Obituaries
JACK SHINDLEMAN (September 30, 1923 – October 28, 2020)
Young at 97 years and 4 weeks. Yes, Jack Shindleman was young. He lived independently, cooked, cleaned and drove himself. His joy of life included being a loyal minyannaire at Shaarey Zedek for 22 years. Jack deserved to be fearless of age, and proud of it too. How young he seemed, was and looked.
Jack Shindleman was the second youngest of seven children, and grew up knowing the challenges of being a member of an immigrant family, particularly when others were not always friendly. His parents, Harry and Shprintza came to Canada from Zhitomer, Russia with their first two children, Clara and Max. His siblings, all of blessed memory, were Clara Greenberg, Max Shindelman, Sophie Goldstein, Elsie Yuffe, Eddie Shindleman and Gladys Kushner. Jack was also predeceased by his loving companion, Doris Bordian.
Jack learnt to become a watch repairman, but ultimately left his hometown of Winnipeg to join his sister Clara and his brother Eddie in Portage la Prairie. Jack and Eddie became a team at work in a grocery store, as livestock buyers, and as dealers in scrap metals and furs. He was also a founder of Prairie Abattoir in Portage la Prairie. Over the years, they were the true welcoming team to many a Portage family. With humour and a large dose of generosity, bonds of trust and loyalty were developed with customers. Many adults today will remember the joking and teasing, as well as the genuine interest in and care for their welfare that came along with a visit to the grocery store. Jack was an integral part of this. Jack always had a story to share, always made people welcome.
Elected and re-elected several times as city councillor in Portage la Prairie, Jack’s approach was summed up in one sentence: “My name is Jack Shindleman and I will work for Portagers to make Portage a better place.” Simple. To the point. And, indeed, that is just what he did. Jack also served as Deputy Mayor.
He had an expansive knowledge of world affairs, but he also had an encyclopedic mind of every corner and highway in the province of Manitoba. In his early years, Jack drove a horse and buggy to travel rural Manitoba along with his father in the livestock trade. A trade he continued throughout his life. And, those roads were indelibly written in his mind. Imagine the winter storms he prevailed through. It showed, because no matter how challenging the weather or road conditions, Jack was the driver (by horse and later by car) who remained calm and always got to the destination. It did not hurt, as well, that the horses knew the way home!
In 1967, baseball matches of the Pan Am Games were held in Portage la Prairie. Jack was there to help and support the teams. He took a continuing interest in the sport throughout the decades that followed. One of his last conversations with his great nephew Edward, who recalls that Jack’s mind remained sharp, was about the upcoming World Series. Jack’s passing was hours after the completion of this year’s World Series. How timely for a man passionate about the sport.
His regular visits with his nephews and nieces were Jack’s truest pride. His advice was sought on innumerable topics. His visits with family were much awaited. Jack never missed a birthday of a nephew or niece. He was always there with a hug, stories to share, and loving kindness.
Few people actually capture the essence of a place. Manitoba is “Friendly Manitoba”. Jack took this to become his mantra. He took a genuine interest in those he met. He had a view on how others could be helped, or indeed how they could help themselves. His experiences of people from all across society fostered wisdom that he shared eagerly.
After his sister Clara became a widow, Jack took it upon himself to attend to Clara’s wellbeing and was very dedicated to her. Jack was mechanically-inclined and well organized. He could fix everything and anything. Just give him a task and he did it. Somehow he always figured it out.
Going to an appointment meant that Jack first stopped to buy Morden’s chocolates to give as a gift to whomever he met, and their assistants. It was an act of kindness without any expectation. True kindness. Jack came from most humble beginnings, experienced the Great Depression and the war years, and lived a modest lifestyle.
He became a fixture on the local casino circuit, as well as taking casino tours to the United States with friends.
