Features
Former Winnipegger Zev Cohen publishes book of short stories: “Twilight in Saigon”
Former Winnipegger Zev Cohen, who now lives part of the year in Israel and part of the year in Calgary, has just published a book of short stories titled “Twilight in Saigon”. The book is available for purchase on Amazon. Here is how the book is described on Amazon: This eclectic collection of stories crosses genre lines – war, crime, romance, espionage, science fiction, fantasy –
as it moves in time from World War II through the present and into the distant future. Its common thread is humanity and love in the face of adversity.
A journalist finds love and misfortune in the upheaval of the Vietnam war.
Working for the West, a spy is saved from the hands of the KGB.
A straight-laced British accountant finds the love of his life and evil in Hong Kong.
Immigrants grapple with despair, love, and the vicissitudes of life in new surroundings.
Politics, love and tragedy in the life of a president.
Stationed on a distant world, a Terran ambassador adapts to an alien culture as love overcomes sentient diversity.
A loyal android fights for his cruel leader.
Teenage romance during the Six Day War.
A day in a dog’s life.
…and much more
We present here one of the stories from the book, titled “Gulfs and Pleasures”:
I DO NOT RECOMMEND HAVING SEX WHILE WEARING A GAS MASK. BEYOND the empirical fact that it prevents kissing from being part of the act, it’s difficult to breathe during the strenuous effort. Within a couple of seconds, the mask fogs up, and you can’t see a thing. Moreover, the waves of giggling break your concentration. Try imagining what a naked woman and a naked man look like while wearing gas masks. You’d have to agree with me that it looks funny if not grotesque. But when there’s no choice, you do what you must do and enjoy it, if only in a limited way.
I called Orna’s cell phone as soon as the siren went off in the middle of the night. She picked up after the first ring.
“Are you alright? Is he at home?”
“No. Two hours ago, he was called up and ran off to join the guys and play war. I don’t believe that he’ll be back today. Who knows how long it will last? It’s scary, and we didn’t even prepare an airtight room. He insists that there’s no chance that it will hit us of all people. Anyway, what does he care? He’s sitting in the underground bunker ogling the girl soldiers. Nothing will happen to him.”
Orna was one of the regular participants in my first-year course on the history of European art since the Renaissance that I ran in the large lecture hall of the Gillman building. She used to sit in the front row with the other “stenographers.” Those were the co-eds who conscientiously scribbled down every word that came out of my mouth, including flat jokes and burps. She was older than them, mature and sure of her intelligence amid those Barbie dolls. As opposed to them, she would, from time to time, fire a challenging comment that proved she was listening carefully and under- standing. To my shame, or not, I wasn’t attracted to her brains, although they did arouse my curiosity. As I droned along, lecturing on autopilot, my look wandered from her hazel-green eyes to the swell of her breasts and her shapely legs. What could I do? Even a professor is a human being, isn’t he? On a depressing winter’s day, between perusal of desolate seminar papers on the play of light and shadow in Venetian painting and suicidal thoughts, I ran into her in the cafeteria. The usually hectic and packed room was unusually quiet. We were alone, not counting Sonia behind the counter. Perhaps the atmosphere of impending doom chased the regular café denizens away.
I’ll jump forward because there’s not much to say about the develop- ment of our relationship. We didn’t go for in-depth discussions about art, politics, or interpersonal relations. There was no sophisticated seduction or so-called love at first sight. We were two lonely people with their eyes open, who found something in each other that had been missing up to that specific moment. We went for it. For me, her presence filled a void that was characteristic of my life here since returning from New York and a string of what Erica Jong called “zipless fucks.” She never revealed what she found in me. I doubted that it was about my less than god-like physique. I didn’t ask for fear of bursting the bubble. I didn’t want to find out that I was just a reasonable alternative to Amnon, her here again, gone again husband. And the sex was great.
“Amnon will always be Amnon,” I replied with a tinge of baseless hypocrisy. “With or without Iraqi ground to ground missiles, he’ll always look out for number one. Anyway, you always know how to take care of yourself.”
I couldn’t help adding a bit of pretentious and hollow male know it all superiority, and I said, “But he’s right about one thing. The chance that a missile will land on top of you, in Ramat Gan of all places, is tiny.”
“Yes, definitely, Mr. Professor of art history and great international expert on ballistic missiles,” she shot back, taking me down a few notches. “Do you suggest that I drink a glass of water and calm down? In a minute, you’re going to replace Nachman Shai.”
