Features
Morley Hollenberg: The family tradition of entering into medicine continued
By GERRY POSNER Has there ever been a run of doctors in one family like the Hollenbergs? Just as, at one time,, if you thought of baseball champions, the New York Yankees would come to mind, so too it is with medicine and the Hollenberg family.
There sure were – and are, a lot of Hollenbergs who went into medicine. Looking at Eva Wiseman’s history of Manitoba Jewish physicians, ”Healing Lives,” offers a long list of Hollenbergs in the field.
Just think about such legendary names in the original generation of Hollenberg physicians: Mike, Abe, Joe, Charles and the youngest brother in the mix, Jake. As well, there were two women physicians who married into the family: Esther (Gorsey), married to Jake; and Dorothy (Osovsky), married to Joe.
From the five physician brothers flowed yet another eight doctors: Murray and Joan, children of Mike; Morley, son to Jake; Charles, Martin and Barbara, children of Abe; and Joanna and Robert, children of Joe.
Add to those names a member of the third generatiion of Hollenberg doctors: Abe’s grandson, Anthony , now head of the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. As well, there are many other practicing Hollenberg physicians apart from the Winnipeg clan who are related.You get the picture.
With all of these accomplished Hollenbergs engaged in medical practices, one of them though took a different route in his career: Morley Hollenberg. He ended up in the research part of the profession rather than in medical practice. His contributions in research are staggering and still continue to this day.
Now, for those of us who are not part of a family business, it might be hard to wrap your head around the pressure, whether direct or indirect, to continue in the business. Morley seemed to have no issues with proceeding the way he did, but perhaps that is because he was so well grounded prior to entering medicine.
Morley’s early days, as for many others in Winnipeg were spent in the north end of the city, from 1942-1954, after which time Morley’s family moved south to 150 Waverley Street, which is where Morley’s brother Walter and sister Dorie grew up. Morley was a graduate of Queenston School, Robert H. Smith and later Kelvin High School. He continued at the University of Manitoba in the Honours Chemistry Programme that likely was the foundation of his success in the sciences.
But, he was also well rounded as he participated in the University Glee Club producing Broadway musicals ( I can vouch for that fact as he was with me in “Guys and Dolls”), also rowing with the Winnipeg Rowing Club. The result of Morley’s accomplishments, even in those early days, was recognized with his being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, given for excellence in academia and outside interests.
It was then that the true depth of the Hollenberg medical talent started to emerge. From 1964-1968 Morley was at Oxford University in the Department of Pharmacology, working in the area of molecular pharmacology. He ended up with a Ph.D from Oxford. From there he went with his wife – the love of his life, Joan (née Omson), also of Winnipeg, to Baltimore, to attend Johns Hopkins Medical School.
Morley remained there for 11 years, from 1968-1979, which is where he obtained his medical degree and did his internship along with further research training.
Clearly, Morley was successful at Johns Hopkins since, during his tenure there, he was both an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from 1973-1979 and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Hopkins Department of Medicine from 1974-79. Some of his work there contributed in an integral way to the 1986 Nobel Prize won by Stanley Cohen of Vanderbilt University.
In 1979 Hollenberg accepted a position as Department Head at the University of Calgary to develop a new area of molecular pharmacology in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. The lab Morley was associated with thrived and became famous for research into the area of hormone action in inflammatory disease.
That headship lasted for 11 years, until 1989. During the period from 1979 right up until the present, a span of 44 years, Morley has, in addition to maintaining his research programme, provided mentorship and guidance for graduate trainees for their MSc and PhD degrees, as well as for the younger faculty in their career development.
From 1980 right to the present, Morley has led a nationally funded research program investigating inflammatory disease and the training of undergraduates in that area.
Moreover, from 1999- 2022, it was Hollenberg who was the driving force behind the combined MD-PhD-MSc Leaders in Medicine program at the University of Calgary, from which many graduates have now assumed faculty positions in the Faculty of Medicine in Calgary.
Even with all the illustrious careers of so many Hollenberg doctors, Morley Hollenberg has truly achieved a tremendous level of accomplishment.
With all of that, there is yet another side to Dr. Morley Hollenberg, one that you would not expect. It became almost an alternative career: art. What began at age 10 under the guidance of a New York aunt, Morley rediscovered with a passion in Calgary and, in 1985, with the help of Master Chin Shek Lam and a close friend, Jack Wise, Morley began creating free-form Chinese brush calligraphy which, on the surface, would seem to be quite a distance from pharmacology.
