Features
Individuals like Jonathan Strauss, who stayed in Winnipeg rather than leave when opportunity beckoned elsewhere, are key to sustaining the vibrancy of our community
By BERNIE BELLAN In the September 27 print edition of The Jewish Post & News I wrote an article showing how much inflation has had a very negative effect on the amounts that our Jewish Federation has been allocating to the 12 beneficiary agencies of the Federation.(You can read about those cuts elsewhere on this website.) What I wrote in the print issue is that the fact that the Federation has had to reduce allocations to the agencies this year by over $200,000 brings home a point I have been making for years, which is that the demographics of our Jewish community are changing considerably – and not for the better.
In years past the Federation could count on increased contributions to the Combined Jewish Appeal from one year to the next and the beneficiary agencies could expect to receive at least as much in allocations from the Federation as they had the previous year.
And, although there was a slight increase in the total amount raised by the CJA this past year over the previous year, the amount raised in the 2022-23 campaign was only $50,000 more than what had been raised in the 2021-22 campaign.
As I also noted in my article reporting on the decrease in allocations to agencies in our last issue, the Federation had been able to increase allocations to the agencies in the previous two years only by dipping into its reserve fund to the tune of $100,000 both those years – and that was not sustainable on an ongoing basis.
Yet, the impact of the cuts to agencies will not be nearly as severe as one might have expected for two reasons: As I also noted in my article in the September 13 issue, there was a substantial increase in grants given by the Jewish Foundation this past year. Secondly, many of the beneficiary agencies have established endowment funds that have been yielding returns such that they have been able to mitigate to some extent the impact of the cuts that have now been imposed by the Federation.
Certainly, the financial health of our community institutions is not in immediate jeopardy as a result of decisions that have been made by planners in the past, also thanks to the generosity of donors who have now passed on but who left substantial gifts either directly to the Jewish Foundation or to many of the agencies,, as the case may have been.
But, what of the future? Our Jewish community is an aging community and, while there has been an influx of new blood over the past 30 years, many of the members of the Jewish community who could be counted on to provide financial support for community institutions have disappeared from the scene. In many cases their children are continuing to provide that same level of support – but one wonders whether that will continue very much longer?
Further, there has been an ongoing exodus of Jewish Winnipeggers over the years to other cities – which has only been exacerbated in more recent years by many older – and now retired members of our community, moving to other cities to be closer to their children and grandchildren. While I can’t pin a specific figure as to how many Jewish Winnipeggers fit into the category of ex-Winnipeggers, anecdotally I have been at the receiving end of a constant stream of phone calls or emails over the years from subscribers asking me either to change their address to another city or, as is often the case, simply cancelling the paper when they leave Winnipeg.
That is why it was so refreshing to hear from one young member of our community who chose to stay in Winnipeg when he could easily have made the move to another city when opportunity beckoned.
That individual is Jonathan Strauss, who was the recent guest speaker at the Remis lecture forum, held weekly at the Gwen Secter Centre (and which will be going until the end of October this year).
Jonathan told the audience at the Gwen Secter on Thursday, September 21 how he’s managed to succeed as an entrepreneur in a wide variety of fields, all the while maintaining his residence in Winnipeg, even while servicing clients in many different cities.
His foray into the business word began when Jonathan was only 16, in 1995, he observed – after just having completed Grade 10. He first started working for a publication known as the Computer Post, and when the owners of that publication found themselves in financial difficulty Jonathan had the courage to dare to offer to buy the business from them – which he did.
Still in high school, but now with an entrée into the world of computer retailing through the Computer Post, Jonathan began to organize a computer expo for computer manufacturers and retailers to showcase their products.
Possessed with a formidable communication ability Jonathan was able to transition from organizing annual computer expos to an entire world of event management, under the name Strauss Event Management.
In time, moreover, Jonathan’s networking skills allowed him not only to develop a thriving event management company, but also to begin providing management services for many non-profit associations to the point where his company now provides those services for 13 different associations.
