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John Spencer: World’s “leading urban warfare expert” gives talk at Berney Theatre on September 11
By BERNIE BELLAN On Wednesday, September 11 an event was held at the Berney Theatre featuring John Spencer. The event was billed as “Hamas’ War: Truth and Consequences.”
Spencer, who retired from the US Army as a major, was described on the poster advertising the event as “the world’s leading urban warfare expert” and a “strategic adviser to world leaders.”
According to the website of the Modern Warfare Institute, which Spencer says he helped to create, “John W. Spencer currently serves as the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, codirector of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. He is also a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.
“He served over twenty-five years in the Army as an infantry soldier having held ranks from private to sergeant first class and second lieutenant to major. His assignments as an active duty Army officer included two combat deployments to Iraq as both an infantry platoon leader and company commander, Ranger instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the chief of staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group, and strategic planner and then deputy director of the Modern War Institute where he was instrumental in the design and formation of the institute.”
The email advertising the event that we received came from an organization known as “TAFSIK.” We have attempted to obtain more information about TAFSIK – and who’s behind it, but in response to two emails we sent to them asking them to describe who’s behind the organization, we simply got back a response that was a regurgitation of material already available on their website: “Tafsik organization emerged resolutely from the tragedy of October 7th, dedicated to combating Jew Hatred in Canada and beyond. By forging alliances with diverse communities—including Iranian, Indian, Christian, Yazidi, Venezuelan, and many other groups—Tafsik is uniting voices against Jew hatred on a global scale. The organization hosts significant events featuring prominent figures such as Douglas Murray, Gad Saad, Hillel Fuld, and Colonel John Spencer, to illuminate the challenges faced by Israel and the Jewish community worldwide. Additionally, Tafsik is leveraging cutting-edge AI technology to combat Jew Hate more effectively. As one of the fastest-growing grassroots organizations in Canada, Tafsik is committed to fostering understanding and solidarity in the fight against hatred.”
There were also names of three other organizations that were listed as sponsoring the Spencer event on the email received from TAFSIK: The Jewish Federation of Winnipeg; another organization called “Blue &”…something (the logo is unintelligible); and a third organization called Manitoba Israeli Coalition.
As well, during the event two other organizations were mentioned as having had some involvement: Winnipeg Friends of Israel and Bridges for Peace.
This event had an inordinate amount of security surrounding it. Registrants were told in advance that the actual venue would not be disclosed until shortly before the event. Here is what the email said: “Given recent threats and security events across Canada and elsewhere, we ask that you please keep this information confidential for security purposes…Filming and other recording will not be permitted.”
As it was, the venue turned out to be the Berney Theatre in the Asper Campus. When attendees arrived they might have seen one lonely protester, whose face was fully covered in a kaffiyah, holding a Palestinian flag. But there were also at least 20 Winnipeg Police Service members there – and at least five police cars. (There seemed to be even more police by the time attendees left the campus between 9:30-10:00 pm. The cost to hire all those police must have been exorbitant.)
Wow! We wondered what might be said that would be so sensitive as to prohibit recording – and how much money was spent in holding an event that was limited to only 200 individuals (the maximum capacity of the Berney Theatre), yet required a huge turnout of police.
To be honest, we didn’t hear anything from Spencer that one would think would have required a prohibition on recording the event – no discussion of military tactics or anything that he hasn’t already gone on the record as having written or said previously.
Spencer (who completed a 25-year period of service in the US Army infantry with the rank of “major,” but later was promoted to the rank of “colonel” in something called the “California State Guard”) focused largely on defending the IDF from accusations that its tactics merit criticism as, for instance, that they have been “disproportionate” to the level of threat posed by Hamas.
Interestingly, Spencer gave a full length interview to the Canadian Jewish News two days prior to the September 11 event in Winnipeg during which he went into a great more detail about Israeli military operations in Gaza than he did in the Berney Theatre on September 11. (You can read that entire interview at https://jewishpostandnews.ca/faqs/rokmicronews-fp-1/u-s-military-expert-john-spencer-to-speak-in-winnipeg-sept-11-argues-israel-isnt-committing-genocide-in-gaza/.)
As noted, the major point of Spencer’s talk, rather than being an analysis of military tactics employed by the Israel Defence Forces – which, I was rather hoping to hear, was a rebuttal of the accusation that has been levelled against Israel that what it is has been doing in Gaza amounts to “genocide.”
Here is some of what Spencer had to say during what was almost an hour-long talk:
“Just about everything that has been said about Israel and Gaza is a lie.”
