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Velimir Kon fulfilled goal to teach Aboriginal students

By MYRON LOVE When Velimir Kon decided 20 years ago that he wanted to dedicate his career to teaching Aboriginal students, he recalls how surprised everyone was at the idea.
“People were in shock,” says Kon – who at a time when he was in his early 50s – had walked away from a comfortable position as a lecturer at the University of Guelph to pursue a new career as a high school maths teacher. “But I felt an empathy for the First Nations communities and was confident that I, as a teacher would be able to make a difference.”
The only person (besides his wife, Branka) who supported Kon’s choice of career path, he notes, was a Chabad rabbi in Hamilton who suggested that the teacher would be following a path pre-ordained by God.
Big Trout Lake in northwestern Ontario and Berens River on the southeastern side of Lake Winnipeg, the First Nations communities where Kon taught for a combined 15 years, were two of the more recent stops on a lengthy life journey for Branka and Velimir Kon that began 70-some years ago in Communist postwar Yugoslavia. Velimir grew up in a community called Osijek – with a Jewish community of about 250 – in what is now Croatia. Branka is from Belgrade, the former capital city of Yugoslavia, which is now the capital of Serbia.
Both Velimir and Branka are children of Holocaust survivors whose fathers were leaders in their respective Jewish communities. They met in a Jewish summer camp (Velimir is three years older) and married in 1975.
While their Jewish communities were largely assimilated, Velimir notes that his zaida was a religious Zionist – his father more of a social Zionist. Velimir himself was a Jewish youth leader in his community. “I visited Israel twice in the 1970s and did consider staying there,” he recalls.
Branka describes her family as Jewish Conservative. “We observed all the Jewish holidays,” she says.
Velimir pursued a career in higher education focusing on agriculture – culminating in a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics while Branka became a nurse specializing in neo-natal care.
Although the couple were comfortable in Yugoslavia, Velimir notes that by 1988, he could see that in the new post-Tito era that difficult times were coming. Thus, Velimir and Branka and their young daughters, Deborah and Lea, made the move to Canada.
“Everybody was surprised by our decision,” he recalls. “But, three or four years later, civil war broke out and Yugoslavia was no more.”
The family settled in Guelph, Ontario, where Velimir began his career as a lecturer at the university.
It was while at the university that he first met Michael Eskin, the long time professor in the University of Manitoba department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences, who was at Guelph University for a conference. The Kons and the Eskins became close friends. (I actually met Velimir and Branka in early July when Michael invited us to attend his inauguration into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame.)
A second couple who became close friends of the Kons in Winnipeg were Gerry and Sharna Posner. Velimir met The Jewish Post & News columnist – who now lives in Toronto – the first time he attended services at the Shaarey Zedek. (Gerry arranged for Velimir and Branka to buy a house right next door to the Posners.)
Velimir reached another turning point in his life 20 years ago, when, at the age of 51, he decided to quit the university and become a high school teacher. “Because my credentials were not from a Canadian university, I came to realize that I was never going to become a professor or even assistant professor,” he recalls. “ I wanted to do something else where I could get steady work. I liked the idea of working with young people.”
So he enrolled in Education at the University of Ottawa. “I liked the idea of working with First Nations students,” he says. “I felt that I could bring compassion and empathy to my teaching and, in a typically Jewish way, look at old problems with new eyes.”
As noted previously, he began his teaching at Big Trout Lake before moving to the Berens River Reserve (population about 1,000) in 2007. Initially, he taught Grades 8 and 9 mathematics.
“I quickly learned that my students didn’t know basic math,” he recounts. I needed to build up their knowledge one step at a time. I incorporated their own life experiences to help them better understand math.”
He also introduced a chess club to the school. “It was a challenge interesting young people to chess who are mainly used to outdoor activities,” he points out. “In our first session, I explained chess in terms of hunting and the need in both cases to develop a strategy. I had ten students in the club.
“One of the benefits of chess for the students is that those who were suffering with ADHD learned to focus better.”
After a few years teaching at the high school, Kon was appointed adult education coordinator for the community. “Teaching literacy and numeracy are very important skills for people,” he notes.
Kon’s success at Berens River can be measured by the frequency with which he was invited to teach as a guest lecturer in other nearby First Nations communities.
Throughout his tenure at Berens River, he points out, he was also aware of the importance of living and modeling a Jewish life. He kept kosher – with Branka bringing him kosher food from Winnipeg (where she and her daughters were living while Velimir was at Berens River whenever she could get out to the community for Shabbat. She continued working as a nurse in Winnipeg.) Or Velimir would stock up when coming home to visit on Yom Tov when he could or at Pesach.
And Shabbat candles always lit at his Berens River residence. He recalls one time when Branka was visiting and the couple invited some of Velimir’s colleagues for Shabbat supper. On one of those occasions, a colleague revealed that she, too, was Jewish but had never lit Shabbat candles.
Another time, Danny Koulack – best known for his association with Finjan – was in Berens River to lead a two-day workshop. “It was Chanukah and we got snowed in,” Kon recalls. “We organized a Chanukah party and invited all the teachers. We lit the candles and everyone joined in the singing.”
Velimir retired in 2017 – about the same as Branka. In 2020 the couple – along with younger daughter Lea, moved to Victoria where Deborah was living and working. All four Kons recently returned to Winnipeg after Lea was hired by the government.
“In a way,” Velimir notes, “working in First Nations Communities, I saw myself as an unofficial ambassador for Israel and the Jewish People. I found that people respected my beliefs and that there was strong support in the communities for Israel. One individual even apologized to me for the Canadian Government’s refusal to accept the Jewish refugees on the St. Louis in 1938.”

