Features
Molyn Leszcz: In this case, “Leszcz” is more
By GERRY POSNER When you talk psychiatry and Winnipeg Jews, you enter into a remarkable and lengthy area for discussion, perhaps even a book. Prominent among the names of Jewish boys who became psychiatrists is Molyn Leszcz – as in very prominent. He is, among other things, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. How he got there from humble beginnings living on Ellice Avenue near his father’s grocery store and also close to the University of Winnipeg is by itself a compelling story.
Molyn’s parents, Saul and Clara Leszcz, both of whom were survivors of the Holocaust, came to Winnipeg in the early 1950s and it was not long before Saul had a grocery store. From these humble beginnings grew the Molyn Leszcz we know today. He clearly was goal oriented and had medicine on his mind early on in his life . He took the bus daily to Talmud Torah from his home and later, after the family had moved to Garden City, he attended Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate. He also graduated from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate and subsequently studied two years at the University of Winnipeg.
Subsequently, Molyn was accepted into the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba, from where he graduated in 1976, followed by two years of a residency program in Winnipeg at the Health Sciences Centre, then the two final years of his residency in Toronto.
Along the way- in 1975, Molyn married Bonnie Rappaport, whose last name will be familiar to many readers, as she was the daughter of the late Rabbi Shalom and Elaine Rappaport. Rabbi Rappaport had the great nachos to officiate at the wedding of his daughter to Molyn at the then Rosh Pina synagogue.
Following his residency, Molyn spent a year at Stanford University on a fellowship, which is when he had the good fortune to study under the highly respected Irvin Yalom. That relationship has since developed over many years now and Molyn acknowledges the enormous influence Yalom had on his career.
Molyn attributes his involvement in his particular field of group psychotherapy to Yolam’s influence. In fact, Leszcz and Yolam have co-authored a book – now in its sixth edition and translated into no less than 20 different languages called “The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy” – a core text for anyone in this field. As well, Molyn co- authored with University of Toronto colleagues another book in the “Psychotherapy Essentials To Go” series: “Achieving Psychotherapy Effectiveness”.
Among other things Molyn Leszcz is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Moreover – and get this” Molyn is President of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, the first time a Canadian has held this lofty position. And, not to be overlooked is Molyn’s past experience as Psychiatrist-in-Chief at the Sinai Health System from 2006-2017, also Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychiatry the University of Toronto from 2010- 2017, as well as Interim Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.
All of these titles brought with them enormous responsibilities and that Molyn carried them on for so long is a clear indication of why we can say “Leszcz is more”. Another area which has brought Molyn recognition is his extensive work in the areas of physician wellness and leadership – in particular this past year – in relation to dealing with the effects of pandemic stress on health care providers. This is on top of leading conferences online with over 1,000 people in attendance. Molyn has also been recognized with a number of awards for his contributions to psychiatry and group therapy.
Of course, one might ask how it is that Molyn even became interested in group psychotherapy in the first place. Yes, he had the guidance and tutelage of Irvin Yolam, but there was much more to Molyn’s inclination to enter into this area of psychiatry. Anyone who is familiar with group therapy will know that it is a form of psychotherapy involving one or more therapists working with several clients at the same time. There are often between seven to nine patients at one time, but they can be smaller groups.
Molyn says that what attracted him in the direction of group treatment was the fact that, as a child of Holocaust survivors, he witnessed the beneficial effects of this kind of group association and as a result, he saw this kind of meeting together as a natural and effective way to treat people suffering with psychiatric issues. As a result, he pursued this area of study to the point that it became a guiding focus of his life’s work.
Molyn says he is gradually slowing down in his work, although it is difficult to see where this slowdown has occurred. He and Bonnie are the parents of three children, Ben, Talia and Noah, and now grandparents to four more Leszcz descendants. He still has ties to Winnipeg as his sister, Eva Azuelos, still lives there, as well as his brother-in-law, Allan Rappaport, along with several nephews, nieces and cousins. Molyn’s family is important to him, just as his growing up in Winnipeg was. Winnipeg did well to produce so many Jewish psychiatrists, including Molyn Leszcz.
