Tag: Winnipeg

Addiction a risk for all

Left to right: Lisa, Jacob and Richard Hillman. (photo from Lisa Hillman)

“I had a fairly demanding and public position in the health system. I was president of our hospital foundation, had a very large board of about 25 people and a staff of about a dozen people. We were raising a lot of money to build a new hospital campus at the time, and so I was very public and very out and about. And, my fear was, as sick as it is to say today, that, if somebody would find out that my son had a drug problem, what would that say about me? What kind of mother could I be? What kind of person was I if I had a son who was using illicit drugs?” Lisa Hillman, author of Secret No More: A True Story of Hope for Parents with an Addicted Child, told the Independent.

“That was my feeling at the time,” she said. “I was not at all prepared to have addiction in my household. I was both ashamed and terrified at the same time.”

Hillman and her now-sober son, Jacob, shared their story at a Jewish Child and Family Service (JCFS) event at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Winnipeg late last year.

Lisa and Richard raised their family in Annapolis, Md. Jacob was in high school when they found out he was using drugs. With almost 40 years of experience in the healthcare industry and being the healthcare decision-maker for the family, Lisa was determined to help Jacob overcome his addiction, while also keeping it a secret.

Like many others, however, she learned the hard way, after a couple of years, that this was not something she could fix. Although she held out hope that Jacob’s use of drugs was just a normal coming-of-age rite of passage, like trying cigarettes or alcohol, and that he would return to being the high-achieving person she knew him to be, that is not what happened.

“At first, we had him evaluated,” said Hillman. “I asked him if he would see a psychologist. He said ‘yes.’ He had bi-weekly meetings with a psychologist. At one point, my son gave me permission to talk to him – Jacob asked me, ‘If he tells you I’m alright, will you get off my back?’ And, I said, ‘sure.’

“This was when he was still in his senior year of high school. I visited with the psychologist, who said to me, ‘I told your son to smoke a little less.’”

Jacob was arrested during a holiday week after graduation, and the situation became more serious. As the family worked to get Jacob help, he resisted it, as addicts often do.

“The question I always get is, ‘How do you get them to accept treatment if they don’t want it?’” said Hillman. “I wish I had an answer for that. What we did with our son is finally say to him, ‘Jacob, you have a choice. You can continue to use, but you can’t live under our roof, or Dad and I will pay for inpatient treatment.’ Fortunately, he accepted inpatient treatment.

“Keep in mind, I’m very blessed,” she added. “I had some insurance and other resources. We were able to afford to send him someplace, which I know a lot of families can’t afford to do. I’m very, very lucky.”

The Hillmans found a place in Maryland, because Jacob did not want to leave the state. The place seemed to be very lovely and spiritual. They were hopeful he would get better there. But, after 12 days, the Hillmans visited their son and Lisa knew he had been using. Sure enough, the next day, Jacob’s counselor asked them to come pick Jacob up, that Jacob could no longer stay there.

“We brought him home to Annapolis,” Lisa Hillman said. “He entered the addiction treatment centre inpatient [program] that is part of my health system, where I was then and am still today, on the board. So, my drive for anonymity in this situation was about to crumble. The counselor my son was seeing said to me, ‘You have to tell somebody at work.’ So, I told my boss, the CEO of the hospital, and he was very empathetic and extremely understanding.”

Jacob went in for two weeks, after which the counselors suggested the Hillmans allow him to go to Florida for continued treatment, where he could live in a sober living house and continue to get outpatient treatment.

“The day he left, the counselor said to me, ‘Your son is going to have his program. What are you going to do for yourself?’” said Hillman. “My immediate reaction was that the counselor must have had 10 hits too many, because I didn’t have an addiction. I wasn’t the sick one, my son was the sick one. And yet, I realized I was crying all the time, I was obsessed with where he was and I couldn’t go to sleep at night until I knew he was home.

“I was isolated, I was depressed,” she said. “I wasn’t sharing anything with family and friends. So, I tried Al-Anon. And, from my very first time, I realized I’d [found] a home. These people understood me and were going through the same thing. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had people around me who got it and who were going through the same thing. Meanwhile, my son was in Florida and was getting better.”