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Chesed Shel Emes panel delves into different aspects of death and dying

l-r: panelists Rabbi Matthew Leibl, Dr. Bruce Martin, Dr. Harvey Chochinov, and moderator Allson Gilmour

By MYRON LOVE They say there are two things you can count on in life – death and taxes.  I don’t know about taxes – but no one escapes death.
 When we are younger, few give much thought to dying. As we age though, we come ever closer to that final reality.  The best we can hope for – in my view – is to live to a relatively old age in relatively good health and pass away quickly – preferably in your sleep.
 
So what would one consider a “good death?” That was one of the questions that was discussed by a panel of three experts on the subject who appeared together on Sunday, November 24, in a program at the Chesed Shel Emes titled: “The Last Stop – Reflections on Living and Dying”.
 (The Chesed Shel Emes is our community’s non-profit Jewish funeral chapel; the only one of its kind in North America).
 
About 180 people were in attendance – both in person and online, as independent Rabbi Matthew Leibl, palliative care specialist Dr. Bruce Martin, and Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov, a psychiatrist who is one of the world’s authorities on the subject of the emotional aspects surrounding death and dying, shared their experiences and perspectives.  Alison Gilmur, popular culture and lifestyles reporter for the Free Press. served as the moderator.
 A “good death” – as opposed to a “bad death” – is important for patients and families alike, Chochinov noted.


 “Is dying in your sleep a good death?” Rabbi Leibl asked.  “That depends on both the individual and the family. It certainly doesn’t give the individual much time to think about it beforehand.  I think the major concern for most people is that death be as painless as possible.”
 “The problem is that you only die once,” Chochinov pointed out. “There is no rehearsal.  Many fear the unknown. And you don’t know what the path will be, what it will be like for you. Or if you will still be you afterward.”
 
Gilmour asked the panelists what people fear most about dying? Chochinov cited the case of one woman who refused to take her medication because she feared it would make her confused – the way it had her mother prior to her death. Reassuring her that she was in capable hands allowed her to accept proper pain management and die peacefully.
 
 Another anecdote from Chochinov concerned  the case of a young woman who was facing death – with a young family and a young child at hand.  “She was concerned that her little girl would have no memory of her,” Chochinov noted.  “We completed something called Dignity Therapy, which allowed her to create a written legacy that would eventually be shared with her child.”
 