I tried another tack.
“I can be over at your place in a few minutes to set up an airtight room. I’ve been hoarding plastic sheeting obsessively for months, and I’m sure there’s a technical drawing by Da Vinci that could guide me through it.” She giggled. It worked. She could have guessed that my building skills were negligible, but there was nothing like a bit of self-deprecating humor to bring her around and hide the truth. She accepted my generous offer, and I was on my way before she put down the virtual receiver.
The streets were abandoned at that early hour. The oily puddles left by the rain reflected the brake lights of the few cars on the road. On the radio, there was an endless stream of talking and talking. Nobody could say what was happening. Were we hearing distant explosions or just echoing thunder? Should we put on our masks or take them off? It all just went by me. My thoughts focused on expectations of Orna – hot caresses, electrifying touches, sweet breath, erect nipples, wet, wet, wet.
Here’s another suggestion for my male friends. Don’t come to your lovers tight as a spring, heart beating rapidly with passion and sweaty palms. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the first day of war or any other circumstance. You’ll come, in every meaning of the word, and it’ll be over in seconds. Much too quickly.
We were getting ready for another round when the second siren went off. Being good citizens, we put on our masks and checked the limits of human sexual capabilities under the threat of chemical attack. Between bursts of muffled laughter and the pungent smell of rubber, we got a passing grade for the efforts invested.
The cell phone rang, and Orna answered. “It’s him,” her lips expressed silently. Amnon.
“Yes, I understand. I’ll think about it. I’m not sure that it’s a good idea. She must already be hysterical, and she’ll make me crazy too. That’s the situation. Yeah, it’s disgusting, but I got them out of the attic, and if they tell us to, I’ll put on the mask. Be careful. Call me when you can. Kiss, kiss. Bye.”
She looked pale. “It looks as though it’s serious this time,” she explained after the short conversation with her loving and concerned husband. “His unit is moving, and for the next few days, he’s not coming home and won’t be available on the phone.”
“Where is he going? Somewhere around here?” I wasn’t asking because of some sudden fear for Amnon’s safety. I just wanted to weigh the chances that he might show up by surprise and see what the civilians were doing in the rear…at his home.
“He said that it’s secret and he can’t talk about it. He wants me to move in with his mother in Jerusalem until things calm down. You heard what I told him. It’s out of the question.”
Amnon’s secret location was troubling. My plan to get comfortable in Orna’s bed for the next few days has a whiff of danger about it now. Suddenly he calls. Suddenly he’s worried about her and wants to send her to Jerusalem. What is he scheming? He might even show up unannounced to see if she was okay.
There wasn’t much time to consider the options, as the undulating howl of a siren broke the silence. This time we could distinctly hear the distant boom that followed it. The minute that the all-clear sounded, we were in the car on our way to Eilat. We even sang “Heading South to Eilat” loudly on a childish high at 4 a.m. On the Arava highway, we joined a slowly crawling jam of vehicles. It appeared that others, lots of them, came up with Orna’s brilliant idea to get out of the bull’s eye and as far outside of the missiles’ range as possible.
Orna wanted us to move into a holiday apartment in the southern town owned by her former schoolmate, best friend, and current neighbor, Rachel. Thanks to her outstanding bodily dimensions, Rachel had taken up a modeling career that frequently brought her to Paris, London, and New York. She changed her name to Tiffany and, when traveling, left the keys to her apartment and the Eilat hideaway with Orna. She often invited her and Amnon to use the Eilat domicile. I tried to convince Orna to come to a hotel with me to survive the war in bed with room service.
Near Beer Ora, Amnon called again. He heard as we did that a missile had hit Ramat Gan, destroying his and my low probability theory.
“Calm down. I’m still at home, and nothing happened on our street,” she told him. “There was a giant explosion, pretty close by, and the walls shook, but nothing more than that.” The lies slipped off her tongue smoothly. What else could she say?
“I might go to your mother’s later. In the meantime, if you can’t reach me on the phone, it’s because I’m down in the shelter. I don’t trust that plastic sheeting that we don’t have anyway.”
After saying goodbye with kisses, she reported no chance that he would make it home in the coming days. He must make do with the underwear he took with him. I breathed easier.
