Features
Reflections on 2 Winnipeg synagogues: While one is being radically transformed, one is just trying to stave off closure
By BERNIE BELLAN My reports on this website about wo different Winnipeg synagogues and how they’re both attempting to change with the times might serve as a reminder to readers how much of a vital role synagogues used to play in the lives of Winnipeg Jews.
In December 2021 I wrote about a proposal to repurpose the Ashkenazie synagogue into a synagogue/museum. Writing that story got me to thinking about the history of Winnipeg synagogues in general, so I also wrote an article in which I listed all the synagogues that ever existed north of the CPR tracks.
There were 34 of them! (You can read both stories in our Dec. 8, 2021 issue. Simply enter the words Dec. 8, 2021 in our “search archive” searchbox.)
Now, while various synagogues either completely folded or merged with other synagogues over the years, there can be no doubt that it was the synagogue that played the central role in the lives of most Jewish Winnipeggers for years in this city.
I don’t think I have to tell you that the situation is completely different these days. There are very few synagogues left in Winnipeg and what few synagogues we do have are clamouring for members.
There’s nothing particularly surprising about that, given that churches, as well, have seen a huge decrease in popularity in recent years. (Mosques, on the other hand, are showing robust growth – in Winnipeg, as well as other areas in Canada.)
We’ve recently seen the relocation of the Etz Chayim congregation to new south end quarters and, while the assessment of most members with whom I’ve talked is that it’s a very nice building, it doesn’t quite have the feel of a synagogue.
As for the Shaarey Zedek, it’s a huge unknown whether the renovation project that is slated to be completed in August (according to congregation president Neil Duboff, but perhaps a little bit later, as there are always unforeseen delays in an undertaking as massive as the complete overhaul of Winnipeg’s largest synagogue entails), will lead to a rush of new members joining the Shaarey Zedek congregation. Or, to be more realistic: Will it lead to many of those who have abandoned the Shaarey Zedek, especially since Covid, rejoining?
The demographics of Winnipeg’s Jewish community don’t portend a large increase in synagogue membership going forward. Our community isn’t growing and, by and large, new arrivals to Winnipeg’s Jewish community haven’t shown much interest in becoming synagogue members. (I do note that the Etz Chayim has been somewhat successful in attracting new immigrant families, but the numbers are relatively small as a proportion of our overall Jewish community.)
As I note in my article about the Shaarey Zedek, one would expect that there will be an initial flurry of interest in seeing what the renovated synagogue is like – and with a gorgeous new event centre it is likely to become the go-to venue once again for life cycle events, such as weddings and bar or bat mitzvahs, at least for the first year. Many of those celebrations have been occurring outside of a synagogue setting, however, and it’s hard to see how, other than the Shaarey Zedek becoming the “in” venue for a period of time, that initial rush of event bookings that are likely to occur there will continue in the long run. There is just too much interest in trying to make a life cycle event unique that will work against any one venue becoming the favoured destination for more than a short period of time, especially as people compete with one another for inventiveness.
But, what of the rather interesting proposal I’ve also written about in my article on the home page here, about the proposal to turn the Ashkenazie synagogue into a combination synagogue/museum?
In theory, it’s a great idea – but realistically, how many people are going to be willing to head down to a part of town that is, to put it euphemistically, not as safe as one might like? I’ve generally shied away from dwelling on how scary whole parts of Winnipeg are now in which to venture forth. I’ll leave it for the Winnipeg Free Press to scare the bejesus out of most of us with its daily reports of break-ins, stabbings, assaults – and all too frequent murders, in this lovely city. I don’t need to add to your fear – unless you’re like many readers who have informed me they simply stopped taking the Free Press – and shy away completely from established media sources. (I’m always curious which news sources those readers now rely upon? I hope that it’s not simply the internet because, for all its faults, the Free Press is still by far the best news source in this town.)
I recall going on a Jane’s Walk a few years back, led by Zach Fleisher, that was made up of visits to some north end hallmarks that once played – and in some cases, still do play vital roles within our Jewish community.