There is a “global deficiency in understanding urban combat…There has been a long history of urban combat” but, until quite recently, urban combat has been about “fighting for cities, not in cities.”
Later, Spencer expounded upon this theme when he examined in some detail battles that took place in Manila (1945), and in Mosul (2016-17), in which cities were ravaged as a result of opposing forces trying to defend positions on the one hand, while other forces were trying to take those positions on the other – but in both cases, while there was a certain amount of underground fighting, the forces attempting to defend their positions were largely above ground and their ostensible purpose was to prevent the enemy from overtaking their positions. He contrasted those situations with what Hamas’s only goal throughout this war has been, which is “to survive the conflict.”
As for how to assess the current war in Gaza, Spencer suggested that “historians take about 20 years to write about combat,” so he was reluctant to weigh in on how successful Israel has been in achieving its goals.
He did say that he has been to Israel three times since October 7 and has been inside different Hamas tunnels on two different occasions. He did agree that the extent of Hamas’s preparations for this war – which were over “15 years” in the making, were quite impressive, but when it comes down to taking a position on whether Israel is actually winning the war, it was in his interview with the CJN that he was far more decisive in his opinion than he was during his talk in the Berney Theatre, when he didn’t take a clear position on that question. Here’s what he said during that September 10 interview:
“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.”
In fact, during his talk Spencer paid scant attention to the situation regarding the hostages. It would have been interesting to hear from an urban warfare expert what he makes of the challenge presented by Hamas likely holding the remaining hostages in its network of tunnels. There have been several articles written – especially in the New York Times, detailing the enormous difficulties the IDF has had in going into Hamas tunnels. Like many other commentators though, Spencer noted that the number of tunnels Hamas had built came as a major surprise to the IDF.
A major part of Spencer’s talk, however, was given over to a rejection of various arguments that have been used against Israel, including that its response to the Hamas attack on October 7 has been “disproportionate,” and the suggestion that Israel has been engaged in “genocide.” Again – it would have been nice to be able to record Spencer’s talk so as to give you a more precise account of what he said, but during that September 10 interview with the CJN he made the exact same points in response to criticisms of Israel’s conduct of the war:
“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.”
Spencer cited the claim that over 40,000 civilians have been killed during this war. He countered with the claim that, even if that figure is close to being correct – which he didn’t concede, over 13,000 of the deaths have been of Hamas fighters. (What Spencer didn’t do though, is offer an assessment of how strong Hamas remains. Recent reports that Hamas has been resurfacing in the north – which the IDF had previously claimed to have been rid of Hamas fighters, would tend to indicate just how difficult it will be to subdue Hamas militarily.)
Still, even if one were to accept the notion that there have been a large number of civilians killed during this war, Spencer suggested that one must take into account various criteria in evaluating to what extent a military force engaged in warfare with an enemy that is not only willing to use innocent civilians as human shields, it actually wants to see large number of casualties among its own population.
He offered these criteria for determining the level of responsibility one might attach to a military force when it is engaged in urban warfare where civilians are present:
• military necessity
• proportionality
• distinction (between civilians and combatants)
• humanity
• honor
Spencer noted that in the annals of warfare, even when tens of thousands of civilians have been killed as the result of urban warfare (or, as was the case in Manila in 1945 when the US Army fought to liberate that city from the Japanese and over 100,000 civilians died), the defending force did not deliberately want to see civilians die in order to turn world opinion against the enemy force – which is what he said, Hamas has been doing. Even ISIS, Spencer claimed, as brutal and savage as it was, was willing to surrender control of cities in situations where it was clear it was about to be defeated, rather than see entire civilian populations killed in order to enflame world opinion against the attacking forces. Hamas, he said, has as its clear goal, to survive – and if it can pressure Israel into accepting a ceasefire that will allow them to do that – even at the cost of seeing thousands of its fellow Palestinians killed as a result, then it will have achieved its aim, Spencer said.
And, as he said during the CJN interview, Hamas will want to pursue its goal of survival by having the international community exert pressure on Israel to accept a ceasefire that will allow Hamas to regroup only to attack Israel yet again – and again.
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Rachel Fish, leader in combating antisemitism in academia, this year’s Kanee Distinguished Lecture series speaker
By MYRON LOVE The Jewish Heritage Center of Western Canada would seem to have hit another home run with the announcement that Dr. Rachel Fish, a leading voice in tackling anti-Zionism and Jew hatred in North American academia, is this year’s guest speaker at the JHCWC’s upcoming annual Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture – which is scheduled for Thursday, April 30, at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue.
