Local News
Winnipeggers recount experiences growing up in smaller communities
By MYRON LOVE “The place we call home,” observed Bruce Sarbit, “ – shtetl, town, city, country – is essential to who we are. We endow the place with personal meaning and it, in turn, provides us with a sense of identity and stability as we adapt to life’s circumstances in a rapidly changing world.”
For many Jewish Winnipeggers of an earlier era, like Sarbit, that sense of identity was first forged in smaller communities throughout Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northwestern Ontario where our parents and grandparents – my own father and his family among them – found general acceptance as farmers, merchants and professional people while they also successfully strived to retain their sense of Judaism.
On Sunday, September 28, Sarbit was one of a group of four Winnipeggers who participated as part of the Jewish heritage Centre of Western Canada’s program “Beyond The Perimeter: Jews Outside of Winnipeg”, which was held at Temple Shalom. The four, in addition to Sarbit, were: David Greenberg, Sid Robinovitch and Lil Zentner – who began their lives growing up in Selkirk (for Sarbit), Portage La Prairie, Brandon and Esterhazy (Saskatchewan) respectively. The program grew out of the research conducted by Chana Thau, on behalf of the JHCWC, into Jewish life in smaller communities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
In Thau’s introduction, she noted the existence of several Jewish farm colonies that were established in the early years of the last century by German-Jewish Baron de Hirsch. At the same time, other Jewish immigrants (also all from the former Russian empire) to Canada were following the railroad and establishing themselves in the towns and cities that had grown up alongside the rail lines.
In the smaller communities, such as Shoal Lake – where I first lived (we were the only Jewish family) or Esterhazy (where Lil (Bober) Zentner’s family lived with two other Jewish families, the Jewish presence was minimal. In larger communities – such as Brandon, Portage and Selkirk – the number of Jewish families may have been between 20 and 30 at their peaks in the interwar years and into the 1950s. Brandon and Portage had their own synagogues.
The four speakers described many commonalities about Jewish life where they grew up. Their parents were storekeepers. Zentner’s parents, Max and Eva Bober, operated a general store in Esterhazy. Sid Robinovitch’s parents, Jack and Ethel Robinovitch, were proprietors of the Army and Navy Clothing store (which was a separate entity from the Army and Navy chain of stores which were headquartered in Regina, Sid pointed out) in Brandon. Sarbit proudly reports that his family’s Sarbit’s Department Store in Selkirk was, at one time, the largest independent store in western Canada. While David Greenberg’s father, the late I.H. Greenberg, was a lawyer in Portage la Prairie – and David and his brother, Barry, carried on the family legal practice in the community – his grandfather was first a journeyman lather who did plaster work on homes. The family later opened a second-hand store and subsequently constructed a grocery store – Greenberg’s Groceteria.
“The Greenberg grocery store extended credit to farmers and purchased their produce, which enabled it to thrive,” David Greenberg recalled. “I was once told by a friend years later that “Greenberg’s kept us alive” in the winter when they had virtually no money for food.
While the Greenberg, Robinovitch and Sarbit families arrived in Portage, Brandon and Selkirk respectively in the early 1900s – as part of the wave of Jewish immigration from Russia at the time –meaning the three were among the third generations in their communities, Lil Zentner’s parents, Max and Eva Bober were considerable later arrivals – having come to Canada respectively – in 1926 and 1930. They opened their general store in Esterhazy in 1936.
The Bobers, being newcomers, were more observant than Greenberg’s, Robinovitch’s, and Sarbit’s parents. Zentner was the only one of the four speakers who brought up the challenge of keeping kosher in a town far removed from shechita and kosher food. She recounted how her parents brought in kosher meat from Regina.
“We would buy chickens from local farmers,” she recounts. “We would take them to Melville (which numbered perhaps 30-40 Jewish families in the 1930s and 40s) to have them killed and then we would remove the feathers, cut off the heads and clean them at home.”
