Features
Jack Micay: combining filmmaking with medicine
By Gerry Posner Ah yes, the Micay Family. Quite a bunch they were and are.
For readers over 50, many will have vivid memories of Athlete’s Wear owned and operated for so many years by the late Nathan ( Nonny) Micay. At its peak, this business was a very successful mail order and retail business in the team uniform and sporting goods field, employing over 100 people. I can picture it on Market Avenue. And of course, one could never forget Nathan’s brother, Archie Micay, a very well known corporate lawyer in Winnipeg and partner in the law firm of Walsh Micay. The name was, as one might suspect, not always Micay, nor McKay, but in fact Micanofsky, as in the original settlers in Winnipeg, Rachel and Morris Micanofsky. Rachel Micanofsky had her own story as she was a Lockshin, another long time well known family in Winnipeg.
Arising from the many grandchildren from Rachel and Morris was and is none other than Jack Micay, the oldest brother of three sons ( Harold and Ira) of Nonny and the late Faye Micay. Jack, in his own way, took the Micay family in directions not before explored. He grew up on Enniskillen Avenue in West Kildonan in a home later donated by his mother Faye Micay to Shalom Residences as a group home. Jack attended Talmud Torah and later Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate to the end of Grade 8. Next, he went to West Kildonan Collegiate before graduating from the then United college.
Jack Micay’s university education was not a straight path. What made the path uneven were his diverse interests and his willingness to stray from the course. What he ended up with ultimately was a BA in Philosophy and a medical degree from the University of Manitoba. But to get there, he indulged his passion for music and the arts. Upon graduation in 1969 with his BA, he went to New York and worked there for a summer as a researcher for a film company. And then, following another love, he travelled in Europe and Israel where he worked on a kibbutz. He had then a command of Hebrew and in fact is now working on rebuilding his Hebrew speaking abilities. He came home in June of 1970 and soon he was hired on at a film company operated by the late, great Douglas Letterman in Toronto as a researcher for a documentary series. One series led to another and Jack’s filmmaking experience grew quickly. Yet with all of this success, Jack was unsure as to what course to follow as he did have the science pre-requisites for Medicine. He applied and was accepted at the University of Manitoba Medical School and so he went there somewhat ambivalently, figuring that “ the system would spit me out.” He was wrong. He did take his last year at the University of Toronto.
Upon graduation, Jack interned at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto. And then, in a forerunner of his future life, Jack split his life between medicine and filmmaking, with lots of travel thrown in. Jack basically would do short term locums in distant Ontario spots and in between, he did freelance shows for CBC. Find me anyone else with that background. Jack did his documentaries for “The Nature of Things” and “The Journal,” often on medical topics. Then Jack decided to upgrade his medical talents and moved for a year to New York to train at a hospital on Long Island in New York.
Now with all of that, Micay still found time to go to Nepal to visit a hospital near Mount Everest -which led to another CBC show featuring Sir Edmond Hillary. Micay thus began a 30-year friendship with Sir Edmund. You could say that Micay did not need to climb Everest, he was already doing his own ascent – just in his work. Micay even filmed in Winnipeg for his series with Sir Edmund on the Sherpas of Nepal. In fact, Micay was able to use his filming career to provide a decent income for himself. As he puts it, “I was sort of following my father’s steps, running my own mail order business selling (his films) to school boards, universities, libraries across the USA and Canada.” It all worked well until the internet destroyed this path. Mickey also was quite involved in creating what might be termed Science Musicals, which were one half hour classroom and educational TV films aimed at high school and university students with the goal to teach them basic science concepts in an entertaining way using humorous animation and songs… just part of the Micay magic.
Jack Micay was a doctor, now retired and a filmmaker, not yet retired. His educational and documentary productions have brought Micay over 45 prizes at film festivals around the world. Some of his more remarkable achievements were the science film world’s richest award as in the Grand Prize at Casa de las Ciencias in La Corona, Spain, not to mention his Grand and Gold Prizes at film festivals spanning the US, Canada, Italy the Czech and Slovak Republics and Bulgaria. This is just the tip of the iceberg insofar as the Micay accolades are concerned. Lest I forget, Jack is the father of three adult children: Nathan, Rachel and Jonathan, all of whom seem to have inherited their dad’s travel bug and one (Jonathan), who is a film maker like his father.