The theme of her timely lecture will be“How the Academy Has Created a Fertile Ground for Antisemitism,” a topic in which she is well versed. Fish has an impressive resumé. She is the co-founder of the nonprofit “Boundless,” a think tank partnering with community leaders across North America to revitalize Israel education and take bold collective action to combat antisemitism. She also serves as Director for The Brandeis University President’s Initiative on Antisemitism; is an associate research professor at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies; and teaches Israeli history and society at The George Washington University as Visiting Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the Graduate School of Education and Human Development.
In the past, she has served as Senior Advisor and Resident Scholar at the Paul E. Singer Foundation in New York City and Executive Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, where she trained the next generation of academics in the field of Israel Studies. She has also served on the faculty at Brandeis University, George Washington University, and Harvard University. She has has written articles for several publications in the mainstream press and academic journals, and co-edited the book “Essential Israel: Essays for the 21st Century.”
I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Fish a couple of weeks ago. My first question to her was how she finds the time to do all that she does. Her response is that there are not enough hours in the day. Her multiple activities remind me of an expression I heard once years ago while I was a member of a short-lived Jewish international development group – “if you want to make sure something gets done, you give it to the busiest person you know.”
Fish observes that she has been explaining Judaism to non-Jews all of her life. “I was raised in Tennessee in a place called Johnson City in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains,” she recounts. “My parents were originally from Ohio. There were very few Jews where we lived. My family spent a lot of time teaching our neighbours, teachers in my school and others we associated with about Jews, our practices and the State of Israel.”
She recalls – as early as 2001 when she was studying at Harvard’s Divinity School, that she was noticing what she describes as a “strong undercurrent of anti-Israel feeling and Jew-hatred”.
“I was determined to pursue a career in higher education,” she notes, “in part because I believe that education matters, because I derive oxygen from teaching, and I particularly enjoy dealing with complex issues. As well, I appreciate the opportunities that teaching at the university level gives me to share what I have learned in public forums such as the Kanee Lecture.”
Ideally, she observes, a professor should not – as much as humanly possible – be sharing her political or personal opinions in class. Higher education should be about creating a space where students can debate freely and challenge each other’s ideas. Instead (as I am sure many readers are aware), too many educators are focused on indoctrinating their students in the teacher’s beliefs – with students with dissident opinion facing hostility and risking ostracism.
Too many universities have become ideological monocultures where critical thinking is discouraged and there is a litmus test for new hires. She cites a FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) report in which an overwhelming majority of the faculty at many leading universities share a leftist – anti-Israel, anti-Christian and anti-Conservative worldview.
That is particularly true with Ivy league and other elite universities in both the United States and Canada – and especially in their liberal Arts and Humanities programs. Much of the anti-Zionist and antisemitic atmosphere – such as the takeover of university quadrants in the wake of October 7 – has been created by outside agitators and foreign funders – notably the oil rich Islamic sheikhdom of Qatar.
“Where you have universities with strong administrative leadership,” she points out, “the level of hostility to Jewish students and threats of violence have not been allowed to take root. It has only been the case where the administration and the board are weak.”
So why, I asked her, do so many Jewish students not seek out alternatives to these compromised campuses?. She responded that some Jewish students have chosen to enrol in universities in the southern United States where there is a more welcoming environment.
But many Jewish students, she observes, continue to enrol in leading universities such as Harvard and Yale, Cornell and UCLA (or York or the University of Toronto in Canada). Many Jewish students still share the belief that being identified with being affiliated with a top flight university will benefit their future careers.
Sadly, she further points out, this poison has filtered down to the K-12 level. Many university education departments have graduated numerous indoctrinated teachers who have taken control of school boards and administrations and seek to impose their vile doctrines on susceptible young minds.
Nevertheless, there are a great many state and lesser known universities that provide a more welcoming attitude to Jewish students.
Rachel Fish suggest that, for too long, North American Jewish communities have been complacent and not recognized the danger in our midst. She does see some hopeful signs though. She has observed that more and more communities, parents and student s have woken to the danger and begun to fight back.
“It’s difficult,” she acknowledges. “It can feel overwhelming. But we have to keep chipping away and not just let the other side win.”
The Sol and Florence Kanee Distinguished Lecture series was inaugurated by the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada in 2006 to celebrate Sol Kanee’s 95th birthday. In welcoming the audience to that first lecture, lecture series co-chair Harold Buchwald paid tribute to Kanee, who died on April 23 at 97, as a man who “cast a giant shadow” on world Jewish history in the second half of the 20th century. The former resident of Melville, Saskatchewan, who spent almost all of his adult life in Winnipeg, Kanee was a leader in the development of Israel and the Free Soviet Jewry movement as well as a macher in our Jewish community and across Canada.