Rabbi Leibl referred to a member of the Shaarey Zedek who had been suffering for some time.  She chose to die at home but, before her passing, she asked her children to leave the room. She and the rabbi talked.
 “I asked if she was afraid,” he recalled.  “She said that she wasn’t afraid, but that she worried that she would never see her family again.”
 Dr. Martin noted that every death is personal.  “There is no common thread,’ he said.  “A last conversation can be profound or trivial.
“One concern for the dying is not being able to live to see their grandchildren grow up and the shared moments they will miss.”
 Chochinov also added that some people are worried about the process of dying and what it may be like.  “While dying is inevitable, suffering ought not to be”.
 Gilmour asked what people can do to help comfort someone who is dying? 
Chochinov’s answer was simple: “Be sure to show up”. “When you know someone is dying,” he noted, “for many the impulse is to stay away, to withdraw.  You don’t know what to say,” he observed.  “Don’t try to fix what can’t be fixed.  But do show up and listen.”
 
Martin recalled a former mentor who suggested that the most important question that someone who is visiting someone who is terminally ill is: ‘What can you do to help?’ “
 
“People who are dying don’t need to be reminded about it,” Rabbi Leibl observed.  “Although every case is different, a visitor should talk to the afflicted individual the same way you would talk to anyone else. You can talk about life, for example, or what you are reading, or a show you are  watching together.”
 
Gilmour concluded her questioning by bringing up the issue of government-approved Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) – medically assisted suicide.
 
A number of liberal rabbis Are in favour of MAID, Rabbi Leibl noted.  “Judaism however dictates that we must do everything we can to prevent death,” he pointed out. 
“I have officiated at funerals for a few people who have chosen IAID,” he reported.  “One such funeral was for a Holocaust survivor – in her 90s. I spoke with her the day before she died.  She was at peace.  I viewed what she was doing as courageous.”
 
Chochinov said it is also important to look at factors that can undermine a patient’s will to live, such as poorly controlled pain, limited access to palliative care and lack of supports, including respite.“MAID is driven by a desire for personal autonomy,” he observed.  “It was originally designed as an option for patients who were suffering and facing a reasonably foreseeable death.” Eligibility criteria have been expanded, making patients not imminently dying, but suffering, able to request MAiD.He expressed grave concerns about extending MAiD for people who are mentally ill.  “We simply can’t know which of these patients might improve with adequate time, support and care.”
 In response to a later follow-up question from a member from the audience, Bruce Martin added that, in the case of people with dementia and MAID, the latter may prevent children and grandchildren from spending more time with the parent/ grandparent.  After all, who then decides when the time is right?
 The panelists were asked about talking about death and dying and how to cope. Martin noted that when he speaks to kids in schools, there is a lot of interest in the subject.      
 A question about planned giving elicited a comment from Chochinov about the importance of not only leaving a will, but letting family know what your wishes are. “It’s never too early to talk about these things”, he said, “but if you put it off long enough, there may come a time when it’s too late”.

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Jewish scholar and bibliophile provides overview of hidden treasures hidden in Chevra Mishnayes congregation library