In describing how he came to acquire such a keen ability to network, Jonathan paid particular tribute to Brian Scharfstein, who served as a mentor for Jonathan in the early years of his company. He also mentioned Steve Kroft as someone who has provided great advice over the years.
At the same time Jonathan has been eager to participate in volunteering within the Jewish community, he said, including serving on the boards of Gray Academy and the Asper Campus (were he is the Gray Academy representative on that board). As well, he noted, he has been active in the Rady JCC Sports Dinner for many years.
Jonathan Strauss is not unique in his having decided to remain in Winnipeg, fashion a successful career as an entrepreneur, and play an active role within the Jewish community, but for every Jonathan Strauss I could probably name a great many others who didn’t stay in Winnipeg.
I remarked to Jonathan that several years ago I decided to undertake an analysis of where every single recipient of a scholarship from the Jewish Foundation in a particular year (that I chose at random) had ended up.
I said that what I discovered was that while many of the scholarship recipients who had pursued educations in health related fields, including nursing, dentistry, and medicine, had remained in Winnipeg, the scholarship recipients who chose to enter into business had by and large left Winnipeg.
In response to that observation Jonathan had a very interesting thought. He suggested that, while prior to Covid what I discovered about where young people ended up may have been true for the most part, if I were to undertake a similar study in a few years time, Jonathan predicted that I would discover a great many more young people will have decided to stay in Winnipeg.
The reasons are not difficult to decipher, he suggested: the extraordinarily high cost of housing in cities like Toronto and Vancouver and the incredibly long commute times if your dream is to own a house somewhere that is anywhere close to affordable. Added to that, Jonathan gave his own business as an example of being able to offer services to clients in many different cities that makes no difference where his services are located. (He even gave as an example his having three employees in El Salvador. Jonathan has never met them, he explained, but they’re as much a part of his business as anyone here – to the point that they celebrate birthdays together over the internet as if they were all in the same location.)
I said to Jonathan that, given the negative appeal that living in a city such as Toronto would hold for so many young people, especially those with young families, I’ve often wondered why our Jewish community has never made a more concerted effort to attract families from a city like Toronto.
The reason, I suppose, that our Federation is quite willing to roll out the welcome mat for prospective migrants here from distant lands, but has never made any sort of an effort to attempt to attract Torontonians, for instance, is that Toronto’s own Jewish Federation might find that highly offensive.
And yes, there have been instances of former Jewish Winnipeggers returning to Winnipeg from other cities – and settling in wonderfully here, but wouldn’t it be something if a trickle would turn into a torrent?
The key to the future of our Jewish community here is having more Jonathan Strausses decide to stay here – or perhaps return from cities in which they are now living. The alternative is for our Jewish community institutions to rely increasingly on the past generosity of donors who laid the groundwork for the sustainability of those institutions, but without an ever growing source of new donors to our Federation and its beneficiary agencies, the cut in allocations that occurred this year will very likely turn into a regular pattern.
Features
River Heights home close to school & synagogue
Blending timeless character with thoughtful modern updates, this beautifully maintained River Heights home offers comfort, style, and everyday functionality. Bright living spaces, a finished basement, a private backyard, and a double detached garage make it ideal for families, professionals, or anyone looking to enjoy one of Winnipeg’s most sought-after neighbourhoods. Conveniently located close to schools, parks, cafés, shopping, and everyday amenities, this move-in-ready home is ready for its next chapter.
•
Features
Will the Democratic Socialists of America control the Democratic Party?
By HENRY SREBRNIK On June 23, radical Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates backed by New York mayor Zohran Mamdani won multiple Democratic Party primaries in New York City and elsewhere in the state. They also were victorious in other parts of the country.
The socialist victories in New York far surpassed anyone’s predictions. Who, three years ago, could have predicted that a Muslim anti-Zionist would be elected mayor of a city with 900,000 Jews and would lead insurgents to victories in that party’s primaries in 2026? Yet here we are.
