Features
Jaron Rykiss’s half-year spent on exciting “Kivunim” program in Israel cut short by COVID
By BERNIE BELLAN
In 2019 Winnipegger Jaron Rykiss embarked on what, for almost any recent high school graduate, would probably be considered the adventure of a lifetime.
Jaron, who had just graduated from Gray Academy in the spring of last year (and doesn’t that seem like an eternity ago, even though it’s really only a little more than a year and a half ago?), had decided to enroll in a program that is probably not all that familiar to many Winnipeggers, known as “Kivunim”.
Kivunim, which means “directions” in English, is a program begun in 2006. Here is how the Kivunim website explains what it’s all about:
“KIVUNIM succeeds in delivering an immersive and transformative gap year experience of serious academic study, focused international travel and cross-cultural dialogue. These take place within the context of impressive intellectual and aesthetic exploration and growth that develops and deepens our students’ Jewish identity as engaged global citizens.
“KIVUNIM students forge a lifelong connection with Israel and the Jewish people through thoughtfully and intentionally-designed travel experiences that impart what other Jewish education programs can only envy: a nuanced and integrated understanding of Jewish civilization through sophisticated contact with the remarkable spectrum of religious traditions, cultures and world views among which the Jewish people grew throughout our 2,000-year Diaspora. Israel, our gap-year program home for the academic year, provides a challenging and surprisingly inspirational setting for appreciating the possibilities of Muslim-Jewish and Christian-Jewish co-existence and informs our broader international encounter with ‘the other’.”
Sounds pretty fantastic – right? And for any graduating high school student with the resources to participate in a program like this, it has to be considered a dream come true.
I spoke with Jaron Rykiss about his experience in Kivunim, which sadly for him and everyone else in the 2019-20 program, was cut short by COVID.
I began by asking Jaron how he heard about Kivunim in the first place?
Jaron explained that back in high school he was very involved with BBYO. Through BBYO he was exposed to a certain amount of international contact and realized “that there’s more to life than just Winnipeg”.
As graduation from Gray Academy was approaching Jaron “sat down with Avi Posen” (who was still in Winnipeg at that point, although in the fall of 2019 Avi himself made aliyah to Israel with his wife, Illana Minuk), and “we began talking about the possibility of a gap year” (the year between graduating from high school and entering a post-secondary institution).
After spending considerable time researching various programs Jaron came upon Kivunim which, he says, was perfect for someone like him – someone who didn’t have much experience outside of Winnipeg.
I asked Jaron whether he had ever been to Israel before?
He answered that he had – “twice” – once when he was nine, for a family occasion, and then again in 2017 when he was one of the students participating in the P2G (partnership together) program that Gray Academy has with Dancinger High School in Kiryat Shemonah, Israel. “That was really when I fell in love with the country,” he noted.
Fast forward to September 2019 and Jaron is in Jerusalem – “which is now my favourite city on the planet,” he said. There were 54 students in the program with Jaron – mostly from the U.S., but one other Canadian from Toronto as well.
“We all lived in a dormitory together – in the Mamillah area,” Jaron explained.
Under the original plan, Jaron said, he would have been in the program for eight and a half months, which would have taken him to the end of May.
As it was, he came back in March of this year – “exactly five months after I left”.
I asked Jaron at that point to describe what exactly he was studying during the program?
He answered: “The program goes to show you religion in other countries, so we spent the year studying Judaism, Islam…a Buddhist monk came to live with us for a couple weeks in Jerusalem and then when we got to India he showed us around.”
Which countries did Jaron actually visit as part of Kivunim? I asked.
Jaron said that the first month was spent in Jerusalem, followed by what was supposed to have been the first of several international trips.
“We ended up going to Greece and Bulgaria for two weeks,” after which the group returned to Israel for a month and a half, then India, but trips to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Morocco were all canceled due to the outbreak of COVID.
“We were supposed to end up in Morocco and meet the king there,” Jaron noted. “It’s too bad that never happened.”
(Jaron added that they were also supposed to visit Turkey at the same time as they visited Greece and Bulgaria, but that didn’t happen either. As he explained, “there were a lot of political issues” – what with the heightened civil unrest in Turkey at that time.)
