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Obituary: Dianne Kipnes, 81, a philanthropist who transformed Edmonton’s hospitals, arts and Jewish community
A passion for helping people and her empathy for those who were suffering propelled Dianne Kipnes into becoming one of Edmonton’s most significant philanthropists supporting scores of charities locally, nationally and internationally with her husband Irv.
She died in Edmonton on Dec. 26. She was 81.
Dianne and Irv Kipnes donated millions of dollars through their family foundation to numerous charities.
“One thing that comes through for all of us who had a chance to work with Irv and Dianne on anything was Dianne’s interest in making sure that what was done was done right,” friend Howard Sniderman said. “She was a very elegant and graceful woman and everything she did had a touch of elegance and grace.”
The couple embraced charities in healthcare, the arts, and education both locally and nationally and were recognized as transformative leaders in Edmonton’s Jewish community of approximately 5,000.
They were major benefactors of Edmonton’s University Hospital Foundation, the Dianne and Irving Kipnes Urology Centre, and created chairs in Radiopharmaceuticals, Lymphatic Disorders and Finance and Development at the University of Alberta. They also helped fund programs in music, engineering and Jewish studies.
In the early 2000s Dianne developed lymphedema in her legs after treatment for cancer. At the time there were very few options available, and she established the Dianne and Irving Kipnes Chair in Lymphatic Disorders—the first position of its kind in Canada—with an $5-million donation. When the announcement was made, Kipnes described lymphedema as an ‘underdog disorder,’ which was originally misdiagnosed when she was in Europe as “either an allergy, an insect bite or a psychological reaction to the horrors of visiting Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The despair was worse than the illness,” she said. “But the antidote to despair is action.”
Kipnes met her husband in 1977 when he stopped in Montreal for dinner with his first wife on a return trip to Edmonton from Israel. Dianne and her first husband joined them with mutual friends. Several years later Dianne had relocated to Edmonton with her husband—and when her marriage ended, she reconnected with Irv, who was also single again.
“Theirs was a true partnership,” said Sniderman. They did it hand in hand together.”
Fielding Graduate University mourns the passing of Dr. Dianne Kipnes (PSY’98), a distinguished alumna and former trustee whose profound contributions left an enduring legacy within our community: https://t.co/C1NXrrsBMj
— Fielding Graduate University (@FieldingGradU) January 2, 2025
Kipnes was a psychologist by profession. She had a master’s degree in social work from McGill and a PhD in clinical psychology from the Fielding Graduate University. She worked at the University of Alberta’s psychiatric walk-in clinic from 1984-1994.
“In her practice she was healing people in difficult straits. And she wasn’t prepared to let this go,” Sniderman said. “She took significant steps to help people. For example, she wanted to see a place where veterans, and later first responders, could get treatment, but in a respectful place, not an institutional setting. She was very concerned that they be treated with dignity. So, she and Irv established the CapitalCare Kipnes Centre for Veterans. It’s no surprise to see that someone who is a healer by profession can reach out in the rest of her life and find other ways to heal people.”
In 2022, Irv and Dianne were honoured by Jewish Federation of Edmonton “as among the most influential and largest lifetime donors in the history of Edmonton UJA.”
They supported a variety of Jewish initiatives including a Holocaust symposium for Edmonton high school students, provided bursaries for teens to go on March of the Living and funded a classroom in Israel at Bar-Ilan’s Azrieli medical facility in Safed. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Kipnes’ provided a leadership gift to the federation’s fund for food and medical care for Jews in the Ukraine.
Stephen Mandel, a former mayor of Edmonton, said that Kipnes was always looking for ways to give back to the community, and helped transform the city into a hub for the arts.
“Dianne was very quiet and reserved but knew how to get things done in a remarkable way. She set a standard in Edmonton for things our city would never, ever have seen. She was the creator of the Edmonton Opera Gala, a fundraiser which became one of the key events of the year in Edmonton. It was Dianne’s vision to create something special. Ballet Edmonton only exists today because of Dianne and Irv. It was ‘typical Dianne’ to come up with a way they could really give back to the community. She had an uncanny ability to see what was needed to get it done. It was Dianne’s way. It’s no different when you look at the National Arts Centre’s Kipnes Wall in Ottawa. They came up with that idea.”
