Features
Bygone Winnipeg: A fictitous story based on true events: University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine 1932-1944
By DAVID TOPPER Call me a witness. I was there and heard almost everything that’s relevant to this story.
Yet, thinking deeper, I guess you could call me a spy – well, at least, some may say that, for there was an element of skulduggery in my employment situation. It was all because of my father, who changed my name when I was born. Of course, we’re all born with a surname, but―
Wait. Let’s first go back to my grandfather, Moshe Levinstein, who was born in Russia, and who as a young man experienced a small pogrom – small in terms of later ones – which was enough to convince him to emigrate as fast as he could. Several people were killed, a house was burned down, and there was a rape – that ‘small’ event drove him to leave Russia, forever. He never looked back, even when Winnipeg, Canada turned out not to be quite the paradise he expected. Because he quickly found that anti-Semitism was endemic.
My father, Solomon Levinstein, while growing up, saw the struggle his parents went through being Jews in a Christian country (with the English majority Protestant, and the minority French Catholic), and he wanted to protect me as best he could when I was born. He wanted me to fit into the social fabric more than he ever could. And since I turned out to be a girl, there were even more barriers on my horizon – ‘closed doors,’ he called it. He told us that he was thinking about all this when I was still in my mother’s womb. You see, he liked to ‘plan ahead,’ which was another of his favourite phrases.
Oh, speaking of being in the womb: my grandmother died when my mother was eight months pregnant with me, and so I was supposed to be named some variation of Minnie Levinstein, as is the Jewish tradition. But since my father was obsessed with my fitting in better than he did, and he also wanted me to get through some otherwise ‘closed doors’ – I was named Mildred Evans. He said Evans and ‘Levins’ rhyme, and so do Millie and Minnie. It was also a nice Aryan-sounding name, “as the Germans would say,” he said.
Mind you, while growing up as Mildred Evans, I nonetheless didn’t hide my Jewishness. Indeed, I often went to synagogue on Saturday/Sabbath. But then, I also often went to church on Sunday and―
Um, I guess I need to explain that. You see, my best friend was Mary O’Brian, which tells you that she was probably Irish Catholic, which she was. Now, here’s my perspective in all of this. I was very precocious and very smart and I read a lot. I liked languages. On weekends I enjoyed Hebrew in the Synagogue and Latin in the Church. Two ancient languages, one dead except for the Christian Mass, and the other kept alive in prayer and Torah study. Plus, you must remember that Latin was still taught in schools at this time; it was part of a Liberal Arts education in the first half of the 20th century. Many universities required High School Latin for entrance to their freshman classes. As well, to me, the Mass was like an opera, with singing and those glorious organ pipes vibrating and echoing throughout the church. Mary and I, by-the-by, went to the beautiful Cathedral in St. Boniface, with the astonishing and huge Rose window. You see, there were no organs in any synagogue. And so, it was not so strange for this Jew to enjoy the Catholic Mass as a musical event. Think of Bach, a devout Lutheran, who wrote his wonderful Mass in B-minor.
Anyway, to me the Mass was a show, and it was free – well not completely free, since the church always passed around a collection basket near the end of the service – a sort of pay-what-may type thing, you could say. I remember that Mary, when I took her to her first synagogue service, was surprised that there was no collection at the end, especially since after the service there was an oneg in the social hall, with food galore. But I digress.
The service of the Mass, to me, was not entirely unfamiliar, since there were many prayers and texts that borrowed passages from what they called The Old Testament: many of the sayings of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others. “But what about the stuff on Jesus?” you may be asking, eh? Well, you see, I read a lot of history, as I told Mary – and I must say she was shocked when I first told her this; although eventually she (well, sort of) agreed with me – well, I told her that Jesus was not a Christian, but a Jew named Yeshua, and he always was; ‘Jesus’ was the later Latinized name. He had some differences with the Jewish hierarchy at the time, along with problems with the Romans who occupied the Holy Land, so much so that they (the Romans) crucified him. It was after his death that Christianity was born, due in large part to the preaching and writing of a Jew name Saul, whose name was later Latinized to ‘Paul’ after he had a vision of the resurrected Yeshua/Jesus. Saul/Paul made a strong case for rejecting many Jewish practices (such as circumcision), so much so that his sect broke free from its Jewish root. They became known as ‘Christians,’ since Paul preached that Yeshua was the real messiah (or ‘anointed one’), which in Greek is ‘Kristos,’ later Latinized to ‘Christus.’
Mary laughed when I said that therefore you might call the birth of Christianity a Jewish conspiracy. “Oh Millie,” she said. “You’re so smart it sometimes scares me. What is going to happen to you?”
Good question.
So, what did happen to me? Well it helped being smart, that’s for sure. Very smart, indeed. But not pushy. No, not pushy or impudent in any way. Not at all. You see, I was (and still am) happy with less – a lot less than I probably could have had. Yes, I lived (and still live) parsimoniously.