Marxist Third Worldist ideology has moved out of the universities into the polling booths, after campus activism, divestment campaigns, and social media have reinforced an anti-Israeli framework for years. The DSA’s platform states it plainly: It pledges “support for Palestinian self-determination against Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”
The mayor, a long-standing DSA member, worked overtime to appear at countless campaign events for a trio of candidates he dubbed “the Team”: Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Brad Lander. The last two unseated incumbent Democratic congressmen. Mamdani has assembled a coalition in New York City that is capable of elevating like-minded candidates to office.
In the Seventh Congressional District, which straddles northern Brooklyn and southwestern Queens, an open primary to replace retiring progressive Rep. Nydia Velázquez saw State Assembly Member Claire Valdez’s’s defeat Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. She was even further left than Mamdani himself. In the end, it was not even close: Valdez prevailed with 56.1 per cent of the vote to Reynoso’s 35.8 per cent.
In 2019, Valdez joined the DSA after seeing the rise of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and state senator Julia Salazar, both of whom were elected with the DSA’s help. Valdez emphasized her anti-Israel activism as a key part of her campaign. At events, her staff handed out signs that said “Free Palestine.” She launched her campaign alongside Mahmoud Khalil, a key anti-Israel leader at Columbia University that the Donald Trump administration has tried to deport.
Valdez referred to Israel’s war against Hamas as a “genocide” as early as October 13, 2023. She lambasted police for restraining anti-Israel mobs chanting “Globalize the Intifada” and waving Hezbollah flags outside a Brooklyn synagogue last June. “New Yorkers don’t just have the right to protest the sale of stolen Palestinian land — they have a responsibility to,” she declare. She has repeatedly criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). She also boasted on social media of having “wiped my hand on the American flag.”
In the Thirteenth Congressional District, covering the upper Manhattan neighborhoods of Harlem, Washington Heights, and Morningside Heights and parts of the West Bronx, Darializa Avila Chevalier won a much more startling victory over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a five-term incumbent Democratic Party power broker and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Espaillat’s campaign was heavily backed by AIPAC. Chevalier defied expectations and won by gaining 49 per cent to Espaillat’s 46 per cent. She told the crowd at her watch party that she had fought against the “Democratic machine.” Espaillat lost despite the backing of Democratic leaders in Congress and the state, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and Julie Menin, speaker of the New York City Council.
When Chevalier, draped in a keffiyeh, first announced her candidacy in November of last year, few outside her immediate circle knew her name. But her message was clear: she presented herself as an organiser working to unite families torn apart by the immigration system and against “what we all know is a genocide in Palestine.”
Chevalier has publicly proclaimed her hatred for Israel, the United States, and “Western civilization” as a whole. She has called for the abolition of prisons, open borders and an end to deportations — even for people convicted of violent crimes. As a student at Columbia University, she was involved in Students for Justice in Palestine. In 2024, she returned to her alma mater to help organize an anti-Israel encampment that was ultimately disbanded by the police.
She co-founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest: “We are Westerners fighting for the eradication of Western Civilization. We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our intifada is an Internationalist one,” it states.
The day after the October 7 attack, Chevalier attended an anti-Israel demonstration in Times Square. “I can only say I have been advocating for the human rights of Palestinians for my adult life,” when asked about her attendance at the rally. Chevalier has said that her conversion to Islam was inspired by the Israel-Hamas war. Mamdani celebrated her win, describing Chevalier as a person “of clarity, of conscience and of conviction.”
The war was also on the minds of voters in former Comptroller Brad Lander’s race against another AIPAC-funded incumbent, Rep. Dan Goldman, in New York’s Tenth District, covering lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn. Both are Jewish, but Goldman has been a steadfast friend of Israel while Lander is the quintessential anti-Zionist and a key faction of his coalition was anti-Israel. It was a contest that laid bare the party’s divisions over the Israel-Gaza war.
