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The greatest escape
Author’s father survived Holocaust with grace, joy intact
By MARTIN ZEILIG Former Winnipegger Bernard Pinsky grew up listening to his father Rubin Pinsky’s stories of his childhood in Poland and his time spent living in the forest, where he survived the Holocaust after fleeing a Nazi work camp in 1942.
“My father’s stories didn’t make the Holocaust scary for me as a child,” Pinsky says.
“He told me about scavenging for food in the forest, learning what berries and roots he could eat, making baskets and other things from birch bark and twigs, learning the animal sounds, etc.”
Pinsky, who lives in Vancouver, will speak at the Winnipeg launch of his book,Ordinary, Extraordinary — My Father’s Life (Behind the Book), on Sunday — the anniversary of Kristallnacht — in honour of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The program will feature a conversation between Pinsky and Belle Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre. The event is presented by the centre in partnership with Jewish Child and Family Service and the philanthropic Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation, for which Pinsky, a retired lawyer and community leader, is the chairman.
Of his father, a former yeshiva student, Pinsky says, “He was not a particularly successful businessman in Canada, although we didn’t feel poor; we had what we needed. I saw how hard he worked, how positive he was, how he provided for his family despite not knowing any English or French when he came to Canada in his 20s.
“Despite his being an ordinary man, I realized that his life had taken an extraordinarily difficult route, which he overcame to create a normal, ordinary life for himself and his family.”
Pinsky wanted to honour his father, so for his 72nd birthday in 1996, he wrote a manuscript about his life as a gift.
“He was very happy to get it, but by then he had some mini-strokes (TIAs) and I doubt he ever read the whole manuscript,” Pinsky says via email.
He also sent the manuscript to some relatives, including Melvin Fenson, a Winnipegger and former partner of Walsh Micay law firm, who had made Aliyah (immigration of Jews from the diaspora to Israel) in the 1970s.
“Melvin read the manuscript and said that it contained some good information about the Holocaust and Yad Vashem (Israel’s official memorial museum to the victims of the Holocaust) might accept it for their archives,” Pinsky says.
The manuscript was submitted in 1997 and Yad Vashem said it would be included in its catalogue, but nothing happened for a decade.
Then, in 2007, Pinsky received a letter from a history teacher in Djatlovo, Belarus, who was hoping to translate the manuscript into Russian.
It turned out to be the same town as Pinsky’s father grew up in — prewar Gzetl, Poland.
“I went to Djatlovo in 2012 and saw both the incredible work that the teacher, a Russian Orthodox woman, and others like her were doing to create memorials to the Jewish community that perished in the Holocaust, and I saw the small museum in that teacher’s high school that she had created based on my work.
“She said she did it because she is religious and preserving the memory of the Jews, who were now all gone, was the right thing to do.”
At the time, Pinsky was a lawyer with a busy practice and planned to finish the book when he retired. However, at 67, he moved on to a new job at a charitable foundation that also left him little free time.
Finally, his wife pointed out that, since it seemed likely he would work long hours for the rest of his life, the time to finish the book was “now or never.”
He spent evenings and weekends in 2023 finishing the book, had it edited and self-published it.
“Ordinary, Extraordinary is the survival story of Rubin Pinsky and some of Rubin’s immediate family,” he says. “But it is also the story of what Rubin did with his life after the Holocaust, his attitude towards life and his ability to pick himself up and to live life fully after every one of life’s blows, mostly with determination and with joy.
“His life could be an example of what people can endure in life and still be fulfilled and happy.”
Pinsky will offer one copy of the book to each family attending the event at the Berney Theatre. Register at 204-478-8590 or jewishheritage@jhcwc.org.
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Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown

(August 8, 2026)
Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem. Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black. Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat. For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos. With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café. While shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas. So the wife and I thought we would check it out. And. Yes. Buy something to support the business. Uproar. Not. Blocked entrances. Not. Storming the café. Not. Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers. The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews. Mostly teenagers. And yes. Shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem. Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” But I did enjoy my iced matcha.
(August 6, 2026)

Here we go again. Another round of forever negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living. The way things are going in the straits. If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire. Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well. I would choose the latter.
(August 3)

Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head. For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl. Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections. Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold. In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies. Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26th national election – five of them held since 2019.
(August 1)

Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?

Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025. And wrote the 1998 satire, “An Israeli is….” Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic and irreverent insight.
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K-tip placement at Sets on Corydon