Well, I got a university education with excellent grades (as you might expect) but I didn’t go any further, although I could have, and was encouraged to do so. But I saw the university system as a barrier to women. And I was not inclined to fight the system. As I said, I was satisfied with less. While still a student at the University of Manitoba, I got part-time secretarial jobs, since I was a fabulous typist and proof reader. Even before I graduated, I was offered a full-time position as a secretary in the English Department, since their long-time-serving woman was thinking of retiring. And in the end, after graduation, I got the job.
It was the best decision of my life, looking back on it. You see, in this job I could go home at 5pm to my modest house not far from the university and forget about the job until the next morning. In the warmer weather I could walk to and fro; although in the dead of winter I took the short bus ride. After all, it was Winnipeg. And at home I could read whatever I wanted. Play the piano. Do my art work: drawing (pencil and/or pen & ink) and painting (only watercolour). Listen to the radio. And I read as much as I wanted: lots of books, magazines, and newspapers. I got the New York Times Sunday edition in the mail every week; it was a bit late, of course, but there were so many articles of interest that it was a source of almost endless reading throughout the week. For example, I recently came across this quote from the famous Albert Einstein in an article about him: “Perhaps it is due to anti-Semitism that we can preserve ourselves as a race; at least, this is what I believe.” I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this, especially in light of what I am going to tell you later. Incidentally, when I was a student, there were no Jewish professors on the faculty. Even as late as the mid-1940s, there were still only four Jewish professors.
In contrast to my life, my boss’s home life was filled with lectures to prepare, and even on weekends there were papers to mark, exams to compose and later to mark. And so it went. He often told me I was fortunate to be able to start a book and just read it at my leisure, right through if I wished. He confided in me that he seldom had time to read half of what he wanted to. I believe he liked talking to me, since I was smart. He often asked my advice regarding even the content of the texts that I was typing for him. We got along swimmingly, as you might surmise. We had a very good rela―
Okay, before you start fantasizing further, let me stop you. There was nothing beyond our professional relationship. Nothing at all. Throughout the university, in all my jobs – nothing. No flirting, never. I had no affairs in those years in various secretarial positions, if that’s what you’re thinking. And here’s why: I am not attractive. I knew this in High School, and was satisfied with it. Remember, I like a simple life, and I discovered that this unattractive state makes life uncomplicated – or, at least, less complicated than it otherwise might be. I could see among my classmates in school that the (let’s call them) ‘attractive’ girls had a life that was a roller-coaster ride. Up, happy, being gleeful; down, way down, when a guy dumped them. Yes, I saw some girls get really down; had to take pills; some even admitted to hospital. I thought: who needs this crap? I don’t want those ups and downs; I want a straight ride, flat. “Yes, just flat,” as I told Mary. She laughed, “Well that’s not the only thing that’s flat for you, huh”? We both had a good laugh at that. Remember we were best friends, and each could take a joke.
So, I tell you: my so-called ‘unattractiveness’ was a gift. Which I took and ran with, you might say. Today, you see: I wear no make-up, have a simple straight hair-do extending below my ears but not touching my shoulders, wear loose and non-flashy blouses, have only skirts far below my knees, and I wear sensible shoes – namely, flats (oh, that word again). All this ensured that my relationships with the men under whom I worked at the university would remain strictly professional. Let’s put it this way. I always had a good night’s solo sleep, if you know what I mean.
Of course, this is not to say that I never had an intimate relationship with anyone, but rather that it was not with any of my bosses – and I will leave it at that, for this has gone far beyond the original topic. But – and I emphasize this – all this is not a digression, for I very much want you to know about me and my life at the University of Manitoba, so as to put this story into context and to show how and why what I am going to tell you should not only be believed, but also taken seriously.
Further, to set the stage: I got along well with my fellow all-female secretaries and other staff at the university. My plainness was interpreted as a sort of prissiness, which is not true, but they didn’t know that. As Mildred Evans, I was asked what church I went to, and I told them St. Boniface Cathedral, since I did go to it when my friend Mary and I were kids, so strictly speaking my answer was no lie. Although I know their question had a different meaning. (Incidentally, Mary is now married and living in Toronto, raising her four kids.) They then asked why I go all the way to the other city to attend church and I told them it was about the music and the organ. They understood, and asked no more.
Also, due to my modest behaviour, they questioned why I was not a nun, and it led to them jokingly calling me Sister Millie. I said there was no such St. Mildred, although this may not be true, but then what do Protestants know about saints? – since Luther, Calvin, and the others eschewed them, along with the Virgin Mary, from their theology. And speaking of joking: being ‘Sister Millie’ among these Protestants, I was in an opportune position to reprimand them when they occasionally told anti-Semitic jokes or made similar remarks. And I did. As an art-lover, I also took the occasions to lecture them on the destruction of so much art by the Protestants during the Reformation: defacing and burning paintings, smashing statues, destroying stained-glass windows, and more. They knew none of this; it was a shock to them. They were not taught such things in Sunday-school, they said.