Features
A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
By Benyamin Cohen May 8, 2026 “This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.”
Benyamin has been reporting for more than a year on the improbable story of Nik Jakobs. Catch up here and here, and stay tuned for a forthcoming piece about a trip they took to the Netherlands to visit the towns where the Jakobs family survived the Holocaust. Yesterday was an important moment in Jakobs’ overall journey, and we wanted to share it with you.
STERLING, ILLINOIS — On Wednesday, Nik Jakobs was planting corn. On Thursday, the 41-year-old Illinois cattle farmer stood in a two-acre cornfield preparing to plant something else: a synagogue.
Around 75 people gathered on the edge of the field this week in Sterling, Illinois, a two-hour drive west of Chicago, where Jakobs and his family broke ground on a new home for Temple Sholom, the small congregation that has anchored Jewish life here for more than a century, and where his family has prayed since the 1950s.
The planned 4,000-square-foot building will also house a Holocaust museum inspired by the story of Jakobs’ grandparents, Edith and Norbert, who survived the war after Christian families in the Netherlands hid them in their homes for years. Jakobs described the future museum as a place devoted not only to Jewish history, but to teaching the dangers of hatred and division. “If you have the choice to be right or kind,” he said, repeating advice from his grandmother, “choose kind.”
A 60-foot blue ribbon — chosen by Jakobs’ wife, Katie, to match the color of the Israeli flag — stretched across the future building site. His four daughters held it alongside his parents, brothers and friends. Then they lifted oversized gold scissors and cut the ribbon as pastors, farmers, city officials and members of neighboring churches applauded.
The synagogue rising from this Illinois cornfield will house pieces of the past.
A nearby storage area holds Jewish objects Jakobs rescued from shuttered synagogues across the country: stained-glass windows, Torah arks, rabbi’s chairs, memorial plaques and wooden tablets engraved with the tribes of Israel. Many came from Temple B’nai Israel, a 113-year-old synagogue that closed down in 2025. It served generations of Jews in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, now a ghost town since the steel mills closed. Its remaining congregants donated sacred objects to Jakobs so their story could live on rather than disappear.
The day before the groundbreaking, the Jakobs family began opening some of the crates for the first time since they were packed away nearly a year ago. Nik’s father, Dave Jakobs, pried open one box with a hammer and crowbar while Nik loosened screws with an electric drill, the family gathered around like archaeologists opening a tomb.
Inside was a stained-glass window with images of a tallit and shofar bursting in jewel tones of blue, yellow and red. Jakobs’ mother, Margo, lifted Annie, the youngest of Nik’s daughters, so the 4-year-old could peer inside. The bright red glass matched the bow in her hair.
Nearby sat the massive wooden ark salvaged from Pennsylvania, topped with twin Lions of Judah whose carved paws once overlooked generations of worshippers.
Faith on the farmland
Temple Sholom — founded in 1910 — was once the center of Jewish life in Sterling, a town of 14,500 surrounded by flat farmland and tall grain silos. Its Jewish community once included a pharmacist, the manager of Kline’s department store and the owner of a local McDonald’s franchise.
Over time, membership dwindled. The roof sagged. The pews emptied.
Last year, the congregation sold its aging building and relocated High Holiday services to a tent on the Jakobs’ farm, where prayers mingled with the smell of manure and cattle lowing nearby.
At a moment when many small-town synagogues are closing, Temple Sholom is doing something increasingly rare: building a bigger new sanctuary from scratch. The synagogue will sit prominently along one of Sterling’s main roads — a highly visible expression of Jewish life in a region where Jews are few.