Midway through that first year, Jacob had a minor relapse and told his parents about it over the phone. In that conversation, his mother said to him, “Jacob, we love you. Thank you for being honest and telling us. Please take care of yourself. You’re the only one who can.’ And Jacob replied, “Mom, thank you. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

Hillman recalled, “Pre-Al-Anon, I would have been on the phone screaming at him, angry. Fast-forward another six months, and he has another much more serious situation. We were told, ‘Your son needs detox.’ He was using heroin IV, a horrible scenario. So, we were asked to pay for a third inpatient treatment centre.

“I remember clearly asking the counselor, ‘How many times do we have to pay for this?’ And he said, ‘Tell your son that this is the last time.’ So, we did and, at the time, we did mean it, really. This was the last time we’d pay for him to have inpatient treatment.”

Although Hillman cannot say for sure that this ultimatum is what did it, Jacob stayed there for 100 days. After that, he moved, got a job and stayed for six months in a sober house. He kept the job for several years and eventually moved into an apartment. He has been active in AA ever since and has been clean for almost eight years.

Hillman has continued going to Al-Anon. She asked her husband to come with her and try it out at least once. They went to a different meeting than she had been going to. “We walked into the room and there were two couples who we know really well,” she said. “Both of them had children with similar problems and we had no idea. We’ve been going to that same meeting now for almost nine years, every Thursday night.

“That first meeting was a huge relief,” she said. “I couldn’t speak at the first meeting. I couldn’t open my mouth, with lips quivering as I cried. They let me cry. Other people at that meeting cried. And I heard a phrase that night, that I think really guided me: ‘Detach with love’ – meaning you have permission to detach from your loved one’s problems, that you’re not responsible for them, that you can’t fix their problems, but that you still love them.”

Hillman realized, over time, that Jacob would have to find his own way and that she couldn’t enable him by sending money or paying for things for him. “But, we never stopped loving him the whole way, the whole time,” she said.

image - Secret No More book coverAs she healed, Hillman felt the desire to write a book about her experiences. She asked her son for permission to publish it.

“The reason for writing it was, I knew there were other families in hiding and ashamed, and that shame and fear just makes it worse,” she said. “It makes it worse for you if you love someone in addiction, and it doesn’t help the person with addiction. The whole purpose in writing this was to help particularly other moms and dads and sisters and brothers and boyfriends and aunts and uncles and grandfathers who I knew were sort of in hiding and had secrets and weren’t sharing – giving them hope that they can do it, too.

“Don’t hide,” she stressed. “Find professional help for yourself. My message is not to those with addiction, it’s to those who love people with addiction. My son says, ‘Mom, remind people that this is your story. Not mine.’

“If you have somebody in your life that is using or drinking, please go get help for yourself,” she said. “If one person in the family can get healthy and understand addiction, boundaries, and how to take care of themselves, then it will affect the rest of the family.

“That’s what happened in our family. I got stronger, my husband got stronger. Jacob saw that we were trying to understand him, that we were trying to get ourselves right again. He was getting better and we had a common language.”

Hillman said, “I think people who recover from an addiction and somehow live every day clean and healthy, year after year after year, to me, they are the most amazing, profound people. My son has become just an astonishingly profound young man and I’m very, very proud of him.

“I think that Judaism hasn’t helped us here today,” she added. “I think it’s getting better, but, looking back on it, part of my shame was that this doesn’t happen to Jews. We’re smart, educated, driven, are achievers, we don’t have addiction – but that’s not true.”

The Nov. 25 event with the Hillmans was sponsored by the JCFS and Gray Academy of Jewish Education. Panelists included an addictions physician, a therapist and an Addictions Foundation of Manitoba consultant on youth.

“Recovery is individual. There is no single treatment that works for everyone. There is no easy fix, like there is no single cause. It’s a combination of factors,” said Ivy Kopstein of the JCFS. “As a community, we need to end stigma and judgment, and replace it with compassion and understanding so we have no need for secrets anymore.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Providing care and support

Jamie Kinaschuk helps caregivers in various ways. (photo from Jamie Kinaschuk)

“When somebody faces a situation of becoming a caregiver, they can embrace it and see it as a sense of purpose for the person they’re caring for, or they can resent having to do it,” Jamie Kinaschuk, a social worker with A & O (Age and Opportunity) Inc. in Winnipeg, told the Independent.