And that brings me to the reason for telling you all this in the first place. For, as I began, I said I was a witness, or even a spy. But for what? Well, for what may be called the backroom conversations. The secret disc―
Wait, I’m getting ahead. Uh, let’s start here: After many years with the English Department, I was promoted to being secretary for the new Dean of Medicine, Dr. Warren Matthews. It began for me at end of term in late May 1932. Although the Dean’s term began in September, he occasionally came around during the summer months to bring things (books, files, and such) so that his office was ready in the fall. He got to know me a bit and seemed very pleased and comfortable with me. His wife, Eleanor, even came with him one summer day – I believe, to check me out. She was nicely dressed, looking very Anglo-Saxonish prim and proper, if there is such a thing. When she saw me, she first looked me straight in my eyes and, while she was saying some pleasantries, she panned down my body to my feet and back up to my face, and ended with a self-assured smile on her face. I passed, since I was clearly no threat to her sexuality, whatever there was of it.
I spent the summer getting adjusted to the new office, going through the files and sometimes reorganizing them my way, and changing some things around in the physical space of the office. For one thing, I preferred keeping my office door to the university closed, but with a COME IN sign, when I was there. I didn’t like the constant background noise and chatter, as well as obtrusive eyes walking past an open door. That summer, I also had lots of typing to do both for the new Dean and for others in the Department of Medicine.
By the fall, when the Dean came in for the new term, we could get right to work. And we did. We quickly developed a good working relationship. He was obviously comfortable with me, for he shortly said that I should just call him ‘Warren.’ Interestingly, he liked me keeping my door closed, since he preferred keeping his door open. He said he was a bit claustrophobic, plus he liked to hear my typing – it had a musical rhythm that he found restful. Importantly, this meant that I was privy to confidential remarks by the Dean and those who ran the administration of the university when they were in his office. In short, I was able to eavesdrop. And eavesdrop I did! And that’s why I’m telling you this.
But this spying came later. The reason I am telling you this is because of an event that took place not long after he got settled into his new office. I can still remember the day. It was first thing in the morning, and after the “how are you” etc., he told me to look at the records of students admitted to the Medical School in terms of their ethnic origin, particularly noting how many of them were Jews. “We already have too many Jews, Millie,” he said. It was a jolt, and although I’m sure I showed no visible signs of my reaction, internally I was shaken. So much so that I almost blew my cover. Yes, even as Mildred Evans, Sister Millie, it―
Well, it’s hard to explain. I was tempted, of course, to ask why, … but, of course, I didn’t. “I’ll get to it right away, Warren,” was the best thing I could say at the time, and I turned away walking toward a filing cabinet, as any loyal Anglo-Saxon secretary would do, but with shaking hands that I hid from my boss.
I found that on the application form there was a line for ‘racial origin,’ and so I was able to do my job. I discovered that throughout the 1920s there were usually about 64 students per year admitted, with 18-25% being Jewish. Other ethnic groups also came – Ukrainian, Polish, German, and so forth, but in smaller percentages. Most, not surprisingly, were Anglo-Saxon – good English stock, according to Warren. When I presented my finding to him, I added another category, and I prefaced it by saying that I hoped he didn’t think I was being impudent in doing so. It was the number of women admitted, which was very low – often none, sometimes one or two. Warren smiled and said it was fine for me to be “conscious of my sex” and he blushed after he said it. I think hearing himself saying the word ‘sex’ out-loud to me, well, it jolted him – the way, on the previous day, his word ‘Jews’ jolted me.
Subsequently, my eavesdropping elicited more examples of anti-Semitism endemic to the faculty, as he chatted in his office with other administrators, keeping his door open. They all agreed. “Too many pushy Jews.” “Since they invariably get high grades in school, if we don’t put a lid on the enrolment, soon they will all be Jews.” “If we don’t do something now, well Jews will take over the faculty.” “First the Jews and then Ukrainians or Poles.” “At least the Frenchies have their own college in St. Boniface.” And so it went – a litany of bigotry, discrimination, and prejudice straight from the mouths of the administrative faculty to the ears of Mildred Evans. At most, a few made mild queries as to the efficacy of it, and the possibility of “aggressive Jewish lawyers” filing a legal case against the practice.
In the end there was a quota system initiated for all incoming classes, keeping the Jewish enrolment low. In 1936, for example, only nine got in. In later years even fewer. Out of 60 or more students, sometimes only four to six were Jewish. Of course, this meant that Anglo-Saxon students with far lower grades than Jewish students were admitted in place of them. And this was for a school to train physicians, dealing with life and death. “Just what we need – dumber doctors,” I told my Jewish friends. You see, I didn’t hide my clandestine information. I told anyone who would listen to me. Unfortunately, where it might make a difference, I got indifference, brought on by fear. Rabbis were afraid to do anything. They went along with the quota rule. “Don’t make waves, things could get worse,” was a standard response. Yes, they went along with the quota system. “Don’t look like a ‘pushy Jew,’ at least we get the ones that we get,” I was told. “Look, honey, be happy with four to six doctors a year,” I was told to my face by a rabbi’s wife. The same thing from the Jewish establishment. The B’nai Brith was afraid to do anything because it might backfire and only make matters worse. Similarly, for the Canadian Jewish Congress, which was reluctant to get involved in this Winnipeg issue. “What wimps,” I told my friends. I did the best I could. I didn’t blow my cover.
