Skip to content

Where different views on Israel and Judaism are welcome.

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • [email protected]! video

Search

Archives

"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

Recent Posts

  • New housing partnership
  • Complexities of Berlin
  • Obligation to criticize
  • Negev Dinner returns
  • Women deserve to be seen
  • Peace is breaking out
  • Summit covers tough issues
  • Jews in trench coats
  • Lives shaped by war
  • The Moaning Yoni returns
  • Caring in times of need
  • Students are learning to cook
  • Many first-time experiences
  • Community milestones … Gordon, Segal, Roadburg foundations & West
  • מקטאר לוונקובר
  • Reading expands experience
  • Controversy welcome
  • Democracy in danger
  • Resilience amid disruptions
  • Local heads CAPE crusaders
  • Engaging in guided autobiography
  • Recollecting Auschwitz
  • Local Houdini connection
  • National library opens soon
  • Regards from Israel …
  • Reluctant kids loved camp
  • An open letter to Camp BB
  • Strong connection to Israel
  • Why we need summer camp
  • Campers share their thoughts
  • Community tree of life
  • Building bridges to inclusion
  • A first step to solutions?
  • Sacre premières here
  • Opening gates of kabbalah
  • Ukraine’s complex past

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @JewishIndie

Tag: Menschenings

We miss you already, Alex

With gratitude and sadness, we share with readers the news that Alex Kliner’s Menschenings column will appear for the last time in this issue of the Jewish Independent. Alex is retiring and, while we are happy that he’s about to enjoy a well-deserved break, we’ll miss him.

After more than two decades of keeping our readers up-to-date with news, quips, culture, history, wordplay and trivia from the Jewish world, Alex has decided that the time has come to relax a little and give up the grind of a weekly column.

Alex has been a pillar of this newspaper and remains a pillar of this community, reflecting ourselves back to ourselves, with wit, Yiddishkeit and puns that he well knows are groaners. He has brought his unique character to these pages, built on the linguistic and comedic styles that are distinctively Jewish but which are also inimitably Klineresque.

photo - Reading Alex Kliner's Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense
Reading Alex Kliner’s Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense. (photo from Alex Kliner)

Reading Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense. Lashon hara never, ever found a place in Alex’s column. His stories were always positive and joyfully told. Like Alex in person, Menschenings has been a cheery respite amid the world’s sometimes woeful events.

Alex has been able to pack an enormous amount into each column, covering news that matters and nuggets that entertain. He often notes the passing of figures of importance to Jewish life, many of whom were unsung heroes in their fields but little known to the general public. Goings-on around town, important new works of literature, tidbits from showbiz with a Jewish angle: there have not been many limits to the Menschenings beat.

His columns have also been filled with kavods and kudos for local and international figures about whom readers may otherwise have known nothing. Mazal tovs for simchot, recognitions of landmark events, notes on new cultural diversions and businesses opening and closing. Through these many years, week after week, Alex has curated stories of ordinary and extraordinary people, distilling a huge range of events and personalities into a tight package that is a pleasure to peruse. His chatty style has made our community feel a sense of togetherness, as though even people we do not know are linked with us through a mutual friend.

Importantly, each week Menschenings has featured a member of the local community, often someone whose contributions to the smooth running of communal organizations or a local business are crucial yet uncelebrated, an artist being introduced to new audiences, an author, a chef, an athlete, any number of people we were better for knowing about through Alex’s introduction. He has often been the first to identify rising stars in the local arts scene and there is no gauge to measure the careers he has helped along the way.

For 21 tireless years, and just two columns short of 1,000, Alex has been an irreplaceable and beloved voice of this newspaper and the community we serve. Together with Elaine, whose name has appeared frequently in Menschenings as a muse and a foil – El-Al, as they are collectively known – Alex has attended more community events, concerts, plays and other events than the most dogged culture vultures.

Thank you, Alex, for everything you have done to help build this community and tell our stories. Your name is, appropriately, inextricably connected with the word mensch.

– all of us at the Jewish Independent

Posted on December 23, 2016December 21, 2016Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags Alex Kliner, Jewish Independent, Menschenings
Finding love in the JWB – on the occasion of the JI’s 85th

Finding love in the JWB – on the occasion of the JI’s 85th

A singles ad placed in the Bulletin by father-son team Ron and Steve Freedman in 1992 led to the engagement (in 1997) of their son/brother David to Betty-Mae Coblenz, who were married in 1998.

image - scan from paper The Bulletin by father-son team Ron and Steve Freedman in 1992 .Ron Freedman, who passed away in December 2014, worked for the Jewish Western Bulletin / Jewish Independent for 46 years. As we mourned his loss with his family at a ceremony celebrating his life, his son David shared the story of how his father and his brother Steve, who has worked at the paper for more than 30 years, used the power of community media to change his life.

As Alex Kliner explained in his May 15, 1998, Menschenings column:

“David Freedman was baffled. Three young women had responded to his personals column ad in the Jewish Western Bulletin. But wait! He had never placed an ad. But whatta ya’ gonna do? His curiosity was aroused. So he agreed to meet Betty-Mae Coblenz for coffee. They talked for hours. Not long ago, Betty-Mae Coblenz became Betty-Mae Freedman.

“And the mysterious ad? It seems David’s dad, Ron, and brother, Steve, (both JWB staffers) had placed it in the personals under David’s name. It was a joke! Not a bad joke, eh? And what’s more, it obviously pays to advertise in the JWB!”

Format ImagePosted on May 15, 2015May 15, 2015Author The Editorial BoardCategories From the JITags Aldex Kliner, Betty-Mae Coblenz, David Freedman, Jewish Western Bulletin, JWB, Menschenings, Ron Freedman, Steve Freedman
Proudly powered by WordPress