencer: My first visit (was) in December. I actually was taken to the massive tunnel that was discovered outside of the Erez humanitarian zone. So this is a two-and-a-half mile tunnel that went a hundred feet underground. It was a massive invasion tunnel that you could drive trucks through, that had advanced wiring, ventilation, power, telecommunications. It was a multimillion-dollar tunnel that went right up to the Israeli-Gaza wall. It wasn’t used on Oct. 7, but the discovery is just massive. And then it went all the way back into the Gaza urban areas and had many branches. For me as somebody who studies underground warfare, just the sophistication of this and the realization that this is just one of hundreds of massive tunnels that they have found. And the realization of this underground world that Hamas built.
I got to tour this one, but it was also a realization of the 400-plus miles of tunnels in Gaza, costing billions of dollars, unmeasurable amounts of concrete and steel to build this infrastructure underground for the sole purpose of terror. No civilians are allowed in this.
When I went back in February, I went with the IDF, the 98th division, into Khan Younis.
It was really going through all they’re doing to protect civilians, which I’m sure we’ll talk about, but also just how hard it is to find the tunnels. One of the places I went with the division commander was where they had had intelligence that there was a tunnel, but you just couldn’t see it while standing on the surface. And actually they were doing their procedures to drill and look for the tunnel that was really connecting to a mosque and was coming out of a mosque.
And they found that tunnel. I was basically standing on top of an enemy tunnel that was deep underground. When I went back in July 2024, I went into the Netzarim corridor with the IDF. This area where they’re creating a corridor, not just a road, from Israel all the way to the Mediterranean through Gaza, to create this security zone.
I had this realization and saw on the maps how many tunnels were just in the corridor. You can’t take a step in Gaza without actually feeling and having some belief that there’s a tunnel underneath you.
Now, I also learned through these different visits from December, February, and July that there are different types of tunnels in Gaza. As you were wrestling with, well, how many tunnels, how many tunnels has the IDF destroyed, is that there are levels of tunnels: from strategic ones, like that one I was in December that is for large movements or there are ones that actually connect northern Gaza to southern Gaza, which most people didn’t know. They’re in the Netzarim corridor. This is in the area of the Wadi Gaza, which is this river basin that splits northern Gaza and southern Gaza. It used to be a river, but it isn’t anymore. They’ve discovered over a mile-long, two-mile-long tunnels that go underneath that river basin. So something they just didn’t think was possible. So you can basically enter northern Gaza, the very tip of Gaza and come out in Rafah basically in a tunnel.
And those are strategic tunnels. But there are also little tactical tunnels that go from one building to another.
There are tunnels that are used for command and control, like in Khan Younis they found luxury tunnels for the leadership of Hamas, with air conditioners and ceilings and, you know, kitchens and barracks. The IDF is then making a decision on which ones are critical to military capabilities that have to be destroyed. Can you ever really destroy all these? That’s some of what I’ve learned.
The CJN: What are the challenges for the IDF in this kind of warfare that we wouldn’t know about from, let’s say,the equipment that doesn’t work, that would work above ground?
Spencer: So this is getting into the classes I teach in our urban warfare operations course. Underground, people think it’s just the extension of the surface. You have something like a building or something, you have an underground.
The CJN: Yeah, well we’re used to subway tunnels where the Wi-Fi works, right?
Spencer: Yes. When you enter the underground, it’s more like going underwater. You can’t breathe without assistance underground and all the contaminants that are underground. It’s very dangerous to just breathe. You can’t see. For military personnel, none of your night vision goggles work, because usually night vision relies on ambient light. And this is a “no light” area.
You can’t communicate because most communication equipment relies on line-of-sight or satellites. So you can’t communicate underground. You can’t navigate. GPS, all of that doesn’t work. You can’t even shoot your weapons because of the concussion of your weapon. So you have to have all specialized equipment designed only for the underground.
Now, unique to Israel, and this is why I’ve been studying Israel for years, is they developed a special unit, the Yahalom, it’s their basic version of a tunnel rats, an entire brigade of special forces engineers who try to develop the equipment, all the drones and robots and dogs and everything that can operate underground, but also the equipment for the soldiers, the tactics. They have the biggest world force that has been dedicated to being able to operate underground and they have been used heavily in Gaza. I also came to the quick realization that yes, you have this specialized unit, soldiers, equipment, everything, but it’s nowhere near the amount that you will need for the size of the tunnels in Gaza.
The CJN: Okay. And you were mentioning the fact that the IDF is being pilloried for not being humanitarian enough in its military operations and you’ve studied war in tunnels as well in other countries and you’ve been deployed yourself. Why do you feel that the world is not giving Israel a fair shake in terms of how it’s doing this war against civilians?
Spencer: Well, at the macro level, it seems for Israel, Gaza is where the truth dies. The accusation that Israel has been disproportionate, indiscriminate, excessive, or starving the population. While none of those are true, there’s actually a counterfactual huge body of evidence, actually real and physical. Like the “starvation”. I went to the Netzarim corridor, saw where the (U.S. humanitarian) pier used to be, and there were just mountains, a whole field of humanitarian aid that just hadn’t been picked up. But from the actual execution of war, like you said, for the IDF, there’s no comparison. So the IDF was being compared to other operations where just this tunnel challenge of being able to find and operate with an entire world underneath the urban areas.
