Features
JNF Manitoba/Saskatchewan president Nola Lazar slated to be next president of Mercaz Canada
By MYRON LOVE
These are challenging times that we live in – but Nola Lazar, the current president of JNF Manitoba/Saskatchewan has proven over the years that she is up to the challenge. If the presidency of the local Jewish National Fund operation is not enough heavy lifting, she is also slated to be stepping into the same position on a national level with Mercaz Canada – the Zionist voice of Conservative Judaism in Canada – as soon as her term as JNF president here comes to a close.
Masorti Judaism – the Conservative Movement in Israel – is Israel’s fastest growing religious movement. Mercaz Canada is affiliated with Masorti/Conservative Judaism which, in Israel, offers a third choice between ultraOrthodoxy and a secular life. MERCAZ-Canada and the Canadian Foundation for Masorti Judaism work in cooperation to foster and strengthen Masorti/Conservative Judaism in Israel, based on the ideals of tradition and tolerance, study and spirituality, and social action and love of Israel. They promote and support Israel education and programs, and represent the interests of Masorti/Conservative Judaism in the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency for Israel.
Lazar has taken inspiration for her leadership roles in the community from her mother Rae. “My mother always seemed to be having meetings at our house,” recalls Lazar, who was the second youngest of eight children born to Rae and the late Cecil Shnier. “Because there were so many of us children, it seemed to be easier to hold meetings at our place”.
Her mother, Lazar recalls, served as president of Hadassah WIZO in Winnipeg as well as being involved in organizing the annual Angel’s Ball and volunteering at Hadassah’s Opportunity store and the Golden Age Club and many other organizations.
“Wherever she’d go as a volunteer, she would take some of us kids with her,” Lazar says. “She was always involved.”
While Nola is trained as an interior designer, she married at a relatively young age – to Matthew – and raised her own family of four (two of whom have made aliyah). Her own service to the community over these past 25 years has largely been through her synagogue involvement.
In the 1990s she was invited to become a board member of the Beth Israel Congregation, where she served two terms. In that role, she was involved in the merger of the Beth Israel with the Rosh Pina and Bnay Abraham Synagogues to form Congregation Etz Chayim. She subsequently served an additional two terms on the board of the new congregation and was involved with youth programming at the shul. In addition, she volunteered at the Gray Academy while her children were attending the school. “All of our children are graduates of Gray Academy,” she says with pride.
Lazar was invited to join the JNF Manitoba/Saskatchewan board five years ago. “Karla Berbrayer was president of the board at the time and was looking to expand the board membership with people who had connections with Israel,” Lazar says. “We had children living in Israel and had visited several times.”
As the current president, she was inaugurated at the Negev Gala in 2019, succeeding Jessica Cogan.
The local JNF received quite a surprise last fall when longtime executive director Ariel Karabelnicoff announced that he was leaving to take up a position in Toronto with the Israel Bonds organization. “It was a real shock,” says Lazar of Karabelincoff’s departure. “We miss him and wish him well.
“It has been a smooth transition though. David Greaves, our new executive director, knows the community well and has a lot of connections.”
She reports that, despite the limitations on fundraising imposed by the Covid situation, the JNF is doing well under Greaves’ leadership. “JNF has been keeping busy. While we weren’t able to conduct our annual High Holiday campaign in person this year,” she notes, “we are thankful to both the Shaarey Zedek and Etz Chayim for their help this year. They included our link on their webpages and the rabbis directed people to our link during their sermons. The community support for Israel has been amazing.
“Even with Covid, David and his staff have managed to maintain our fundraising numbers close to what we have done in the past. On November 15 we are holding a ‘Night of 100 Dinners’ with video entertainment by Yidlife Crisis. Our Negev Gala honouring Ted Lyons has been rescheduled to May 19 2020.”
Lazar’s introduction to Mercaz Canada also came about through her synagogue involvement. She points out that all Conservative synagogue members are also eligible to join Mercaz. The organization has long been centered in Toronto, she notes because, in Toronto, several Conservative synagogues make membership in Mercaz Canada an automatic part of membership, whereas in Winnipeg, membership is optional. Thus, there were fewer members in our community.
“Marion Mayman, the president at that time, felt that Mercaz Canada was too Torontocentric,” Lazar recalls. “She wanted a board that reflected more of our country, and was looking to recruit Western Canadians. Matthew and I had already joined Mercaz when Marion phoned me to ask me to join the board. However, I am not the kind of person who joins a board without participating, and because I got involved, I became vocal, and before long, I was moving up the ranks.”
Most of the meetings that she has been involved in have been over the phone. “I still haven’t met all of the board members in person,” Lazar says. “The nice thing about Zoom is I am getting to see board members from across the country.”
The organization’s vice-president since July of last year, she reports that the current president of Mercaz, Stan Greenspan, will stay in his position until her term with the JNF in Winnipeg is over.
