Features
Rooslana Zodek has built a successful business here after having come to Winnipeg from Israel six years ago
By BERNIE BELLAN It was in the summer of 2016 when I approached then Rady JCC Assistant Executive Director Tamar Barr with an idea: Why not start a “Jewish Business Network” where members of the community with different backgrounds but one common interest could meet on a regular basis? The idea was not new in itself; there had been various attempts previously to do the same sort of thing, including having a “Jewish Chamber of Commerce” as an adjunct to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, but nothing had really taken off.
I was aware that there were many newcomers in our community who were anxious to network – not only with other newcomers, but with longtime members of the community. Tamar – with the full support of then Rady JCC Executive Director Gayle Waxman, was fully supportive of the idea and the JBN launched in the summer of 2016, with the first meeting held outdoors in the Danzker Garden area of the Asper Campus.
For the first three years the JBN was a terrific success. With regular meetings and interesting guest speakers,with at times meetings attracting over 100 attendees, there were plenty of opportunities for newcomers to mix with older members of our community. Two of our guest speakers in those first two years, and who attracted quite large crowds in particular were well known businesspeople Brian Scharfstein and Sandy Shindelman.
Over time, however, the JBN came to be a forum for newcomers themselves to speak to the audience – and their audiences began to be made up largely of fellow newcomers. While that may have been worthwhile, I felt that the JBN was deviating from its original purpose, which was to have newcomers and longtime Winnipeggers mix.
Then came Covid – and the JBN was put on hiatus.
This past fall, however, under the direction of Sheldon Appelle, Rady JCC Manager of Marketing, Communications & Digital Content, the JBN was “back in business” so to speak. I didn’t manage to make it to that fall meeting, but on January 24 I did attend the most recent meeting of the JBN.
The guest speaker was Rooslana Zodek, who arrived in Winnipeg with her husband and two children in 2016. (Since then Rooslana has had another child, born in Winnipeg.)
Rooslana Zodek has quite an interesting background. Born in Ukraine, Roolsana and her husband lived in Ashdod for 26 years before emigrating here in 2016.
She said that she had worked as a financial adviser for Bank Leumi for many years – until she transitioned into a completely different field, which was the subject of her talk. Rooslana explained that she had acquired a Bachelor of Economics and Accounting Studies degree from something called the “Open University” in Israel.
After she made that remark, Rooslana asked the audience, which numbered about 60, how many had also studied in the Open University? Quite a few hands shot up. I admit I had never heard of the Open University, so once I got home, I did some research and found out that it’s an online university in Israel which was established in 1974. It offers quite an array of courses at both the Bachelors and Masters level with all courses taught in Hebrew, but several also offered in Russian and Arabic. Since opening almost 50 years ago, over 50,000 students have graduated from the Open University, with 47,000 students currently registered taking at least one course. Its flexibility is particularly popular among soldiers, who are able to enroll even while serving in the military.
Returning to Rooslana – the turning point in her life, she said, came in 2009 with the birth of her first child, Ethan. Rooslana suffered from postpartum depression, she explained.
“I knew I had to find different ways to help myself, but I didn’t know where to start,” she said.
The search for possible therapies eventually led Rooslana to discover a number of different holistic approaches that worked for her, including “aromatherapy, Reiki, and homeopathy – after trying many healing practices.”
(Ed. note: Although I am writing about the path Rooslana took I do not intend anything I write to be taken as an endorsement of any particular treatment.)
As Rooslana explained, “spirituality transformed my postpartum mental health and helped me through the recovery process.”
It was while researching aromatherapy that Rooslana said she discovered that by combining various “essential oils” in different combinations she was able to help, not only herself, but the other members of her family as well with various conditions. Eventually, as she went on to relate, it was through the study of aromatherapy that Rooslana was able to open her own business here: “scentifique.ca.”
During her talk Rooslana spent quite a bit of time describing the benefits of certain essential oils, but we won’t get into any of those descriptions here. (If you want to find out more about what Roolsana says aromatherapy can do for you, go to scentifique.ca.)
In 2014, Rooslana’s second child was born, a daughter, Neomi. Rooslana said that, thanks to the holistic treatments to which she now subscribed, she “knew what to expect this time (insofar as postpartum depression is concerned) and I was prepared.”
However, Neomi also suffered from a terrible case of eczema, Rooslana explained. By combining certain essential oils, Rooslana said she was able to relieve the eczema, but once she stopped applying them, “the condition came back.” That experience – along with her previous experience dealing with her depression convinced her to further her knowledge of aromatherapy.
Upon coming to Canada though, Rooslana first found work as a full-time financial advisor with RBC. All the while though she was advancing her study of aromatherapy, going so far as to go to Europe for further training.
“I went back to school (in England) to learn about aromatherapy, natural skincare formulation, and nutrition,” she explained. (European schools are much better for learning about skincare, Rooslana added.)
Subsequently, Rooslana switched to a part time position at RBC and, in 2019, registered her online business, Scentifique Holistic wellness boutique. One year ago she joined the Essential Balance Center on Grant Avenue and began working as one of the practitioners there.
It was at that point in her talk that Rooslana made a number of observations that have special relevance for newcomers to our community, including that “it is very easy to start a business in Canada as opposed to Israel.”
“I opened a business account,” she noted, and “it took me only an hour to register my business.”
“In the beginning I was making things only for my family,” she observed, but then friends began asking her to develop skincare products for them, “and those friends told other friends.”
“Most of my clients are word of mouth,” Rooslana said. She also does a fair number of workshops – where she is able to bring her kids along, not only to share their company, but also to help her set up. (You might have seen Rooslana at her booth during Yom Ha’atsmaut at the Campus, also during Folklorama.)
“If I have an event I try to take the kids with me,” she noted. “If I’m at a market I try to make them part of a family business. It makes them feel engaged.”
One other interesting observation Rooslana made is that “men are my most loyal customers.”
Still, working part-time at RBC, then spending a good deal of the rest of her time devoted to her business must be quite demanding, as one audience member asked Rooslana: “How do you combine everything in a day?”
“At times it’s tough,” Rooslana admitted. But she does set aside “Sunday as a family day,” she noted. “I try to spend time after work at the bank with the kids,” she added, seeing “clients only after 9 pm during the week.”
But, not only is Rooslana actively engaged in developing her business, she is also a regular volunteer – both for the Jewish community and the Ukrainian community – from where she came. She thanked the Jewish Federation and, in particular, Dalia Sz
piro, for helping her and her family in their move to Winnipeg over six years ago.
Moreover, along with several other members of our Jewish community who also came from Ukraine originally, Rooslana spends a fair bit of time providing assistance, by giving financial advice, to Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Winnipeg since the Russian invasion of their country almost one year ago.
Where she gets the energy to do all that she does is hard to understand, but Rooslana Zodek is an example of the kind of spirit that so many newcomers to Winnipeg have embodied over the years. So many of our own ancestors followed a similar path – by working from home to fashion a successful business. Rooslana – and so many other newcomers to our community display a kind of energy and drive that is inspiring to see.
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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