Justin Jaron Lewish at the Chevra Mishnayes Dec. 8

By MYRON LOVE Most shuls have a library of religious texts – or genizah (storage space) for discards – often books that were either donated specifically to the congregation or private collections dropped off at the synagogue after the original owners passed away.  
On Sunday, December 8, the egalitarian Chvera Mishnayes synagogue in Garden City hosted a Lunch and Learning program, the highlight of which was an overview of the books housed at the Chevra Mishnayes – including Chumashim,  machzorim, various assorted Talmudic tractates and commentaries on the Torah and Talmud. The program featured a presentation by Justin Jaron Lewis, during which the Yiddishist, bibliophile and professor of religion, revealed subtle features of some of the books, unveiling clues revealing when and where they were published, some direct connections to Winnipeg’s Jewish community and other interesting features.   
The Chevra Mishnayes dates back to 1906.  It has been at its present location on Jefferson Avenue since 1966. The former  Ohel Jacob congregation merged with the Chevra Mishnayes in 1971.
“It’s amazing what people brought with them from the old country,” Lewis commented.
He cited as an example a book from the Chevra Mishnayes collection which was identified as having been bought from a Jewish books store in Toronto, but which had been printed in Poland.  He pointed out other books that were  published in the 19th century in cities such as Lublin, Vilna and Warsaw – all cities with large Jewish populations. 
“The Warsaw edition had Cyrillic writing (based on the Russian-language alphabet) in it,” he noted. ‘Warsaw, Lublin and Vilna were all part of the Russian empire at the time.”
He added that a fourth book was published in Lviv in Ukraine which was part of the Austrian Empire in the 19th Century.  “Because the Russians used to tax books that were printed in Russia but were to be taken out of the country, some claimed that their books were published in Austria or another country to avoid the tax,” Lewis explained.
Of interest also, for Jewish geography enthusiasts, Lewis noted, were books with the owners’ names written in them.  One book belonged to the family of the well known comedian David Steinberg.  
In a second book, Grade 9 Talmud Torah student Israel Pudavick had written his name.
There were other books originally from the collections of a shoichet named B.M Yahweis and one Rev. Martin Weisman.
There are religious commentaries in the Chevra Mishnayes collection penned over the years by Winnipeg rabbis such as Rabbi Y. H. Horowitz, Rabbi Meyer Schwartzman, Rabbi Shmuel Polonsky and one Rabbi Zorach Diskin – who lived in  Winnipeg in the early 1900s.
“Some of the books offer a glimpse into Jewish history,” Lewis pointed out. There is one, published in 1865 in Warsaw, which he pointed out, includes a paean to Jewish life in Russia.
Censorship was strict in Russia, he explained.  You had to satisfy the censors.
Lewis pointed out that trying to figure out the date of printing for some of the books can be challenging.  In some cases, he noted, the book may be a copy – and the copyright date may be the date of the publication of the original.  In other cases the date is written in Hebrew letters – leaving researchers to have to translate the letters to their numerical equivalent.  What was thought to be the oldest book in the collection, for example, and which was originally estimated to date back to 1819, on further study was determined to be published in 1918.
Lewis also delved into the artwork in some of the books.  With the Jewish injunction against  recreating human images or those of angels or heavenly bodies, one book in the collection does have a scene where angels are watching as Moses hold the ten commandments and light is streaming from his head.
Another has a scene with Moses and Aaron  opposite each other with lions overhead and Roman numerals also in the picture – an  example, Lewis suggested of cross  cultural influences.
Other popular scenes include the hands of the Cohen doing the priestly blessing   The print design and layout can also offer opportunity for artistic flair.
Lewis further note that some of the machzorim have prayers inserrted in Yiddish – for instance, asking for good health – or a good life – or a prayer for one who is ill.
Incidentally, for readers with older Yiddish books at home who are considering trying to find a new home for them, Lewis is one of a handful of Winnipeggers who are collecting Yiddish books for transfer to the Yiddish Book centre in Amherst, Massachusetts.
 The book centre,, he reports, is dedicated to finding good homes for such books in university libraries, or the homes of other scholars or other private homes.  “A lot of younger people,” he said, “are rediscovering Yiddish and writing songs and poems in Yiddish.”
As to the Chevra Mishnayes’ library, Lewis observed that, as is the case with many other modern shuls, there has not been much interest in more recent years in studying Talmud and Torah. 
“Some of the older books are crumbling,” he reported.  “Perhaps we should form a committee to cull some of the books that we don’t need and look into ways to better preserve the remainder.
Readers with Yiddish books they no longer want can contact Justin lewis at justin_lewis@umaniotoba.ca

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Representatives from The New Israel Fund of Canada come to Winnipeg to speak to Winnipeg audience

left: Michael MItchell (NIFC Board member) with Ben Murane (NIFC Executive Director)