Hamas built this world underneath their civilians for the sole purpose of using everything on the surface to cause [criticism from] the international community. the destruction, the civilian casualties, everything, but all these lies about being disproportionate, proportionality–nobody’s faced this challenge in modern history. No military has.
And then the other thing, which is what the prime minister and other Israeli officials or government use, which is backed up by data, is that in this execution of this war against Hamas, a defender who’s had 15 years to prepare for the attack of the IDF, Israel has done more and has implemented more civilian harm-mitigation measures than any military in the history of war, to include the U. S., Canada, the coalitions, to prevent civilian casualties and destruction. Like evacuating cities, like dropping [leaflets], the use of daily pauses, the use of certain munitions. There’s a long list that I go through. There’s actually over 10 civilian harm-mitigation measures that Israel has implemented, some that have never been created before in the history of war, like tracking civilian populations with their cell phones on or off and then restricting them. This is what I saw in Khan Younis, restricting the IDF operations because of that overriding aspect of preventing civilian harm, trying to get the civilians out of harm’s way, even though Egypt, which owns a lot of the destruction, the civilian casualties, and [took in] not a single refugee. So even that aspect of fighting a war against a military who’s trying to get their civilians killed without a complete area to move civilians to, into the Sinai, which would be really realistic. So the idea of how to find a way to create a safer zone within Gaza while still moving against Hamas.
The CJN: I know that a lot of people have criticized your view saying, ‘Well, it’s hard for them to be humanitarian when they’re trapped, or their cell phones aren’t working’. But we don’t have to talk about that now, I just wanted to raise the point that some people wouldn’t agree.
I want to talk about what the challenges are for Hamas in these tunnels. You said Israel can’t see, some of their stuff doesn’t work. But in terms of Hamas and the soldiers that are living down there, I read somewhere recently that there’s sort of an operations manual that was recently discovered that they have to switch them out, because they can’t be in the dark. It’s bad for their mental health. What do you know about the psychological and physical challenges for Hamas [and the hostages and the IDF] to stay down there?
Spencer: Well, so it’s being sensory deprived basically. So when you enter a tunnel, you’re being sensory deprived. And matter of fact, not all soldiers can operate underground. You get things like vertigo, you get claustrophobia. Just for the breathing, you start to get breathing problems, right? Because even if you have ventilation, which many of these [tunnels] do, there’s still immense amounts of contaminants, from going to the bathroom down there. It’s foreign to the human body. So all of those start to come into place. You can’t spend your life underground without ever coming to the surface. They rotate them because of that psychological impact of being sensory deprived, the contaminants in the air, all really human functions that you’re dealing with down there. You can lose a sense of time.
We kind of know that you kind of need vitamin D every once in a while, so you need the sunlight. So there’s a whole bunch of reasons why it’s really bad. For me, it reckons the understanding that the hostages have been held, many of them—although some of them have been held in civilian apartments and doctors’ apartments and things like that—are being held in this place that’s really unhealthy, inhumane, and unsanitary for humans to live in.
For Hamas, which I don’t really care about, yeah, it’s bad for them to stay underground for a long time. And if they’re rotated, it may help with that.
The CJN: In terms of where (Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar is, does anyone know if there is any evidence that he’s still in a tunnel somewhere?
Spencer: I consult open source intelligence, I do only unclassified. There is, I guess, direct evidence. I think from all rational, reasonable analysis that is the belief that he’s there and what he would lose if he left just from a war objective stance. Just for the fact that Israel was able to take out Mohammed Deif, who is considered like the ghost of Hamas, the original founder of Hamas’s military. I think it’s highly likely that Israel, to include all of the intelligence organizations, have a really good idea of where he’s at in Gaza, but that he has surrounded himself with hostages and that he’s likely surrounded himself with tens of thousands of Palestinians in the areas in which Israel has had to create the safer zones that Hamas has since day one used for their advantages to include firing rockets from within. Mohammed Deif was within a stone’s throw of the humanitarian zone.
So yes, I believe that Israel has a really good idea of the general area. Although it’s a small area, right? Gaza, the Gaza Strip, is 25 miles long, seven to five miles wide in its longest area. It’s still two million people for one person to hide. There’s rumours of him dressing up like a woman, things like that, to hide and move within the tunnels.
There’s one video of him and his family, which is interesting because it’s the only civilians ever allowed in the tunnels, moving through the tunnels of Khan Younis back in the beginning of the war. I think he’s there. I think he is mostly underground for most of the time, like a rat, but that he’s also within this area of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would be really hard to know exactly where he’s at.
The CJN: Your position is Israel actually winning this war? Because you’ve said yes and, and I’d like to explore that a bit.
Spencer: I wrote a Foreign Affairs article countering actually four major articles that have been published on ‘Israel isn’t winning. Israel is actually creating more terrorists than it’s killing’. All of these wrong frameworks.