She concedes that there will be some challenges leading the organization from Winnipeg, but, she says, “we will make it work.”
She adds that she has already learned a lot from Mercaz executive director Rabbi Jennifer Gorman and current president Stan Greenspan. “They are both very knowledgeable,” Lazar says. “I love learning from them.”
Coming up for Nola Lazar on the Mercaz menu are preparations for the World Zionist Congress scheduled for October 20-22 via Zoom from Israel. She is a voting delegate.
“At the Congress, we debate various topics of relevance to the Jewish world,” she notes. “I will be spending a lot of time over the next few days on the phone and on Zoom meeting with Mercaz Canada and Canadian Zionist Federation representatives. We will be having orientation meetings and strategy meetings. I find it all very fascinating”
Features
Will the Iranian Regime Collapse?
By HENRY SREBRNIK When U. S. President Donald Trump restored “maximum sanctions” pressure against Iran a year ago, he was clear about its goals: Deny Iran a nuclear weapon, dismantle its terror proxy network and stop its ballistic missile program.
The government in Tehran has fended off through violence and repression previous large-scale protests but now may limit or hold its fire. After all, Trump has been willing to go where no U.S. president has, including the authorization of a strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity last year and the recent capture of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
Trump has demonstrated that his government is willing to use military measures to overthrow an enemy regime, and Tehran was, perhaps surprisingly, one of the closest allies of Maduro. The two countries were united by their approach to international sanctions and their ability to survive in American enmity.
Over the past three decades, this combination of political sympathy and anti-American rhetoric developed into a complex web of cooperation involving oil, finance, industry and security.
Since Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999, relations between Tehran and Caracas tightened significantly. During his first visit to Iran in 2001, Chavez declared that he had arrived “to help pave the way for peace, justice, stability, and progress in the 21st century.”
Nearly 300 economic, infrastructure, gas, and oil agreements were signed, worth billions of dollars. At one point, Venezuela even considered selling F-16 fighter jets to Tehran, while Iran supplied Venezuela with advanced Mohajer-6 drones. All this now comes to an end.
Maduro’s removal constitutes a severe blow to the operational base of Tehran in South America. With Maduro gone, “Iran is now in the eye of the storm,” observed Fawaz Gerges, Middle East analyst and professor of international relations at London’s School of Economics and Political Science.
“The big lesson out of the fall of the Venezuelan regime is not Colombia, not Greenland,” he said. “The Iranians know that Iran is the next target. Not only of the Trump administration, but also of the Benjamin Netanyahu government” in Israel.
Israel, which has long perceived Iran as an existential threat, launched 12 days of what it described as pre-emptive strikes on military and nuclear sites in Iran last June, with U.S. war planes attacking three major nuclear facilities.
They now see Iran as being cornered, extremely vulnerable and weak at this moment. “I think they’re piling on the pressure. They’re hoping that they could really, basically bring about regime change in Iran,” Gerges added.
On Jan. 12, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian shifted focus away from Iran’s stuttering economy and suppression of dissent and towards his country’s longstanding geopolitical adversaries, Israel and the United States. Speaking on state broadcaster IRIB, Pezeshkian claimed that “the same people that struck this country” during Israel’s 12-day war last June were now “trying to escalate these unrests with regard to the economic discussion.
“They have trained some people inside and outside the country; they have brought in some terrorists from outside,” he charged, alleging that those responsible had attacked a bazaar in the northern city of Rasht and set mosques on fire.
“My assumption is that the Mossad is active in Tehran behind the scenes,” contended Ahron Bregman, who teaches at King’s College London and has written extensively on Israeli intelligence operations. “Israeli officials are unusually quiet.” There are clear instructions not to talk and “not to be seen to be involved in any way.”
“I’d be very surprised if Israeli agents were not active within Iran right now,” defence analyst Hamze Attar maintained. “They’re going to be doing everything they can to make sure these protests continue and escalate.”
But anything that Israel is up to will of course be covert. This restraint is a calculated approach taken to avoid disrupting a process of regime change that may be driven internally. Intervening would only confirm the regime’s claims that the protesters are “Zionist agents,” a charge that could shift popular anger onto the demonstrators and douse the movement.
“Any visible involvement would give the Iranians an excuse to intensify repression,” explained Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and former head of Iran research in an Israeli military intelligence branch
Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, who maintains he wants peace with Israel and the United States, suggests Iran faces a historic moment. “In all these years, I’ve never seen an opportunity as we see today in Iran. Iranian people are more than ever committed to bringing an end to this regime,” he stated. “By God, it is about time that Iran gets its opportunity to free itself from a tyrannical regime.”