“When you embrace it, you can feel that the tables have turned – from the time my parents looked after me to, now, me looking after them – and you can see this as something you want to do, are proud to do. That makes it easier.

“On the other hand, you can have a child or a spouse who’s just not ready and doesn’t want that responsibility. They may have been designated by other family members.”

In some situations, said Kinaschuk, the ultimate caregiver is the closest in physical proximity to the family member needing care and, as such, other family members expect them to carry the load of caring, not taking into account that the caregiver has their own life, family, job and/or other commitments.

Being a caregiver takes a toll in many ways, including that their life has to be put on hold to a certain extent.

“Somebody might become a caregiver with some resentment … or, maybe, the relationship between the caregiver and the recipient hasn’t been the greatest and it just happens that they live together,” said Kinaschuk. Regardless of the circumstances, “there is an impact on you physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.”

The care given varies by recipient. For some people, minimal help is needed – things like cooking, house cleaning or doing laundry and shopping. For others, assistance could be needed in bathing or grooming, getting dressed or using the toilet. Often, needs change over time and a caregiver is left to find ways to fill the new requirements of the person for whom they are caring. As a caregiver, one must learn to adapt.

“Maybe they have to locate a different doctor for a different health issue that has arisen,” said Kinaschuk. “Maybe they have to apply for home care, to locate medical supplies or transportation. Maybe it’s come to a point where they can no longer transport them, so they need something like Handy Transit.

“Sometimes what adds to the difficulty of being a caregiver is, if you’re a male caregiver, having to do the personal care if you’re caring for your mom. That could be a struggle – dressing, bathing and toileting.”

Ideally, caregivers will have their own support system, people who can provide some relief. Staying healthy is the most important thing a caregiver can do, not just for themselves but also to not become a further burden on the family.

Kinaschuk, who started his career with Winnipeg’s Jewish Child and Family Service in 2000, runs a caregivers support group.

“In my group,” he said, “we see a lot of caregivers struggling to access resources or, because they don’t have any other supports, they’re really struggling with the situation. There are times where, I’ll give you an example, a caregiver is struggling because their sibling doesn’t understand what they’re going through; they don’t know how difficult it is. That other sibling may say, ‘You can deal with it’ and ‘That’s not a problem.’”

Kinaschuk recommends having a heart-to-heart conversation with the other siblings or relatives to inform them about what’s going on. If a conversation is not an option, a letter can work wonders in getting the message across. “This way, they can read it and hopefully not rip it up, and then read it again,” said Kinaschuk. “And maybe they’ll realize that, ‘Yeah, my brother or sister is going through a lot. I better start supporting them.’”

One of the concerns is that a caregiver may take their frustrations out on the care recipient. Good communication with other family members and their support diminishes this risk, as does attending a caregiver support group. When possible, a talk about boundaries could be beneficial for all involved.

“Both the caregiver and the recipient need to realize that there are boundaries,” said Kinaschuk. “They both have boundaries.” Caregivers, he said, have to be honest with themselves and the recipient – be up front about the fact that they can only do so much.

“The recipient needs to realize that the caregiver needs time. They can’t be demanding 24/7 care,” he said. “They have to be respectful, to respect each other. If the recipient is too over-demanding, it drains the caregiver.”

If all involved can embrace the situation and find the positives, such as having an increased sense of purpose, then, being a caregiver can be an uplifting, life-changing experience.

“From the support group perspective, it’s all about empowering,” said Kinaschuk. “When people attend the support group, first of all, that’s where you see that you’re not alone – you see that other people are experiencing similar emotional, physical and mental situations.”