In Eilat, we dragged from hotel to hotel, the bed and room service plan falling to pieces. The same scene played out everywhere. Lobbies had turned into battlefields between separate Jewish combatants. Israel war-time solidarity gave way to exchanges of curses, pushing and shoving, and an awakening of Sephardi-Ashkenazi infighting. Never did hotel managers discover so many long-lost close friends from school and the army, relatives on the side of granny from Afula, and various other people with exclusive rights. Everyone was squeezing up against the reception desks trying to get hold of even the smallest partially furnished closet. It was a nightmare. In one of the luxury properties, the security guards were unsuccessfully attempting to take apart an outpost of suitcases and sleeping bags established by two families with a hive full of nervous brats.
Again, it’s Amnon on the phone. Orna shouldn’t try to reach him at his unit. He won’t be available due to radio silence and communications security. That’s fine, I thought. The walls have ears.
We dredged up Orna’s original plan. In a few minutes, we found the holiday apartment building. It was a nondescript structure with balconies overlooking a dilapidated neighborhood minimarket. The elevator was out of service, so we climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. On each landing, we stopped for a couple of moments of hurried necking, expecting what was coming. Hands were sent out to intimate parts, lips locked, tongues writhed. As Orna tried to fish the keys out of her bag while loosening my belt, I was busily unbuttoning her blouse to get at her bra.
The door opened, and we fell into the apartment. A pleasantly cold gust of air from the air conditioner welcomed us in. Someday had left it on since the last visit. We couldn’t wait for the bed. Clothes were rapidly removed and thrown aside, and the plush carpet hosted our vigorous sexual duet.
Eventually, things calmed down, and we could hear muffled, unidenti- fiable voices coming from somewhere else in the apartment: mumbling, quiet moaning, a cadence of creaking. We got up to check the noises that seemed to be coming from behind the closed but flimsy door of the bedroom. Just in case, I picked up a thick rolling pin in the kitchen. I pushed the door open, and no terrorist jumped me. Only Orna’s somewhat hysterical laughter penetrated my consciousness. Amnon pulled back from between Tiffany/Rachel’s legs spread wide as though bitten by a snake and stared at us incredulously.
Features
Are Niche and Unconventional Relationships Monopolizing the Dating World?
The question assumes a battle being waged and lost. It assumes that something fringe has crept into the center and pushed everything else aside. But the dating world has never operated as a single system with uniform rules. People have always sorted themselves according to preference, circumstance, and opportunity. What has changed is the visibility of that sorting and the tools available to execute it.
Online dating generated $10.28 billion globally in 2024. By 2033, projections put that figure at $19.33 billion. A market of that size does not serve one type of person or one type of relationship. It serves demand, and demand has always been fragmented. The apps and platforms we see now simply make that fragmentation visible in ways that provoke commentary.
Relationship Preferences
Niche dating platforms now account for nearly 30 percent of the online dating market, and projections suggest they could hold 42 percent of market share by 2028. This growth reflects how people are sorting themselves into categories that fit their actual lives.
Some want a sugar relationship, others seek partners within specific religious or cultural groups, and still others look for connections based on hobbies or lifestyle choices. The old model of casting a wide net has given way to something more targeted.
A YouGov poll found 55 percent of Americans prefer complete monogamy, while 34 percent describe their ideal relationship as something other than monogamous. About 21 percent of unmarried Americans have tried consensual non-monogamy at some point. These numbers do not suggest a takeover. They suggest a population with varied preferences now has platforms that accommodate those preferences openly rather than forcing everyone into the same structure.
The Numbers Tell a Different Story
Polyamory and consensual non-monogamy receive substantial attention in media coverage and on social platforms. The actual practice rate sits between 4% and 5% of the American population. That figure has remained relatively stable even as public awareness has increased. Being aware of something and participating in it are separate behaviors.
A 2020 YouGov poll reported that 43% of millennials describe their ideal relationship as non-monogamous. Ideals and actions do not always align. People answer surveys about what sounds appealing in theory. They then make decisions based on their specific circumstances, available partners, and emotional capacity. The gap between stated preference and lived reality is substantial.
Where Young People Are Looking
Gen Z accounts for more than 50% of Hinge users. According to a 2025 survey by The Knot, over 50% of engaged couples met through dating apps. These platforms have become primary infrastructure for forming relationships. They are not replacing traditional dating; they are the context in which traditional dating now occurs.
Younger users encounter more relationship styles on these platforms because the platforms allow for it. Someone seeking a conventional monogamous partnership will still find that option readily available. The presence of other options does not eliminate this possibility. It adds to the menu.
Monopoly Implies Exclusion
The framing of the original question suggests that niche relationships might be crowding out mainstream ones. Monopoly means one entity controls a market to the exclusion of competitors. Nothing in the current data supports that characterization.