What was the actual learning experience like? I wondered.
Jaron described the learning as “experiential”.
“While we were in Israel we would study the places we were going to visit,” Jaron observed, “then we would experience what we had just learned about – so it was a combination of classroom and experience.”
I was still uncertain, however, what the overall purpose of the program was – beyond exposing students to a wide variety of experiences.
According to its website, Kivunim aims to provide a “liberal arts” type of education: “The power of conceptual and intellectual integration is the ultimate (and all-to-often illusive) goal of a liberal arts education.
The website goes on to say:
“Why do we train our children in the liberal arts? It is not because these studies can grant someone virtue, but because they prepare the soul for accepting it.”
“KIVUNIM represents the beginning of a unique intellectual journey for our students and our staff and faculty. KIVUNIM succeeds in creating a thoughtful, comprehensive, and resilient intellectual foundation for our students and alumni.”
Here are the five courses taught to students in Kivunim. (There are no optional courses and all students must take the same five courses):
Civilization and Society: Homelands in Exile
Land, People, Ideas: The Challenges of Zionism
Hebrew Language and Literature
Arabic Language and Culture
Visual Learning – The Art of Seeing
A more detailed examination of each course gives a clearer understanding of just what it is that Kivunim is attempting to convey to students. Here, for instance, is an excerpt from the course outline of Land, People, Ideas: The Challenges of Zionism: “Here we seek to make the history of the Zionist movement come alive and allow KIVUNIM students to truly appreciate the capacity of the human being to become an historical actor: to make things happen. The course explores the growth of Pan-Arab nationalism and the specific development of Palestinian identity and nationalism. We encourage our students to imagine solutions while studying problems and to develop their sense of empowerment in glimpsing a future more positive than the past or today.”
If this all seems slightly airy-fairy, then I wondered how a program like this would be perceived by other institutions of higher learning – for instance, at a university here in Manitoba? After all, on its website Kivunim maintains that its courses will give students 30 academic credits, which would be equivalent to a normal year of study in an Arts program at a Manitoba university.
Jaron, who is now enrolled in an Arts program at the University of Manitoba, said that the university has not yet accepted for credit all the courses that he took in Israel.
Thus far, he has received credit for two of the courses: “Civilization and Society: Homelands in Exile”, and “Land, People, Ideas: The Challenges of Zionism”.
He noted though that he is being asked to take aptitude tests in both Hebrew and Arabic to determine whether the courses he took in those languages will be accepted for credit. As for the fifth course – “Visual Learning”, he explained that he is not expecting to obtain credit for that course, since it was more of a “photography” course than anything.
The problem, however, as Jaron noted during our conversation, is that due to COVID, so much of the university’s decision making is backed up that he doesn’t know how long it will be before he knows what the status of the two language courses that he took will be vis-à-vis receiving credit for them.
As far as his future studies go, Jaron added that he plans on majoring either in Political Studies or Philosophy, with his ultimate goal to get into law. (By the way, did I mention that Jaron’s grandfather is Jack London, about whom I have a review of his book elsewhere in this issue? As a disclaimer though, I want to explain that I contacted Jaron long before I knew that Jack had even written his memoir.)
One final aspect of the Kivunim program that hasn’t been mentioned yet in this article is the question of cost. I sent an email to the Kivunim program, asking for information as to the cost of the program. Here is the response I received:
“Our tuition is $55,000 which includes room and board, international travel, academics, a round trip from New York, etc. Tuition plus a small fee also includes 30 academic credits from Hebrew College (a full college year) accepted by most colleges in the U.S. and Canada. Every year we offer scholarships and interest free loans. We give about 40-50% of our students scholarship each year. Jaron’s year, 45% of students received a scholarship totaling approximately $375k.” (By the way, as one might expect, Kivunim is not being offered in person this year, although there is an online program.)