Israel absolutely is winning its war against Hamas in Gaza, because I taught strategy at West Point. Wars have a start, they have an end. They have political goals, which can change, although Israel hasn’t changed its three primary goals for the war against Hamas. Those are: number one, return the hostages. Number two, destroy Hamas, its political and military power in the Gaza Strip. And number three, secure the borders.
There’s different wording for them, but those are the three goals. And Israel is absolutely [winning] all three of those. Especially with the hostages. They brought home over half the hostages to include over a hundred living hostages. But there is the myth that Israel could have brought them home a different way. It could have been negotiated in the beginning.
It could have done it without military force. It’s just not reality.
And I go through that in this Foreign Affairs article, that it’s been a combination of diplomatic, military, and other forms of national power that have brought over half the hostages home.
The CJN: So is Israel’s border with Gaza safer now? We’re not even talking about Hezbollah because that’s a whole other thing, and same with the West Bank, we don’t have time. How is Israel’s border safer today than on Oct. 7?
Spencer: Yeah, absolutely. The whole security framework that was before Oct. 7th will not ever happen again. The reliance on only technologies, minimal forces, the wall, everything. So Israel is building a buffer zone of up to a kilometer from where the wall was. It’s created more corridors through Gaza, which will allow it to project power. It’s secured, which is vital, the southern border between Gaza and Egypt and eliminated the super highway that we now know was there for underground smuggling of weapons, men, weapons, equipment, financing, everything. It sealed that. So just from an overall sense of securing southern Israel from Gaza and the threats of Gaza, it’s massive engineering projects, both creating the buffer zone all the way around, eliminating all the tunnels that were there, creating the Netzarim corridor. There’s new entry points into Gaza that will allow for this new security framework to be in place.
The CJN: You mentioned the Netzarim corridor, so let’s talk about it before we end. Our listeners may have started to hear the words Philadelphi corridor as part of the reason for the holdup [in any ceasefire deal] and the latest huge controversy out of Israel this past week between the government. You mentioned where it is. It’s the border between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel withdrew from in its agreement to disengage from Gaza years ago. And then they’ve reoccupied it because Egypt was allowing, as you said, all this smuggling to go through. And that’s been a big flashpoint.
Why is that so important now in what happens next?
Spencer: In order to destroy Hamas, which is not the idea of Hamas, but the military power and the political power of Hamas, what Israel has done along this border between Gaza and Egypt, which is only like an eight-to-10-mile stretch of land, but they have moved in, secured it and cut off the bloodline to Hamas, which is in wars actually unique because even in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, that ability for the enemy to be resupplied, to have sanctuary, to get new stuff in, the U.S. military really struggled with it. But Israel has been able to actually cut off Hamas now because of the Philadelphi corridor, from all of that resupply of rockets, everything, even financing. Now the contention is how long does Israel need to hold that piece of ground? Does it always need to have forces there, physically there, securing it? I personally believe not so.
The Israel-Gaza wall, the border wall between Israel and Gaza actually worked. It has a very deep subterranean aspect to it with a bunch of advanced sensors. Egypt was talking about that before it was actually discovered that there’s over a hundred massive tunnels going between Egypt and Gaza to include ones you can drive giant trucks through. Egypt was talking about putting up that wall. Eventually, I think there will be a new, basically an Israeli-style wall there that will prevent that subterranean traffic because on the surface, you can use advanced technologies, although you don’t rely only on that. Egypt did send a division of armour, basically an armoured brigade to the border, early in the war, and put up a new wall because they also didn’t want anybody coming across their border.
Why is this such a big issue for Hamas? Why is Hamas saying ‘You will not get any hostages back unless you leave the Philadelphi corridor’? Because it’s their vital aspect of surviving. All they have to do to win this war is survive.
They have ideas on how to do that. They’re grasping for this corridor. This highway for them is very vital to their survival and to be able to bring more weapons in, to be able to get out, all these things. But they also have ideas to give up political power. I call this the Hezbollah model. Hamas has put forward a plan to bring in some technocrats to govern Gaza, but they maintain military power. Sounds a lot like Hezbollah in Lebanon, although Hezbollah is also part of the government. So they’re grasping at trying to survive the war and basically win. And Israel has said that’s not going to happen. We’re going to demilitarize the strip. We’re going to actually start de-radicalization programs. We’re going to secure the entire border around so that Hamas can’t survive.
The CJN: How long is this going to take and can Israel actually win or this is going to happen again?
Spencer: So I got this [question] actually in October. How long will this take? How long will it take to clear the urban areas of Hamas’s military capabilities, tunnels, infrastructure? I mean, they found deep buried weapons manufacturing plants and just nobody knew that they were there, that it was possible to do that.
I always say, it isn’t how much time it will take, but how much time do they have?
Even General Dwight Eisenhower, after World War II said it would take 50 years to re-educate the Nazis. And if you ever thought we were going to give them the ability to wage war again, you were crazy. How long will it take to demilitarize the Gaza Strip? A very long time.
How long will it take to de-radicalize Hamas? But there is a path, right? It is up to Israel.