So, you take a kid – as in Jack Micay whose father Nathan was a well known entity in his own right, even though blind, and then have the son establish two careers, both of which he served and continues to serve with distinction (at least in filmmaking). and you have more than a remarkable story. I say it is all worthy of a Jack Micay documentary.
Features
The Torah on a Lost Dog: Hashavat Aveidah in a Modern Canadian City
A neighbour’s dog wanders into your yard on a Wednesday morning in May, dragging a leash and looking confused. You have a choice. You can close the door and assume someone else will deal with it, call the city, or take a photo, knock on a few doors, and try to find out where he belongs.
For most people in Winnipeg and elsewhere in Canada, that choice plays out in a flash of moral instinct rather than reflection. The hand reaches for the phone and the walk around the block begins. The neighbour, if it goes well, is at the door before lunch. The decision feels minor, but it matters more than it looks.
In Jewish tradition, the act of returning a lost animal sits at the centre of one of the oldest practical commandments in the Torah. Deuteronomy 22, near the end of Parashat Ki Teitzei, contains a passage that has become the foundation for an entire body of Jewish ethical law: “If you see your fellow’s ox or sheep going astray, you shall not hide yourself from them; you shall surely bring them back.” The verse goes on to extend this duty beyond animals to any lost property. “So shall you do with every lost thing of your brother’s which he has lost and you have found.” Then comes the line that has occupied rabbis for two thousand years: “You may not hide yourself.”
The Hebrew name for this mitzvah is hashavat aveidah, the returning of a lost thing. It is one of the more practical commandments in a tradition full of practical commandments, and the rabbinic literature surrounding it is unusually thick.
A small commandment with big implications
The reason hashavat aveidah occupies so much rabbinic attention is that, on closer reading, it sets a high ethical bar. The Talmud, particularly the second chapter of tractate Bava Metzia known as Eilu Metziot, devotes pages to questions a modern reader would immediately recognize. How long must you wait for the owner to claim the item? How hard do you have to look for them? What if the animal needs feeding while you search? What expenses can you recover, and what counts as fair? What if the item is too inconvenient to safely return?
The rabbis answer all of these. The answers are not always intuitive. The finder is obligated to feed and shelter the animal while looking for the owner. The animal must not be put to work for the finder’s profit. The owner, when found, repays reasonable costs but is not on the hook for unreasonable ones. If the search takes too long, there are procedures for what to do next, none of which involve quietly keeping what is not yours.
Underneath the legal detail is a moral assumption that is easy to miss in a hurried reading. The Torah does not say to return the animal if it is convenient. It explicitly forbids the act of hiding yourself, of pretending you did not see, of crossing to the other side of the street. The commandment is as much about the person who finds as it is about the animal that is lost.
What this looks like in 2026
Most people who encounter a stray dog in a Winnipeg neighbourhood today are not thinking about Bava Metzia. They are thinking about whether the dog is friendly, whether they should call the City, whether they have time. The instinct to help is usually present. The question is what to do with it.
The practical infrastructure for hashavat aveidah in this country has changed considerably in the last decade. A finder in Winnipeg in 2026 has access to a regional humane society, a network of local Facebook groups, neighbourhood newsletters, and a handful of national platforms that gather sightings and missing-pet alerts across more than 180 Canadian cities. The mechanism is straightforward. A clear photo and a location pin can reach the right owner within hours when the system works, which it usually does.
The most underused of these resources, in any community, is the simple act of posting a sighting. Many people who find a stray feel they need to first catch the animal, find it food, take it home, or in some way solve the problem in full. The rabbis would actually disagree with that framing, and so does modern pet-recovery practice. The first responsibility is to make the sighting visible. The owner is almost certainly already looking. The finder’s main job is to surface what they have seen.
For people in Winnipeg looking for a place to start, a practical guide for what to do when you find a stray walks through the basic steps. Take a clear photo, note the cross-streets and time, check for a tag, and post the sighting where local owners will see it. The work is small. The effect, on the owner who has been awake for two nights and then sees a photo of their dog with a phone number underneath, is much larger than the work itself.
The ethical centre of the commandment
There is a strain of Jewish thought that reads hashavat aveidah as a kind of training in noticing. The deeper commandment goes beyond returning what is lost. It asks the finder to be the kind of person who sees what is lost in the first place, who does not cross to the other side of the street, who does not pretend not to have noticed.