It began at the site of the old CPR train station, which is where so many of our ancestors first arrived when they came to Winnipeg. We then proceeded to Joe Zuken Park in Point Douglas (which has no particular significance for the Jewish community other than it is located in an area that was once teeming with new Jewish arrivals), then on to the Chesed Shel Emes, Gunn’s Bakery, the Ashkenazie synagogue, and finally the former Talmud Torah on Charles Street.
Ever since then I’ve wanted to revisit that particular walk. At each point along the way we learned so much about our community’s history. And, as someone who hadn’t often been back to the Ashkenazie since my childhood, I marvelled at how beautiful it still was. It was because of that visit to the Ashkenzie, where the late Saul Spitz gave us such an interesting description of the synagogue’s history, that I would love to see Dr. Yosel Minuk’s imaginative proposal for redeveloping that grand old building at least be given the opportunity to move beyond total dismissal by the powers that be. All that it would take is a few former members of the Ashkenazie who may have moved elsewhere (or perhaps their children or grandchildren), and who might have the means to help in the synagogue’s redevelopment brought to life for that proposal to have a chance of succeeding.
And isn’t that how so many projects within our Jewish community have attained their goals? Perhaps the most vivid example in recent memory was BB Camp’s capital campaign, which succeeded in raising over $6 million five and a half years ago – largely as a result of BB Camp alumni from all over North America contributing to the cause.
While the Ashkenazie might have relatively very few former members left around the world, I know that when former Winnipeggers return to Winnipeg for a visit, very often they check out their former haunts in the North End. There is still a huge sentimental attachment to the North End on the part of so many ex-Winnipeggers (which they have often passed on to their children and grandchildren). Perhaps if they were to realize how perilous the situation is for the Ashkenazie they might step up to help preserve that grand old edifice. After all – they’ve lost Kelekis Restaurant and the North End Sals. What other shrines do they have left to visit on the way to check out the homes where they (or their parents) grew up?
One final note – and this has to do with Israel’s war in Gaza – a recent article in Haaretz delves into Netanyahu’s long, complicated, and “symbiotic” relationship with Hamas, according to the author of a new book about that relationship. (In one of the most surprising aspects of that article, it says that Yahya Sinwar, Israel’s arch enemy and the one man almost every Israeli would like to see dead, sent a note to Netanyahu in 2022 “that read ‘calculated risk’ – in Hebrew.” By the way, the author of the book doesn’t pretend to understand what exactly Sinwar meant by that cryptic note.)
One other part of that article, however, does more to explain how so many Israelis who might have considered themselves leftists or centrists prior to October 7 have now swung so far in the opposite direction to the point perhaps that we in the diaspora might now fully appreciate how hell bent so many Israelis are on wiping out Hamas.
The author of the book referred to in the Haaretz article is someone by the name of Adam Raz. According to information given about him at the beginning of the article, Raz is determinedly leftist in his political viewpoint – and so, apparently, was his mother – until October 7.
Here’s how Raz describes an encounter he had with his mother the day of October 7: “The day of the horrific events of October 7,Israeli political historian and author Adam Raz had a big fight with his mother. A longtime leftist and devoted Meretz voter, she surprised him with her harsh reaction. ‘She said: “They should pour gasoline all over Gaza and blow it up,” ‘ recounts Raz, whose work deals with political theory, the Israeli-Arab conflict and the nuclear arms race. ‘I realized that I needed to delve into the psyche that made even left-wing Israelis think this way.’
I wonder, more than seven months after the October 7 massacre, how many Israelis still hold that attitude? I ask that, not because I think I know the answer, but because I honestly don’t – yet it’s never really explored in all the analyses of what’s happening in Israel, is it? And it is crucial to understanding why so many Israelis say “to hell with the rest of the world. If we have to, we’ll go it alone.”
Features
What Constitutes Genocide, and is Israel Guilty?
By HENRY SREBRNIK Genocide is a grave and exceptional violation of international law, defined and prohibited by the Genocide Convention of 1948. But maybe Raphael Lemkin did us no favour in coining the word during the Holocaust. It is now used by antisemites against Israel.