Iranians have seen the regime and its backers exposed and humiliated by an American administration and Israel, and they are taking advantage of it. But it won’t be easy. This is a religious nomenklatura that will use all means at its disposal to hold on to power. Never underestimate their cruelty and resolve
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
New autobiography by Holocaust survivor Hedy Bohm – who went on to testify in trials of two Nazi war criminals
Book Review by Julie Kirsh, Former Sun Media News Research Director
My parents were Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivors who arrived in Toronto in 1951 without family or friends. In the late 50s my mother met Hedy Bohm outside of our downtown apartment and quickly connected with her. Both women had suffered the loss of all family in the Shoah. Over the years our families’ custom became sharing our dining table with the Bohm family for the Jewish high holidays. The tradition continues today with the second generation.
Hedy was born in 1928 in the city of Oradea in Romania. She was a pampered only child, adored by her father and very much attached to her mother. Although Hedy was an adolescent, she was kept from hearing about the rising anti-semitism around her in her hometown. She was protected and sheltered like any child. Memoirs from other adolescents like Elie Wiesel, aged 15 in Auschwitz, Samuel Pisar, liberated at 16, and Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who was found in Buchenwald by American soldiers at age 8, made me wonder about the resilience and strength of children who survived like Hedy.
Hedy was only 16 years old when she walked through the gates of hell, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hedy’s poignant retelling of this pivotal moment in her young life was the sudden separation from her father and moments later from her mother. Somehow Hedy’s mother got ahead of her upon their arrival at Auschwitz. Hedy called out to her. Her mother turned and they looked at each other. A Nazi guard prevented Hedy from joining her mother. Hedy has always been tormented by this moment of separation. Did her mother know that she was walking to her death?
Hedy writes that she was focused on survival in the camps. She concentrated on eating whatever food was given and keeping clean by washing daily in icy, cold water before the roll call. When she contracted diarrhea, she remembered her mother’s homemade remedy of gnawing on charred wood. Her naivete and innocence were overcome with a strong inner determination to stay alive so that she could see her mother again.
Hedy recounts the terrible hunger that everyone endured. One day, spotting some carrots in a warehouse, Hedy was appointed by her aunt to run and grab what she could. Luckily she evaded the armed guard who would have shot her on the spot.
On April 14, 1945, Hedy’s day of liberation, she learned the terrible fate of her mother. The return home for the survivors was a further tragedy when they realized the loss of family and community.
In her memoir, Hedy describes meeting Imre, an older boy from her town whom she eventually married. Their flight from Romania to Budapest to Pier 21 in Halifax to Toronto is documented in harrowing detail.
Hedy recounts how in Toronto no one wanted to know the stories of the survivors. This was a world before Eichmann’s trial in Israel in 1961 and the TV series, The Holocaust, in 1978. The floodgates for information from the survivors opened late in their lives.
In Toronto, after many failed enterprises, Imre and Hedy stumbled onto the shoe selling business. In 1959, they leased a small shoe store close to Honest Ed’s in downtown Toronto. Surprisingly, the business according to Hedy, became very profitable. Many years later, after Imre’s sudden death due to a heart attack, Hedy continued to manage their shoe business while taking care of her daughter, Vicky and son, Ronnie.
In 1996, Hedy was introduced to Rabbi Jordan Pearlson. Their love match made Hedy feel that she had been given a wonderful gift, late in life, which she welcomed.
Jordan died in 2008. Hedy endured and carried on with yoga and tai chi both as a teacher and devoted practitioner.
A new purpose in life opened up for Hedy when she was invited to be a speaker for the Holocaust Education Centre (now the Toronto Holocaust Museum). She spoke to mostly non-Jewish students whom she visited at their schools outside of Toronto.
Visiting Auschwitz with the March of the Living for the first time in 2010, Hedy faced her fears about returning to the place that held the horrors. She was fortunate to meet Jordana Lebowitz, a student from Toronto who developed a multimedia presentation called ShadowLight. Hedy’s contribution to teaching others about the Holocaust by sharing her experience, is immeasurable.
In 2014, Hedy was asked to be a witness at the trial of Oskar Groning , “the accountant of Auschwitz”, in Germany. In 2016, she appeared as a witness for the trial of the Nazi guard, Reinhold Hanning. He was sentenced to a mere five years in prison and Groning died before he could start his jail sentence. In having the courage to participate in these war criminal trials, Hedy spoke for her parents and all the innocents who could not speak for themselves.
Hedy’s talks to students always include an admonishment to be kind, to trust in themselves and work for the greater good. She rose above her own fears of sharing her story by speaking publicly.
Hedy’s story of survival and perseverance will remain a beacon to future generations, ensuring that hope and good will endure even in the worst of times.
Reflection
by Hedy Bohm
Published in 2026 by The Azrieli Foundation
To order a copy of the book go to https://memoirs.azrielifoundation.org/titles/reflection/
Features
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