That reading lines up with another Jewish ethical concept that often gets paired with this one: tza’ar ba’alei chayim, the obligation to prevent unnecessary suffering to animals. The Talmud derives this principle from several places in the Torah, including the rest commanded for animals on Shabbat. The two principles overlap in the case of a lost pet. The animal is suffering. The owner is suffering. The finder is, briefly, the only person in the position to do anything about it.
In a small way, the entire Canadian volunteer ecosystem around lost pets, from neighbourhood Facebook groups to national platforms to the dog walker who recognizes a posted photo, is an example of this ethical structure in action. People do not necessarily think of it in those terms. The framework is there anyway, doing its quiet work.
A community-scale point
Winnipeg’s Jewish community has always understood itself as a network of responsibilities to others, the kind that get described as chesed when they are visible and assumed when they are not. The work of returning a lost animal sits comfortably in that frame. It is not heroic, does not make the bulletin, and is exactly the kind of small obligation that knits a community together when nobody is paying attention.
The dog in the yard on a Wednesday morning in May, leash trailing, is one version of the question Deuteronomy asks. The answer, then and now, is the same. Do not hide yourself.
Features
Basketball: How has Israel become one of the best basketball countries in Europe in the last few years?
When Israeli Deni Avdija became the first Israeli to be drafted as the highest Israeli draftee in NBA history in 2020 – then emerged as a key NBA wing in Portland, it was not so much the breakthrough it appeared to be, but a portent of things to come. Israeli basketball development has been decades in the making, and in recent years its clubs have made Europe take notice.
This is why Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv, and the national basketball team of Israel are now the subjects of serious discussion in European basketball. It is only natural that fans and bettors reading form, depth of the roster, and momentum would look at our Euroleague predictions and then evaluate how Israeli teams would fit into the continental picture.
A rich history: The Maccabi Tel Aviv mythos
The contemporary narrative dates back to before Avdija. Maccabi Tel Aviv won its maiden European Cup in 1977, beating Mobilgirgi Varese and providing a nation under pressure with a sporting icon. Tal Brody’s declaration: “We are on the map” became not just a quote, it became a declaration of Jewish confidence, Israeli strength and a basketball dream.
Maccabi turned out to be the team of the nation since it bore Israeli identity past the borders. Maccabi has been a cultural ambassador before globalization transformed elite lists into multinational conundrums. Its yellow jerseys were the symbol of excellence, rebellion, and identification for the Israeli people at home and Jewish communities abroad.
The six European championships for the club provided a benchmark that has influenced the Winner League and Israeli basketball. Children were not just spectators of Maccabi, they dreamed of Europe as something accessible. Coaches studied in the continental competition. Sponsors and broadcasters realized that basketball had the potential to be the most exportable Israel team sport.
The modern pillars of Israeli basketball’s success
The recent ascendancy of Israel is no magic. It is the result of history, astute recruiting, youth-building and pressure-tested league culture. The nation has made its size its strength: clubs find talent at a young age and enhance the potential with foreign professionals.
Nurturing homegrown talent: The Deni Avdija effect
The most obvious example is that of Avdija. He was a high-ranking contributor in the system of Maccabi Tel Aviv, was chosen as a teenager, and was picked number 9 by Washington in the 2020 NBA Draft. His career was a reminder that an Israeli prospect could be more than a local star; he could be a lottery pick with two-way NBA potential.
Israeli NBA player Omri Casspi had already opened that door, and Avdija opened it even further for the next generation. Their achievements captivated the expectations of youthful players in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Holon, Herzliya, etc. An Israeli teenager is now able to envision a path from youth leagues to the Winner League, the EuroLeague, and ultimately – NBA minutes.
It is that dream that has been followed by investment. Israeli clubs put more emphasis on skills training, strength training, and analytics, as well as international youth tournaments. The success of the national program in the face of the best of Europe has also helped.
A global approach: The role of international and naturalized stars
The other pillar of the Israeli basketball program is the openness of Israel to global talent. The Winner League has been an important destination, not a stopover, for American guards and forwards. Most come in with NCAA or G league experience and become leaders due to the fact that the league requires scoring, speed and tactical flexibility.
It is enriched with naturalized players and Jewish players, who are able to use the Law of Return to come to Israel to play. Inspired by legendary players like Tal Brody, current imports who can bond both professionally and personally with Israelis have provided teams with uncharacteristic diversity in their rosters. The outcome has been a mixture of Israeli competitiveness, American shot making, Balkan toughness, and European spacing.
