Features
Do you want a challenge? Try opening a restaurant in Mexico – four different times in six years
By BERNIE BELLAN In December 2021 Myron Love wrote a story for The Jewish Post & News about former Winnipegger Megan Kravetsky.
How I happened to give Myron that particular assignment was an interesting story in itself. I had begun delivering Meals on Wheels for the Gwen Secter Centre in the summer of 2021 – which, if you can recall, was a period when we were still enduing periodic shutdowns due to Covid. As a result, the Gwen Secter Centre stepped up the number of meals that it began producing – not only for Jewish clients, but for hundreds of non-Jewish clients as well.
I wrote several times about the incredible effort that the staff at Gwen Secter put into producing what ultimately became over 600 meals a week, but that’s not the point of this story. This story is about food though, so there’s a connection.
In any event, beginning in the fall of 2021 I began delivering kosher meals for Gwen Secter on a weekly basis to a number of clients, some of whom some have remained on my list ever since.
One of those clients was a woman by the name of Joanne Field. Like most of my Meals on Wheels clients I developed a nice rapport with Joanne. One day she asked me if I’d be interested in doing a story about her granddaughter, whose name she told me, was Megan Kravetsky. According to Joanne, Megan had been operating a popular restaurant in Puerto Vallarta by the name of Blake’s Bar & Grill, and Joanne thought that readers of the paper who might be heading to Puerto Vallarta that winter would be interested in dropping into Blake’s.
As it turned out, I asked Myron Love to do that story instead of doing it myself because we were coming up to our Chanukah issue at the time and I didn’t have time to talk to Megan and write a story – but I did think that the Chanukah issue presented the perfect opportunity to let readers know about Megan and her restaurant.
That was in December 2021 and, even though my wife and I have been to the Puerto Vallarta area several times – and really love it there, what with Covid putting a crimp in travel plans for several years, it wasn’t until this year that I had the opportunity to head back to Puerto Vallarta. While I was there, I thought, I’d like to touch base with Megan and visit Blake’s myself.
Which is how I came to do a completely different type of story than I expected to write.
You see, Megan Kravetsky’s experiences in Mexico can fill a book – and a good part of that would be a horror story. Try this one on for size: Not only was her business badly affected by Covid in 2020 – just after she had moved into what was then the second location for Blake’s – after having moved from the first location because it was just too small – this past October, after having moved yet again into a different location for Blake’s in what Megan thought was going to be a great location – Hurricane Lidia swept through Puerto Vallarta and Blake’s was forced to close down.
Still, Megan persevered. She had opened another small pop-up restaurant last May called Drop Shot Chill n Grill in an area well known to many Winnipeggers who spend time in Puerto Vallarta, near what is known as the hotel zone. But, in another series of unfortunate circumstances, this time having to do with a very nasty landlady (who repeatedly cut off the electricity to Drop Shot), Megan was forced yet again to close down.
Read on and you’ll find out about the long string of unfortunate events that seem to have accompanied Megan ever since she decided to move to Mexico in 2018, but once you finish reading the story you’re bound to have an immense amount of admiration at how resilient Megan has proven to be.
Here’s some of what Myron wrote in his December 2021 story: “Three years ago, the veteran chef and restaurant consultant came across a deal she couldn’t refuse when she took advantage of an opportunity to buy Blake’s Restaurant and Bar, an established operation in Puerto Vallarta. Megan is now happily living year round in Mexico.
“Now, in truth, the former River Heights kid (Brock Corydon and Grant Park) was no stranger to the Mexican resort community. She notes that her parents, Charles (whose mother is Joanne Field) and Vivian Kravetsky, are long time seasonal residents of the city – spending six months a year there and six months in Winnipeg – and she had visited many times over the years.
“ ‘It was perfect timing,’ she says of her move to Puerto Vallarta.
“ ‘The first year was tough,’ she adds. ‘My Spanish was limited – which made it sometimes difficult to communicate with my staff. Now I am fluent.’
“Kravetsky notes that her original career goal was to become a lawyer (like her father). ‘After five years of university (the University of Manitoba), I realized that that was not what I wanted to do, she recalls.
“Instead, she earned a business degree in management and marketing and went to work in the restaurant industry. She had worked in the restaurant trade part time throughout university. Over the next 15 years, Kravetsky worked successively for the McDonalds chain, Moxie’s, the Olive Garden and Montana Steak House.”