I would encourage readers who may be interested in learning more about the current state of antisemitism in academia – and want to support the JHCWC to go online at jhcwc.org for further information or to order tickets. The price of admission is $50.
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Young tech entrepreneur Adam Fainman gathering accolades locally and internationally
By MYRON LOVE Winnipegger Adam Fainman is taking the world by storm. In fewer than three years his new AI start-up – Moonlite Labs – has attracted thousands of users in 550 cities in 95 countries world wide.
As he explained in an interview in the Winnipeg Sun last June, Moonlite Labs is “a creative content platform designed to make multimedia storytelling radically more accessible. With a few prompts,” he noted, “users can generate professional grade videos, animations, voiceovers, talking avatars, music-reactive visuals, and more.”
On Tuesday, February 24, the young entrepreneur garnered his newest accolade when Winnipeg-based North Forge, Canada’s only start-up incubator, accelerator and fabrication lab, gave Fainman its DARE Emerging Innovator Award at a reception at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.
“I dedicated the award to my zaida, Jacob T. Schwartz,” Fainman says, noting that his zaida was a prominent computer scientist and professor of Computer Science at the New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, and founder, in 1964, of New York University’s Department of Computer Science – which he chaired for 16 years.
At the awards evening, Fainman adds, he had the opportunity to meet many of the movers and shakers in the industry here.
The son of Shane and Rachel Fainman began his life in Toronto. “My father is from Winnipeg, my mother from New York. They met in the Sinai Desert at a music festival.”
The family moved to Winnipeg in 2006 when Adam was in high school. After graduating from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate he went on to earn a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Winnipeg.
“Performing was always my first love” he says.
Post university, he began a career as a rapper, beatboxer, and producer under the stage name Beatox, touring across Canada and central Europe with his rare ability to combine story-telling and singing.
In 2015, he enrolled in a two-year digital media and design program at Red River Community College. After graduation, on the encouragement of a University of Toronto professor, he continued his studies in Toronto earning a Masters Degree in Music Technology and Digital Marketing.
“During the Covid shutdown,” he recounts, “I began experimenting with AI and producing music videos combining music, story-telling and animation. I posted them on social media sites such as YouTube and TikTok. They went viral, garnering millions of views. People were asking me if I could help them with creating similar videos. I saw there was a gap in accessibility to this technology, so I decided I should create a platform as a solution”
“A friend of mine, Brayden Bernstein was involved in the tech scene in Winnipeg, saw the success I was having on TikTok and gave me some advice on how to go about this” Fainman continues. “As well, a few colleagues from the University of Winnipeg expressed interest in building a solution together.”
Wanting to create a platform that would make it easy for others to replicate what he was doing, Fainman sought out resources in Winnipeg that might be able to help him.
He pitched his idea first to NRC-IRAP (National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program), Canada’s leading innovation assistance program for small and medium-sized businesses,
“They loved the concept and traction I was getting, and agreed to help fund us,” Fainman says.
His next stop was North Forge – in 2024 – where Moonlite joined their Ascent Program and was matched with mentors.
In early 2025, Moonlite Labs made its official debut at the Manitoba AI Innovation Showcase where the new company was greeted with an award. “It was a massive confidence boost,” Fainman told the Sun in that earlier interview. “It was our first time sharing with the public what we’ve been up to for the last year. To win the award… that was very, very rewarding.”
Last June, the company made its presence known on the international stage at VivaTech 2025 in Paris — Europe’s largest startup and tech conference, with over 180,000 visitors.
Moonlite was selected as one of TechCrunch’s Top 30 Startups of the Year, a shortlist that included only two Canadian companies.
“Getting the AI Showcase award, getting into VivaTech, being selected as one of the top 30 startups of the Year by TechCrunch, that was pretty crazy,” Fainman told the Sun.“Backed by ScaleAI, Moonlite joined Canada’s official delegation at VivaTech, which had special visibility this year with Canada named Country of the Year at the conference.
“We had a massive space. The French president came through our whole area. It was the craziest thing,” Fainman recalled. “Everyone had their phones. It was like a mob… then we’re like, oh my God, it’s the French president. People were freaking out.”
As per the Sun story, Fainman was given two days to showcase Moonlite, with a booth for both the platform’s business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) offerings. But the most personal moment came on stage, where he delivered a presentation showcasing his journey from beatboxing artist to tech founder.
With Moonlite Labs growing exponentially, Faiman and his team of eight are hoping to become as ubiquitous as Adobe and Canva. “My ultimate goal is to help as many people as possible to create professional-grade videos and ultimately share their stories,” he comments.