For me this thing came to a head in 1943, when the med school again turned down many Jewish and some other ‘ethnic’ students, so as to admit Anglo-Saxon students with (in this case) not only lower grades – but they also admitted some students who didn’t even pass their university exams and thus were required to go to summer school! To me, this was the last straw. The Jewish students’ Avakah Zionist Society got wind of this and began to bring all this out into the open. They eventually got the help of a Jewish lawyer and, yes, a fuss was raised and pressure was put on the Board of the University of Manitoba.
Finally, in 1944, after a dozen years of overt discrimination, the Medical School removed the racial and religious categories in their application. The quota rule finally ended. I celebrated with my Jewish friends. And, yes, Mildred “Prissy” Evans got a little tipsy.
Speaking of celebrating. In 1949, Dr. Warren Matthews was awarded an Honourary Doctor of Laws for his dedicated service to the University. I was invited to a private party for him, but I made up some excuse as to why I couldn’t make it. You see, I was afraid that if I did go, I would not be able to control myself, and proper Mildred Evans, aka Sister Millie, would perform the very unladylike act of making a scene by copiously spitting into the party’s punch bowl.
* * *
Features
In memory of Joan Druxman
By BERNIE BELLAN In May 2023 I wrote a story about Joan Druxman, whom I had just met in person when she was a guest speaker at the Remis Luncheon series that month.
Sadly, Joan passed away on September 5, after a brief illness. My original story received over 4,000 views, so I thought it worth repeating here, to honour the memory of a vivacious and fascinating woman. Here is that story again:
The February 21, 2001 issue of The Jewish Post & News had an article titled “It’s a Comedy Night!”
That article went on to describe an upcoming event in which State of Israel Bonds would be honouring Rabbi Alan Green. Among the comedians to be appearing at the event was to be “Joan Druxman-Jones.”
Now, 22 years later, State of Israel Bonds doesn’t have an office in Winnipeg, Rabbi Green doesn’t live here any more (although he will be returning this weekend as the Shaarey Zedek’s Rabbi in Residence during Shavuot) and, as for Joan Druxman-Jones, well, she is back in Winnipeg – after having left in 1990 – and after having had a tumultuous series of career changes throughout her life –and, after having dropped the Jones in her name and gone back to Joan Druxman.
Joan Druxman was the guest speaker at this year’s kickoff Remis Forum luncheon on Thursday, May 11, at the Gwen Secter Centre.
I had never met Joan prior to that Thursday, although advertisements for her well-known women’s clothing store, “Joan’s Boutique”, were a regular feature in our paper for years. Once she took the podium at the Gwen Secter Centre it was easy to see how Joan had been a successful model for years. She still maintains a shapely figure and, even at 83, Joan is quite an attractive woman. (Is it okay to say that, I wonder? Who knows what’s permissible nowadays to write about a woman – or a man, for that matter, when it comes to physical appearance?)
But, more than anything, what struck me in listening to Joan tell her life story was her ease in speaking, her quick wit, and her self-effacing sense of humour.
As Simone Cohen Scott noted in an email sent out to Remis Forum attendees (and, by the way, anyone can attend a Remis luncheon. Just let the Gwen Secter Centre know you’re coming by the Tuesday of that week’s luncheon. Call 204-339-1701.), I took “voluminous notes” while Joan spoke.
So, here’s my account of the story Joan told: Born in Winnipeg, Joan (whose maiden name was Zelcovich, she said), grew up in Estevan, Saskatchewan, and moved back with her family to Winnipeg when she was 15.
Joan explained why her father decided to move to Winnipeg. He had owned a successful hotel in Estevan, but many of the patrons of that hotel were rough-hewn oil workers from the area around Estevan. “My father wasn’t about to let those oil workers anywhere near his two teenage daughters,” Joan said. (She had a younger sister at the time they moved here.)
But, the summer before the Zelcoviches moved to Winnipeg, they spent part of that summer at Clear Lake.
There were a lot of Jewish girls at Clear Lake, Joan noted, but they snubbed here because of the way she dressed. “They thought I was a hick,” she said.
That fall though, when Joan began attending Kelvin High School, and she was introduced by the teacher to the other students, the other girls couldn’t wait to be her friend, Joan said. This time she was dressed to the nines, she noted – something that has been very important to her ever since, she also observed.
As she noted toward the end of her talk, “I firmly dress the way you want to be treated.”
But from where did get Joan derive her impeccable fashion sense?
“My mother subscribed to the New York Times Magazine. It was the Vogue of the day,” she said.