Making waves in Europe: Israel’s modern Euroleague footprint
Even in challenging seasons, Maccabi Tel Aviv has remained the flagship team. Currently, Maccabi is out of a playoff spot in the EuroLeague, but Hapoel Tel Aviv has shot up in playoff discussion. That juxtaposition speaks volumes: Israel is no longer represented by one lone, iconic club. Its profile has expanded.
Nevertheless, it is true that the reputation of Maccabi in the EuroLeague does count. Menora Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv is one of the most intimidating arenas for EuroLeague teams to play in: loud and emotional. Recent security and travel realities have affected the usual home-court advantage but the name of the club is still a potent brand.
It is the reason why there is an interesting betting discussion within Israeli teams. The name Maccabi still retains a historical impact, but analysts also need to quantify the present defensive performance, injuries, substitution of venues and guards, and fatigue in the schedule. The emergence of Hapoel has provided another Israeli point of reference and markets have to regard the nation as a multi-club force.
What’s next? The future of Israeli basketball on the world stage
Sustainability is the second test. The Israeli national basketball team desires more serious EuroBasket performances and a future world cup. It requires Avdija types – fit and powerful, more domestic big men, and guards capable of playing elite defense to get there.
The pipeline is an optimistic one. Israeli schools are more professional, teams are bolder with young talents, and the Winner League is a test ground where potential talents have to contend with older, tougher imports each week. Not all players will turn into an Avdija, yet additional players ought to be prepared to participate in EuroCup, EuroLeague, and even NBA games.
To the Jews in the Canadian diaspora, the impact is not only sporting, it is also emotional. Israeli basketball brings pride, drama and a common language to the continents. To the European fan, it provides tempo, creativity and unpredictability. To analysts, it provides a sign that a small nation, with memory, ambition and adaptation, can rise to become a true basketball power. Israel has ceased to be the unexpected guest on the table of Europe. It is a part of it, season after season.
Features
In recent years, we have been looking for something more than a house in Israel – we have been looking for a home
For many Jewish families in the diaspora, Israel has always been more than a destination. It is the land of tefillah, memory, family history and belonging. But in recent years, many families have begun asking a practical question too: should Israel also become a place where we have a home?
Not necessarily immediate aliyah. Sometimes it begins with a future option, something good to have just in case, or simply roots with a stronger connection to Eretz Yisroel.
But what does it mean?
A Jewish home is shaped not only by what is inside the front door, but by what surrounds it: neighbours, synagogues, schools, parks, local services, safe streets and the rhythm of Jewish life. For observant families, these are not small details. They are the things that turn a house into a place of belonging.
This is not a new idea. It is a need that has helped shape Jewish communities in Israel before. The Savyonim idea is rooted in the story of Savyon, the Israeli community established in the 1950s by South African Jews who wanted to create a green, safe and community-minded environment in Israel. It was a diaspora dream translated into life in the Jewish homeland.
That idea feels relevant again today. Many Jewish families abroad are now making plans around where they can feel connected in the years ahead.
Recent figures point in the same direction. Reports based on Israel’s Ministry of Finance data showed that foreign residents bought around 1,900 homes in Israel in 2024, about 50% more than the previous year, with Jerusalem emerging as the most popular place to buy. In January 2026, foreign residents still purchased 146 homes, broadly similar to January 2025, even as the wider housing market remained cautious.
For Lior David, International Sales & Marketing Manager at Africa Israel Residences, part of the continued interest may lie in the fact that today’s residential projects are increasingly built around the wider needs of Jewish families abroad: not only buying a property in Israel, but finding a setting that can support community, continuity and everyday Jewish life. That idea is reflected in Savyonim, the company’s residential concept, which places the surrounding environment at the heart of choosing a home.
This can be seen in Savyoney Givat Shmuel, where the surrounding environment includes synagogues, parks, educational institutions, local commerce, playgrounds and transport links, and in Savyoney Ramat Sharet in Jerusalem, located in one of the city’s established green neighbourhoods.
For families abroad, these things matter. Jerusalem and Givat Shmuel are never just another location. They are home to strong Jewish communities, established religious life and surroundings that allow a family to imagine not only buying property, but building a Jewish home in Israel.
Together, these projects reflect a broader understanding: that for many Jews in the diaspora, the decision to create a home in Israel is not only practical, but rooted in identity, continuity and community. The Savyonim story began with a Zionist community from abroad that succeeded in building a real home in Israel; today, that same vision continues in a contemporary form.