Thursday’s groundbreaking took place on the National Day of Prayer, the annual observance formalized under President Ronald Reagan, who grew up a few miles away in Dixon, Illinois. Earlier that morning, attendees gathered inside New Life Lutheran Church for a breakfast sponsored by Temple Sholom.
“I was so happy to see bagels, lox and cream cheese,” said Rev. James Keenan, a Catholic priest originally from Brooklyn. “It reminded me of home.”
Inside the church sanctuary, a large wooden cross glowed amber and blue above the dais while two giant screens displayed the National Day of Prayer logo. Jakobs, wearing cowboy boots, jeans and a powder-blue blazer, addressed the crowd.
“Tolerance is not weakness,” he said. “It is strength.”
The new synagogue will sit beside New Life Lutheran Church on land sold to Temple Sholom by farmer Dan Koster, 71, who has known the Jakobs family for three generations.
“We need more religious presence in the community,” Koster said.
For Drew Williams, New Life’s 38-year-old lead pastor, the synagogue and museum represent more than neighboring buildings. His church already hosts food-packing drives, summer meal programs and community events. He imagines future partnerships with Temple Sholom.
“I don’t think there’s any community that is immune to hate,” Williams said. “That just means it’s on us” to be on the other side “spreading peace.”
Sterling Mayor Diana Merdian, who is 41 and grew up in town with Jakobs, said the project reflects a broader desire among younger generations to preserve local history and identity. “If we don’t carry those stories, we lose them,” she said. “Once you lose that, you can’t get it back.”
During the ceremony in the cornfield, Temple Sholom’s longtime cantor, Lori Schwaber, asked those gathered to remember the congregation’s founding members and recite the Mourner’s Kaddish together. Jews and Christians stood side by side in the prairie wind as Hebrew prayers drifted across the open farmland.
Lester Weinstine, a 90-year-old congregant who was the first bar mitzvah at Temple Sholom when the shul was still housed out of a Pepsi bottling plant, looked out across the field in disbelief. “I never thought I would see this,” he said.
For Jakobs, the synagogue project has become inseparable from the lessons his grandparents’ survival taught him. “You sometimes feel on an island as a Jew, especially in rural America,” he said. “But this community — that’s not what I’ve experienced here.”
If construction stays on schedule, the synagogue will open in fall 2027. Its first major service will not be a dedication ceremony, but the bat mitzvah of Jakobs’ oldest daughter, Taylor.
Members of the Pennsylvania congregation are planning a bus trip to Illinois for the occasion, after donating many of their sacred objects to help build Jakob’s synagogue. Their former rabbi has offered to officiate.
“If a farmer can build a synagogue in a cornfield,” Jakobs said, “anybody can do it anywhere.”
Benyamin Cohen is a senior writer at the Forward and host of our morning briefing, Forwarding the News. He is the author of two books, My Jesus Year and The Einstein Effect.
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
Ancient Torah Lessons Students Can Still Use Today In Class
Texts don’t survive through age alone; they survive because each generation finds something new and intriguing in them. One such text is the Torah. Students will find it useful in classes ranging from religion to philosophy, literature, or cultural studies, but many of its teachings aren’t confined to the past either. Stories from the Torah touch upon topics like stress, conflict, leadership, confusion, errors, accountability, and meaning. It sounds remarkably contemporary.
A student approaching the study of Torah has several options: religious text, historical source, literary piece, and a basis for philosophical contemplation. They all provide opportunities to explore the text in unique ways. The student writing on ancient texts or ethics can use EssayPro, the company employs experts, including Paul S., a full-time writer, who could assist the student with structuring their research. But great essays on ancient texts require more than just the approach of a museum curator.
The goal is not to shoehorn ancient narratives into a modern form or to look for an easy life hack in every single passage. Rather, students need to think about what made those stories stand the test of time. What did they observe about people? What did they try to warn against? And last but not least, what virtues did they celebrate? As soon as students start asking such questions, the Torah appears much closer.