After returning to Winnipeg for retirement, he soon found that retirement could be as busy as work. With brother Eddie, he travelled around always busy with too many tasks to complete in a day. The loss of Eddie in 1998 lead to an ever-increasing bond with Eddie’s sons, Robert and Sandy. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners together. Baseball and hockey games too, always together. Caring for the family pets, always together. Shabbos and holidays spent together with family were a longstanding tradition not to be missed.
Jack’s siblings predeceased him. He is survived by many nephews and nieces, including great and great great nephews and nieces, and their families. We wish to express our appreciation for the care and comfort Jack received at the St. Boniface Hospital, by Dr. Kevin Coates, and a very special note of appreciation to Marlene who became Jack’s faithful aid, driver and companion. We also thank the pallbearers, Howard Yuffe, Stephen Yuffe, Michael Kushner, Jared Kushner, Stephen Rosenfield, and Howie Raber.
Doing the right thing came naturally to Jack. Donations of food, clothing, his time, as well as financial support were all part of his way. Should anyone wish to make a donation, please contribute to the Gray Academy of Jewish Education, the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (“CISA”), or a charity of your choice.
Jack is missed, but not forgotten. His humour and humility, his friendship and fellowship, his wisdom and wishes for others, will always be remembered to bring light to future days. May Jack’s memory forever be a blessing.
Obituaries
MORLEY JACOBS APRIL 16, 1941 – JUNE 26, 2025
With deep reluctance to post his passing, our adored Moishe who fought to stay as long as possible, left us, in the early hours of June 26th; while his presence resides in memories, the activities he pursued in the purposeful life he lived, remain.
He never lost the use of his affable charming smile under his blue eyed gaze; an intent listener, even in his last days, who made you feel seen and heard. To be known by Morley was a privilege; to have been his friend often felt like walking with a prince of angels, when he spoke less and listened more.
Dr. J as his students over the years would tell you, he was the kind of mentor you could trust. His passion for excellence in education was intense and generous, inspiring his students with their own potential to realize a career.
A PhD in Biochemistry, Morley lectured in classes and labs at RRCC, where he connected one by one, year after year with a multitude of young people. Reaching beyond this, Morley successfully petitioned the provincial government and won the retention of the Biochemistry Department at RRCC, following which he expanded the opportunities for students on practicum in this field, through a Jobs co-operative program. In the Biology/Chemistry Departments at U of W, as the Co-op Coordinator, Morley developed the program within the province and beyond for graduate students in applied Sciences Degrees.
In subsequent years, he connected graduates of the RRCC course, who wished to continue in Biochemistry in a reciprocal agreement to earn and achieve a Bachelor Degree in Biochemistry at University.
For 13 consecutive years, between1989 to 2002, Morley served as an elected School Trustee in the Seven Oak School system. He was an educational activist working on multiple committees, knew the principals and teaching staff at each school, always searching for increasing student successand a long time proponent for Year-round Education.
Through those years, Morley attended dozens of schools, personally documenting results of their YRE programs.
Selected to serve as the chairperson on a variety of boards, including the Seven Oaks School Board, he took on each role with dedicated time, organizing, improving, and encouraging an elevated standard of public service. His days were filled well into the evenings, with volunteer work and on weekends when he decided to partner with like minded friends, he brought computer tutors and kids together with an early learning education opportunity.
Along with all of that work, Morley found time to run the Boston Marathon to raise funds for the I.L. Peretz School in 1978 was a long time member of the CIC and served as Mid-Canada AOAC President. A lifetime believer in blood donations, Morley was honored as a distinguished citizen with humanitarian recognition, for the number of donations he gave over the years. On retirement, he researched and developed a Greenhouse Nutrition project to improve food sourcing for Northern communities and in that same period, spent 8 years writing a book, he hoped would be a legacy for people to understand the biochemistry of nutrition, “The Guide: To Understanding Nutrition and the Body’s Response to Food”, which he published in 2018.
He was still busy enjoying his first years in his eighth decade, planning future trips, and long walks with whomever wanted to come along, staying fit and eating well on his early morning rise, when he would be proactively planning the day; he loved life.