Israel is winning, but it’s up to Israel as a democratic country. It’s up to Israel if it ultimately wins, because what is very common in war, is you have to bring in another power. You can demilitarize and you can degrade Hamas to where it’s this guerrilla force, which Israel is very close to doing. Hamas doesn’t have military capability. It’s a guerrilla force hiding in the shadows, governing from the shadows, using humanitarian aid as coercive power over the people. But Israel has to basically help put in a new power. That will be the ultimate win, is that Hamas never rules again.
You have to put in another power. There are many ways to do that. You have to start post-conflict operations like de-radicalization programs, reconstruction, and new governance, institutions, all this stuff, which is very common in war, but it will take a very, very long time. And Israel has to, for their survival, the Israeli people especially have to understand that basically.
The CJN: Canada stopped arms permits to Israel back in January. Does that even make a difference to Israel? Are they being hurt by this?
Spencer: I’m sure it absolutely is a problem. It might not be what Canada is providing, it’s the international context that sends a signal to other allies. Israel’s strength is its allies in all wars. So when one ally of Israel says, ‘Because of this, because of these lies, this misinformation, we’re not going to support you with this small item’, which might not have an immediate impact, but globally, you know, in the international context, in the multi-international allies that is Israel’s strength, including in the region Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, it matters. So it’s a horrible signal to send to the world and to send to Israel.
The CJN: And then Britain just did it too.
Spencer: Yeah, Britain did it too. It’s very bad because it’s baseless. It’s based on disinformation. It’s based on things like 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, which is not true. It’s a lie. Where does the number come from? What does it mean? Because now there’s this effect-based ideology, kind of like we see with Canada, Britain, and others, they’re using the data on how many people have died. Look how much destruction. There was another way.
The huge myth of this war is that there was another way to bring the hostages home, remove Hamas from power so it can’t do another Oct. 7. Because since Oct. 7, Hamas has publicly said that’s their goal. They will do this as many times as it takes to achieve our goal. The idea that there was another way. And it’s actually a fallacy.
Local News
Former nominee for Jewish Athlete of the Year and Canadian Junior Curling champion Kyle Doering is the new general manager of the Granite Curling Club

By BERNIE BELLAN When I was doing a search for Kyle Doering’s name in the Jewish Post archives I discovered that Kyle’s name was actually first mentioned in our paper back in 2003 when he was a student in the Hebrew Bilingual program at Margaret Park School. Kyle, who was then in Grade 2 in the Hebrew bilingual program at that school, had written an explanation why we eat hamentashen on Purim – which was published in a March 2003 issue. (Kyle says that following his completion of the Hebrew program at Margaret Park after Grade 6, he did continue in the Hebrew program at H.C. Avery School until the end of Grade 8.)
Now – in an effort to emulate the style of the late, great Harvey Rosen (and maybe Gerry Posner as well), both of whom would never have missed an opportunity to take an extreme leap from one unrelated subject to another – as both those guys might have written: “It’s not too far a leap to say that a curling rock could be compared to a hamentash!”
And, to further emulate the writing style of both Harvey and Gerry, let me say that Kyle, who is of the “Hebraic persuasion” (as Harvey used to say) – on his mother’s side, has used some of the genes he inherited from his businessman grandfather, the late Bill LIfchus (who used to write a very amusing financial column for the Jewish Post), has now carved a career for himself using the degree in business he acquired from the University of Winnipeg in 2019 to become the general manager of Winnipeg’s oldest, and one of its largest curling clubs: the Granite Curling Club.
A further search of Kyle’s name in our archives reveals that he has been a finalist for Jewish Athlete of the Year twice, including last year, when he was the fifth for Canadian Brier champion Brad Gushue. Kyle had also been nominated in 2017 after his junior team won the Canadian championship and placed third in the world junior championship. (Kyle was also the fifth for Reid Carrothers’ Manitoba team this year.)
Following high school Kyle entered the University of Winnipeg, where he graduated with a business degree in 2019. All the while though he remained a very competitive curler. As a matter of fact, in 2016 I happened to run into Kyle at the Granite club one afternoon (where I am also a member). Kyle was practising mixed curling with his then-girlfriend, Ashely Groff. (Kyle and Ashley actually met at the Granite in 2016, Kyle tells me – when they were curling on separate sheets of ice. They were married just this past December.)

Right: Ashley showing her sleeve with their sponsor’s name (and I never asked them to do that!)
During the course of that conversation in 2016 Kyle asked me whether I would consider sponsoring Ashley and him as mixed curlers? I asked him how much it would cost? He said: “$200” – which was far less than what I was expecting him to say, so I readily agreed.
What I didn’t expect though was that Kyle and Ashley would put the name “The Jewish Post& News” on their curling jackets. That was by far the cheapest form of advertising I have ever encountered!
Upon completion of his business degree at the University of Winnipeg, Kyle went to work for the Humane Society as its community relations officer, where he was employed up until the time he was hired as the Granite’s new general manager.
Kyle wasn’t given the job simply because he’s got such a strong background in curling though. He was among several candidates for the job and did go through an interview process, following which he was told he had been selected for the position.
For Kyle, it’s a dream position. As he says: “I can work in curling – which I love…and in this historic building and club (the Granite is 140 years old) – which has given me so much over the years. I met my wife here, learned to curl here…it’s very cool to get to manage it.”