Ancient Texts Teach Students To Be Patient Readers
Modern students are trained to read quickly. Just skim through the article. Scan all the comments. Read the summary and move forward. It does not quite work with the Torah, though. Many of the passages are rather short but rich in conflict, repetition, silence, and subtle details. Sometimes a person’s name, a long journey, an order given, or even a family squabble means more than expected.
For this reason, it is a great practice for students to deal with, as education is mostly geared toward finishing chapters faster, submitting assignments sooner, and hitting deadlines regularly. However, profound reflection requires patience, and the Torah is the perfect tool.
This type of reading goes past religious education alone. Students who learn to pace themselves with Torah can carry this approach into their literature, legal, historical, philosophical, and even scientific readings. Details are crucial. Contexts are crucial. Silence is equally crucial to speech.
Questions Do Not Denigrate One’s Faith Or Cognition
One of the best lessons for students from the Torah is that sincere people pose serious questions. The texts are full of debates, disagreements, doubts, tests, and misunderstandings. The addressees do not understand the demands placed on them. They argue, they bargain, and sometimes make mistakes.
It is necessary for the reason that many students view good studying as a process of getting clear and immediate responses to questions. It is usually not the case. Learning can start from frustration and confusion, since such a passage can serve better than an easy one.
During lessons, students should not fear questioning why a character did something like that, what their motivation was, what the possible consequences of their actions were, how it was perceived at that time, or how other cultures interpret the passage. Asking questions neither denigrates the subject nor learning itself.
Responsibility Is Greater Than Personal Success
In contemporary educational circles, the discourse of success often revolves around the personal gain that follows from achievement. Earn good grades. Construct your résumé. Land scholarships. Map out your future career path. On numerous occasions, the Torah asks a much larger question: what are our obligations to one another?
Themes associated with the concepts of justice, community, caring for the weak, honesty, and responsibility recur regularly throughout the work. These recurring motifs serve to undermine the narrow understanding of education and suggest that knowledge informs conduct.
To students, this message could be particularly relevant, as they face a daily opportunity to exercise their responsibility as members of the academic community. Education is more than a competitive pursuit, and the values that are promoted by the Torah can manifest themselves in group projects, class discussions, peer interactions, and other facets of college life.
Leaders Need Humility
Many students picture great leaders as people with big voices and confidence, who seem to have power from birth. Torah portrays leaders in a more complex way. They are hesitant, flawed, fearful, impatient, and highly human. Greatness is not portrayed as an absolute quality; rather, it is viewed as an ordeal.
This makes for some valuable insight for all those students who believe they lack “leader type” personalities. Leaders are not necessarily extroverts or people who get along easily with everyone else. Sometimes they speak up against injustice; at other times, they own up to their mistakes. Most of the time, they take responsibility even if it is hard.
This is also a useful perspective for all those people who lead student organizations and groups and manage projects for them. Being in charge doesn’t mean one can afford arrogance. A leader needs to know how to listen and learn, and leadership entails responsibility rather than power.
Memory Allows For Self-Understanding By Humans
There is a reason why the Torah speaks of memories time and again: remembering journeys, vows, commandments, failures, oppression, and liberation. This is not a form of nostalgia. Memories create identity. Memories tell people about their origin and things they cannot forget.
Students can take a lesson from it. In a world where everything keeps changing, memories may appear too slow or impractical. However, memories are useful to a student because they help one understand one’s place within a larger scheme of things. One learns about oneself through family history, national narrative, religious traditions, personal experience of migration, community experience, and culture.
It does not imply that students should blindly follow anything and everything handed down by others. Students should know where they stand and where they come from. Otherwise, they cannot make proper decisions in the present.
Features
Cricket in Israel: where it came from, why it’s barely visible, and who plays it today
Cricket made its way to Israeli soil back in the British Mandate period, and later got a boost from waves of immigration from India, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Despite such a long history, it barely registers in the mainstream: it never found a place on TV, and the rules remain a mystery even to many sports journalists. Today, cricket grounds are used mostly by immigrants and a handful of local enthusiasts, for whom the game has become something far more than just a pastime.