He himself, he adds, is hoping to get back to live performances as well. “I recently appeared at Festival du Voyageur and I have just completed my 4th studio album. I can’t wait to use Moonlite for all my videos and world building” he reports.
Readers who might want to try Moonlite for themselves can go to https://moonlitelabs.com
You can get in touch with Adam Fainman at adam@moonlitelabs.com
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Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder fund new MBA degree, annual real estate symposium, at Hebrew University
By MYRON LOVE Last October, the husband and wife team of Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder donated $1 million towards the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue’s ongoing capital campaign. Last month, the couple followed up with an equally generous donation – this time to the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, to establish a new degree program in real estate through the Hebrew University’s business school.
“We are long time supporters of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University,” notes Walder, who is a lawyer and former partner in the firm Myers LLP.
“We had funded some smaller projects at the Hebrew University, adds Morantz, the president and CEO of Globe Property Management, one of Canada’s leading privately-held residential real estate firms.
(Globe was founded in the 1920s by Richard’s grandfather, Morris. Richard became the company’s sole shareholder in the mid-1990s after buying out his father Saul, and his siblings. Under Richard’s leadership, the company has expanded steadily and strategically, acquiring and developing real estate almost every year for the past three decades. Over the last 30 years, he has built an impressive and diverse portfolio, which includes over 8000 residential and commercial properties, particularly notable given that Globe remains privately owned and independently operated.
“Two years ago, we approached the (Hebrew) University about doing something more impactful. Since I am a businessman in real estate, we wanted to work on a project with the business school.”
The first fruits of the relationship between Richard and Sheree and the university was the establishment the annual Richard Morantz Real Estate Symposium in the Hebrew University Business School (HUBS) MBA Program.
“I was able to attend the most recent symposium in November,” Morantz reports. “I wanted to see for myself how this was working.”
Morantz also used the occasion to arrange – with the help of CFHU executive director (and former executive director of the JNF office here) Rami Kleinmann – a meeting with HUBS officials about building on the symposium and creating a new MBA program at the university.
The Richard Morantz Major in Real Estate and Finance, in the words of Business School President Dr. Orly Sade, “will, together with traditional academics, feature non-academic practitioners and leaders in all aspects of the real estate industry, providing students an opportunity to expand their professional networks, while gaining real-world industry insights and bridging the gap between theory and practice.
In a press release issued on February 24, Seade added that “this investment is a defining moment in the evolution of the school. The importance of an academic discipline focused solely on the real estate sector has significantly increased, owing to an understanding of the sector’s unique position in the global economy and international finance. HUBS consistently ranks within the top five business schools in Eurasia & the Middle East. The addition of this major will further elevate HUBS academic offerings, and the annual symposium will help expand the Hebrew University and Israel’s footprint as a global hub for intellectual exchange in the sector, drawing diverse professionals from around the world, fostering cross-border collaboration, increasing visibility, and contributing to the potential to attract top-level investors.”
Kleinmann further pointed out that “Richard’s comprehensive industry knowledge, combined with his dedication to Israel and the University, has resulted in an innovative academic program that, combined with the Symposium, is setting a new benchmark for industry education. We are all extremely grateful and look forward to the outcomes.”
As reported in the Jewish Post in relation to the couple’s donation to the Shaarey Zedek, Morantz noted that it was the Hamas-led assault on Israel and subsequent tsunami of antisemitism worldwide that prompted Richard and Sheree to consider stepping up and contributing to the Shaaray Zedek campaign in such a magnanimous way.
“I have never been a religious person,” Morantz remarked. “While I may be more secular, I strongly believe in the traditions of Judaism. I had a charmed upbringing in the 60s and 70s in River Heights. It is not the case that I experienced no antisemitism, but those experiences were very minimal. Post-October 7th, I found myself, for the first time in my life, having to judge every situation and every person I came across before divulging the fact that I am Jewish or discussing Israel. I came to the realization, during the process of considering this donation, that a primary driver for us is that this synagogue is a safe place for Jews, where we can comfortably be ourselves.”
Walder pointed out that, while her mother’s large family were Jewish pioneers, her father was a Romanian Holocaust survivor, with almost no family after the war. “Family matters a great deal to us,” she said, “in addition to strongly agreeing with Richard that the tragedy of October 7th and continuing and growing antisemitism are big drivers for us in making these donations.”
“There will be an event celebrating the new MBA program at the Hebrew University’s Board of Governors meeting in June,” Morantz says. “We are looking forward to attending.”