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish-Jewish jurist who escaped from Europe when the Nazis occupied Poland. He moved to Washington, DC, in the summer of 1942, and went on to document Nazi atrocities in his 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In this text, he introduced the word “genocide,” the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, ethnicity or tribe) and the Latin cide (killing).
But it’s not that cut and dried. Even before the antisemites accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, as a way of ridding themselves of any residual guilt about the destruction of European Jewry, the word had become little more than a term used by states and “human rights” groups who for one reason or another want to punish their adversaries.
Most of the time they really are talking about “ethnic cleansing,” pogroms, massacres and war crimes. By such criteria, every participant in World War II committed “genocide.” The mass killings of civilians in Hiroshima and Dresden in 1945 would today qualify. But these were acts against even far worse perpetrators of what we now call genocide, designed to speedily end the war.
What about the American war in Vietnam, and of course the almost numberless conflicts across Africa? The wars that dismembered Yugoslavia involved terrible massacres, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, but did they really meet the criterion for genocide? The numbers killed needn’t be huge. About 8,000 Bosniak Muslims were murdered in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb militias in 1995 during the Bosnian war. In the Western Hemisphere it would — and lately does — refer to the cultural and also physical extinction of pre-contact peoples from the Arctic down to Patagonia.
Are ideological attempts to kill groups of identifiable people within a state — the Holodomor in Ukraine, but also elsewhere in Stalin’s USSR — genocide? What about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia? Should we call this an “auto-genocide,” since it was perpetrated by the nation’s own mad Maoist regime? Was China’s Cultural Revolution a genocide? Millions probably died. Rwanda is an interesting case — obviously a mass murder by one class-cum-ethnic group against another, a giant pogrom involving intertwined peoples, but where the victims have now turned the tables.
Actually, there have been very few ideologically intentional attempts to destroy a powerless and helpless people, in whole or in part. Only a few qualify by that definition, the Holocaust being an obvious one, as well as the Turkish mass murders of Armenians in World War I. The allegations that Israel committed this crime do not meet the established definition and standards of genocide, are unsupported by established facts, nor do they stand up to common sense scrutiny.
A finding of genocide requires evidence of acts that are intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part. Israel has neither intended to, nor destroyed, Palestinians as a group in Gaza. Israel’s accusers allege genocide mostly because of the supposed number of civilians killed in Gaza. Such claims are rife with flaws. Genocide is not a quantitative crime; there is no specific number of civilian casualties that constitutes genocide.
Israel set a high bar for how to conduct urban warfare against an enemy who will stop at nothing, including the death of its own civilians. What kind of genocide is it when the population of Gaza is larger today than it was three years ago? And how could it be that Israel is trying to kill innocents when the ratio of civilian-to-combatant casualties is lower than that of other urban wars fought in even less-difficult conditions?
Dave Rich, an Associate Research Fellow at the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism, writes extensively about the intersection of anti-Israel activism, far-left politics, and modern antisemitism. He observes that people respond to the genocide charge through facts and data: Israel’s supporters take the charge of genocide on its face, as an evidence-based allegation of a crime, and try to construct the case for the defence. But there is no defence, because the charge is not made on that basis, or for that purpose, he states.
The term “genocide,” he notes in “From Be’eri to Bondi: Global Antisemitism After October 7, published in Fathom, October 2026, has shed its legal meaning and become a political label, whose antithesis is “resistance.” These two terms represent two states of being: in a colonial setting, either you are engaging in genocide or you are resisting it. There is no middle ground. “Israel is condemned as genocidal, not by observation, but through logical deduction: Israel is colonial, therefore by definition it is genocidal. It cannot be otherwise. And Gaza represents resistance against the entire Western colonial and capitalist power structure.”