Readers may be aware that the Granite Curling Club has been in the news a fair bit lately – but not for anything to do with curling, per se. The club is actually situated on land owned by the City of Winnipeg. (It’s a fairly complicated story how that came to be. At one time the Granite owned the land where the club is situated, but it ran into financial difficulty in the 1970s and was forced to sell the property to the city with a “lease back” arrangement.)
The city is currently in the process of redeveloping land on the west side of the club where a parking lot now exists for the purpose of building affordable housing. Most of the spaces in that parking lot are leased out to Canada Life, but the Granite has had 30 parking spaces allocated for members’ use. There is now a proposal to build a 12-storey apartment building on the parking lot. The loss of those 30 parking spaces is of great concern to many members of the Granite Curling Club.
It is into the midst of this imbroglio that Kyle Doering now finds himself. On a personal note I myself contacted the city councillor for the area, Sherry Rollins (who, by the way, also is Jewish), and a spokesperson for Canada Life. There doesn’t seem to be an easy way out to resolve the parking situation – and the future existence of the Granite Curling Club is in peril unless some sort of accommodation can be reached insofar as parking spaces for members are made available.
Kyle may be adept at putting a curling stone on to the button of a sheet of ice, but having stepped in as the brand new general manager of a curling club that has over 1300 members, he may find that the challenges that lie ahead are more than one might have expected just a few short months ago – when the city took the club by surprise when it announced its plan to develop the land where, until now, Granite curlers have been able to park their cars.
Local News
Local MPs nominate additional Jewish community members for King Charles Coronation Medals

A few months back we published a story on this website about several members of the Jewish community who had been awarded King Charles Coronation Medals. That story can be found at King Charles Medals
Since that time it has come to our attention that several other members of our community had also been nominated by local Members of Parliament to receive medals.
Following is an update to that earlier story, which was also written by Myron Love:
The medal, created to mark the coronation of King Charles III, is described in a press release as a “special commemorative honour awarded to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional service and dedication to their communities and Canada through volunteerism, leadership, and acts of courage or commitment, reflecting the values of service and unity upheld by the monarchy. It serves as a lasting symbol of appreciation for their selfless efforts in building a better society”.
At the time, I was working largely from a list of local honorees posted on the Lieutenant-Governor’s webpage. Since then, it has been brought to my attention that other deserving members of our Jewish community have also been awarded the medals. It seems that it was not only the Lieutenant-Governor’s office which submitted a list of prospective honorees, It seems that every Member of Parliament was also encouraged to nominate honorees among their constituents.
Thus, local MPS Ben Carr and Marty Morantz –subsequent to the Lieutenant-Governor’s medal presentations – have released their own slates of medal recipients. Among the new Jewish honorees are two Jewish Federation of Winnipeg leaders – one fairly recently retired and a second who is still actively involved, a retired judge, a musician who has played a leading role in Winnipeg folk music circles, a pioneering veterinarian and a long time advocate for the disabled.

Jessica Cogan was actually presented with her medal (along with Einat Paz who appeared in the original story) – in mid-November in Marty Morantz’ constituency office. Cogan has been volunteering with the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg in numerous capacities for decades. Currently she is the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg’s Second Vice-President, a member of the board of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a member of the advisory/organizing team for the Holocaust Memorial Sites Study Tour for Educators. She is a Past President of the Jewish National Fund (Manitoba-Saskatchewan branch) and National JNF board member, as well as a former Folklorama adult ambassador for Shalom Square.
In the wider community, she has served as a director of the Women’s Health Clinic Board and co-chaired their capital campaign.

Elaine Goldstine admits to being “quite surprised” to have been nominated through Ben Carr’s office for the King Charles Award. Like Jessica Cogan, Goldstine has devoted most of her adult life first as a volunteer for the Federation and, over the past 20 years, as a senior member of our community’s “civil service”.
But her volunteer efforts go back even further. As noted in an earlier issue of the Post – in an interview with her two years ago – just prior to her retirement as the Federation’s CEO, as a teen, she was active in USY and was President of the Gabriels Chapter of BBYO. In 1979 she became involved with National Council of Jewish Women, and served as President of the Sarah Branch, President of the NCJW Winnipeg section, and as the organization’s National Treasurer and Vice President. She had also served on the PTA of Ramah Hebrew School, the Business and Professional Development Committee of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, and on the Board of the Shaarey Zedek Sisterhood.
She began volunteering with Federation after her two sons reached school age. She started as a volunteer with the CJA’s Women’s Philanthropy Division. After a short time, she was offered a job with the campaign. Eventually, she was hired to become the campaign division chair. She assumed the reins of the CJA campaign in 2004 after her predecessor, Gerry Koffman, passed away at a relatively young age.
In 2015, after the retirement of long time Federation CEO Bob Freedman – and a successor who left after a year – Elaine was tapped to become the new CEO.
Looking back over the course of her career serving our community, she feels a sense of satisfaction for a job well done – and gratitude for having had the opportunity.