By BERNIE BELLAN In 1977, Menachem Begin became Prime Minister of Israel when his Likud Party was able to form a very narrow coalition with two other parties, thus ending 29 years of dominance by Israel’s Labor Party.
That event set in motion a series of changes to Israel’s political, social, and economic landscapes that are still reverberating to this day.
In reaction to the strongly conservative tilt of Begin’s government – which threatened to undo many of the democratic underpinnings of what Israel’s founders had attempted to achieve when Israel became a state in 1948, a group in California created what was known as the New Israel Fund. According to Wikipedia, “The New Israel Fund was established in 1979 in California and is credited with seed-funding ‘almost every significant cause-related progressive NGO in Israel’. Since its inception the fund has provided over US$250 million to more than 900 organizations. NIF states that while its position is that ‘Israel is and must be a Jewish and democratic state’ it says it was among the first organizations to see that civil, human and economic rights for Israeli Arabs is an issue crucial to the long-term survival of the state.’ “
In 1986, The New Israel Fund of Canada was established as a separate entity, with full charitable status in Canada. Since that time, “NIFC has contributed over $10 million to more than 100 organizations in Israel that fight for socio-economic equality, religious freedom, civil and human rights, shared society and anti-racism, Palestinian citizens, and democracy itself,” according to information taken from the NIFC website.

On Wednesday, December 11, two representatives of the New Israel Fund of Canada who were in Winnipeg spoke to a small group of individuals who braved a bitterly cold night to attend an information session held in the basement of Temple Shalom.
Those two individuals were: Michael Mitchell, a former Winnipegger and a longtime member of the board of NIFC; and Ben Murane, the executive director of NIFC. It was the first ever visit for Murane to Winnipeg and he said that one of the reasons he came here was to help make the work that NIFC has been doing in Israel more widely known to Winnipeggers.

Michael Mitchell introduced himself to the audience, saying that “the person who introduced me to the The New Israel Fund was (the late) Vivian Silver” (who, most readers are no doubt aware, was killed in the October 7 massacre).
Mitchell explained that the The New Israel Fund started “in the 1980s in a very small way, funding certain groups as the problems in Israeli society grew more severe.”
The New Israel Fund of Canada adheres very closely to the rules set out by the CRA for Canadian charities, he said. “We have agents in Israel supervising our projects.”
“NIF in Israel has an international board,” Mitchell noted, including Palestinians and representatives from NIF from other countries.
“NIF has money; they’re nimble, they’re quick,” Mitchell said, “to take nascent Israeli organizations and bring them along.”
NIF “has become much more sophisticated these past five years,” he suggested.
He cited as an example of how effective NIF has been in advancing the work of various Israeli peace groups the drastic decline in violence within Israel itself this past year between Jews and Palestinians, as opposed to what followed in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacre, when communities like Lod were riven by violent clashes between Israeli Jews and Arabs.
“If you’re in the middle of a war then you have to tamp down the violence between Jews and Palestinians,” Mitchell said. And a lot of the reasons for the decline in that kind of violence is attributable to the work done by organizations funded by NIF, he suggested.
Where NIF has achieved particular success, he continued, “is in organizing on the ground if you’re opposed to the messianic tendencies of the current Israeli government.”
“There’s a much bigger audience – both in Israel and abroad, that wants to see progressive goals achieved,” Mitchell argued.
As for where The New Israel Fund of Canada stands, Mitchell noted that “the Canadian Jewish community is going through what the American and British communities went through 15 years ago, which is to stop waiting for mainstream organizations to represent them.” A lot of new groups have been formed, he noted, such as “Women Wage Peace” and “Stand Together,” both of which helped to sponsor the December 11 event.
“Canadian Jews are not more conservative about Israel than American Jews,” Mitchell suggested, referring to the results of a survey of Canadian Jews for which NIFC was one of the sponsors. (For more on this turn to https://jewishpostandnews.ca/wjn/news-from-syria-shouldnt-distract-from-whats-been-going-on-in-gaza/.)
“There are at least 100,000 Canadian Jews who agree with us completely but are quiet because they don’t want to rock the boat.”