Maia Zelkha, editor-in-chief of Yad Mizrah, a Sephardi and Mizrahi cultural magazine, also contends that the left employs the word “genocide” as an ideological weapon. “Before Israel had even launched its ground invasion of Gaza, and before there was any evidentiary record of Israel’s military campaign,” she writes, in her article “Genocide and Its Jurors,” in Quillette, Sept. 24, 2026, many leftist groups “were already describing Israel’s response as genocide.”
On Oct. 8, just a day after Hamas’s massacre and kidnappings, thousands of demonstrators gathered in New York’s Times Square in an “All Out for Palestine” rally to support “Palestinian resistance.” Within days, other organizations were issuing statements describing Israel’s unfolding military response as genocide, situated within a pre-existing theory of Israel as a colonial project that had produced genocidal dehumanisation. Prominent academics, human-rights organisations, activists, journalists, and public intellectuals described Israel’s conduct as genocidal.
Although the conviction that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians is not new, it has garnered ever more strength since the beginning of this war. In March 2024, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, published a report alleging that the Israeli war in Gaza constituted a genocide. In December of the same year, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch did the same. Then in July 2025 came both Physicians for Human Rights and B’Tselem, followed almost immediately by the International Association of Genocide Scholars. A resolution from the latter organization requires a two-thirds vote of its members, academics in the field of genocide studies, to pass. One would be hard-pressed to find a more reputable source for the libel.
On Sept. 16, 2025, a UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza; other prominent left-wing organisations and scholars have reached the same conclusion. And finally, on Oct. 9, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to South African judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay, who led the 2025 UN commission that found Israel guilty of genocide against the Palestinians while completely ignoring many of the world’s worst human rights abusers, including, of course, Hamas. Pillay’s commission found that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes. Yet it accused Israel of genocide. This is a staggering moral inversion. And now the award of the Nobel; this appears to be the greatest possible legitimization of the now-established consensus about Israel’s war in Gaza. The icing on the cake!
But remember this: When a jihadist terrorist organization like Hamas applauds a Nobel Peace Prize, the moral judgment of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee should rightly be called into question.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Launch Black Friday Promo Spots Fast with an AI Video Generator
Black Friday campaigns often require rapid decision-making, consistent messaging, and promotional materials on multiple digital channels. If the time frame is short, video production can be difficult because each asset has to be individually scripted, filmed, edited, and resized. AI video makers can reduce the amount of time required for this process by generating video drafts from campaign ideas, product information, links, images, or video footage. Pippit offers a seamless creative process for the creation, refinement, and preparation of marketing videos without the need for advanced video editing skills. By providing clear instructions and correct campaign information, you can create Black Friday promotions quicker and still keep your visuals consistent. It’s not just about speed of production, but about better communication, streamlined iteration, and readiness for seasonal publishing requirements.
Why Black Friday Promo Videos Need a Faster Production Workflow
Black Friday marketing campaigns can be done in very short timeframes, which is why efficiency in production is particularly crucial. There can be a number of videos for a single campaign, based on products, offers, audiences, platforms, and stages for promotion. Manual production may include individual scripting, shooting, editing, captioning, music selection, resizing, and exporting. Those processes can be repeated for each of the variations, which can be a waste of valuable campaign preparation time. Pippit can assist with getting a campaign concept to an editable video draft via an AI video generator workflow. Creative inputs can be text, links, files, images, videos, or other media. Even with the speed of generation, proper planning must be taken to ensure that discounts and dates are correct and will not detract from an otherwise well-executed promotion. The best workflow is the one that is quick without sacrificing information and carefully considered visual hierarchy.
Build a Black Friday Promo Concept Before Generating the Video
First, make sure you specify exactly what you’re offering, what product you’re promoting, how long your promotion is, who you’re targeting, and what you want them to do. Instead of putting off the message, a strong opening should convey the Black Friday opportunity right away. Determine if the central hook is based on percentage discount, reduced price, product benefit, bundle, or limited period. Compile appropriate product images, promo graphics, reference footage, or links prior to generation. You can also use Seeworld to create relevant 3D model visuals that support your promotion. Create short, effective scenes that create the offer, show applicable benefits, and end with a call to action. Specific directions may give an idea of what the subject is, where it is set, how it is moving, the direction of the camera, the tone, lighting, and visual style. Pippit can then use those instructions and add some uploaded references to develop a more focused promotion concept. Ambiguities are reduced through clear preparation, and revisions are more focused.