Sure enough, when she was only 16, Joan got her first job working at the Mirror Room in the Hudson Bay store while she was attending high school.
After attending Kelvin for a couple of years Joan decided to attend the University of Manitoba. (In those days, she explained, you could take Grade 11 at the university.)
As things turned out, however, and as Joan observed, university was not for her.
“I hated it like you can’t imagine,” she said. “When I got 17 in Biology I knew university was not for me.”
So, Joan decided to enroll in the Angus School of Commerce (which was owned by Janice Filmon’s father at the time) where she obtained her diploma in typing and shorthand. “I was a wiz on the Dictaphone,” she noted.
But, she had to find a job after graduating. “I saw an ad for a company called Gunn Garment, which was owned by Harry Silverberg and Dave Kaufman, and which was managed by Max Duboff.”
“I became Max’s secretary and house model,” Joan said. “That’s how I became a model.”
It was during her time at Gunn Garment that Joan was introduced to the man who was to become her husband, Winnipeg Blue Bomber George Druxman.
“Marilyn Trepel called me up and told me someone had seen me at a wedding. Would I like to meet him? He’s one of the Blue Bombers,” Marilyn said to Joan.
As a Bomber wife, Joan was asked to appear on a local television show along with other Bomber wives where they would each be asked to cook a favourite dish.
“I made blintzes,” Joan noted.
As luck would have it, “two guys from Manitoba Sugar saw me and asked me to do a regular cooking show on TV.”
It was while appearing on her own cooking show that an editor of the Winnipeg Tribune asked Joan whether she would like to become food editor of that paper, and shortly thereafter, the fashion editor as well.
The next step in Joan’s career came when she was asked whether she would like to become the fashion coordinator for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Regina, also the manager of the Fashion Room in the Bay.
But, as Joan recalled, “at the time the Bay fashions were all centrally coordinated. I hated them all. I decided to go out on my own.”
Thus began the longest segment of Joan’s varied career: as owner of Joan’s Boutique.
It was no simple matter, however, for a woman to strike out on her own in a business at that time, which was in 1976
Having been divorced from George Druxman (who died in 1999), Joan was mother of three boys at the time: Trevor, Greg, and Adam. Two of the boys were married by then.)
“I wanted to set up in an old house,” she recalled.
“I went to see a bank manager who said to me: ‘I’ll have you know fashion retailing is the riskiest business there is.”
Not one to be discouraged, however, a former classmate of Joan’s from Kelvin, Brian Aronovitch, told her there was a house at 34 Carlton owned by lawyer Ken Houston – who wanted to rent out part of the house.
At the same time Joan was introduced to another bank manager who was supportive of her dream of opening her own boutique.
“I opened Joan’s in 1977,” she observed. “Business just took off. It was bursting at the seams.”
Ever on the eye for another opportunity, it was while out for a walk in the neighbourhood of the Carlton store that Joan said she saw a rooming house for sale at 22 Edmonton.
“It was a tax sale,” Joan noted. And so, in 1979, Joan Druxman opened Joan’s Boutique at her new location on Edmonton, where she was to remain for the next 13 years.
“I gutted it and had clothing and accessories on the first and second floors,” she said, “with a hairdresser on the third floor.”
Ever restless, however, Joan decided to move to Vancouver in 1990.
“I saw things there that weren’t happening in Winnipeg,” she observed, including a very large Japanese population.
Joan opened her first store in Vancouver at the corner of 12th and Granville, but soon she came across a better opportunity at Berard and Granville. She approached a former friend from Winnipeg, Karen Simkin, who had also moved to Vancouver and who had opened a little gift shop.
“I invited Karen to move to that new location with me,” Joan said.
Karen’s husband, Garry Simkin, was fully supportive, and so the two women opened a store that was a combination clothing and gift ware store.
As mentioned though, Joan had taken note of how many Japanese tourists there were in Vancouver. Accordingly, as she explained, “I went to Simon Fraser University and learned how to read and write Japanese” so that she would better ingratiate herself with Japanese customers.
Things were going along well until their landlord told Joan and Karen that he was going to be raising the rent to $250,000 a year. (And remember, this was the 1990s. One can well imagine how exorbitant that amount would have been back then.)
So – another career switch for Joan was in the offing: “I decided I’d like to be an actress,” she observed. At the same time she started doing stand-up comedy (as noted at the beginning of this article.)
Ever eager for new challenges, however, Joan decided to apply for a green card and move to Los Angeles –where she began studying acting while working for Nordstrom’s.
“I also got my California real estate license,” she added.
But this was all before Obamacare, Joan noted. “Medical insurance was costing me $1500 a month.”
Joan decided to move back to Winnipeg where, once again, she opened “a little store.”
In 2020, however, with the onset of the Covid pandemic, Joan found she “couldn’t get stuff from Europe” and, as a result, she had to close her store.
“So, I walked into the cosmetics department of the Bay (Polo Park store) and said, ‘I want to see the Chanel manager.’ “
As luck would have it, that manager happened to need someone at the Chanel perfume counter and Joan was hired on the spot.