Ben Murane followed Mitchell, giving a lengthy presentation during which he fully outlined what the NIF is all about. He began by noting that “I am also making a pilgrimage to the place that made Vivian.”
Murane was just a youngster when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, he said. “A lot of the stuff I had heard about Israel – about how great it was, wasn’t quite true,” he noted.
Referring to the most recent Likud victory that returned Netyanyahu to the prime ministership in 2022, Murane said: “Let’s flash backward – a government got elected by a slim margin and announced a grand vision for rewriting Israel’s democracy. It was the first wave of what became a global populism.
“We (the NIF) started investing more in Israeli democracy projects.”
Two years ago, Murane reminded the audience, “hundreds of thousands of Israelis were on the streets” protesting what was then the Likud government’s attempt at judicial overhaul – which would have severely limited the power of Israel’s Supreme Court to intervene in cases where civil liberties were at stake.
“We (the NIF) were firmly there,” Murane said, helping Israeli civil liberties organizations to fight back at what the government was attempting to do.
Then, with the events set in motion by the October 7 massacre, Murane observed: “We knew what would happen. They (the Likud-led coalition) would use what happened as an excuse to advance the rest of their agenda.”

But, what happened after October 7 was the almost complete disappearance of many of the structures that held together Israeli civil society, Murane suggested.
Families were forced to evacuate from their homes near the Gaza Strip – with no support given by the government. Instead, groups that had sprung up in 2022 in response to the government’s attempted judicial overhaul stepped in to provide basic supports to those families, with food and housing. The NIF provided funding for many of those groups.
Something else soon became apparent after October 7, Murane said. “It was immediately obvious that the government didn’t care about the hostages…They weren’t their people.” (Many of the hostages came from kibbutzim that were strongly socialist in their orientation and not at all supportive of the right wing government coalition.)
In fact, Murane observed, within Israel’s current political atmosphere, the only opposition to the government is coming from “the organized support for the hostages.”
Something else Murane pointed out about the aftermath to October 7 is that “it wasn’t just Jews hurt on October 7.” There were members of other groups taken hostage, including Thai and Filipino workers, also Arab Bedouins.
The NIF has helped to provide support for evacuees ever since October 7, including to joint Jewish-Arab distribution centres that “have provided aid on a daily basis,” Murane noted.
“It is not Jew against Arab,” he said. “It is those who believe in life as opposed to those who believe in death…We will take care of each other. We will be the first to help civil society deliver aid.”

Murane suggested that there are several key components to what the NIF is attempting to do in Israel, including “pushback, partnership and peace.”
By “pushback,” he meant, pushing back at the narrative that the Netanyahu-led coalition has developed, which is that the hostages will not return until Hamas totally accedes to the demands put forward by the Israeli government.
“Freeing the hostages is a political matter,” he suggested. “The hostage families have been saying to Jews in the Diaspora: ‘If you want to support the hostages, then Bibi has to step down.’ “

As for “partnership,” Murane explained that “there are still many Jewish and Palestinian people who will stand together and find common cause.” He referred to groups such as “Omidm B’yachad” (standing together), whose members have been “protecting trucks bringing aid to Gaza” from Israelis who had been trying to stop those trucks from entering Gaza.
“We want to keep that flame of partnership alive,” Murane said.
He noted that on Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance Day in Israel) over “6,000 Jews and Arabs came together in one place to show compassion for one another.”

When it comes to “peace,” Murane pointed to the example of World Central Kitchen (an organization receiving funding from the NIF), which has been providing food to Palestinians in Gaza. Helping that group is “an act of morality showing people around the world Zionists giving support to their neighbours.”
Insofar as the road to peace is concerned, Murane suggested that “there are ways out of this mess.” He noted that the idea for the Abraham Accords, in which Israel signed peace agreements with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan, in 2020, was actually first advanced by an Israeli peace group known as “MITVIM.”
Murane posited that a “reinvigorated Palestinian Authority” is one component that would lead to advancing the peace process, but “of course the Israeli government doesn’t want to hear about that.”
The NIF has been active in supporting many different Israeli peace groups, Murane noted, including “Breaking the Silence,” which is made up of IDF veterans who want to draw attention to what Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is truly like.
“The way out of this mess is not going to come from the government,” Murane suggested. “It’s going to come from civil society.”
Yet, time is short, he said. There will be another election in Israel within the next year or two. “We have two to three years to see who will win the civil war in Israel: the annexationist camp or the pro-democracy camp,” he said.
To that end, the NIF has greatly increased funding for many Israeli human right groups, Murane noted. (In 2023, the NIF provided $19 million in funding to over 234 different organizations in Israel, of which $1 million came from The New Israel Fund of Canada.)

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