Before I met with Megan on March 16 – at the location of the most recent incarnation of Blake’s Bar & Grill in the port area of Puerto Vallarta known as Puerto Magico, which is where passengers from cruise ships disembark, I had a chance to see for myself the damage that Hurricane Lidia had done to her restaurant. The interior was all covered with tarp, but I was able to see through a hole in the tarp. I was quite surprised to see that the restaurant itself was largely intact – tables and chairs all in place, dishes, utensils and cooking equipment all in place, but the windows to the outside were all blown out. That piqued my curiosity and became the subject of part of our conversation.
Still, as my wife Meachelle and I sat down with Megan to enjoy a beverage in a nearby coffee shop and listen to her story, I couldn’t help but be impressed by Megan’s very positive attitude. As it turns out, Megan had been in my son Jordy’s class at Brock Corydon School (of which I was not aware. Also, somewhat coincidentally, Jordy, who now goes by the name Jitendradas Loveslife, also lives in Mexico, in a town populated by New Age former hippies known as Ajijic.)
I asked Megan how she came to own a restaurant in Puerto Vallarta?
Megan explained that she had gone about as far as she could as a restaurant manger in Winnipeg. As Myron noted, Megan had worked for McDonald’s, Montana’s (helping to open their Kenaston location where she worked as a line cook), Moxie’s Bar & Grill, Olive Garden, also Famous Dave’s – all before she had even turned 30.
Megan had been traveling to Mexico with her parents and siblings for years, she told me, and fell in love with the country. So, in 2018, she took all the savings she had accumulated and bought Blake’s Bar & Grill in downtown Puerto Vallarta, which had first opened in 2006. Before she was able move to Mexico though, Megan had to acquire a residency permit – which was no easy task, she explained.
You see, in order to purchase a business in Mexico, one needs something called an “RFC” (which translates from the Spanish to Federal Taxpayers Number).
As Megan told us, “without that (the RFC) you can’t purchase cars, housing, anything. I got my residency before I moved down. You have to do your residency out of country.”
I asked her how she could become a Mexican resident while still in Canada?
She said, “You apply, you have to make a certain amount of money. So I applied three times – within a six month period. I went to Toronto twice. Applied. Denied. Both times. Went to Calgary” – and finally got her residency permit.
But, there’s something else Megan explained that made the challenge of buying Blake’s even more difficult: She wasn’t able to finance the purchase – she had to pay cash entirely – something, we were also told, is par for the course for just about any major purchase in Mexico, including houses.
But, just because Megan was able to buy Blake’s, she wasn’t able to work in her own restaurant, she told me, until she had a work permit. As she explained, “…so you get one year temporary residency, then you apply for a three year extension after that, and then after that, then you apply for your permanent residency. But temporary residency doesn’t include a work permit. That’s the biggest thing, so I had to apply for my work permit to be attached to my temporary residency.”
Megan, however, had forgotten to apply for a work permit – which she would have needed to work in her own restaurant. “But,” she explained, “then when my daughter was born (in 2019) – because she’s Mexican, I automatically became a permanent resident. So I didn’t have to wait for four years – I only waited two (to become a permanent resident)” – thus allowing her to work in her own restaurant.
Now, while Megan’s initial foray into the restaurant business was quite successful, the first Blake’s Bar was too small to accommodate the high number of customers it was attracting. As Megan put it, “the place was too small. It was a very small… very small restaurant.”
And then, in 2020, Covid hit. While Mexico had no sort of rules requiring masking in public places, it did institute rules governing social distancing – with a six feet distance required between tables. “We could only have two or three tables in at one time during high season,” Megan said.
So, in 2021, Megan moved to another location in Puerto Vallarta, in an area known as Plaza Santa Maria. Things were going really well in that new location. It had become a very popular spot for Canadians, especially Winnipeggers, as Megan made sure all Winnipeg Jets games were shown there. (Megan was in that location when Myron contacted her and she was brimming with confidence when she spoke to him about how well things were going.)
There was one major problem, however, as Megan explained: “The landowner there didn’t pay her taxes. So when you went to go take out your licensing, you have to show proof the taxes are. And if they’re not paid, then you can’t take out your licensing. And she owed back taxes of almost five years, which was over 300,000” (pesos – or about $22,000 Canadian dollars).