Which brings us full circle to where Joan started when she only 16 – working again at the Bay.
“Here I am at the Bay working five days a week – and loving it,” she said. “Without a bank manager, without a landlord, and without the tax man.”
But, as Joan observed, she still dresses to the nines – even though now she takes the bus to work. (It stops right in front of her apartment and drops her off right at work, so why not?)
As she noted though, you can imagine the looks she gets from other passengers who see an immaculately dressed woman getting on their bus every day.
One time, Joan said, her regular bus driver asked her: “Are you a celebrity?”
Joan told him she wasn’t, but one day that bus driver happened to be shopping at the Bay with his wife when he spotted Joan at the Chanel counter and said to his wife: “I know her. She rides my bus.”
That’s Joan Druxman for you – more twists and turns than a Gerry Posner story. Some day she ought to write a book. Hey, there’s an idea for her next career move!
Post script: We were informed that the day after Joan Druxman spoke at the Gwen Secter Centre she was involved in a terrible accident when she was coming out of work at the Bay.. It seems that Joan was caught in the midst of a situation where some young boys had been fleeing the store after having stolen some jeans. One of them ran into Joan, knocking her to the ground – which broke her hip. At last report she had undergone hip replacement surgery and had been released from the hospital.
Features
What I miss
By DAVID TOPPER When my late wife, Sylvia, and I moved into the house I’m still in, we brought with us not only our furniture and other things from inside the old house, but some outdoor plants and flowers – even a shrub. The shrub, of course, was small: a young mock orange. Sylvia had a thing about mock oranges, so we dug it up and took it with us to the new house. Then there were irises that we inherited from the previous owners of our first house. I can still recall Sylvia doting over those irises when we moved there in 1971. They were very different varieties from those she was familiar with. I liked them, too. I also remember a rose bush. Well, everyone likes roses. Appropriately, it was red. So, the irises, along with the mock orange and the rose bush were transplanted to the new yard. That was in the summer of 1976.
For reasons that I cannot explain, when it came to plants and such, there was a sort of division-of-plant-labor between us. I took care of all the indoor plants and Sylvia did the outdoor ones. This meant that she only worked during the relatively short span from late spring to early fall, since we live in Winnipeg, Canada. Whereas, I looked over the house plants all year long.
Actually, I can explain something. You may have noticed that when speaking of digging up things I use the plural. This was because Sylvia enjoyed physically working in the yard. This digging urge she acquired in the year after High School that she spent working on a Kibbutz in Israel. It was daily hard physical labor in the field: digging, planting, pruning, picking and so forth. Yet she always talked about it lovingly. That was 1960-61 and I saw the blissful look on her face when working in our yard, from 1971 onward.
In time we had a diverse array of plants and flowers. In no particular order, we had lilacs, peonies, hostas, lilies, day-lilies, irises, roses, tulips, lungwort, elephant ears, clematis, rhubarb and the mock orange (which – along with the irises and roses – had grown quite nicely, since the summer of 1976).
All this lasted until the foremost transition in our lives. Early in 2014 Sylvia was diagnosed as being in an early stage of dementia. Over the next six years, as she drifted deeper into her black hole, I gladly obliged taking over the household chores, some of which I had begun already – such as doing most of the cooking. As for the outdoor tasks from spring through summer, that deeply implanted love of gardening was one of the last things to go from her immediate world. Even when she was not too sure who I was, she was glad to work with me in the yard with a shovel in her hands – and a smile on her face.
Sylvia died in the winter of 2020. Come spring, it was just me and the yard.
I don’t remember if it was that first spring or one later, but one day I noticed that the mock orange looked less robust – so I pruned it. That seemed to work for the summer, but the following spring it lost its vigor. More pruning didn’t help. Thus, slowly, over time, it died off and I dug up what was left.
Around the time I was still fiddling with the mock orange, I noticed the rose bush that Sylvia gave lots of love and care was not looking its usual hearty self. I got the fertilizer that she used to try to revive it, and that seemed to work. But the following year, the bush lost its vitality – and nothing I did (extra watering; keeping it dry) worked to impede the track it was on. In time, the rose bush died, too.
“What’s next,” I shouted to our yard.
The following spring the tulips came up as usual, but didn’t look as healthy as they should. These had a special meaning, since we bought the bulbs on a trip to Holland and planted them ourselves. Obviously, I tried everything I could to bring them back – reading all that the Internet had to say about tulips. Needless to say, that was the last summer for the tulips.
“Oh no,” I cried the following spring, when I first saw the irises. They were up, but not looking very well. This was probably the most difficult loss. I don’t know why, but those irises were part of an exceptional bond between us. Sylvia and I and the irises: their singularity symbolized the uniqueness of our relationship.
The irises were the last to go.
As I write this, the rhubarb still comes up, but it’s not as hearty as it used to be. The rest of the plants are doing fine: lilacs, peonies, hostas, lilies, day-lilies, lungwort, elephant ears and clematis. Incidentally, I also have a unique fondness for the clematis, since I bought it and planted it myself many years ago.