Mainstream dating apps serve millions of users seeking conventional relationships. These apps have added features to accommodate other preferences, but their core user base remains people looking for monogamous partnerships. The addition of new categories does not subtract from existing ones. Someone filtering for a specific religion or hobby does not prevent another person from using the same platform without those filters.
What Actually Changed
Two things happened. First, apps built segmentation into their business models because segmentation increases user satisfaction. People find what they want faster when they can specify their preferences. Second, social acceptance expanded for certain relationship types that previously operated in private or faced stigma.
Neither of these developments amounts to a monopoly. They amount to market differentiation and cultural acknowledgment. A person seeking a sugar arrangement and a person seeking marriage can both use apps built for their respective purposes. They are not competing for the same resources.
The Perception Problem
Media coverage tends toward novelty. A story about millions of people using apps to find conventional relationships does not generate engagement. A story about unconventional relationship types generates clicks, comments, and shares. This creates a perception gap between how often something is discussed and how often it actually occurs.
The 4% to 5% practicing polyamory receive disproportionate coverage relative to the 55% who prefer complete monogamy. The coverage is not wrong, but it creates an impression of prevalence that exceeds reality.
Where This Leaves Us
Niche relationships are not monopolizing dating. They are becoming more visible and more accommodated by platforms that benefit from serving specific needs. The majority of people seeking relationships still want conventional arrangements, and they still find them through the same channels.
The dating world is larger than it was before. It contains more explicit options. It allows people to state preferences that once required inference or luck. None of this constitutes a takeover. It constitutes an expansion. The space for one type of relationship did not shrink to make room for another. The total space grew.
Features
Matthew Lazar doing his part to help keep Israelis safe in a time of war
By MYRON LOVE It is well known – or at least it should be – that while Israel puts a high value of protecting the lives of its citizens, the Jewish state’s Islamic enemies celebrate death. The single most glaring difference between the opposing sides can be seen in the differing approach to building bomb shelters to protect their populations.
Whereas Hamas and Hezbollah have invested untold billions of dollars over the past 20 years in building underground tunnels to protect their fighters while leaving their “civilian” populations exposed to Israeli bombs, not only has Israel built a highly sophisticated anti-missile system but also the leadership has invested heavily in making sure that most Israelis have access to bomb shelters – wherever they are – in war time.
While Israel’s bomb shelter program is comprehensive, there are still gaps – gaps which Dr. Matthew Lazar is doing his bit to help reduce.
The Winnipeg born-and raised pediatrician -who is most likely best known to readers as a former mohel – is the president of Project Life Initiatives – the Canadian branch of Israel-based Operation Lifeshield whose mission is to provide bomb shelters for threatened Israeli communities.
Lazar actually got in on the ground floor – so to speak. It was a cousin of his, Rabbi Shmuel Bowman, Operation Lifeshield’s executive director, who – in 2006 – founded the organization.
“Shmuel was one of a small group of American olim and Israelis who were visiting the Galilee during the second Lebanon war in 2006 and found themselves under rocket attack – along with thousands of others – with no place to go,” recounts Lazar, who has two daughters living in Israel. “They decided to take action. I was one of the people Shmuel approached to become an Operation Lifeshield volunteer.
Since the founding of Lifeshield, Lazar reports, over 1,000 shelters have been deployed in Israel. The number of new shelter orders since October 7, 2023 is 149.
He further notes that while the largest share of Operation Lifeshield’s funding comes from American donors, there has been good support for the organization across Canada as well.
One of the major donors in Winnipeg is the Christian Zionist organization, Christian Friends of Israel (FOI) Canada which, in September, as part of its second annual “Stand With Israel Support” evening – presented Lazar and Operation Lifeshield with a cheque for $30,000 toward construction of a bomb shelter for the Yasmin kindergarten in the Binyamina Regional Council in Northern Israel.
Lazar reports that to date the total number of shelters donated by Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry (globally) is over 100.
Lazar notes that the head office for Project Life Initiatives is – not surprisingly – in Toronto. “We communicate by telephone, text and Zoom,” he says.
He observes that – as he is still a full time pediatrician – he isn’t able to visit Israel nearly as often as he would like to. He manages to go every couple of years and always makes a point of visiting some of Operation Lifeshield’s projects.
(He adds that his wife, Nola, gets to Israel two or three times a year – not only to visit family, but also in her role as president of Mercaz Canada – the Canadian Conservative movement’s Zionist arm.)