Madame Justice Freda Steel also notes that she was “surprised and humbled” to have been nominated to receive the medal which, she reports, was presented to her at Ben Carr’s office – along with some of the MP’s other nominees – on Monday, March 3. “I do not know who nominated me for the medal,” she says. “I just got a letter from Ben Carr’s office telling me I was a recipient of the medal and that the medal was for community service.“
As with Goldstine and Cogan, Steel has a long history of leadership in our Jewish community. She has been a board member and/or held leadership positions with the Federation, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, the Rady Centre, the Asper Jewish Community Campus and the Winnipeg Board of Jewish Education.
In her professional life, she has a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Manitoba and a Masters of Law from Harvard. For much of her career, she was a Professor of Law – first in Ottawa, then at her alma mater. She was appointed to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench in 1995 and to the Court of Appeal in 2000. She stepped down from the court last year, but remains active as an arbitrator and mediator.
“My parents taught me that it was important to give back to your community and I have always tried to live up to the values that they inspired in all of us,” she says.
“I was honoured to be included along with so many accomplished individuals,” says Karen Dana, who was also one of Ben Carr’s nominees.
The daughter of Nate and Phyllis Dana was recognized for her lifelong contributions to the music scene in Winnipeg. A social worker by profession, Dana’s avocation has been folk music, primarily as a member of the organizing committee of the annual internationally-known Winnipeg Folk Festival. She began volunteering at the festival early on, serving for many years as backstage kitchen co-ordinator. As well, 30 years ago, she established an apprentice program for the festival, aimed at bringing in younger volunteers.

For veterinarian Dr. Jonas Watson, receiving the King Charles III Coronation Medal was “a tremendous honour”. he award, he notes, as presented to him in recognition for his leadership locally, nationally and internationally in animal health and welfare.
In a profile I wrote about Watson for this newspaper six years ago, the owner of Grant Park Animal Hospital in the rant Park Festival Centre on Taylor Avenue spoke about what he referred to as his philanthropic outreach was inspired, he recalled, by his participation in a spay-neuter clinic in the northern Saskatchewan community of Île-à-la-Crosse during his university studies where he saw first-hand the critical need for veterinary services in remote communities.
Among the initiatives he has led over the past few years are regular “0ne health” clinics up combining veterinarians and other healthcare professionals in neighbourhoods that have a disproportionately large number of vulnerably-housed or homeless people – providing vaccinations and deworming for their pets and dental care, flu shots and other services for the pet owners.
As well, he and his team regularly visit isolated parts of northern Manitoba and Nunavut to spay and neuter the dogs in these communities. And , farther afield, he has been recruited to provide his spay and neuter services to underserviced communities in Mexico and villages bordering national parks in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar– to alleviate the dogs’ impact on endangered species – specifically lemurs,”
The graduate of the Hebrew bilingual program at Sir William Osler (now at Brock Corydon) elementary School points out that “an entire section of Jewish law- the concept of “tsa’ar ba’alei hayim”- prescribes that all animals be treated with compassion, and spared any suffering”.
”This notion has been the driving force behind everything I’ve done professionally over the last 25 years,” he says. “It is in fact the reason I pursued a career in veterinary medicine in the first place. And so, to be awarded this medal for what has been my life’s work is truly humbling. The fact that this work is being highlighted now is, I hope, a promising sign for the animals themselves.”
Among the most recent members of our community to have been awarded the Coronation medal is Dan Saidman, the Gwen Secter’s popular program director.
“I was really surprised,” says Saidman, who was presented with the award this past Saturday by Raquel Dancho, the Member of Parliament for Kildonan-St. Paul.
The honoree notes that he has been recognized for his work at the Gwen Sercter Centre over the past seven years. Previous to coming to the north Winnipeg seniors’ centre, he had served as director of BBYO for a time – followed by programming stints at the Waverley Retirement Home and the Heritage Lodge personal care home.
Saidman describes his time working at the Gwen Secter as the best job he has ever had. “It is a nice working environment and the staff and membership have been great,” he says.
A particularly notable honoree was the recently deceased Shawna (Shoshana) Forester Smith. I only learned about Smith – and her membership in our Jewish community when I was contacted by her husband, Brent, after my original report “Jewish Coronation medal recipients” was published int this paper in early January.
Some readers may be familiar with Smith’s name from the regular column she wrote for the Free Press in her role as an advocate for hospitalized patients like herself in long term care.
Shoshana and Brent became part of the Temple Shalom family about 15 years ago. “It was important to Shawna to explore her spirituality and find the right home and community for that aspect of her life and she found those things with Temple Shalom,” Brent recalls.
“I first met Shawna when I subbed for Rabbi Karen in the Intro to Judaism class at Temple Shalom in 2011,” he says. Longtime Temple Shalom president Ruth Livinston recalled standing beside Smith’s bedside at the Deer Lodge Hospital on the occasion of Smith receiving the Coronation medal . “We had a good connection right from the start. Besides attending services, Shawna came to study watercolour and the read Hebrew program with me, she painted a couple of kippahs and even came to a challah baking class. I had the honour of sitting on her Beit Din and helped her prepare for her Bat Mitzvah. She was a member of Temple Shalom’s Board of Trustees and managed our social media presence.