The British trace and the first matches on Israeli soil
The history of cricket in the region goes back to the days when the British flag flew over Palestine. Officers and officials of the Mandate administration brought with them not only bureaucratic traditions, but also the habit of gathering on trimmed lawns with a bat and a red ball. For the local population, used to passionate football and fast-paced basketball, it looked utterly foreign: hours-long matches, strict white outfits, tea breaks.
The “exotic” sport was slow to take root. When the Mandate ended and the new state shifted to completely different priorities, cricket quietly slipped to the margins of the sports scene, surviving only in the memory of a few.
Waves of immigration that brought cricket back all over again
The game was given a second life by immigrants from countries where cricket was an everyday thing. People from India, South Africa, and England, as they settled in Israel, looked for familiar ways to spend their free time and quickly found one another. For them, a weekend match meant not so much sport as a way to unwind and speak their native language.
However, even within these communities, cricket never became a mass pastime. It remained an activity for a narrow circle, like home cooking—made for special occasions, not put on a restaurant menu.
Why cricket didn’t break into the Israeli mainstream
There are several reasons the game remains invisible, and each one on its own would already be enough:
- Competition with football, basketball, and extreme sports, which take viewers’ attention and sponsorship budgets.
- The near-total absence of cricket on TV and in major sports media.
- The complexity of the rules for newcomers: many Israelis still don’t see the difference between cricket and baseball.
- A cultural unfamiliarity with spending half a day on the field for a single match, watching tactical nuances from a blanket on the grass.
Taken together, this creates a situation where even the rare bits of cricket news slip past in people’s feeds unnoticed.
Who takes the field today
The core of the community is made up of students and IT specialists from India, engineers who arrived on work visas, and immigrants from South Africa and the United Kingdom. They’re joined by a small group of locals who discovered cricket while studying or traveling abroad.
For many of them, the ground turns into a space for cultural memory: Hindi and English can be heard, whole families come along, and children run around the field while their parents discuss the finer points of the last delivery. There are no roaring fan sections here, but everyone knows everyone, and the sense of belonging turns out to be stronger than in the stands at any stadium.
Where and how matches happen without a major league
A typical place to play: a park on the edge of town, a rented pitch, hand-marked lines. Organizers combine the roles of coaches, umpires, and commentators. Matches are put together on weekends, and the whole thing feels more like a club scene than a professional structure.
Everyday hassles have become part of the folklore: soccer players take over the field, the ball disappears into the bushes, someone among the key players can’t get away from work. Every attempt to organize a full match feels like tilting at windmills.
Cricket’s prospects: the barriers are stronger than the hype
You can count specialized fields across the country on one hand, government funding is minimal, and media attention goes to sports that are more spectacular and easier to understand.
Even so, things have started to move. Israel’s national team periodically plays in international tournaments, and every win becomes a small celebration for the community. Youth sections have begun to appear within communities—more like after-school clubs for now—and enthusiasts are experimenting with shorter formats to lower the barrier to entry for newcomers.
Does growth in betting activity point to cricket’s popularity?
An indirect indicator of interest in cricket in any country has long been activity in the online betting segment. Industry iGaming portals regularly publish regional statistics, and we reviewed data from several major bookmakers: 1xBet, PinUp, Melbet. On the website, in a review of the 1xBet cricket betting app, we learned that the number of downloads from Israel is still small, but a slight uptick is still being recorded. This matches the overall picture: the cricket community in the country is growing slowly but steadily, and the betting-platform figures only confirm a trend that enthusiasts can see on the ground, in person.
Cricket in Israel is unlikely to turn into a mass sport in the foreseeable future, but it continues to live on thanks to a resilient community of immigrants and local fans who keep the game going despite the circumstances and make it visible at least within its own small, if modest, world.