Features
History of a Holocaust Survivor Turning Eighty
By HENRY SREBRNIK On July 19, I turn 80 years old. This is indeed a milestone, but for me, an even bigger one was just being born. My parents were Holocaust survivors, and I found out just a few months ago that, technically, so am I. My parents were from Czestochowa, Poland, where I was born in 1945. By 1943 most Jews in the city, including their own families, had been murdered by the Nazis, at Treblinka, and after the uprising in the Jewish ghetto, my parents, by now married, became slave labour in a major Nazi munitions plant, the HASAG-Pelcery concentration camp, in the city.
The Russian army liberated Czestochowa January 16-17, 1945, and I was born July 19, six months later. You can do the math. My mother was emaciated and didn’t even know she was pregnant, but another month, and it would have been obvious, and she would have been killed. (I never asked how this happened but found out when listening to her testimony for the Shoah Foundation in 1995. The men and women were housed in different barracks, but one night the Germans were delousing one of the buildings and allowed married couples to sleep together in the other.)
In 1945 the 9th of Av fell on July 19, and the Jewish world had just gone through our worst period in history. I was born in a makeshift hospital at the Jasna Gora, the famed Pauline Catholic monastery in the city. The actual city hospital had been destroyed in the fighting. It is home to the Matka Boska Czestochowska, (“the mother of God”), a very beautiful and large icon of Mary and the baby Jesus. Other women giving birth were surprised and one said, “Ona jest Zydowka.” So, though I am a proud Polish Jew, this could only have helped! The doctor who delivered whispered to my mother that he was Jewish but added that he wanted it kept quiet because he wasn’t going to leave Poland. It also took awhile for a mohel to come to the city for me.
The next few years were spent in Pocking-Waldstadt, a DP camp in the American zone in Bavaria, Germany, and then on to Pier 21 in Halifax and Canada. We lived in Montreal, though at home we were to all intents and purposes in Czestochowa, Jewish Poland.
As I was packing up my books in May because we all had to vacate our offices for the summer due to repairs in our building, I came across a book that I had never read – I don’t even recall where I got it — by the Polish historian Lucjan Dobroszycki, Survivors of the Holocaust in Poland: A Portrait Based on Jewish Community Records 1944-1947 (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1994). Chapter 5 is comprised of “Lists of Jewish Children Who Survived,” in alphabetical order. I am listed on p. 146 (Heniek Srebrnik, 1945). I sent in a form to the Claims Conference in New York informing them. So, at age 80, I’ve become a Holocaust survivor! Compared to that start, the next decades have been easy street! As the Aussies say, “no worries! But the Jewish world has grown darker. Like many others, were I to write a memoir, I’d call it From Hitler to Hamas.
I grew up in Montreal, and have lived in Calgary and Charlottetown, as well as London, England, and four American cities. But I’ve only been to Winnipeg twice, in 1982 and, more dramatically, the weekend of Sept. 7-10, 2021. I presented a paper on “Birobidzhan on the Prairies: Two Decades of Pro-Soviet Jewish Movements in Winnipeg,” to a conference on “Jewish Radicalism in Winnipeg, 1905-1960,” organized by the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada. I left the morning of Sept. 11. An hour into the flight to Toronto we were told all airplanes had to land at the nearest major airport. I spent the next three days in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., with fellow passengers. We mostly watched the television reporting on the 9/11 catastrophe.
Though an academic, I have always written for newspapers, including Jewish ones, in Canada and the United States. Some, like the Jewish Free Press of Calgary, the Jewish Tribune of Toronto, and the previous version of the Canadian Jewish News, no longer exist, which is a shame. Fortunately, the Jewish Post still does.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Why Prepaid Cards Are the Last Refuge for Online Privacy in 2025
These days, it feels like no matter what you do online, someone’s watching. Shopping, streaming, betting, even signing up for something free—it’s all tracked. Everything you pay for with a normal card leaves a digital trail with your name on it. And in 2025, when we’re deep into a cashless economy, keeping anything private is getting harder by the day.
If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want every little move tied to your identity, prepaid cards are one of the only real options left. They’re simple, easy to get, and still give you a way to spend online without throwing your info out there. One card in particular, Vanilla Visa, is one of the better picks because of how widely Vanilla Visa is accepted and how little personal info it needs.