In his sessions, Kinaschuk asks that people not give advice, but rather share their experiences, in the hope that others can take what information they need to find a solution that fits them. At some meetings, he invites professionals – from the regional health authority and groups specializing in Alzheimer’s and palliative care, among others – to teach the group about different aspects of providing care.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

A book about Operation Ezra

Operation Ezra in Winnipeg has expanded to include farming and selling local produce. (photo from Operation Ezra)

When the Operation Ezra committee in Winnipeg decided to produce a book about the efforts of Yazidi-Winnipegger Nafiya Naso and Operation Ezra, the local Yazidi community was very excited about the idea, about passing down their story in writing to future generations, as their tradition is largely oral.

Operation Ezra: Winnipeg’s Jewish Community-Led Interfaith Response to Survivors of the Yazidi Genocide was launched on Sept. 24 at the JCC Berney Theatre. The event included a few words from the author, Chana Thau, as well as from Operation Ezra (OE) leaders, and a panel discussion. The 71-page paperback includes photographs, interviews and various facts about the Yazidis and how OE came to be, among other things.

“When I first held the book in my hands,” said Naso, “it felt really special and I felt really proud of everything we had accomplished. Having it all in one text to give to people in the community and outside the community, to show what a small group of individuals was able to accomplish in the span of four-odd years, I’m very proud of it.”

Belle Jarniewski, director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada (JHCWC), who has been involved in OE since its inception, said it was a grant from the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba that allowed the book to be published.

“By the time the book was written, there was so much more that we had done, but we thought it would be a nice way to let more people know about this wonderful multifaith initiative,” said Jarniewski.

Each of the families that OE brought to Winnipeg was given a book, including the most recent new-to-Canada family of 10, who had arrived just before the book launch.

Apart from OE’s ongoing efforts to bring more refugees to safety in Winnipeg, the endeavour has been helpful in settling the families already there. Both Nafiya and her sister, Jamileh, were invited to separate events in Europe over the summer to share the story of OE and some insight as to why it is so successful.

“We don’t really know if Operation Ezra can really be done anywhere else,” said Nafiya Naso. “Just because the community here is so welcoming and open, and it would be ideal if every city and every country in the world was like this … realistically, it’s not. Within the larger spectrum of the refugee crisis, a lot of people have very negative perceptions of refugees, without knowing the different types and layers of what refugees are, who they are, and things like that. So, even for us, education was a huge piece – letting people know who the Yazidis are and what’s happening.”

A group of individuals in Germany has been eager to incorporate some of the OE approaches. Naso said one of the main things that has made a huge difference is that OE is multifaith. She suggested that people wanting to undertake similar initiatives start by reaching out to faith-based communities and local businesses to find out who might want to become involved.

One of the more recent aspects of OE that has caught the attention of other communities around the world has been the farming project that started up two summers ago on a small plot of land.

“We had one of our volunteers whose father was a farmer with a lot of land, a potato farm, so some of the community went and helped out and got huge bags of potatoes after, and we had media coverage of it,” said Naso.

“The pastor from Charleswood United Church connected us to the owner of Shelmerdine Garden Centre,” she added. “He donated about five acres of land this summer and the community was harvesting it and they were able to sell some of the leftover produce and make money, and that money then came back into the community.

“This is not only a way for them to work and be involved in the community, but it’s also very therapeutic, especially for the women who have gone through the brunt of what ISIS committed and is continuing to commit.”

The land is located just outside of Winnipeg’s city limits. The families worked together and carpooled there to grow and harvest the produce and sell the excess at Shelmerdine, the Rady Jewish Community Centre and Charleswood United.

“Almost all of our families have vehicles, so everyone will go pick up a couple people, and that’s how we transport everyone,” said Naso. “A couple of times, too, we’ve used a bus, bringing the whole community out there – the kids and everyone – renting a bus or two to get everyone out there.”

“This has been just such a wonderful experience for them,” Jarniewski said, “because this is what most of them already knew, what most of them did in Iraq. Not only have they grown food for themselves, but they have been selling the produce. So, this has been a very positive project and we hope to expand it more next year. They will be able to feed the Yazidi community all winter with the kinds of vegetables you can put into cold storage, like beets and potatoes.

“Now, it’s an exponential growth. They really grew all kinds of things. I would see them here, at the Rady, when they were selling celery, beets, onions, zucchini, you name it … even mint and basil.”