Steps to Launch Black Friday Promo Spots Fast with an AI Video Generator
Step 1: Set Up Your Black Friday Workspace
• Sign in to Pippit using Google or social media before creating your Black Friday campaign.
• Open the “Video generator” from the left menu under the “More” tab to begin.
Step 2: Build Your Black Friday Promo
• Select Dreamina Seedance 2.5, Dreamina Seedance 2.0, or Dreamina Seedance 2.0 Fast.
• Choose Dreamina Seedance 2.0 Mini, Dreamina Seedance 1.0, or “Auto Route”for value.
• Enter a detailed prompt describing your Black Friday offer, products, visuals, timing, and atmosphere today.
• Click “+” to upload reference images or videos from your device, phone, Dropbox, or a link.
• Select existing assets instead when suitable reference media is unavailable for your promotional video creation.
• Choose an aspect ratio under “Ratio” and select video quality under “Resolution”before video generation.
• Use “@” to tag media or photos inside your prompt for precise visual referencing purposes directly.
• Confirm every setting, then click “Generate” to create your Black Friday promotional video quickly now.
Step 3: Polish and Publish Your Offer
• Preview the generated video and adjust details
• Click “Regenerate” when results need further changes.
• Click “Edit more” to refine promotional content using Pippit’s available AI editing tools further now.
• Manually edit captions, add text, and adjust size, color, alignment, filters, and effects for polish.
• Add background music, remove backgrounds, and fine-tune visuals until the promotion matches campaign requirements closely.
• Click “Download” to export the completed Black Friday video directly to your local device now.
• Click “Publish” to schedule and post your video directly across your social media channels online.
Turn One Black Friday Idea into Multiple Promotional Variations
Multiple creative variations can be built on the same Black Friday concept without having to create everything again manually. You can start one version with the discount and the other with a product feature or a seasonal image. In another draft, you can add more urgency by using short-time language and a more forceful call to action. Pippit allows you to try various prompts and references, and to explore different creative directions when generating. Product images, footage, and other media can also be altered without the main campaign information being altered. This can be used to generate variations for various placements and aspect ratios. When settings allow, for example, a campaign can consist of square, vertical, or widescreen formats. Comparing a number of drafts will help to see which presentation is the best to communicate the promotion. Ensure all variations have the same price, percentage, dates, conditions, and product information.
Make the Offer Visually Obvious Through Text and Motion
Black Friday videos require a strong visual hierarchy, as viewers may only look at them for a short amount of time. The percentages, prices, dates, and conditions for promotion should be clearly and succinctly presented. Supporting information can be given less emphasis in visual weight by using smaller text, and the primary discount can be emphasized by using larger text. Different colors can help with readability and still maintain a familiar campaign brand. Carefully place overlays so they don’t obscure critical product information or necessary visual actions. Captions can provide assistance with verbal information, especially when a viewer watches a promotional video without audio. Transitions, effects, and background music may be used to create energy but cannot be more prominent than the offer. Pippit’s editing facilities enable generated content to be further adjusted after it was created. Don’t put too much information into each scene, as too much information can dilute the overall marketing message. Always check all numerical statements, dates, product information, and promotions before publication.
Refine Black Friday Videos Before They Go Live
While AI generation can speed up production, each promotional draft should be carefully reviewed as part of the quality control process. Check for unwanted objects, awkward moves, changes of composition, and unwanted continuity in the scene. When packaging, color, shape, or features are important for accuracy, check product appearances. Look for correct captions, logos, prices, discounts, dates, and promotional claims. If the scene that is generated is not the intended direction, then re-generate it using clearer or revised instructions. Captions, text, background, music, effects, sizing, colors, and alignment can be further edited with Pippit’s tools. Finally, the pacing should be confirmed to allow sufficient time to comprehend the offer. Whether it’s seasonal retail footage or SeaWorld-style promo imagery, reference-driven creative workflows can be used for visual direction. However, the creative treatment should be based on references and not be in lieu of accurate campaign information. Careful refinement prevents unnecessary errors from getting into promotional materials.