Everything’s Online, and Everything’s Tracked
We used to pay for stuff with cash. Walk into a store, hand over some bills, leave. No names, no records. That’s gone now. Most stores won’t even take cash anymore, and the ones that do feel like the exception. The cashless economy is here whether we like it or not.
So what’s the problem? Every time you swipe or tap your card, or pay with your phone, someone’s logging it. Your bank saves the details. The store’s system saves it. And a lot of times, that data gets sold or shared. It can get used to target you with ads, track what you buy, where you go, and when you do it.
It’s not just companies either. Apps collect it. Hackers try to steal it. Some governments keep tabs too. And if you’re using the same card everywhere, it all gets connected pretty fast.
Why Prepaid Cards Still Matter
Prepaid cards are one of the only ways to break that chain. You go to a store, buy one with cash, and that’s it. No bank involved. No name. You just load it up and use it. And because Vanilla Visa is accepted on most major websites, you can use it just like any normal card.
You’re not giving out your real name or tying it to your main account. That means when you pay for something, it’s not showing up on your bank statement. It’s not getting saved under your profile. You’re basically cutting off the trail right there.
Why Vanilla Visa Stands Out
There are a few different prepaid card brands out there, but Vanilla Visa is probably the most popular. You can grab one at grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies—almost anywhere. And once you’ve got it, you can use it on pretty much any site where Vanilla Visa is accepted.
No long setup. No personal info. You don’t need to register it under your name. You just pay, go online, and spend the amount that’s on the card. When it runs out, you toss it and move on. No trace.
This makes it great for anyone who wants to sign up for a site without attaching their real identity. People use it for online gaming, streaming, subscriptions, or just shopping without giving out their main card info.
The Good and the Bad
There are some solid upsides to using a prepaid card:
- You don’t need a bank account
- You don’t give out your name or address
- It’s easy to budget since you can’t spend more than you loaded
- Most major sites take them, especially where Vanilla Visa is accepted
But there are a few downsides too:
- You can’t reload the card. Once it’s empty, it’s done
- You can’t use it to get money out, like at an ATM
- Some cards have small fees or expiration dates, so don’t let them sit too long
- A few sites want a card tied to a name and billing address, which doesn’t work here
- If you lose it or someone steals the number, you’re probably not getting the money back
So yeah, prepaid cards aren’t perfect. But if privacy is the goal, they’re still one of the few things that actually help.
Real Ways People Use Them
Let’s say you’re trying out an online casino. You don’t want your bank seeing it. You don’t want it on your statement. You walk into a Walgreens, buy a Vanilla Visa with a hundred bucks in cash, then use it to make your deposit. Done. The casino sees a card, but not your name.
Or maybe you’re signing up for a new subscription. Could be a video platform, a magazine, whatever. You don’t want it auto-charging your main card every month or sharing your info with advertisers. Use a prepaid card, and it stays off the radar.
Even if you’re just buying something from a site you don’t totally trust, using a card that isn’t tied to your real money is a smart move.
Will These Cards Still Be Around?
That’s the thing people are starting to worry about. Some stores have started asking for ID when you buy higher-value prepaid cards. And there’s talk in some countries about requiring people to register cards before using them.
Governments don’t like anonymous money. Companies definitely don’t. There’s a chance that in the future, prepaid cards will be harder to get or come with new rules.
But for now, they still work. You can still walk into a store with cash and walk out with a prepaid card. And as long as Vanilla Visa is accepted at the places you shop, you’ve got a way to stay private.
Bottom Line
If you’re living in 2025 and trying to protect your privacy online, prepaid cards are one of the last easy options. The cashless economy makes it almost impossible to pay without leaving a record, but prepaid cards break that pattern. They don’t ask for your name. They don’t track your habits. And they don’t leave a trail if you use them right.
They won’t fix everything. They don’t keep you completely invisible. But they give you a level of control that’s hard to find now. In a world that wants to watch your every move, that still counts for something.