He believed each day was the privilege to make choices that made a positive difference to the people you loved and the work that you did. Through all of those decades, the longest number of them, he spent as a playful guy with our adored kids and grandkids. In hundreds of family photographs, he was the playmate in any game, goofy in every dress up, airplane ride giver, stellar hide and seek player, breakfast every morning maker, unabashed Karaoke singer, and the guy you wanted when you needed someone to make things right.
Born in Portage la Prairie, the third child of Abraham and Rebecca Jacobs, in 1950, Morley
moved with his family to Winnipeg, his older siblings, brother Joe (OBM), sister Toba Isler (resides in Florida), settled in at 529 Rupertsland, where he made many lasting friendships over his lifetime. Raised with strong Jewish beliefs in an observant and caring family home, he studied at Talmud Torah, excelled at school, and acquired the foundations for community, family, honorability in character, and the value of knowledge.
Morley considered it fate that we met on his 18th birthday at a Rec-room party in 1956. Nine years later, we married at the Shaarey Zedek, on May 2nd, 1965.
Husband who treasured the miracle of us, who supported the fulfillment our mutual dreams, he was my person who stepped up in all of our critical hours, my trained Lamaze partner for the birth of our children; we were two young people, who raised each other higher as we grew older together. When we met it was instantaneous friendship and when we married, it was a bond of mutual adoration, with all of those glorious years together, sixty nine of them, whatever happened, our togetherness was a state of being that nurtured us all.
Beloved by his nieces, Pam Weinroth (Robert), Rhonda Kupfer (Sam), and nephews, Scott Jacobs (Heidi) and Mark Jacobs, for whom he was an active uncle, visiting whenever he could as they grew up and married, happily around long enough to play with their children.
Mahjong sit-in player for any game, Morley was a cribbage master, who did a daily Sudoku-chess and a cipher quiptoquote, while at the same time; he was a researcher par excellence who was able to make the most complex biochemistry understandable. Strong and agile, he was an athlete from youth, a track star and marathon runner, in high school a basketball player while through his life a huge fan of baseball and hockey, he was noted in his early teens as an avid ping pong player.
For all the years people knew him he was humble with his own notable achievements academically, but remained generous with intellectual sharing, correcting only with honorable concerns. It was his ease in praising and engaging in progressions that valued excellence, through all of his years, daily, Morley was the legacy of his smiles of confidence for others. Morley was a guy who frequented the pleasure of being forever joyous with children, and as every family pet could avow, he was the doted upon favorite.
His time here blessed everyone and everything, and we know he would hope to inspire that in others.
Etched into our collective family sharing of him, we are his memory keepers held to our own souls with enduring honor for how he conducted himself in his life, evermore: Children, Stephanie Jacobs-Lockhart and Morrison Jacobs; our son-in-law, Darwin Lockhart and daughter-in-law, Jennifer (Lisakowski) Jacobs; and our grandchildren, Jonah Samuel Lockhart, Elle Talia Lockhart, Adli Jayden Jacobs, Mazie Carolyn Jacobs, and me, Bev (Berkal) Jacobs, the woman who had the privilege of him for all of those years, nothing to mourn and everything to remember with joy.
Services were held at the Chesed Shel Emes, and the Shaarey Zedek Cemetery, officiated by Rabbi Matthew Leibl, attended by pallbearers, Morrison Jacobs, Adli Jacobs, Darwin Lockhart, Mark Makarovsky, Michael Meyers, and Mark Kogan.
Donations in memoriam may be made to a charity of your choice.
We know his spirit will continue to be a blessing for all, if there was a way his neshamah would find it; to be the valiant progenitor for a great renewal in this world, in peace, love and humanism.
Obituaries
ETTIE (EDDY) WERIER
Ettie Werier passed away in her sleep on July 25, 2025, at the Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence in Winnipeg.
She will be hugely missed by her many friends and her family. Eddy was predeceased by her husband Lawrence, her younger sister Naomi (Wolfe), her older sister Sherry (Chochinov), her parents Max and Annie and her beloved grandson Koby.