“And she didn’t want to pay it. So I had no choice,” Megan noted. As a result, after only one year in what had been a very successful location – even if only for a short while, Megan moved yet again, in 2022 – this time to the Puerto Magico location.
The owners of the building where Megan opened what by then had become the third location for Blake’s in only four years had induced her to move there with all sorts of promises, she said: “They had promised us numerous things that they never completed. The passport office was supposed to open upstairs two years ago. Still not open. Another restaurant was supposed to be up there. We were just alone up there. There’s nothing. They made it impossible for guests to get up the stairs. They wouldn’t fix the elevator. It still doesn’t work to this day. It’s been three years…and the whole thing with that is they don’t want to pay the electricity to have the elevator working.
“So they just made it impossible for the cruise ship people to get upstairs or any people in general to get upstairs.” On top of all that, the owners of Puerto Magico didn’t allow Megan to have any signage on the street which would have told tourists that Blake’s Bar was there.
Still, Megan might have been able to turn things around were it not for that hurricane last October. She had developed a great reputation as a restaurateur. (Just take a look at the glowing reviews on Tripadvisor for Blake’s Bar). In addition, Megan is a fantastic baker and she had opened a bakery known called Sweet Temptations Bakery Boutique next door to Blake’s in Puerto Magico. That closed too the same time as Blake’s when the hurricane hit.
You’d think, however, that notwithstanding the damage that a hurricane might have caused, it would just be a matter of time before things could have been repaired and Blake’s would have been back in business – but that wasn’t the case.
While the interior of the restaurant was left largely intact, the windows had all been blown out. So, it’s just a matter of replacing the windows – right? Or, so you’d think. But this is Mexico – and similar to the landlady who didn’t want to pay her taxes in Blake’s previous location, the owners of Puerto Magico haven’t moved to replace the windows that were blown out.
Here’s how Megan described what happened: “So, the whole thing here, after the hurricane hit, when you construct a building here, the windows and doors are property of the plaza. Doesn’t matter if you put them in, they put them in, it’s property of the plaza. You can’t leave with them. Yeah. Same with the floor. So when the hurricane came through and destroyed everything, the first thing they said to me is our insurance will cover it, our insurance is going to cover it, it’s our property.
“So we waited and waited and waited and waited and about two and a half to three months in, they said, nah, our insurance actually isn’t going to cover it. At that point, my own insurance wouldn’t cover it anymore. It has to be done within 24 hours. That’s just how it is.” (Note to readers: Anyone from Winnipeg could identify with Megan. A building burns down and a pile of rubble remains for years. A bridge closes because it’s unsafe and it sits there – unusable, but with no plan to replace it.)
Not one to let anything get her down though, Megan still had her pop-up restaurant, Drop Shot Chill n Grill. As I mentioned at the beginning of this story though, just recently that site too had to close down.
This time it was the landlady who owned the area where Drop Shot was located that forced Megan to close. While Megan leased the space for her location from an individual who didn’t actually own the land where Drop Shot was situated, he had tennis and pickleball courts there. Apparently though, the woman who actually owned the land didn’t like the loud music coming from Drop Shot – even though it wasn’t in a residential area at all.
Again, here’s how Megan described the situation: “In our contract it stated that I was allowed to have live music, barbecue, blah, blah, blah. The landowner who owns the land, who I don’t lease from, owns the hotel behind the parking where the tennis courts are. And she doesn’t like noise. She doesn’t like any noise. Yet, they have music and tennis tournaments and fairs and they have the food park and all that.
“So, during our live music, she would complain constantly, even though our music was only from 3 to 6 – that her guests, one guest in particular, couldn’t sleep – it was too loud. We always abided by the decibel restriction limit; it was never over the decibel limit.”
The story continued: “So she cut our electricity off once when we had the live music – but the second time she did it, I had a generator. She didn’t know that I had a generator going. So she had cut the electricity, but the music was still playing. So at that point she would call the ‘reglamentals’ – the bylaw officers, who would come check and she’d say, ‘There’s really loud music going on at Drop Shot.’ They would come, they would check, they’d check my permits, everything would be okay, they’d leave. That’s when I called the police on her. They’re my friends. They had a very long conversation with her… told her that it’s illegal to cut the electricity, she can’t do it.”