In Robinovitch’s telling, Jewish religious life in Brandon was “basic”. “We kept kosher in our home,” he remarks. “We brought in kosher meat from Winnipeg. We had a synagogue but, aside from the odd community event, it really only functioned on the High Holidays.”
David Greenberg noted that, for the first couple of decades, the Jewish community’s members davened in people’s homes. Portage’s Jewish community didn’t build a proper synagogue until 1950. Services were largely restricted to Friday evenings and the High Holidays. The merchants had to work on Saturdays. The community also made attempts to have a cheder, but with limited success.
While it would seem (from my own memories as well) that the general communities in those small towns respected the Jewish merchants in their midst – none of the four speakers mentioned any incidents of antisemitism – the Jewish families – even in the already more secular and integrated second and third generations – primarily socialized with other Jewish families.
In Portage – although the Jewish families did largely socialize with each other, the second and third generations also held leadership positions in the larger community. Greenberg noted that Jack Shindelman, Ben Kushner, and Irwin Callen all became aldermen, and Harold Narvey was re-elected chairman of the school board many times.
“My mother served as President of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE),” Greenberg noted, “and as a longtime volunteer at the Portage General Hospital Auxiliary. My father and his brother Allan became Exalted Rulers of the Elks Lodge, My Uncle Michael was leader of the Elks Band.”
In Zentner’s remembering, although she had many non-Jewish friends among the girls in her classes – her parents only got together socially with the other two Jewish families in town or Jewish families in nearby towns.
“In the summers, we would join other Jewish families at Round Lake, vacationing at Round Lake,” she recalled. “One summer, my parents sent me to a Habonim camp in the Qu’Appelle Valley where I met a lot of other Jewish kids.”
“For their social life, my family mixed almost exclusively with other members of Brandon’s Jewish community,” Robinovitch said. “There were Saturday evening poker nights and Sunday afternoon gatherings at Crystal’s Delicatessen. On Saturday afternoons, I would go to the movies and a couple of other Jewish kids in my school and I belonged to the Cubs and Boy Scouts.
“I had a few friends from school, but I always felt that I was different,” Robinovitch continued. “I was aware of being Jewish – although I had no real sense of what Jewishness was all about. I would say that the only time that I had any exposure to Jewish culture was when my parents sent me one summer to Herzl Camp in Wisconsin when I was 12 years old. It was a real eye opener being in an environment with so many other Jewish youngsters. I was exposed to a lot of Hebrew songs and, to this day, I still remember the Birkat Hamazon and V’ahavtah prayers that I learned there.”
The next year, the Robinovitch family moved to Winnipeg and young Sid quickly became immersed in Jewish life here. “In Brandon, I felt that we were defined by what we didn’t do,” he observed. “We didn’t go to school on the High Holidays. We didn’t have a Christmas tree. And we didn’t go to visit grandpa and grandma on the family farm.
“It was in Winnipeg where my identity as a Jew really began to take shape. Brandon was a nice place to live, but it could not provide the strong Jewish community values that emanate from a lager centre. A remnant of Jewish values still prevailed from the shtetl, but by my generation, they had worn thin.”
For Lil Zentner, the end of her time in Esterhazy came when she began dating a local boy. Her parents wouldn’t tolerate it when they found out. After a mighty blow-up, she challenged them to send her to Winnipeg where she could meet fellow Jews. Her older brother, Harold, was already here, going to university. Her parents agreed and they followed a year later.
For the Jewish community in Selkirk, Bruce Sarbit noted, being so close to Winnipeg, it was almost an extension of the larger city. His remarks were as much about nostalgia for Winnipeg as they were about Selkirk. “In my case,” he said, “I came into Winnipeg for everything Jewish – Hebrew lessons. Sunday Jewish history classes and YMHA clubs.”
The smaller city, he observed – at its peak home to perhaps 20 Jewish families, “fostered a strong sense of community among the Jewish families and helped them to hold onto their cultural and religious traditions, celebrate Shabbat, observe holidays, practise kashrut and maintain their Yiddish language as they ran businesses that necessitated interactions with the non-Jewish population”.