Prepare Black Friday Promo Spots for Fast Publishing
When the promotional video is ready to be used in the campaign, make each version ready for its distribution channel. Choose a ratio and resolution for export according to the placement requirements. Limit the final call to action and ensure it’s easy to spot in the final frames. Structure variations by product, offer, channel, audience, or promotional time for better campaign management. Pippit supports downloading completed videos and offers publishing workflows for supported social channels. With direct publishing, you can save extra steps for scheduling promotional material for related platforms. Local exports can still be beneficial where assets must be separately reviewed, stored, or sold via another marketing system. Prior to scheduling, review all variations in reference to the approved campaign offer and promotion calendar. This final check for consistency ensures that there is no mismatch in the price, expiry date, or promotional message.
Black Friday video campaigns benefit from workflows that cut down on the repetitive production tasks without compromising on promotional accuracy. Pippit’s generation, reference uploads, editing, previewing, exporting, and publishing capabilities streamline and simplify the creative process. Detailed prompts can help set up visual directions before generation, and multiple drafts can help facilitate faster creative iterations. Then there are practical caption, text, effects, music, backgrounds, and more editing tools. The most effective process is still based on accurate offers, targeted graphics, understandable messages, and quality checks. Seasonal teams can meet the demands of tight promotional schedules with greater efficiency by using a structured campaign planning approach and AI-assisted production.
Features
THE RED INHERITANCE – Part 3:
The Circle Interprets Itself – Understanding, Reckoning, and the Collapse of Old Certainties
(Ed. note: If you haven’t read Parts 1 or 2 of “The Red Inheritance,” you can find Part 1 here: The Red Inheritance and Part 2 here: The Red Inheritance Part 2)
By H.C. Piloski
Foreword
Part Three is about understanding.
Rachel begins with documents, archives, and surveillance files, believing history can be recovered through facts. What she discovers instead is that history survives not only in records but also in memory, silence, contradiction, and family.
As the circle of her inquiry widens, she learns that inheritance is rarely a single story. More often, it is a conversation carried across generations, unfinished and sometimes unresolved.
Rachel had intended to read only a few pages before bed.
Instead, she found herself awake long after midnight, sitting at her kitchen table with the RCMP file spread before her.
A date caught her attention.
December 26, 1991.
The day the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist.
She imagined her grandfather reading the news.
For David, the collapse was not simply political. It was personal. An entire worldview had fractured before his eyes.
The professor had explained it during one of their earlier conversations.
“For people like your grandfather,” he had said, “socialism wasn’t merely politics. It was a moral framework. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many people felt as though the world itself had lost its bearings.”
Rachel understood that better now.
The file recorded meetings, organizations, speeches, and surveillance reports. It documented where David went and whom he spoke to.
It documented what he did.
It revealed almost nothing about who he was.
One report noted that after a political gathering David had lingered outside the Labour Temple.
The officer’s assessment was brief:
Subject appears contemplative.
Rachel laughed despite herself.
Contemplative.
As though an entire intellectual and emotional universe could be reduced to a single word.
Yet perhaps it was not entirely wrong.
The deeper she read, the more complicated her grandfather became.
He was neither hero nor villain. Not a symbol. Not a stereotype.
He was a man trying to understand history while living through it.
Rachel opened her notebook.
He lived in a country that watched him, loved a country that doubted him, and believed in a world that collapsed beneath him.
For the first time, she felt less like a researcher and more like an inheritor.
The next morning she called the professor.
“You’ve reached the collapse,” he said.
“It feels like an earthquake.”
“It was.”
They spoke about the aftermath of 1991.
Old friendships strained.
Organizations fractured.
Arguments that had once seemed theoretical became deeply personal.