I wish to make clear that I’m not putting forth any causal or symbolic or spiritual or mystical meaning to all this, in relation to Sylvia’s demise. Rather, I’m just telling the story of my personal experience with the plants and flowers in our yard. You may read into it whatever you wish.
Now when I walk about my yard, enjoying the remaining plants and flowers amidst the bushes and trees, I not only see and derive pleasure from all that I still have – but I also “see” what is missing: that mock orange, the rose bush, those tulips and the irises.
It also reminds me what I intimately and ultimately miss.
Tags: bonding |caring |coping |loss |sharing |symbolism
David R. Topper writes in Winnipeg, Canada. His work has appeared in Mono, Poetic Sun, Discretionary Love, Poetry Pacific,Academy of theHeart & Mind, Altered Reality Mag. and elsewhere.
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A “Tour” of Antisemitism in Eastern Europe
By HENRY SREBRNIK As we enter the fourth year of the “October 7” wars, things in Eastern Europe remain dire. There have been dozens of attacks on Jewish institutions across the region.
True, there are a few bright spots. Albania’s prime minister is a surprising ally of Israel in a mostly Muslim country. Edi Rama openly defends Israel’s right to protect itself, and condemns Hamas in extremely harsh terms, calling them the “Nazis of the 21st century.” He notes that waves of Jewish refugees were welcomed over the centuries.
“On the eve of World War II, only about 200 Jews lived in Albania,” he told the Jewish magazine Mishpacha. “After the Holocaust, there were more Jews here than before — about 3,000. We didn’t hand over a single Jew to the Nazis. Seventy-five Albanians are officially recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, but in truth, the entire population mobilized.”
There is also better news from Croatia. Rabbi Pini and Raizy Zaklas moved to the country in 2004 to establish the first Chabad centre on “the land of a thousand islands.” Coming from their native Israel, it took time for them to come to terms with the fears of the Jewish community.
“We spent the first decade just earning their trust,” Raizy explained. “We had to put our grand ambitions aside and choose an individualized approach, fostering relationships through one-on-one meetings at coffee shops. Sometimes we felt disheartened at the slow pace of growth here, and worried we weren’t making progress. But I see in retrospect that we were putting down roots.”
In 2016, the Zaklas purchased a five-story building in the centre of Zagreb. Since then, it has become the spiritual center of Jewish life in the country. It’s a place where hundreds of weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and holiday programs take place annually. It’s a place where more than 3,000 Croatian Jewish men, women, and children find connection with their heritage. And it’s a place where thousands of tourists visit each year.
Less positive is the position of the Czech Jewish community. The Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic registered a total of 4,694 antisemitic incidents in 2024, compared with 2023, when 4,328 cases were reported. The severity of antisemitic incidents dramatically increased following the events of October 7. 2023. Anti-Jewish hatred, particularly in the form of demonization and delegitimization of Israel, became socially accepted and, according to the Federation, dominated public opinion.
In Greece, a spate of incidents in 2025 included a pro-Palestinian protest that blocked Israelis attempting to disembark from a ship in Syros, an alleged attack against Israeli teens in Rhodes, and an attack on King David Burger, a kosher eatery in Athens. Greek Jewish groups condemned an “anti-Zionist patrol” which took place on the streets of Thessaloniki, 95 years after assault squads targeted Jews in the same city. The left-wing anarchist Rouvikonas group organized the “anti-Zionist patrol” heading toward Mavili Square, which they said “Israeli capital has parasitically infiltrated.” They were joined by members of the groups Permanent Struggle for Class Liberation and the Libertarian Initiative of Thessaloniki.
However, in recent years there has been great improvement in formal Greek-Israeli relations, particularly following the disintegration of Israeli relations with Turkey. In August, Israel and Greece finalized a $3.5 billion deal, called the “Achilles Shield,” providing the Hellenic Republic with a multilayered antimissile system designed to protect the European Union country against aerial attacks from nations such as Iran and Turkey. It is one of the largest defence export deals in the history of the Jewish state.
The two countries “share common strategic interests and face shared regional challenges,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz indicated. “At a time when actors with hegemonic ambitions are seeking to expand their influence and undermine stability in the region, Israel and Greece will continue to deepen their defence and strategic cooperation.”
Hungary too is a bright spot. It has stood virtually alone in defending Israel in the European Union. Budapest has consistently blocked one-sided, anti-Israel statements and stood firm on Israel’s right to defend itself. At the United Nations, where Israel is routinely demonized, Hungary has refused to go along with the mob. And not just on the international stage. At home, Hungary walks the walk.
Hungary is home to the largest Jewish community in Central Europe, with estimates ranging from 80,000 to 100,000 Jews, most of them living in Budapest. The city is one of the only capitals in Europe where Jews can freely wear a yarmulke without being harassed, attend synagogue without metal detectors and celebrate Jewish holidays without police guarding the doors of synagogues. The government has invested millions into preserving Jewish heritage sites, restoring synagogues and funding Holocaust education not just as a formality, but as a national priority.