At his son Marek’s bris, Lander gave a speech lambasting Israel. “We pray fervently that by the time you read this, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the settlements, the house demolitions, the violence will be history,” which was later reprinted in a 2003 book titled Wrestling with Zion. Lander enjoyed the night’s biggest victory, winning 65.8 per cent of the vote to Goldman’s 34 per cent. Many Democrats have suggested that Lander has proved useful to Mamdani and other leftists who have been accused of antisemitism for singling out the Jewish state for opprobrium.
In the run-up to Election Day, a chain of Brooklyn coffee shops called Poetica posted that it would have barred Goldman entry had they recognized him during a recent visit to their storefront. “We don’t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers,” Poetica declared. “Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.”
At the state level, seven of the eight candidates endorsed by the DSA for the New York State legislature also won their primary elections. One of them is Aber Kawas, a Queens-based community organizer. If she, as expected, wins in November, she will be the first Palestinian woman elected to state office in New York history.
“Were defeated congressmen Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat insufficiently anti-Trump?” asked Will Rahn, a senior editor and writer for The Free Press, rhetorically, in a June 26 column. “Of course not. They lost because they aren’t anti-Israel enough. ‘Free Palestine’ is now the binding issue on the left, the only thing that actually matters.” No matter who you are, how you identify, or what causes you’ve championed, if you refuse to fall in line on Israel, you risk being ostracized from communities you’ve long called home.
For most of the postwar era, support for Israel was one of the least controversial positions in Democratic Party politics. That consensus has not merely weakened; it has collapsed. Once viewed as a righteous anti-colonial cause, Zionism has been reframed by radical thinkers as the ideology of a colonial oppressor of stateless Palestinians. Opposition to Israel is now the litmus test in Democratic Party politics. “There’s a cliff, and we’re heading towards it,” warned Daniel C. Kurtzer, a Princeton University professor who was ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush.
The DSA has now built an entire ecosystem that runs parallel to the official Democratic apparatus, equipped with their own consultant network, endorsing organizations, donors and even billionaires who back them.
A generation after Pat Buchanan was denounced as an antisemite by all proper liberals for saying things like “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory,” will the left now embrace him as a “premature antizionist”? Even satire can’t match this.
Think about it: Since October 7, Israel has done what every other country viciously attacked by implacable enemies throughout history has done: It has lashed back in a defensive war. This is a policy that any state that cared for the life of its citizens would have to adopt.
Yet Israel has become the “omnicause.” That’s why antisemitism and antizionism are two sides of the same coin: hatred of Jews. Jews around the world aren’t being attacked because of Israel. Israel is itself being condemned because it’s Jewish.
American Jews have been blindsided by this, as the French writer Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, senior envoy for Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tells us in a brilliant article, “Stand Up,” Tablet, July 6, 2026. “When anti-Jewish hostility arrives wrapped in the language of liberation, antiracism, decolonization, and human rights –when it emerges among allies, colleagues, students, professional peers, or other minority communities — the disorientation is deeper. It is inside the world in which one has built a life. It speaks in familiar accents. It borrows cherished values.”
In “A Profound Question Haunting Jews Today,” New York Times, July 6, 2026, Nicholas Lemann, the former dean of the Columbia University Journalism School, agrees. He writes that for half a century or more, American Jews could achieve, “through being successful, culturally Jewish, Zionist, liberal and not especially observant,” a status that elsewhere has persistently eluded them.
“This set of certainties has evaporated. Today, Israel is the pariah nation of the world, and ‘Zionist’ has become an epithet, something it’s unacceptable to be, at least in progressive circles,” where most Jews have usually found themselves.
So, are the Democrats going to become America’s anti-Israel party? And then what?
Henry Srebrnik is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Discover Your Ultimate Smooth at Sets on Corydon: Nanoplasty vs. Keratin vs. Japanese Straightening
Are you ready to wake up with flawless, effortless hair every single day? While standard straightening methods try to fit everyone into the same box, your hair has its own unique structure, strength, and history.