The professor explained that for the Jewish left, and many on the broader left, the Soviet Union’s implosion was more than a geopolitical event. It was a profound ideological shock.
“And my grandfather?”
“He was right in the middle of it.”
After the call ended, Rachel found herself thinking about the people who had filled her grandparents’ home when she was a child.
The endless conversations.
The arguments.
The laughter.
The crowded rooms full of people whose names she barely remembered.
Most of them were gone now.
What she was uncovering was larger than a single life.
She was recovering fragments of an entire vanished community.
The surprise arrived in the file almost by accident.
Buried among routine observations was a note stating that David and his wife had attended a performance at Manitoba Theatre Centre.
The entry was insignificant as intelligence.
For Rachel, it opened an entirely different door.
Politics had dominated every family story about David.
His meetings.
His causes.
His convictions.
But what about her grandmother?
Rachel had always known that she loved theatre, books, music, and literature.
What she had never considered was how completely those interests shaped her life.
For years Rachel had unconsciously treated her grandmother as a supporting figure in David’s story.
Now she began seeing her differently.
As a person.
As someone with her own passions, friendships, and intellectual world.
The deeper Rachel looked, the more similarities emerged between them.
Both believed ideas mattered.
Both loved books.
Both loved theatre.
The difference lay only in where they searched for meaning.
David sought it in politics and public life.
Her grandmother often found it in art, culture, and relationships.
Rachel wrote:
She walked beside his convictions, but she carried a world of her own.
This time she left the sentence untouched.
A few days later Olga came to visit.
Instead of speaking about David, she spoke about her own family.
Her grandparents had survived the Holodomor.
They carried memories of hunger, fear, and state violence.
“My grandparents never celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Olga said.
Rachel looked surprised.
“They didn’t?”
“No.”
“What did they do?”
Olga smiled sadly.
“They stared.”
Rachel thought immediately of David.
“Like my grandfather.”
“Yes,” Olga said. “But from the other side.”
The words settled heavily between them.
For years Rachel had viewed history through the lens of her own family.
Now she understood something new.
Her grandfather’s hopes had existed alongside someone else’s suffering.
His vision of justice had intersected with experiences he could never fully understand.
Neither reality cancelled the other.
History was not a single inheritance.
It was a collision of inheritances.
Before leaving, Olga reached across the table.
“You aren’t responsible for your grandfather’s beliefs.”
Rachel nodded.
“But you are responsible for understanding them.”
After Olga left, Rachel wrote down those words.
They remained with her for days.
The professor helped her understand another contradiction.
David had been a passionate supporter of Israel’s existence.
At the same time, he had consistently defended Palestinian rights.
“Both?” Rachel asked.
“Both.”
The professor smiled.
“Your grandfather spent much of his life living with contradictions.”
To many people such positions appeared incompatible.
To David they represented a single principle.
Justice could not be divided.
Rachel left the meeting with another realization.
David had spent much of his life refusing easy answers.
Perhaps that was part of what she had inherited.
As she prepared to leave, the professor stopped her.
“This isn’t really about your grandfather anymore.”
Rachel looked up.
“It’s about what his children inherited.”
After a moment he added:
“And what you inherited.”
Rachel did not expect Daniel to become part of the story.
Her younger brother rarely discussed family history.
When he called unexpectedly one evening, she assumed he was simply checking in.
Instead, he surprised her.
“Mom says you’re digging into Grandpa’s past.”
Rachel laughed.
“Word travels fast.”
“It always does.”
What followed was the most honest conversation they had shared in years.
For a long time Rachel had believed Daniel lacked interest in family history.
Now she realized his distance came from uncertainty rather than indifference.
“I remember Grandpa differently,” he told her.
“How?”
“He laughed.”
The answer caught her off guard.
Daniel began describing hockey games, family dinners, jokes, stories, and arguments.
Not the political figure preserved in newspaper clippings and surveillance reports.
A grandfather.
A human being.
“He loved asking questions,” Daniel said.
“And he loved telling stories.”
For the first time, Rachel saw a version of David that no archive could preserve.