But, as you might expect, the landlady wasn’t about to back down. “It got to the point where she threatened the guy who I was subleasing from that if he didn’t get rid of me, she was going to get rid of everybody.
“She wouldn’t re sign the contract with him. So he’s had his tennis courts and pickleball courts there for over five years. And she said, ‘if I don’t leave, then everybody’s leaving.’ “
So, once again, Megan has had to abandon what had turned into a successful venture – but after dealing with Covid, a landlady who didn’t want to pay taxes, a hurricane, and a landlady who doesn’t like loud music, you’d have to wonder whether Megan is still willing to enter into yet another food venture?
Not surprisingly, she said she is. I asked her “How real is that? How feasible or viable?”
“Oh, it’s very viable,” she answered. “We’re just waiting on the contract to be signed.” Megan added that she has someone who she wouldn’t describe as a partner in her putative venture, but somebody “that’s going to help me.”
Throughout our conversation I had refrained from bringing up the subject that surely must be in the back of many a reader’s mind when it comes to thinking about doing business in Mexico: What about the cartels? Has Megan had any run-ins with the local cartel I wondered? (And when it comes to cartels, Puerto Vallarta is located in the state of Jalisco. Anyone who knows anything about Mexican cartels would know that the Jalisco cartel has a reputation for extreme violence.)
Megan answered though that “They’re not really that visible here… They keep it very under the table here.”
I said though that “the Jalisco cartel is notorious.”
But, Megan responded, “that’s more towards Sinaloa and Chihuahua.”
Still, given Mexico’s longstanding reputation for corruption at almost every level, I asked Megan, “Did you have to pay off people?”
She answered: No, never, never, never had to pay anybody off. You give back and then, you know, everybody takes care of each other.” She went on to describe the excellent rapport she has had with the local police, for whom she has catered a huge feast known as a “masada” every year, at which over 400 police have attended.
It’s hard to imagine someone coming down to Mexico and, within the space of only six years, opening restaurants (and closing them) in four different locations, yet still remaining optimistic that she’ll be able to open a fifth in short order.
If and when Megan does open another restaurant – I’d sure like to try the food. If the reviews she received on Tripadvisor for each of her locations are any indication, one thing Megan Kravetsky knows is how to prepare great food – and leave her customers with a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Features
WINNIPEG EMPLOYERS SHOULD USE AI TO TRAIN, NOT JUST TRIM
By Dr. GLEB TSIPURSKY Generative AI has already entered everyday Canadian work. Statistics Canada reported that 35.9% of workers used generative AI in the previous 12 months. For Winnipeg employers, the important question is no longer whether staff will use these tools. The more consequential question is what kind of workforce employers will build while they use them.
An updated Stanford University analysis found employment among workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations 19% below where it would be had it kept pace with less-exposed peers, with the gap widening over time. That trend should concern Winnipeg employers because the work most exposed to automation often overlaps with the work through which beginners develop professional judgment.
Entry-level employees do more than produce first drafts, conduct basic research, summarize information, prepare routine analyses, or handle standard customer questions. Those tasks are also training. Repetition teaches people what good work looks like, where common mistakes appear, when a situation is routine, and when something unusual requires escalation.
If employers simply remove that work, they may save time today while weakening the pipeline of people capable of handling harder work tomorrow. A firm can automate a junior task quickly. Rebuilding several years of missing experience later is much harder.
The better approach is to redesign entry-level work around AI-assisted apprenticeship. New employees can use AI to produce a first draft, but they should also verify the output against reliable sources. They can use AI to summarize a customer issue, but they should explain which facts matter and what remains uncertain. They can use AI to analyze routine information, but they should flag exceptions and bring consequential decisions to experienced colleagues.
That changes the role of junior employees without eliminating the learning built into the role. Instead of rewarding people for producing routine work manually, employers can reward them for checking AI output, spotting edge cases, asking better questions, and knowing when human judgment is required.
Managers also need to change how they supervise. If a junior employee submits an AI-assisted answer, the manager should ask how the employee verified it, what assumptions the system made, what could go wrong, and what would cause the employee to escalate the issue. Those questions turn AI use into a training process rather than a shortcut around learning.