He added that his own father, Syd, who came to Portage at the age of three, was immersed in the general community as well – having twice served as president of the Chamber of Commerce, was also a member of the Rotary club, and once ran for election to the Legislature.
Unlike Portage and Brandon, though. Selkirk was close enough that the Jewish residents of Selkirk often drove into Winnipeg, attended High Holiday services here, visited relatives and, in general, partook of the activities, Jewish and otherwise, that the larger city provided.
Unlike Robinovitch and Zentner though, Sarbit did not spend all of his adult life in Winnipeg. He left Selkirk at the age of 18 for Brandon. For 40 years, the psychologist turned playwright served as a counsellor at Brandon University.
“The descendants of the first residents chose not to remain in Portage,” Greenberg concluded – in summing up the decline and disappearance of the other Jewish communities on the Prairies – with the exception of Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon. “Intermarriage was frowned upon and the children were too few in number and not close enough in age to socialize, so for girls to meet Jewish boys they were required to move to alarger centres, primarily Winnipeg. I believe culture was the motivating factor in their decision.
“Only my Uncle, Allan Greenberg, a bachelor, Harold and Mildred Narvey, and their son Bruce, who opened a chiropractic practice, remained. Bruce Narvey, as I mentioned, was the last of the resident descendants, before leaving after his mother died.”
Although Greenberg himself – and his brother, Barry – have lived most of their lives in Winnipeg, they continue to practise law in Portage and have had a history of community involvement in the Portage community. In recent years, David co-chaired the Portage and Area Beautification initiative committee through the Chamber of Commerce, resulting in seven years of service in the planning and implementation of the project. As a result, the committee was awarded its Citizenship of the Year award by the community. As for Barry Greenberg, he is a past president of the Portage & District Chamber of Commerce.
Local News
Who is Rabbi Ephraim Bryks and how did his time in Winnipeg prove so convulsive?
By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted December 30) Thirty-five years after Rabbi Ephraim Bryks left this city his name is now back in the news as the result of a new lawsuit that names Rabbi Bryks, the Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Congregation – for which Bryks served as rabbi for 12 years, and two rabbinical organizations as defendants. You can read more about that lawsuit and what it alleges elsewhere on this website at “lawsuit filed.“
But, aside from questions about why this lawsuit was filed now – some 38 years after the acts for which Bryks is accused of having committed against the plaintiff, there are still so many unanswered questions about Rabbi Bryks’ time in Winnipeg.
In his seminal history of the Jewish people of Manitoba, Allan Levine wrote: “The biggest controversy in the Herzlia’s history – in fact, arguably the most controversial matter in the annals of the Winnipeg Jewish community – involved Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, the synagogue’s rabbi from 1978 to 1990. Bryks arrived in Winnipeg in 1978 at the age of twenty-four, with his wife Yochevaed…”
Levine noted that “Under Bryks’ leadership, the synagogue’s membership increased. He established new programs for youth and immersed himself in the Jewish community. He also initiated Torah Academy, an Orthodox elementary school that operated out of Herzlia and soon had a sizable (sic.) enrollment (sic.).” (Gee Allan, didn’t anyone check your book for spelling mistakes?)
Levine’s story about Bryks goes on to note that controversy first began to circulate openly around Bryks in 1985 in the pages of what our paper was then called, which was the Jewish Post. (We didn’t become The Jewish Post & News until 1987, which was when we took over what had been The Western Jewish News.)
Bryks had been writing a weekly Torah commentary in our paper until three rabbis – Rabbis Rappaport, Weizman, and Neil Rose, sent a letter to the editor (who was my late brother, Matt, at the time) accusing Bryks of having plagiarized several of his columns from a book by Rabbi Reuven Bulka. Matt investigated and discovered that Bryks had indeed plagiarized at least two columns from Bulka’s book. When Matt reported what he had found, Bryks stopped writing his column for us.