As Morley puts it, “This art form represents for me an ideal medium for the visual expression of Nature’s secrets.” More significantly, in a way that links Morley’s work with his artistic passion, Morley says that “The brush strokes record visual images coming from the natural environment that surrounds us and from the microscopic world that is the subject of my scientific world.”
The result is that, even today, Morley continues both to conduct research at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine and, at the same time, to work as an artist in his home studio. As Morley reflects on the main areas of activity in his life, aside from Joan and his two children, son Daniel Hollenberg (who resides in Winnipeg) and his daughter Elisa, of Toronto (not to forget the grandchildren in Daniel’s family, Mira and Isaac, now in Winnipeg), he says: “ I have begun a series of Mandala paintings, inspired by the images of the cells expressing the dually-tagged receptors that are the focus of my research.” And, he adds, “ The mandalas I paint reflect the cell images and match the photographs I take wherein mandala images appear. I find there is a common source of creativity both in the doing of science and the creation of visual art.”
Not many of us (Are there any?) can take our professional work and merge it with another passion to create a combination of two worlds. I suspect none of the previous Hollenberg medical stars ever reached the Morley Hollenberg level of success in both the sciences and the arts. Morley is grateful for it all.
Features
Rabbi Gary Zweig’s new book provides humorous and moving accounts of making minyans in unlikely circumstances
By MYRON LOVE The recitation of the kaddish is a central tenet of Jewish religious life. Even members of our community who are largely secular will likely recite the words of the kaddish for a parent, sibling or spouse at some point in their lives – even if only at the grave site.
The kaddish can only be recited publicly in the presence of a minyan – a gathering of ten (men in the Orthodox tradition. The number, as explained by Rabbi Gedalia (Gary Zweig), stems from the number of spies – as written in the Torah – whom Moshe rabbenu sent into the promised land and who came back with negative reports as compared to the two spies – one of whom was Joshua – who said that the land was flowing with milk and honey.
It is this challenge of putting together minyans for a mourner to recite the kaddish in different locales and circumstances – when a minyan in a shul is not possible – that is the subject of Zweig’a newly released book, “Kaddish Around the World” – a 90-plus page compilation of short stories – some humourous, some heartwarming – of successful efforts to recruit enough daveners for a kaddish minyan, ranging in time and space from a Super Bowl game in San Diego to the middle of a game reserve in South Africa to a Jewish museum in Cordoba in Spain – in a city largely devoid of Jews.
Zweig, who hails from Toronto, was in Winnipeg over Yom Tov to lead services – along with Toronto-based Chazan Manny Aptowitser – at the Chavurat Tefila Talmud Torah Synagogue. On the Tuesday just before Yom Kippur, the synagogue hosted an evening to provide the rabbi with a venue to discuss his new book – a sequel to his first book, “Living Kaddish,” which he released in 2007 (and has been translated into Russian and Spanish).
Zweig is one of the original Aish Hatorah-trained rabbis – having attained his smicha in 1982 from Rabbi Noah Weinberg, the founder of Aish Hatorah. He (Zweig) is much travelled, himself having led Yom Tov services in such exotic locales as Bermuda, Barbados and Curacao in the Caribbean, Mexico and Sweden.
Zweig noted that he was inspired to write “Living Kaddish” after his mother passed away in 2002 when, on one occasion, he was not able to find a minyan so that he could say kaddish.
In his presentation at the Chavurat Tefila, he observed that the first Jew to mention kaddish is purported to be Rueven – about 3,500 years ago – on the passing of his father, Yaacov (Israel). About 900 C.E., Zweig continued, kaddish became part of the liturgy and, 200 years later, was included in the siddur.
It is interesting, he noted, that kaddish is said not for the deceased, but, rather, the living. There is no mention of the Lord in the kaddish either. Kaddish is actually a prayer for hope and the future.
For a parent, one is required to say kaddish three times a day – morning, afternoon and evening – for 11 months. For a sibling, child (God forbid), relative or others, the requirement is just 30 days.
One of the stories in “Kaddish Around the World” tells of one of Zweig’s own experiences – after his father died in 20201 at the age of 101. The author happened to be at a family bar mitzvah in Orlando several months later. He fully expected that in a city with a Jewish population the size of Orlando, he wouldn’t have any trouble putting together a minyan for a Sunday morning. He felt even more confident when he noticed that an AMOR Rabbis convention was being held at the same hotel. On inquiring which sort of rabbis these were, he learned that AMOR stood for “Association of Messianic Rabbis”.
