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After more than 60 years, golden-voiced Lyle Smordin still broadcasting
By MYRON LOVE As Lyle Smordin tells it, when he was eight or nine years old, his mother Ida decided that he should learn to play the violin.
“At that time,” he recalls, “most Jewish mothers wanted their children to become musicians.”
So she took him to the old Peretz School on Aberdeen and Salter (where he was a student) and had him audition for Yasha Reznitsky, who was then head of the Winnipeg Jewish Orchestra. Reznitsky’s verdict was that a violinist the young Lyle was not going to be.
So his mother turned – you might say – to Plan B. She enrolled him in elocution lessons. With that foundation – including earning a designation as an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto when he was 15 – the now retired lawyer (as of 2018) and community leader has enjoyed a long and fulfilling side career in broadcasting – and, after more than 60 years since his first radio broadcast, he can still be heard on air weekly on Nostalgia Radio 93.7 CJNU, spinning golden oldies.
Smordin’s broadcasting career began in Saskatoon when he was 19. Although, he notes, he grew up in Winnipeg, in 1952, when he was 15, his father Harvey became manager of a garment factory in Saskatoon and the family moved to Saskatchewan’s largest city.
Smordin’s entry into the broadcasting field would seem to have been almost effortless. This was the 1950s when the medium was still relatively new and much easier to break into for someone with an eloquent voice.
“I had been involved with the campus radio station in Saskatoon,” he recounts. “At 19, I decided to take a year away from university. Since I had now had some radio experience, I contacted CKOM in Saskatoon and asked if I could audition. I was hired almost immediately.”
The next year (1959), back at school, he saw a CBC Regina ad for a summer position as an announcer. Once again, he phoned for an audition and was promptly hired.
The next year, he decided to move back to Winnipeg. (His parents, and younger brother Don moved back in 1965.) “I still had a lot of relatives (including his grandparents) and friends in Winnipeg and used to visit over the summers and Christmas holidays,” he notes. “I had also met Evita (Phomin, who was to become his wife) and we were serious about each other.”
Naturally, having worked for CBC in Regina, he successfully applied to CBC Radio in Winnipeg to work for the station for the summer.
That fall (November, 1960) though, he had the opportunity to become part of Winnipeg television history. He was hired as part of the first on-air team at CTV – Winnipeg’s new second English-language channel – working alongside such well-known personalities (at the time) as Al Johnson, Ray Torgrud, Bob Burns and the immortal sportscaster, Cactus Jack Wells.
“I worked for CTV for 18 months and had a great time,” he says. I did a little of everything – announcing, commercials and a lot of sports coverage, including Grey Cup games.”
After 18 months though, he decided that broadcasting was not what he wanted to do full time for the rest of his life. “I thought maybe I would try law school,” he recalls.
Smordin continued to work part time and over the holiday periods on air while attending law school and later articling. He was called to the Bar in 1965 and, for a time, put broadcasting on the back burner.
In a legal career that spanned 53 years – 20 of which he spent in partnership with Brian Pauls – he specialized in wrongful dismissal suits. He is a past president of the Manitoba Bar Association, as well as having served on the Mental Health Review Board, Chair of the Canada Pension Plan Tribunal and as an adjudicator for Human Rights Code cases. (He served as an administrative adjudicator in cases across the country for a number of years.) He also served as president of the Better Business Bureau and acted as the BBB’s counsel.
He also participated in numerous yearly Manitoba Bar Association fundraising theatrical productions – including playing the lead in “Inherit the Wind”. “I have always loved theatre,” he says. “In my younger days, I was on stage at the Hollow Mug and MTC.”
In the Jewish community, he is a past president of B’nai Brith Canada and served on the international board as vice-president.
Throughout the years of legal practice though, he kept returning from time to time to broadcasting. In the 1970s, he hosted an open-line TV show for Global TV based on legal issues.
“We started with four episodes, than were expanded to a year,” he recalls. “Overall, the show ran for ten years. For each episode, I would invite guest lawyers to join me. People would phone in with questions and those I couldn’t answer I would refer to my guests. It was a lot of fun.”
For the past 20 years, he notes, he has been doing retro radio. “For a time,” he recalls, “Jack Wells, Cliff Gardner and I operated our own radio station (CKJS, which hosts the Jewish radio hour Sundays). I would squeeze one or two shifts a week in hosting the morning program as well as occasionally hosting the weekly Jewish hour .”
The partners eventually sold the station but Smordin is still in some demand. The man with the golden chords invites readers who enjoy the music that CJNU offers to join him Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 to 6:00 while he spins your favourite music from years gone by.
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New Opportunities for XRP in the Trump Era: How XRP Holders Can Earn $7,899 Daily in Passive Income Through FTMINING Cloud Mining in 2026
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Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown
(August 8, 2026)
Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem. Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black. Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat. For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos. With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café. While shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas. So the wife and I thought we would check it out. And. Yes. Buy something to support the business. Uproar. Not. Blocked entrances. Not. Storming the café. Not. Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers. The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews. Mostly teenagers. And yes. Shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem. Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” But I did enjoy my iced matcha.
(August 6, 2026)
Here we go again. Another round of forever negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living. The way things are going in the straits. If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire. Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well. I would choose the latter.
(August 3)
Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head. For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl. Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections. Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold. In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies. Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26th national election – five of them held since 2019.
(August 1)
Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?
Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025. And wrote the 1998 satire, “An Israeli is….” Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic and irreverent insight.
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