Before ending the call, Daniel added something else.
“Grandpa wasn’t nearly as certain as everyone thinks.”
Rachel remained silent.
“He believed things strongly,” Daniel continued. “But he never stopped questioning them.”
The observation changed everything.
The file preserved David’s convictions.
His family preserved his doubts.
Neither version was complete by itself.
Before hanging up, Daniel made a promise.
“When you’re ready, I’ll tell you everything I remember.”
Rachel thanked him.
For the first time, she no longer felt alone in the search.
The following weekend Rachel drove to her parents’ house.
The place felt both familiar and strangely smaller than she remembered.
Photographs lined shelves.
Books crowded every room.
Pieces of family history sat quietly in plain sight.
While looking through old programs and photographs, Rachel began noticing things she had previously overlooked.
Her grandparents had attended theatre performances together.
Commented on books together.
Shared interests she had unconsciously assigned to only one of them.
Their lives overlapped far more than family mythology suggested.
Then her father mentioned something almost casually.
“There might still be some of your grandparents’ papers downstairs.”
A few minutes later Rachel stood in the basement.
The box sat on a shelf.
Its label contained a single word:
DAVID
She lifted the lid.
Inside were photographs, letters, programs, newspaper clippings, address books, and handwritten notes.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing obviously historical.
Simply the fragments of an ordinary life.
Exactly the sort of material institutional history often overlooked.
Her father watched quietly as she examined the contents.
“Did you know all this was here?”
“Mostly.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
He thought for a moment.
Then answered honestly.
“I never thought anyone would ask.”
The response hurt because it was true.
For years nobody had.
Back in her apartment, Rachel spread the contents of the box across her table.
One item stood out immediately.
A sealed envelope.
The handwriting was unmistakably David’s.
The envelope was addressed to Sarah.
Her aunt.
The daughter who had drifted away from the family.
Carefully Rachel opened it.
Inside she found an unsent letter.
At first it read like ordinary correspondence.
Then gradually it became more personal.
More vulnerable.
More uncertain.
One passage stopped her completely.
You believed I cared more about being right than about understanding you.
Perhaps there were times when that was true.
If so, I regret them.
Rachel read the lines again.
This was not the David preserved in family legend.
Nor the David described in surveillance files.
This was a father struggling to understand his own mistakes.
Further down she found another passage.
History can become a dangerous thing inside a family.
People begin arguing with symbols instead of people.
Before long, nobody remembers how to listen.
Rachel lowered the page.
The words felt painfully honest.
Not political.
Human.
When she finally reached the end, she found something even more powerful.
The final paragraph was unfinished.
It ended with a single incomplete sentence.
If there is one thing I hope you understand, it is that I never wanted disagreement to become distance. A family should be large enough to contain different truths. If I failed you, it was not because I loved my ideas more than my daughter. It was because…
Nothing followed.
No explanation.
No signature.
Only blank space.
Rachel stared at the unfinished sentence for a long time.
At first she felt disappointed.
Then she realized its incompleteness carried its own truth.
Life rarely supplied neat endings.
Letters remained unsent.
Conversations stopped.
Questions survived.
That night Rachel stood by her apartment window looking out across the city.
She thought about the RCMP file.
The professor.
Olga.
Daniel.
Her grandmother.
The box.
The letter.
Government archives had preserved David the activist.
Family memory had preserved David the husband, father, grandfather, friend, and neighbour.
Neither archive was complete.
Together they came closer to truth.
Rachel opened her notebook one final time.
She wrote:
Every archive contains missing pages. Every family does too.
Then she closed the notebook.
For months she had searched for her grandfather.
Now she understood something new.
The story no longer belonged solely to David.
It belonged to the people who inherited him.
Her father.
Daniel.
Sarah.
And perhaps herself.
The next answers would not be found in government files.
They would be found inside the family.
Rachel switched off the light.
The letter remained on the table.
Waiting.
So did the rest of the story.
To Be Concluded in Part Four: The Red Inheritance
About the Author
H.C. Piloski lives among unfinished sentences.