Come Sunday morning, most of the bar mitzvah guests had gone home. He could only muster eight for the minyan. He thought he could try the messianic group in the hope that some of them may have been born Jewish. Four of the group offered to help. A Chabad rabbi suggested that Zweig ascertain that each had two Jewish parents. Two qualified.
Zweig quoted one of the two messianic rabbis who said, after the service that ”this was the most moving service I have ever experienced.”
“Maybe Hashem brought me to that particular hotel at that particular time so that I could provide them with little spark of what Judaism is about,” Zweig said.
Another of the stories in the book concerns a shopkeeper in an American mall where many of the other store owners were also Jewish. The individual, Yossi, needed a minyan for mincha (the afternoon prayer) but couldn’t afford to close his business. He figured he could round up enough of the other store keepers to form a minyan. Everyone he approached was willing to come if he were to be the tenth. (In my own years organizing minyans, that was something I heard often enough – “call me if I will be the tenth”). Yossi’s solution was to assure each one he asked that, yes, he would be the tenth.
“Kaddish Around the World” is available on Amazon and also in digital ebook format and as an audio book.
In addition to being a rabbi and author, Zweig also is a singer/songwriter working in his own genre – Jewish rock and roll. He has a band called “The Kiddush Club,” and a CD called “TOYS.” In addition, he has recently launched a YouTube channel called “Living Kaddish”.
Features
The Gaza Peace Plan is not a Done Deal, but an Opening
By HENRY SREBRNIK (Oct. 23, 2025) The idea that Hamas will voluntarily disarm, that international forces will deploy in the Gaza Strip, and that the process of building a Palestinian government by people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which a disarmed Hamas does not participate, are false hopes, if not fantasies. But does this mean U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan was useless? Of course not.
Trump understood the necessity of bringing the war to an end. But he also believed that endless debate among experts or, worse, historian and lawyers, would never produce an agreement. He presented an offer – actually, an ultimatum – to Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas that neither could refuse: immediate, unconditional and complete release of all hostages and missing persons, something the Israeli public longed for, in exchange for a final end to the war, which a humbled Hamas needed.
Two years of war has left Hamas weaker than it had been in decades. Israeli bombardments had shattered the group’s military capabilities and depleted its arsenals. In many neighborhoods, control had drifted to local clan networks and tribal councils. This hinted at something that could one day replace Hamas’s iron grip. To prevent this, Hamas has been ruthlessly murdering all potential rivals in the areas of Gaza it controls since the ceasefire went into effect.
Despite the severe degradation of its military capabilities during the war, Hamas still has more soldiers and weapons than all its rival factions in Gaza combined. Hamas has managed to redeploy approximately 7,000 militants to reassert control over the territory. They have publicized photographs and videos of their forces murdering and torturing; the victims include women and children.
The ceasefire is a temporary reprieve for Hamas: a chance to regroup, rearm, and prepare for the next round of fighting. In Islamist political thought there’s a word for it, hudna — a temporary truce with non-Muslim adversaries that can be discarded as soon as the balance of power shifts. Then the time for jihad will arrive again. Hamas was established in 1987 and isn’t going to disappear.
In fact Hamas also says it expects an interim International Transitional Authority to hire 40,000 Hamas employees, and Hamas spokesman Basem Naim says he expects its fighters to be integrated into a post-transition Palestinian state.
Still, Trump has succeeded in ending the current war in Gaza, where Joe Biden failed. Biden’s national security team, drawn almost entirely from his supposed expert class, didn’t even see the crisis coming. Just five days before the attack, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had published an article in Foreign Affairs in which he wrote that “the region is quieter than it has been for decades.”
Biden also had insulted the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, by publicly condemning the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And, of course, there was Biden’s poor relationship with Netanyahu, and his chronic inability to get the Israeli prime minister to do what he wanted.
By contrast, Trump returned to office with substantially more influence in both the Gulf and Israel, based on his first-term successes in the Middle East, especially the Abraham Accords (for which he’s never been praised by his political enemies).
Four Arab countries formally recognized Israel, beginning with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed by Sudan and Morocco. The next stage was intended to include Saudi Arabia. One motive put forward by some analysts for the October 7 attacks was that they were intended to provoke Israel into a response that would derail Saudi Arabia’s admission.
Instead of sitting Israelis and Arabs in a room and expecting them to negotiate an outcome, Trump’s approach has been to exert leverage through other players in the region, especially, Egypt, Turkey, and – most importantly – Qatar.