Winnipeg’s small and mid-sized employers may be especially well positioned to take this approach. They often cannot afford to separate technology adoption, training, and talent development into different departments. The same manager who wants more productivity today also needs capable employees next year. That makes it practical to connect AI use directly to coaching and skill development.
Employers should also resist measuring AI adoption only by time saved or tasks completed. Those metrics matter, but they can hide whether the organization is developing stronger judgment. A more useful set of questions is whether employees are catching more errors, escalating the right exceptions, becoming more independent over time, and learning which decisions should remain human-led.
None of this requires employers to preserve every old task exactly as it was. Some routine work should disappear. The goal should be to preserve the learning function, not the old workflow. If AI removes one form of repetition, employers should deliberately replace it with another way for junior staff to practice, receive feedback, and encounter progressively harder decisions.
Winnipeg businesses can gain real productivity from AI without turning entry-level work into a dead end. The strongest employers will use AI to accelerate the development of beginners rather than treating beginners as the easiest cost to remove. That approach can improve productivity now while still producing the experienced professionals Winnipeg will need in the years ahead.
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Adapted from: The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results (Georgetown University Press, 2026). https://disasteravoidanceexperts.com/aibook
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a behavioral scientist called the “Office Whisperer” by The New York Times, helps tech-forward leaders stop overpaying for AI while boosting engagement and innovation. He serves as the CEO of the AI consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts, and wrote eight books, including The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work: From Resistance to Results (Georgetown University Press, 2026).
Features
IPL 2026/27 Preview: Beer Sheva Defends Its Crown
Israeli football enters the 2026/27 season with a genuinely open title race for the first time in years. Hapoel Beer Sheva claimed a dramatic sixth championship last May, edging Beitar Jerusalem by just three points after a campaign interrupted by regional conflict and settled almost entirely on head-to-head form. That kind of finish leaves scores unsettled, and every major club has spent the summer either reinforcing a title push or plotting revenge. With four Israeli sides now competing in European qualifiers simultaneously, the new Ligat ha’Al campaign carries more weight than it has in years.
How Beer Sheva Won It
Ran Kozuk’s side did not simply outscore the league last season; they won the moments that mattered against the team chasing them hardest. Beitar Jerusalem lost twice to Beersheba across the regular campaign and could only draw both playoff meetings, a pattern one report summed up bluntly: if you want to be champions, you have to beat the champions, and Beitar never managed it. Kings Kangwa was named the league’s most valuable player, while captain Miguel Vitor and goalkeeper Ofir Marciano anchored a squad that closed out the title with a 4-2 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv. Owner Alona Barkat has kept that core together, giving Beersheba a real shot at back-to-back titles, assuming Champions League fixtures don’t wear the squad down.
Beitar’s Response and the Chase Pack
Losing a title race by three points after leading for large stretches tends to force change, and Beitar Jerusalem has responded accordingly. Almog Cohen, previously the club’s sporting director, has stepped into the head coach role, replacing Barak Itzhaki after the campaign ended in disappointment. Captain Yarden Shua, veteran forward Omer Atzili and Dor Hugi remain the attacking core, though the club opens the season without injured midfielder Adi Yona, a blow given how much Beitar leaned on midfield control last year. Maccabi Tel Aviv arrives with a different kind of statement: despite finishing outside the top two domestically, they won the Israel State Cup in a chaotic 2-1 final against Beersheba that produced six red cards, suggesting the squad has quality to challenge again even if consistency remains the question mark.
The Return of European Football on a Bigger Scale
What separates this season from recent ones is the sheer number of Israeli clubs competing for continental places at once. Beersheba enters Champions League qualifying as domestic champions, though for security reasons their ties have been relocated to Szombathely, Hungary rather than played at home. Maccabi Tel Aviv, seeded thanks to a healthy UEFA coefficient, goes into Europa League qualifying against the winner of Sheriff Tiraspol and Aluminij. Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel Aviv both enter Conference League qualifying, the latter having secured their spot via a fourth-place playoff finish. Playing qualifiers on neutral ground has become routine for Israeli clubs, and it hasn’t stopped them from competing credibly.