“Far worse was yet to come,” Levine’s section about Bryks continues. “In 1987, several parents of young (male and female) children attending Torah Academy alleged that Bryks had sexually abused their children. The Herzlia board properly investigated the matter and heard evidence. According to a CBC-TV documentary on the case, the parents and their children were accused of being liars.”
Levine goes on to note that Winnipeg South Child and Family Services were asked to investigate the matter by the synagogue board, but the agency concluded that “Bryks’ behaviour of having children sit on his lap while he tickled them was ‘neither appropriate nor professional’, but not illegal. That might have been the end of it, but another allegation was made, this time to the Winnipeg Police by parents of an eight-year-old boy who claimed Bryks had fondled him. The police consulted a Crown lawyer, who decided not to pursue it since it came down to the child’s word against that of a rabbi.
“The case tore the Herzlia congregation apart, and some members left the synagogue,” Levine writes.
In 1990, Bryks left Winnipeg for Montreal, where he had been hired to head a Jewish school until parents there learned of the allegations against him in Winnipeg and the offer of employment was rescinded.
Subsequently, Bryks moved to New York, where he founded another private religious school in Queens – this time for children of Russian immigrants.
In 2003, however, Bryks resigned his membership in the Rabbinical Council of America. According to a report on “Newsday,” Bryks had “been dogged by allegations of sexual abuse against at least one Winnipeg child for more than 15 years.” He had headed two different yeshivas in New York, but no longer did so.
That Winnipeg child’s name was Daniel Levin. He was the son of Martin and Sarah Levin. (Martin Levin had been editor of the Jewish Post until 1983. He later became the books editor of the Toronto Globe & Mail.)
In Allan Levine’s account of what happened, “Daniel Levin had attended Torah Academy from kindergarten to Grade 2. …A troubled teenager, Daniel alleged that Bryks had molested him. According to Sarah Levin, Bryks had given Daniel candy to keep him quiet and told him that God would punish him if he ever told anyone what had transpired. The threat of retribution was echoed by other children who came forward. Daniel (who, by 1993, was living in Toronto) gave a taped statement to the Toronto Police, who inexplicably botched the taping and requested he repeat his statement. He never did. On Yom Kippur, 1993, Daniel, seventeen years old, committed suicide.”
In 1994, the CBC aired a documentary about the Bryks controversy titled “Unorthodox Conduct.” Myron Love wrote a detailed report about the airing of that documentary and the subsequent reaction to it from members of the Herzlia. You can read Myron’s full article on our website simply by entering the name “Rabbi Bryks” in our Search Archive portal. The first two articles to appear will be the first and second pages of Myron’s comprehensive report.
According to information online Rabbi Bryks now works as a mortgage broker in New York. For a time, he was also a self-styled marriage counsellor, providing services to women seeking religious divorces.
In 2018, we spoke with a woman in New York who told us that, 18 or 19 years prior, she had contacted Rabbi Bryks to try to help her get a “get” (religious divorce) from an uncooperative husband. That woman claimed that Rabbi Bryks showed up at her apartment and tried to take advantage of her under the guise of offering to help her obtain a “get” from her husband. As the woman continued her story, she said Rabbi Bryks had forced himself upon her to the point where he pushed her on to her bed and lay on top of her. She was eventually able to break free and demanded he leave her apartment.
There are many other references to Bryks on the internet. The recently filed lawsuit only adds to what is already one of the most controversial stories about a rabbi you’re ever likely to read.
Local News
Former Winnipegger files lawsuit against Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Congregation, former Herzlia Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, and two other defendants over allegations of sexual abuse and assault by Rabbi Bryks in 1987
By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted December 29, 2025) A former Winnipegger by the name of Ruth Krevsky (née Pinsky) has filed a lawsuit in Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg on December 9, 2025 naming “Ephraim Boruk Bryks, Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Congregtion Inc., Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and Rabbinical Council of America” as defendants.
The lawsuit seeks damages in the total amount of $4,200,000.