Features
Winkler nurse stands with Israel and the Jewish people
By MYRON LOVE Considering the great increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Canada over the past 20 months – and the passivity of government, federally, provincially and municipally, in the face of this what-should-be unacceptable criminal behaviour, many in our Jewish community may feel that we have been abandoned by our fellow citizens.
Polls regularly show that as many as 70% of Canadians support Israel – and there are many who have taken action. One such individual is Nelli Gerzen, a nurse at the Boundary Trails Health Centre (which serves the communities of Winkler and Morden in western Manitoba). Three times in the past 20 months, Gerzen has taken time off work to travel to Israel to support Israelis in their time of need.
I asked her what those around her thought of her trips to Israel. “My mother was worried when I went the first time (November 2023),” Gerzen responded, “but, like me, she has trust in the Lord. My friends and colleagues have gotten used to it.”
She also reports that she is part of a small group of fellow believers that meet online regularly and pray for Israel.
Gerzen is originally from Russia, but grew up in Germany. Her earliest exposure to the history of the Holocaust, she relates, was in Grade 9 – in Germany. “My history teacher in Germany in Grade 9 went into depth with the history of World War II and the Holocaust,” she recalls. “It is normal that all the teachers taught about the Holocaust but she put a lot of effort into teaching specifically this topic. We also got to watch a live interview with a Holocaust survivor.”
What she learned made a strong impression on her. “I have often asked myself what I would do if I were living in that era,” she says. “Would I have been willing to hide Jews in my home? Or risk my life to save others?”
Gerzen came to Canada in 2010 – at the age of 20. She received her nursing training here and has been working at Boundary Trails for the last three years.
“I believe in the G-d of Israel and that the Jews are his Chosen People,” she states. “We are living at a time of skyrocketing anti-Semitism. Many Jews are feeling vulnerable. I felt that I had to do something to help.”
Gerzen’s first trip to Israel was actually in 2014 when she signed onto a youth tour organized by a Christian group, Midnight Call, based in Switzerland. That initial visit left a strong impact. “That first visit changed my life,” she remembers. “I enjoyed having conversations with the Israelis. The bible for me came to life. Every stone seemed to have a story.”
She went on a second Midnight Call Missionaries tour of Israel in 2018. She went back again on her own in the spring of 2023. After October 7, she says, “I couldn’t sit at home. I had to do something.”
Thus, in November 2023, she went back to Israel, this time as a volunteer. She spent two weeks at Petach Tikvah cooking meals for Israelis displaced from the north and the south as well as IDF soldiers. She also spent a day with an Israeli friend delivering food to IDF soldiers stationed near Gaza. She notes that she wasn’t worried so close to the border.
“I trusted in the Lord,” she says. “It was a special feeling being able to help.”
Last November, she found herself at Kiryat Shmona (with whom our Jewish community has close ties), working for two weeks alongside volunteers from all over the world cooking for the IDF.
On one of her earlier visits, she recounts, a missile struck just a few metres from the kitchen where the volunteers were working. There was some damage – forcing closure for a few days while repairs were ongoing, but no injuries.
In January, she was back at Kiryat Shmona for another two weeks cooking for the IDF. She also helped deliver food to Metula on the northern border. This last time, she reports, there was a more upbeat atmosphere, “even though,” she notes, “the wounds are still fresh. It was quieter. There were no more missiles coming in.
“Israelis were really touched by the presence of so many of us volunteers. I only wish more Christians would stand up for Israel.
“It was really moving to hear people’s stories first-hand.”
She recounts the story of one Israeli she met at a Jerusalem market who fought in the Yom Kippur war of 1973, who was the only survivor of the tank he was in.
“This guy lost so much in his life, and he was standing there telling the story and smiling, just trying to live life again,” she says. “The people there are so heartbroken.”
Back home, she has been showing her support for Israel and the Jewish people by attending the weekly rallies on Kenaston in support of the hostages whenever she can.
She is looking forward to playing piano at Shalom Square during Folklorama.
Nelli Gerzen doesn’t know yet when she will be returning to Israel – but it is certain to be soon. “This is my chance to step up for the truth,” she concludes. “I know that supporting Israel is the right thing to do. When I am there, it feels like my heart is on fire.”