The five-storey Kipnes Lantern rises above the National Arts Centre’s front entrance and incorporates transparent LED screens to display images of Canada’s leading artists and productions. It is North America’s largest transparent LED wall and was illuminated with Dianne’s image when she died.
In a statement the National Arts Centre said, “The Dianne and Irving Kipnes Foundation has done immeasurable good in the world, supporting various causes including cancer research, veterans, education and the arts. The NAC’s five-story architectural glass tower is named the Kipnes Lantern in recognition of their extraordinary philanthropic support. Today, it honours her lifetime of work effecting change.”
“The community is going to miss her,” said Mandel. “We are a small community, and you need real leaders and it’s hard to find them. Dianne was one of them.”
She was the recipient of the Alberta Centennial Medal, the Peter Lougheed Award for Community Service and the Order of Canada.
She leaves her husband of 35 years, Irving, her sister Brenda and daughter Kendra as well as her stepchildren, Harry, Rozanne and Ronee, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The post Obituary: Dianne Kipnes, 81, a philanthropist who transformed Edmonton’s hospitals, arts and Jewish community appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Rashida Tlaib Renews Calls for Arms Embargo Against Israel Even as Jewish State Advances Toward Gaza Ceasefire
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Thursday renewed calls for the implementation of an arms embargo against Israel, lambasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “genocidal” even as the Jewish state moved to agree to a ceasefire deal with Hamas to halt fighting in Gaza.
“Genocidal maniac Netanyahu and his cabinet will never stop until we have an arms embargo,” Tlaib posted on X/Twitter.
Tlaib’s comments came after Netanyahu paused the finalization of a ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas, accusing the Palestinian terrorist group of “reneging” on previously agreed-upon terms.
“Hamas is reneging on the understandings and creating a last-minute crisis that is preventing an agreement,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.”
The sticking points center on the list of Palestinian prisoners who have been detained in Israel largely for involvement in terrorist activities to be released in exchange for the hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza after being kidnapped during Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas had attempted to overturn a key clause in the agreement that grants Israel veto power over the release of high-profile inmates who are considered “symbols of terrorism,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said. Israel has also accused Hamas of “demanding to dictate the identity of these murderers,” in direct contradiction to the previously agreed-upon terms.
Later on Thursday, however, Israeli officials said the last obstacles to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal had been ironed out and Israel’s security cabinet was set to approve it on Friday. The agreement is supposed to go into effect on Sunday.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has positioned herself as a fierce and outspoken critic of Israel. Since entering office, Tlaib has repeatedly accused the Jewish state of implementing an “apartheid” regime in the West Bank and turning Gaza into an “open-air prison.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Tlaib has sharpened her condemnations of the Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, she hesitated to release an official statement acknowledging the mass slaughter, abductions, and rapes perpetrated by Hamas. Less than two weeks after the invasion, Tlaib introduced a “ceasefire” resolution between Israel and Hamas. In November 2023, the House of Representatives voted to censure Tlaib over her anti-Israel rhetoric.
The progressive firebrand has also condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing a full-scale “genocide” against the civilians of the enclave. She has also peddled the unsubstantiated claim that Israel has purposefully inflicted mass starvation against Palestinian civilians. Over the past year, Tlaib has urged the outgoing Biden administration to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Simmering with anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, she refused to endorse Kamala Harris for the US presidency.
Tlaib also slammed outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday, accusing the State Department official of lying to Congress and helping facilitate “starvation” in Gaza.
“Blinken lied to Congress and allowed starvation to be used as a weapon of war. It’s well documented. He supported war crimes and blatantly lied to Congress about it,” Tlaib wrote on X/Twitter.
On Wednesday, negotiators reached a deal to implement a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, potentially ending 15 months of war sparked by the terrorist group’s invasion of the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023. During the onslaught, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages to Gaza.
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Rome’s Chief Rabbi Criticizes Pope Francis Over Israel Remarks
Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni speaks with Pope Francis during an inter-religious prayer for peace at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, Oct. 25, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Rome’s chief Jewish rabbi on Thursday sharply criticized Pope Francis over the pontiff’s recent ramping up of criticism against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, in an unusually forceful speech during an annual Catholic-Jewish dialogue event.