In the 30-page statement of claim Krevsky alleges that “In or around 1984, when the Plaintiff was approximately 19 years of age, Bryks sexually abused and assaulted the Plaintiff. The particulars of same include, but not (sic.) are not limited to the following:
” (a) initiated and engaged in physical contact of a sexual nature with the Plaintiff in his bedroom;
” (b) strapped the buttocks of the Plaintiff;
” (c) engaged in other sexual activities with the Plaintiff; and
” (d) in order to facilitate the abuse Bryks engaged in a pattern of behaviour which was intended to make the Plaintiff feel that she was special in the eyes of Bryks and Judaism.
“The abuse occurred in Bryks’ house located in Winnipeg, Manitoba.”
The lawsuit goes on to allege that “After the aforementioned abuse occurred, Bryks exploited his position of seniority and the trust he had cultivated with the Plaintiff to manipulate and control He used this dependency to discourage the Plaintiff from disclosing his actions, including by threatening her and by withholding reference letters essential for her academic and professional advancement.”
The lawsuit further alleges that “In or around 1987, while employed by the Congregation, Bryks was accused by (sic.) of several sexual offences involving young girls and women, including students at the School. (Ed. note, the reference is to Torah Academy, which Bryks started.) Although no criminal charges were filed at the time, the allegations were brought to the attention of the Congregation, the Union (of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America) and/or the Council (Rabbinical Council of America). Since then. additional individuals have come forward with similar allegations of sexual abuse by Bryks.”
The lawsuit also names the Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Congregtion Inc., as defendant, citing ten different rules that “the Congregation taught the Plaintiff as well as other members of the Synagogue, including
“that it was forbidden to report a Jewish religious figure such as a rabbi to secular authorities and that any such reporting would constitute a serious violation of religious duty and loyalty to Judaism.”
Further, “The Plaintiff pleads that the aforementioned rules, principles and ideologies of the Congregation created an opportunity for Bryks to exert power and authority over the Plaintiff. The power and authority allowed Bryks to engage in the aforementioned behaviour and to continue to engage in same without resistance or question of the Plaintiff, without risk of getting caught, and thereby put the Plaintiff at risk of being abused by Bryks…
“As a result, the Congregation is vicariously responsible and liable for the actions of Bryks.”
The lawsuit goes on to list a series of behaviours in which it alleges Bryks was engaging and alleges the Congregation ignored many aspects of Bryks’ behaviour, including, among others: “Bryks’ difficulties with alcohol” and “Bryks’ difficulties with his sexuality.”
The lawsuit lists a long series of damages the Plaintiff alleges she has suffered as a result of Bryks’ behaviour and the refusal of the other defendants, including the Herzlia Congregation, to take any action against Bryks.
It should be made clear that, at this point, the allegations are unproven and are yet to be defended against and yet to be tested in the courts of Manitoba.
We have reached out to Ruth Krevsky, her counsel, counsel for the Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Congregation, and the president of the congregation for comment. To date, we have not heard from either Ms. Krevsky or her counsel. We did hear from the president of the congregation, who asked us to refer any questions to counsel for the congregation. We did speak with counsel for the congregation, but at this point he indicated that he had just been recently hired to represent the congregation and was just beginning to acquaint himself with the file.
The Rabbi Bryks story was one that tore the Winnipeg Jewish community asunder. The Jewish Post had a number of stories about the allegations that were levelled against Rabbi Bryks. (You can find those stories by going to our “Search Archive” link and entering the name “Rabbi Bryks.”)
We will have much more about Rabbi Bryks in the days to come. Keep referring to this website as we add to the story.
Local News
Newly announced Vivian Silver Centre for Shared Society to further former Winnipegger’s lifelong efforts to foster Jewish-Arab co-operation in Israel
By MYRON LOVE Vivian Silver (oleh Hashalom) devoted her life to working toward dialogue and collaboration between Arabs and Jews in Israel. The culmination of her efforts was the Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development (AJEEC-NISPED), which she co-founded 25 year ago with her sister peace activist, Dr. Amal Elsana Ahl’jooj.