“This is something I have been able to do to help safeguard Israelis,” Lazar says of his work for Operation Lifeshield. “This is a wonderful thing we are doing. I am glad to be of help. ”
Features
Patterns of Erasure: Genocide in Nazi Europe and Canada
By LIRON FYNE When we think of the word genocide, our minds often jump to the Holocaust, the mass-scale, systemic government-led murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, whose unprecedented scale and methods led to the very term ‘genocide’ being coined. On January 27th, 2026, we will bow our heads for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 80th year of remembrance.
Less frequently do we connect genocidal intent to the campaign against Indigenous peoples in Canada; the forced displacement, cultural destruction, and systematic killing that sought to erase Indigenous peoples. The genocide conducted by the Nazis and the genocidal intent of the Canadian government, though each unique in scale, motive, and implementation, share many conceptual similarities. Both were driven by ideologies of racial superiority, executed through governmental precision, and justified by the perpetrators as a moral mission.
At their core rests the concept of dehumanization. In Nazi Germany, Jews were viewed as subhuman, contaminated, and a threat to the ‘Aryan’ race. In Canada, Indigenous peoples were represented as obstacles to ‘progress’ and seen as hurdles to a Christian, Eurocentric nation. These ideas, this dehumanization, turned human beings into problems to be solved. Adolf Hitler called it the ‘Jewish question,’ leading to an official policy in 1942 called the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question,’ whereas Canadian officials called it the ‘Indian problem.’ The language is similar, a belief that one group’s existence endangers the destiny of another. The methods of extermination differed in practice and outcome, but the language of intent resembles one another.
The Holocaust’s concentration camps and carefully engineered gas chambers were designed for efficient, industrial-scale killing, resulting in mass murder. The well-organized plan of systematic degradation, deadly riots, brutal camp conditions, and designated killing centres were only a few of the ways the Nazis worked to eliminate the Jews. The Canadian government’s weapons were policy, assimilation and abandonment. Such as the Indian Act, reserves, and residential schools, which were all meant to ‘kill the Indian in the child,’ cutting generations off from their languages, families, and cultures. Thousands of Indigenous children died in residential schools, buried in unmarked graves near schools that called themselves places of learning. Both systems were backed by either religion or ideology; Nazi ideology brought together racist eugenic policies and virulent antisemitism, while Canada’s genocidal intent was supported by Christian Protestantism claiming to save Indigenous souls by erasing their heritage.
The Holocaust was a six-year campaign of complete industrialized extermination, mass murder with a mechanized intent, on a scale that remains historically unique. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission describes Canada’s indigenous genocide as a cultural one that unfolded over centuries through assimilation and the destruction of indigenous languages and identities. The Holocaust ended with the liberation of the camps and a global recognition of the atrocities committed. However, the generational trauma and dehumanization of antisemitism carry on. For Indigenous peoples in Canada, the effects of the genocidal intent continue to this day, visible in displacement, poverty, and intergenerational trauma. While these histories differ in form and timeline, both are rooted in dehumanization and the belief that some lives are worth less than others.
A disturbing similarity lies in the aftermath: silence and denial. The Holocaust forced the world to confront the atrocity with the vow of ‘Never Again,’ which has now been unearthed and reformed as ‘Never Again is Now,’ after the October 7th, 2023, massacre by Hamas. The largest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust, and the denial of the atrocities committed on October 7th, highlight the same Holocaust denial we see rising around the world. In Canada, for decades, the genocidal intent was hidden behind narratives of kindness and social progress. Only in recent years, through survivor testimony for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the discovery of unmarked graves, has the truth gained recognition. But acknowledgment without justice risks repeating the same patterns of erasure.
Comparing these atrocities committed is not about comparing pain or scale; it is about understanding the shared systems that enabled them. Both demonstrate how racism, superiority, and dehumanization can be used to justify the destruction of human beings. Remembering is not enough in Canada. True remembrance demands accountability, land restitution, reparations, and education that confronts Canada’s ongoing colonial legacy. When we say ‘Never Again is Now’, we hold collective action to combat antisemitism in all forms. The same applies to Truth & Reconciliation; it must be more than a slogan; we must apply action to Truth & ReconciliACTION.
Liron Fyne is a 12th-grade student at Gray Academy of Jewish Education in Winnipeg. They are currently a Kenneth Leventhal High School Intern at StandWithUs Canada, a non-profit education organization that combats antisemitism.