“When she decided to live at Riverview, she changed our weekly visits to include a watercolour class which she shared with her ward…that went on until Covid. We continued to meet weekly after Covid, including after her move here, to Deer Lodge. I treasure my visits with her – she had become family to me.”
In accepting the medal, Smith recounted her career in management for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority until she became ill in her late 20s and had to go on permanent disability. Once she became a chronic care patient in the care of the health system, she used her public relations and healthcare background to advocate on behalf of patients with some success in bringing about positive change.
Sadly, Shoshana Smith passed away just about a month after receiving her Coronation medal. “Shawna is the bravest person I have ever met,” Livingston says. “In spite of ever increasing disability and agonizing pain, she made the decision to live to the best of her ability, to keep fighting for what she needs as well as for others.
“For one little woman with so many challenges, Shawna made an enormous and important impact on our community and beyond. I am thankful and delighted that she was honoured with the King Charles Coronation medal for her work in advocacy.”
Local News
Shalom Residences’ Executive Director Mike Goldberg looks back on 3 years in the job

By BERNIE BELLAN Three years ago – almost to the date (March 30), I reported on the retirement of of one of the longest-serving executive directors of an agency within the Jewish community: Nancy Hughes.
Nancy had been serving as executive director of Shalom Residences since 1991. The very first Shalom Residence opened in 1980, which means Shalom Residences will be celebrating its 45th anniversary this year.
Among the 12 agencies that receive funding from the Winnipeg Jewish Federation, Shalom Residences though might have one of the lowest profiles, as it serves a fairly small segment of the community – adults with special needs intellectual disabilities. As previous editor of The Jewish Post & News and, prior to that, when my late brother Matt served as editor, we always tried to give Shalom Residences due recognition. One of the reasons, as current Shalom Residences executive director Michael Goldberg explained during a recent phone conversation we had, is that there are members of our community who may not be aware of what Shalom Residences provide – and who may have children who would benefit from living in one of the residences once they reach adulthood.
It may be hard to believe, but two of the original residents in that very first Shalom Residence (on Enniskillen Avenue) still remain residents of Shalom Residences. (There are five other homes that house Shalom residents: On Hartford Avenue and Seven Oaks Place – both in West Kildonan, McAdamCathedral Avenue – in the North End, Daffodil – in Garden City; and Oxford Street, in River Heights.)
The smallest home has three residents and the largest one – five.
Twenty-nine adults live in those homes, while another nine live in supported independent living apartments, and three adults are supported in community outreach.
When Nancy Hughes retired in 2022, the effects of the Covid-19 epidemic were still being widely felt. In fact, there were two vacancies within Shalom Residences at that time, as I explained in my March 30 article: “Nancy explained, with the onset of Covid in 2020 a number of parents who might otherwise have wanted to place a child in one of the homes drew back from doing so out of fears that their loved one might contract Covid.”
Actually, the term “child” in referring to residents of Shalom Residences is a misnomer. In order to qualify for residency in one of the residences, one must be at least 18 years of age, but the fact is there has been very little turnover among residents over the years. One of the original Shalom residents, Rochelle Bronstein, just passed away in July last year. Rochelle had moved into a Shalom residence when she was in her twenties. According to Shalom Residences’ annual report, the average age of residents is now 54.
For those readers not familiar with Shalom Residences, its Mission and Vision are stated on the organization’s website:
“To support people with intellectual disabilities in the mainstream of community life so that they may conduct their lives in a meaningful dignified way.To empower adults with intellectual disabilities to live meaningful, dignified lives in community based homes in Winnipeg, enriched by Jewish values.
“Shalom envisions a community where individuals with intellectual disabilities are fully included, self-actualized, and valued in all aspects of life.
“Their values are:
“Inclusion: Shalom believes in the right of every individual to have opportunities to be an active, respected member of their community.
“Empowerment: Shalom supports adults in building capacity to achieve their individualized goals.
“Jewish Heritage: Shalom is committed to providing support that reflects the values and traditions of the Jewish community. They also support individuals to participate in the richness of their chosen religion and culture.
“Awareness & Acceptance: Shalom strives to foster understanding and acceptance of individuals with intellectual disabilities as valued members of the community.
“To enable people with intellectual disabilities to become as self-sufficient as possible.
“To create and maintain Judaic oriented programs for people with intellectual disabilities which reflect the philosophy of Shalom Residences Inc.
“To develop community awareness of, and increase community acceptance of, people with intellectual disabilities as full and equal citizens.
“To enable the persons in Shalom Residences’ programs to achieve their potential as contributing members of our community, and to become as self sufficient as possible.”
In 2022 Michael Goldberg took over as executive director of Shalom Residences. In my March 2022 article about Nancy Hughes’ retirement I noted that Michael was the son of Mark and Kathryn Goldberg, had attended Ramah Hebrew School, Gray Academy, and the University of Winnipeg Collegiate. Michael had also attended Winthrop University in South Carolina, where he had obtained a bachelors degree in Psychology. (He noted that he had actually gone to university on a golf scholarship!)