Tragically, Vivian was of the 1,200 Israeli Jews, Bedouin and foreign farm workers who were slaughtered during the Hamas-led pogrom of October 7, 2023.
Last month, AJEEC-NISPED announced plans to create the Vivian Silver Center for Shared Society in her memory – a new national hub for Jewish-Israeli Arab collaboration and social innovation in Be’er Sheva – backed by an initial $1 million donation from UJA-Federation of New York, along with support from the Meyerhoff Foundation, the Gilbert Foundation, and other philanthropic partners committed to strengthening shared society in Israel.
“It’s a great honor and a beautiful gesture,” comments Vivian’s son, Yonatan Zeigen, “and I hope it will be a central building for civil society, both in the physical sense, that it will become a substantial home for the organization and for other initiatives that will use the spaced and also symbolically, as a beacon for this kind of work in the specific location in the Negev.”
As this writer noted n an article earlier this year in relation to the announcement of the launch of the Vivian Silver Impact Award by the New Israel Fund (NIF) – of which she was a long time board member, and which was developed in conjunction with her sons, Yonatan and Chen), Vivian made aliyah in 1974. She first went to Israel in 1968 – to spend her second year at university abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studying psychology and English literature.
In an article she wrote in 2018 in a publication called ”Women Wage Peace,” she related that during her final year at the University of Manitoba, she was among the founders of the Student Zionist Alliance on campus and was invited to its national conference in Montreal. There she met activists in the Habonim youth movement who planned on making aliyah and re-establishing Kibbutz Gezer. The day she wrote her last university exam, she boarded a flight to New York to join the group.
She spent three years in New York, where she became involved in Jewish and Zionist causes, including the launch of the Jewish feminist movement in America.
“It was a life-changing period,” she recalled. “I came to understood that in addition to being a kibbutz member, I was destined to be a social change and peace activist.”
Vivian and her group made aliyah in 1974 and settled on Kibbutz Gezer. In 1981, she established the Department Promoting Gender Equality in the Kibbutz Movement. She moved to Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border in 1990, along with her late husband, Lewis, and their two sons
In 1998, Vivian became the executive director of the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development in Beer Sheva, an NGO promoting human sustainable development, shared society between Jews and Arabs, and peace in the Middle East. Soon after, she was joined by Amal Elsana Alh’jooj as co-directors of AJEEC-NISPED, winning the 2011 Victor J. Goldberg Peace Prize of the Institute for International Education.
In the article she wrote for “Women Waging Peace,” she noted that “while we later focused on empowerment projects in the Bedouin community in the Negev, initially we worked with Palestinian organizations on joint people-to-people projects. I spent much time in Gaza until the outbreak of the second intifada. We continued working with organizations in the West Bank. I personally know so many Palestinians who yearn for peace no less than we do.”
According to a report in the Israeli newspaper Arutz Sheva, in the November 24th edition, the Vivian Silver Centre – which is expected to open in the spring – will be located within AJEEC-NISPED’s soon-to-open AJEEC House, and will provide a permanent home for programs that promote equality, leadership, and cooperation among Israel’s diverse communities.
“The Vivian Silver Center for Shared Society, within AJEEC’s headquarters, “the Arutz Sheva report noted, “will serve as a regional platform for dozens of Israeli Arab and Jewish social organizations. Through AJEEC’s educational, vocational, and leadership programs, the center will support thousands of young adults each year – offering mentorship, professional training, and opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration.
“These programs,” the report continued, “already reach more than 15,000 participants nationwide, helping young people integrate into higher education and meaningful employment while narrowing social and economic gaps.”
AJEEC House is located in Be’er Sheva’s Science Park, near Ben-Gurion University. The three-storey AJEEC House has been designed to foster cooperation and dialogue. It will host community partnerships, provide shared workspaces for social entrepreneurs, and serve as a hub for initiatives addressing social and economic development across the Negev and beyond.
Readers who may be interested considering a donation can dial into NISPED’s website – – for further information.