In Jerusalem, they call Qatar “the spoiler state.” Israelis describe the emirate as two trains running behind the same engine. One, led by the Qatari ruler’s mother and brother, supports the Muslim Brotherhood and is an unmistakable hater of Israel. The other, led by the prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani and several other senior figures, seeks rapprochement with the West.
The Qataris were shocked when Israeli jets on Sept. 9 conducted an airstrike in Doha targeting the leadership of Hamas. They then signed onto Trump’s peace plan at a meeting in New York Sept. 23, hosted by Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Ibn Hamad Al Thani, and attended by the leaders of eight Arab states, along with members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Netanyahu was then browbeaten into accepting the plan (and also forced to apologize to the Emir for the airstrike). It was somewhat ironic that the airstrike made the peace plan possible. As well, Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June gave this negotiation some very sharp teeth.
“If you would rather leave peacemaking to the historians and diplomats, then you may wait a long time for wars to end,” suggested Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in an Oct. 15 Free Press article. His advice? Go to the “deal guys: They get the job done.”
In a sense, both Israel and Hamas had accomplished their goals. Israel had broken the Iranian axis of terror by eliminating Hezbollah and Hamas as a fighting force, along with the Iranian nuclear threat. Hamas had succeeded in luring Israel into a trap that led it to become hated and isolated around the world. This included the labelling of Israel as genocidal and the global call for a Palestinian state.
The rest of the 20-point peace plan will be addressed in a step-by-step fashion. Meanwhile, Israel must ensure that it retains freedom of action in Gaza, by decisive action against any attempt by Hamas to rebuild its army, its rockets, its battalions and its divisions.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Why Fitness Routines Fall Apart — and How to Rebuild Yours
Every spring, gyms see a flood of hopeful faces. New shoes, fresh playlists, unwavering intentions, by mid-summer? Half of them vanish into the fog of abandoned routines. The story repeats year after year until it starts to feel almost scripted. Why does enthusiasm evaporate? The easy answer involves willpower but that explanation misses the point. Habits don’t fail because people are weak. Life stress, boredom, and monotony ruin routines. Timely lever pulls can change narratives. The hardest part is persevering when motivation wanes.
Mistaking Motivation for Momentum
Most chase that opening surge, the lightning strike of motivation, but then stop searching once enthusiasm fizzles. A scroll through sites like PUR Pharma (pur-pharma.is/) or a glimpse of an influencer’s progress triggers a burst of action: new workout gear ordered, plans scribbled in planners destined for dusty drawers. Yet momentum fades when small setbacks pop up (a late meeting here, rainy weather there). Real progress comes from building systems stronger than any fleeting pep talk. Those who frame fitness as something owed to motivation end up back at square one every time life interrupts, which it always does.
Overcomplicating Everything
It’s tempting to turn wellness into a science fair project with spreadsheets and specialized equipment lined up on day one. This is the allure of complexity disguised as seriousness, a new diet paired with seven types of supplements and four color-coded bottles. Simplicity gets lost in the noise almost instantly. Most successful routines rely on two principles: keep it simple and keep showing up even when everything else is chaos outside those gym walls. Anyone insisting that perfection is required before taking step one has already constructed an excuse not to begin at all.
Forgetting Fun Completely
Who decided exercise must hurt or look like punishment? Somewhere along the line, fun got swapped out for grind culture and “no pain, no gain.” That isn’t just unappealing, it’s unsustainable over months or years. If sessions feel like torture devices borrowed from medieval times, nobody should be surprised when commitment falters fast. Seek activities that actually spark some joy or curiosity, a dance class instead of yet another treadmill session, maybe, or play a pickup game rather than slogging through solo circuits again and again.
Ignoring Recovery (and Reality)
Sleep deprivation, disguised as discipline, fools anyone, except perhaps uncritical Instagram followers. Ignoring recovery turns ambition into tiredness faster than any missed session. Because bodies break without rest, routines must breathe with owners. Cycling, real leisure, and honest self-checks regarding weekly goals build endurance, not continual pushing.
Conclusion
Change rarely arrives by force alone but usually grows quietly from patterns repeated imperfectly over time, even if last month looked nothing like this week so far. Drop the hunt for nonstop inspiration. Instead of breaking behaviors at the first hint of stress or boredom, build habits that last. People who rebuild methodically after every stumble or detour make progress, not those who peak and then fall.