Francis has unfairly focused his attention on Israel compared to other ongoing world conflicts, including those in Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Ethiopia, said Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, spiritual leader of Rome’s Jewish community since 2001.
“Selective indignation … weakens the pope’s strength,” said Di Segni.
“A pope cannot divide the world into children and stepchildren and must denounce the sufferings of all,” he said. “This is exactly what the Pope does not do.”
Francis, leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Last week, he called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “very serious and shameful.”
A complex ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas emerged on Wednesday, and is scheduled to start on Sunday.
Relations between the Catholic Church and Judaism have improved in recent decades, after centuries of animosity. The event on Thursday, held at a Catholic university, was organized to mark the 36th annual World Day of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue.
One of the organizers, Rev. Marco Gnavi, a Catholic priest, expressed surprise at Di Segni’s comments.
He said he felt “discomfort” because of the rabbi’s words. “You can’t ask us not to suffer both with you and with others,” said the priest.
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Judge Tosses Challenge to Lawsuit Alleging Mistreatment of Jewish Professor at California College
California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Photo: Edward H. Blake via Wikimedia Commons
A judge has denied a motion from the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a professor who alleges that she was disciplined and humiliated for disagreeing with students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, professor Karen Fiss engaged in a brief conversation with anti-Zionist students who, due to being told a historical fact they preferred not to hear, filed a complaint against her with CCA’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office which alleged that she had engaged in “harassing and discriminatory” behavior. Her legal counsel, provided by the nonprofit Jewish civil rights organization the Deborah Project, maintain that Fiss merely challenged the students’ anti-Zionist notions and apprised them of a 1991 incident in which Kuwait expelled nearly 300,000 Palestinians from its borders.
The college ultimately found Fiss guilty of the charges lodged against her, ruling that she had imposed her “power” on the students, who are women of color, and betrayed her cultural insensitivity by citing Kuwait’s expulsion of Palestinians in their conversation. The college further alleged that Fiss had used her “positional power as a professor to get the outcome [she] sought, which was for the students to agree with her point of view.” The college reached those findings but had previously declined to apply the same logic to an earlier complaint Fiss had filed about the Critical Ethnic Studies program’s issuing a statement — “DECOLONIZATION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY,” it said — which justified Hamas’s violence and implied that Jews are not indigenous to their own homeland.
That is because, the Deborah Project argues, CCA’s rules are in place to protect left-wing anti-Zionism and punish Jews who oppose it.
“According to CAA, academic freedom is an impenetrable bar to complaints about celebrating the slaughter and raping to death of Jews, but is made of Swiss cheese when a fully-tenured professor — Dr. Karen Fiss — explains to students some truths about the Middle East,” Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, said in a statement included in a press release on Wednesday.
With her reputation blighted by scandal and the college threatening to revoke her tenure, Fiss resolved to fight for both her right to exist as a proud Jew at work and her right to free speech. She sued CAA for discriminating against her for being Jewish, a violation of Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and breach of contract, offenses which caused her “substantial damages” and other trauma.
Deploying the weapons contained in its legal arsenal, the college attempted to muzzle Fiss even in court by filing a motion to dismiss her case entirely, and later, to strike from her own complaint the most damaging allegations regarding the university’s alleged conduct — including that the college enforces a double-standard free speech code which protects anti-Zionists “who publicly call for the murder of Jews in Israel.”
However, Judge Haywood William of the US District Court for the Northern District of California has now struck down the college’s challenge to the case, clearing the way for it to enter discovery, during which her attorneys will amass additional evidence in support of Fiss’s allegations.
In Wednesday’s press release, Fiss’s legal counsel praised the decision.
“The Deborah Project looks forward to the state of litigation that follows denials of motions to dismiss, which is called the discovery phase,” it said. “We will learn how a leading California arts college lost its way and instead of focusing on art, became most focused on ‘Critical Ethnic Studies’ — which is the largest department in this ‘art’ school. Critical Ethnic Studies, inter alia, demonizes Jews, which are cast oppressors, and the Jewish State, which is described as a colonizing, ethnic cleansing, genocidal, and illicit country.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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