Later, Michael said, he obtained his masters degree in Gerontology in Regina.
Since 2015, he had been working at Palliative Manitoba in the Deer Lodge Centre Palliative Care.
Even before coming to Shalom Residences, Michael says that he had developed a familiarity with the program, as he “was able to facilitate courses in compassionate care for Shalom Residences staff members.”
Recently, I had a chance to talk with Michael Goldberg – to ask him now that he’s had to gain some experience, how he’s found working as executive director of Shalom Residences?
Michael echoed Nancy’s observation that, as residents of Shalom residences have aged, dealing with aging residents has led to different challenges.
“We want to make sure they’re aging with dignity,” he said, “and that they’re comfortable.”
As well, Michael noted that with the closure of the Manitoba Developmental Centre in Portage and the St. Amant Centre in Winnipeg, the goal now, more than ever, is ” to integrate people (who had previously been institutionalized) “into the community” – something which has been a leading purpose of Shalom Residences since its inception.
I asked Michael how someone who has a child with an intellectual disability and that child is approaching adulthood (or is already an adult) would go through the process of having that child placed in a Shalom Residence?
Michael explained that a parent with a child under 18 who has an intellectual disability has most likely already been in touch with the Department of Families in the provincial government “because they receive funding” from that department “to support their family member.”
“So that’s the first step to make sure you’re eligible to receive funding from Community Living Disability Services, ” he said, “and once people are deemed eligible, and that process involved getting documentation from a physician or psychologist insuring that intellectual impairment was perceived prior to the age of 18, then they can gain access to resources from Shalom Residences if they’re over the age of 18. We have to make sure that they require personal care when it comes to basic needs, management of property, also they have to be Canadian citizens.”
According to its annual report, only 55% of Shalom Residents are Jewish. (Yet, just as the Simkin Centre has a very high proportion of non-Jewish residents, adherence to kashrut is considered a fundamental value of Shalom Residences. I’ll offer no further observations on how important it is for non-Jews to be forced into adhering to the rules of kashrut since I don’t want to elicit another angry letter to the editor of this paper from the Winnipeg Council of Rabbis.) The funding allocated to Shalom Residences from the Jewish Federation, by the way goes to subvent the often extraordinarily high cost of kosher food.
In fact, over 90% of Shalom Residences funding comes from the province. A good chunk of that funding goes to pay the salaries of the 83 staff who work for Shalom Residences, including both part-time and full-time staff.
One of the issues I raised with Michael is the problem raised by the aging of our own Jewish community. As parents of children who have intellectual disabilities may find it increasingly difficult to care for those children – who are now adults – within their own homes, Shalom Residences might be a viable alternative for parents who, until now, would have been reluctant to see their children leave the home.
I wondered whether there is a “wait list” then, of individuals waiting to move into a Shalom residence. I was somewhat surprised to hear from Michael that there is not a wait list.
Again – that might be more of a reflection of a general unawareness of Shalom Residences than anything else because, since Shalom Residences began with only 17 residents in 1984 and has remained constant at roughly 30 residents for several years now – what with the Jewish Federation claiming that our Jewish population has grown hugely in that past 20 years (despite census figures that would show that not to be the case), one would have expected a growth in demand for placements in Shalom Residences, commensurate with that “huge” growth in our Jewish population. (The Federation actually cites the figure of 16,000 in reporting the size of Winnipeg’s Jewish population. The 2020 Canadian census has it at no more than 12,500, but who am I to argue with the Jewish Federation when it comes to embellishing population figures?)
I wondered too whether there were Shalom residents who didn’t have any relatives who had provided care for them – perhaps because those relatives were in need of care themselves or had passed on already – and those Shalom residents were the responsibility of the Public Trustee of Manitoba?
Michael answered that not only is that the case in several instances, it has also been the case that living relatives have considered handinged over responsibility for the care of their children to the Public Trustee because they simply wanted to “relinquish” responsibility for care of a child with intellectual disabilities.
I asked whether there had been any major improvements made to any of the Shalom Homes recently? Michael noted that there had been a major renovation of the kitchen in the McAdam Avenue home – thanks to a donation from the Silver family. (In October 2022 I had reported on another addition to that home when, thanks to a donation from form the Ian and Rochelle Laing Family Foundation, the unfinished basement of that home had been transformed into a beautiful recreation centre, complete with an arts and craft table, exercise equipment, new flooring, a sink, and a chairlift.)
That led me to ask Michael whether perhaps newer members of our community who might have children who would be well served by living in a Shalom Residence are totally oblivious of what Shalom Residences have to offer?
Michael said that, “in fact, we’ve just welcomed a new resident” whose family is from Russia.
“We got in touch with them. There was a vacancy in one of our homes and he actually just moved in.”
Partly in reaction to the unawareness though that exists within many members of our Jewish community about Shalom Residences, Shalom Residences will be “doing a community outreach information night program on Wednesday, April 9, at the Asper Campus in the Kroft Boardroom at 7pm,” Michael said.
Shalom Residences used to hold an annual lottery as well – but it no longer does that. There will be a donor appreciation evening though on May 27 at the Adas-Yeshurun Herzlia Synagogue.