Mid-Table Ambition and the Promotion Effect
Beyond the four clubs chasing European nights, the middle of the table looks unusually competitive heading into August. Hapoel Petah Tikva and Hapoel Tel Aviv both returned to the top flight after a season away, and Hapoel Tel Aviv’s playoff run last term shows promoted clubs can climb quickly rather than simply survive. Maccabi Haifa and Ironi Kiryat Shmona, both capable of springing results against the traditional big three, will look to use a full pre-season to close the gap. That added depth tends to produce the unpredictable midweek results that make a 14-team division worth following from the opening whistle.
What to Watch as the Season Kicks Off
Beersheba’s fixture list is the one to track first, since balancing Champions League qualifying with league form in August and September will say a great deal about whether this squad has the depth to go back-to-back. Beitar’s response under a rookie head coach is the second storyline, particularly whether Cohen can get more out of a group that dominated possession last season but couldn’t finish off the champions when it counted. For fans following these storylines match by match, tracking how the market prices each side into the opening rounds is a useful gauge of who bookmakers actually rate, and anyone comparing options for the season ahead can check out the best betting sites in Canada for a sense of how odds and coverage are shaping up before a ball is kicked.
Between a defending champion carrying continental fixture congestion, a rival reshaping its coaching staff, and a deepening mid-table, Ligat ha’Al enters the new season with more storylines running in parallel than it has had in years. Whether Beer Sheva backs up their sixth title or Beitar finally converts near misses into silverware, the opening weeks should offer the first real clues.
Features
Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown (updated August 14)
(Posted August 18, 2026) And the beat goes on in the strait. A bit quieter lately although may be heating up again with the 60day ‘ceasefire’ officially expired. And while Iran occasionally lashed out over the last two months, they did not attack Israel. How do you spell deterrence. According to my Yiddisha mama, its spelled ‘Pftt. Pftt. Pftt‘.
(August 14, 2026) Despite three years of varying degrees of warfare. Moody’s biannual report of the Israeli economy was quite positive. Basically, the report saw no pressures on Israel’s credit rating. While the macro data remains strong, Israel still faces a complex geopolitical situation further complicated by upcoming elections (we pondered about how crazy that is in an earlier muse). And Israeli’s inflation rate for the first half of 2026 fell to a historic five year low of 1.2% (vs Canada’s 2.6%). As for my own pocketbook. Haven’t had an infamous Israeli bank overdraft in years. So all is fine.
If that’s not enough economic voodoo talk for one musing. According to one famous barometer. Israel moved to second place in the Economist’s Big Mac Index. Introduced in 1986, this tasty indicator compares the purchasing power parity across countries by measuring the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac -which most can relate to- against the benchmark U.S. burger. So while a Big Mac in the U.S. costs $6.22. In Israel it costs $7.67, the second most expensive place to buy the hamburger in the world, Switzerland being the most pricey at a whopping (no reference to Wendy’s) $9.04. While the cheapest Big Mac can be enjoyed in Indonesia at only $2.38. Canada ranked 22nd of the fifty-four countries considered, at $5.85. Parity. Smarity. I’m going for my Big Mac fix. Just after I finish writing this muse….
(August 11, 2026) Bravo Boy George. We certainly will dance again! And what better way than with his new reggae tune. Now Boy George is dealing with a hostile backlash against his just stand for Israel. Having to withdraw from London’s East End production of Jesus Christ Superstar where he was going to play – guess it. King Herod. Never a big Culture Club fan, but I am anyway -as a sign of support- going to download his greatest hits to my Spotify library. And hoping to have a chance to buy a concert ticket should Boy George perform in Israel. Kind of reminds me of Bob Dylan’s 1983 song Neighborhood Bully. Also in defense of Israel. I’m going to download that song as well. Although don’t think he was hounded the way Boy George is now. Sign of the times I guess.
+++++
Coming clean. I sometimes find myself chanting, to no one in particular, that snappy little ditty ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Now why can’t we come up with something as catchy. With such an impressive gene pool of great Jewish songwriters. George Gershwin. Irving Berlin. Burt Bacharach. Carole King. Neil Diamond. Leanard Choen. Paul Simon. Gene Simmons, Amy Winehouse. Bob Dylan. And yes, even the Buddhist Boy George. And still… gurnish! No wonder we’re losing the global PR battle
(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 Americal Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2015. And wrote the1998 satire, “An Israeli is….”. Bruce’s visuals are AI-assisted and created with ChatGPT under his inimitable visual concept and creative direction. Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic, irreverent and mischievous insights.