Born Ettie Rubinfield in Ustryke Dolne, Poland in 1928, Eddy arrived in Winnipeg in 1931. She spent her childhood in the North End, where her parents ran a little grocery store on Alfred Avenue. She grew up to be a beautiful young woman with a warm smile and a quick mind.
She met Lawrence Werier, the love of her life, on a train ride to Winnipeg Beach. Eddy obviously wanted adventure, otherwise she would not have chosen Lawrence to be her beloved husband of more than 75 years, because he was always unconventional, but somehow this fit her perfectly. They were married in 1949 and started a family in 1952. While raising three children in River Heights, Eddy often travelled the world with Lawrence, visiting countless out-of-the-way beaches and dozens of countries.
Eddy had a quiet charisma. Maybe it was the mischievous sparkle in her eye or some droll bit of storytelling but all were attracted to her goodness, kindness and wit. Eddy was known for her intelligence, competitive spirit, and love for her family. She was an accomplished bridge player, and whether competing online or with her “bridge ladies,” she played to win, even on her last day. She was never an athlete, but at the age of 50 she took up tennis and became a force to be reckoned with until she retired her racket due to bad knees at the age of 85.
Eddy spent the last few years of her life enjoying the community at the Shaftesbury Residence and developed a strong and loving relationship with her companion and caregiver Tess Braun who is grieving the loss alongside the family, including Eddy’s surviving brother Jack Rubinfield. The family will especially miss the generous love and support she gave her children Kerry, Clifford and Jodie and their life partners Suzanne, Sabrina and Michael, and her grandchildren, Cynthia, Alex and Koby. Whether chatting with Grandma on Facetime or hugging her in her Shaftesbury suite, her family treasured the moments when we could come together in Winnipeg and bask in her smile. If you feel inclined to make a donation in Eddy’s memory, please choose a charity of your choice.
Obituaries
Dr. VELIMIR KON B.Sc., B.Ed., M.Sc., Ph.D. September 18, 1950-June 27, 2025
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Dr. Velimir Kon, or Shlomo, beloved husband of Branka and father of Deborah and Lea. Velimir was an accomplished teacher and academic, and he was renowned for his intellectualism, humility and humanity.
A gentle soul who was always sociable and who genuinely loved people, Velimir was equally at home in the university classroom as a professor and as a secondary school Biology, Chemistry and Math teacher in Northern Ontario (Big Trout Lake) and Manitoba (God’s River, Berens River). Velimir made a difference to many First Nations students throughout a career that spanned decades. He was dedicated to his students, colleagues and family. An adept and talented pianist, Velimir enjoyed the arts and of course Jewish humour. He was an avid shul goer and supporter of Israel and enjoyed his duties in shul as a Kohayn. Velimir was a man of faith who was able to fuse his love of science and Judaism.
Born in Croatia, Europe (the former Yugoslavia) to Shoah survivors Rose (Rochel, ne Lederer) and Arnold Kon (Ariel), Velimir immigrated to Canada with his wife and girls in 1988, making many personal sacrifices along the way to ensure a peaceful and safe life for his family. Adaptability and optimism characterized Velimir. Known for his heart of gold, Velimir touched the lives of all who had the privilege of knowing him. A love of Jewish values, family values and life-long learning and education characterized Velimir. With his charming, outgoing and friendly personality, Velimir welcomed everyone into his life and into our home.
His kindness, humour, generosity and goodness will be deeply missed by his family and friends in Winnipeg, Victoria, B.C., Guelph, ON, Osijek, Croatia, Belgrade, Serbia, Los Angeles and Boston, U.S.A., and Israel, Jerusalem, Haifa and Karmiel. Baruch Dayan Haemet.
A traditional funeral was held on June 30, 2025 at the Hebrew Sick Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can still be made to Chabad Lubavitch of Winnipeg, B’nai Brith or the JNF.
Velimir will be forever missed and cherished by Branka, Deborah and Lea.