We offer three distinct, state-of-the-art smoothing and straightening systems. Finding the perfect match depends entirely on your hair type, your lifestyle, and your ultimate hair goals.
Here is exactly how they compare so you can choose the path to your most beautiful, resilient hair.
The Treatment Breakdown
1. The Elite Standard: Nanoplasty (Our Premier Selection)
Nanoplasty is a revolutionary, high-technical smoothing treatment that works at a deep cellular level. Using nanotechnology, nutrients and amino acids are deeply integrated right into the hair cortex (the inner core of the hair strand). It heals, seals, and straightens from the inside out without harsh chemicals.
- How it works: It uses an acidic formula triggered by specialized infrared heat to realign the hair bonds. It does not just coat the cuticle; it restructures it while infusing massive hydration.
- The Finish: Ultra-glossy, high-shine, sleek, and straight, while retaining natural movement and zero frizz.
- The Big Benefit: Formulated without formaldehyde or harsh chemicals. There are no fumes, no burning eyes, and you can wash your hair or tie it up the very same day.
- Longevity: Lasts up to 4 to 6 months.
2. The Classic De-Frizzer: Keratin Treatment
The traditional choice for managing unruly texture. Keratin acts like a protective shield, filling in the cracks along a compromised or distressed hair cuticle (the protective outer layer).
- How it works: A liquid keratin formula is sealed into the outer layer of the hair with a flat iron.
- The Finish: Soft, smooth, and incredibly manageable. It reduces curl volume by roughly 50 to 70% and completely deletes frizz, but leaves some of your natural body and bounce.
- The Big Benefit: Ideal for hair that has undergone chemical stress or bleaching. It acts like a temporary protein bandage to restore softness and cut your blow-dry time in half.
- Longevity: Lasts 3 to 4 months, gradually washing out over time.
3. The Permanent Sleek: Japanese Straightening (Thermal Reconditioning)
For those who want absolute, pin-straight hair that defies high humidity and never reverts.
- How it works: This is a permanent chemical process that physically breaks down the internal bonds of the hair, which are then precision-ironed perfectly flat and neutralized to lock in the new shape forever.
- The Finish: Mirror-smooth, pin-straight, glassy hair with zero wave or curl.
- The Big Benefit: It is completely permanent on the hair that is treated. Rain, humidity, and workouts will not change it. Only your new root growth will need touching up.
- Longevity: Permanent (requires root touch-ups every 6 to 9 months).
Which One Is Right For You?
| Feature | Nanoplasty | Keratin Treatment | Japanese Straightening |
| Primary Goal | Deep cellular repair, sleek straightening, intense gloss. | Frizz elimination, volume reduction, softer texture. | Permanent, absolute pin-straight results. |
| Hair Condition | Healthy to moderately sensitized or colored hair. | Highly compromised, bleached, or heat-distressed hair. | Healthy, resistant, coarse, or virgin hair only. |
| Chemical Type | Amino acids & organic acids (No formaldehyde fumes). | Cuticle-coating formulas (May contain standard preservatives). | Traditional alkaline straightening solution. |
| Post-Care Window | Wash or style immediately. No waiting period. | Must wait 48 to 72 hours before washing or tying up. | Must keep completely dry and straight for 48 to 72 hours. |
An Important Note on Hair Integrity: Beautiful hair is healthy hair. Because Japanese Straightening permanently alters the internal architecture of the hair strand, it is completely unsuitable for heavily highlighted, bleached, or fragile hair. If your hair has a history of heavy chemical processing, a customized Nanoplasty or Keratin Treatment will give you the breathtaking, smooth results you want while respecting and preserving the strength of your hair structure.
Let’s curate your perfect look. Book a structural hair analysis with us today, and let’s design a smoothing protocol tailored exactly to your hair’s unique signature.