Poland had the highest Jewish population in Europe prior to the Holocaust and was also the site of the Nazi death camps where most European Jews were murdered. It has therefore always been careful to curb expressions of antisemitism since it became a democratic state in 1989.
But the proportion of Polish citizens who dislike Jews has risen to 40 per cent, according to Poland’s Centre for Public Opinion Research’s 2026 findings. Conducted annually since 1993, the survey asks Poles whether they like or dislike various national and ethnic groups (21 in total). It found that the proportion of people saying they dislike Jews rose eight percentage points, more than for any other group.
Still, thousands of people converge on the historic Jewish quarter of Krakow every summer to attend the annual Krakow Jewish Festival. The festival was initially launched three-and-a-half decades ago for a non-Jewish audience as a new generation of young Poles has discovered a shared past in their mixed history.
“We seek to reintroduce the Jewish contribution to Polish culture to mainstream Polish society after many decades under Communism, where Jewish issues were banned in the country, and people didn’t know that Jewish contributed so much to our heritage,” Krakow Jewish Festival director Robert Gadek explained. “Here you have a Jewish festival that is being held in the open air, and everyone feels safe.”
The war in Gaza sparked a wave of antisemitism in Romania, which has a poor track record of protecting its Jews. Antisemitism in Romania today is visible in far-right demonstrations, extremist political movements, and hostile rhetoric in parts of the media. “It’s getting worse,” according to Alexandru Muraru, a member of Romania’s parliament and vice-president of its National Liberal Party, who is not Jewish. “In Western Europe, they have big Muslim communities, which generates antisemitism. In Romania, there are only one or two mosques, but our antisemitism has historical roots.” Indeed, it does. In the 1930s, Greater Romania was home to some 800,000 Jews, giving it the world’s fourth-largest Jewish population after the United States, Poland and the Soviet Union.
“Back then, Jews made up an important proportion of Romanian society,” indicated Gilbert Șaim, who is the gabbai, or custodian, of Bucharest’s famous Choral Temple. “Despite widespread discrimination, there were villages, towns, and cities with large Jewish majorities — even villages established by ethnic Jews centuries ago, like Podu Iloaiei.”
Only 20 per cent of Romanians know about the Holocaust or its wartime role under pro-Nazi puppet Ion Antonescu. Most are unaware of their country’s role in the mass murder and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews during World War II. Antisemitism is expanding on social media, Facebook, TikTok and Telegram, though less visible in traditional mass media. The COVID pandemic amplified conspiracy dating back to the late 19th century. Despite a ban on glorification of Nazi heroes, at the end of November 2024, there was a public ceremony to commemorate a fascist leader.
This past April, the European Parliament lifted the immunity of one of its 33 Romanian members, Diana Sosoaca, the controversial leader of the ultra-nationalist and antisemitic SOS Romania party. Sosoaca, a lawyer, received the honorary Order of the State of for her support of the Palestinian cause.
Although antisemitic incidents are not too common, Serbia, like most other countries in Eastern Europe, also contends with a strong nationalist streak. Around 1,500 Serbs belong to extremist groups, of which perhaps 120 are active. Serbian Action, a small group of neo-Nazis, occasionally holds rallies and spray-paints antisemitic, anti-immigrant and anti-gay graffiti on public buildings.
Israeli and Serbian officials denounced antisemitic comments made by demonstrators during a clash between Serbian students and police at a protest last April. “Death to Vucic and all the Jews around him,” one protester said in a televised interview, referring to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. “Long live Serbia.”
Nemanja Starovic, the Serbian minister of European integration and the chair of Serbia’s delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, called on the protest leaders to “unambiguously condemn these antisemitic incidents and to immediately remove all antisemitic messages and slogans from university premises.”
A cause of uncertainty among Jews in Slovakia is the continuing defence by some traditionalist Slovak Catholic clerics and others of the reputation of Father Jozef Tiso, Slovakia’s most senior perpetrator during the Second World War. Tiso was responsible for extreme anti-Jewish laws and widespread Jewish impoverishment followed by expulsion of most of the country’s Jews to Nazi death camps. Yet there has emerged a whole literature of excuses for him.
As Slovenia takes a hard line against Israel, its tiny Jewish community feels increasingly isolated. Slovenia’s Jews have experienced a pattern of hostility for decades. In June 2024, Slovenia’s parliament voted to recognize a Palestinian state, only one week after Spain, Ireland, and Norway had taken that dramatic step. Half a year later, Slovenian public broadcaster RTV, became the first in Europe to demand Israel’s exclusion from the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest. RTV warned it might boycott future editions of Eurovision if Israel isn’t expelled.
Slovenia banned imports from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, only a week after prohibiting all weapons trade with Israel, the first EU member to do so. It also became the first European Union country to impose a travel ban on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