Operation Ezra: Winnipeg’s Jewish Community-Led Interfaith Response to Survivors of the Yazidi Genocide explains the background of the Yazidis, a monotheistic religious minority in northern Iraq that was displaced and persecuted by the Islamic State group in 2014. It also goes into the efforts of the Jewish community to lobby the federal government to bring Yazidis to Canada and to resettle families in Winnipeg via private sponsorship. Sales of the book ($10 each) support the ongoing Operation Ezra efforts – it can be ordered from Jewish Child and Family Service Winnipeg by calling 204-477-7430.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Interfaith peace efforts

Belle Jarniewski, president of the Manitoba Multifaith Council, left, and Christine Baronins, public affairs director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (photo by Miriam Nucum / CJCLDS)

Earlier this fall, the annual Meditation for Peace took place at St. Boniface Cathedral in Winnipeg. Led by a group that is part of the Archdiocese of St. Boniface, the silent meditation was part of Peace Days this year and open to the general community.

Peace Days, which are organized by the Rotary Club and others, have existed for a number of years and there are all kinds of different events that take place, focusing on different segments of the population.

“Originally, a group of planners associated with the Archdiocese of St. Boniface came up with the plan and wanted to include it as part of the Peace Days lineup,” said Belle Jarniewski, president of the Manitoba Multifaith Council and executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, about the Meditation for Peace. The archdiocese group wanted to bring the Manitoba Multifaith Council into the event in order “to have representatives from all the different faith communities bringing prayers for peace as part of the event, and to take part in the water ceremony.”

The aim is to schedule the meditation not too far into the year, so that it could be held outdoors. “But, the last couple years, the weather brought us indoors,” said Jarniewski.

Despite being held on the night of the provincial election, Sept. 10, some 130 people showed up – people of different faiths, backgrounds, ages and genders. The event began with an introduction by the archbishop of the cathedral.

“He did a little introduction and presented tobacco to an indigenous elder, who also provided an introduction,” said Jarniewski. “We went into a 15-minute silent meditation with a gong player. There were a few circular gongs there, so everyone was invited to close their eyes, relax and meditate to the sound of the gongs. Then, we proceeded to the prayers.

“Then, I called up the representatives from I think it was 10 different faith communities, with each one presenting a prayer from their tradition. Sometimes, it was just something that they themselves composed and sometimes it was something like, for example, from the Jewish community, Dr. Ruth Ashrafi, who read out Oseh Shalom [A Prayer for Peace] and translated it.

“Then, after each person presented their prayer, they took a small glass of water and poured it into a larger recipient, symbolizing the unity of all humans and all traditions.”

Jarniewski heard from several attendees that they learned of the event from an article in the Winnipeg Free Press, by the newspaper’s faith reporter, John Longhurst.

For her part, Jarniewski said, “What I do is I reach out to my board members and I ask them if either they or someone they could designate from their community could take part in it. Often, they will designate someone else.”

The Manitoba Multifaith Council, which started up more than 50 years ago, began as an Ecumenical Christian group, which later broadened to include Jewish representation. “Eventually, it really broadened to include people of many different faiths,” said Jarniewski. Currently, there are two Jewish board members.

“It’s also important to know that some of the people on the board actually represent their communities. For instance, we have a Roman Catholic priest who represents the Winnipeg Archdiocese and we have Greg Barrett, who represents the St. Boniface Archdiocese. But, for the rest of us … we are members of those communities, but we’d never claim to represent the community, because that wouldn’t make sense.”

When Jarniewski first joined, Jewish Child and Family Service’s Al Benarroch was on the board. Now, Ashrafi heads up the education committee.

“I’ve been president,” said Jarniewski. “This is my second term. JCFS is a community member of the organization and are particularly involved. They have a representative on the spiritual health committee, which is involved with the spiritual health of chaplains in hospitals, care homes, etc. There are various committees, like spiritual health, justice and corrections, and education and community relations.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Stand! opens on Nov. 29

Marshall Williams as Stefan Sokolowski and Laura Slade Wiggins as Rebecca Almazoff fall in love in the movie musical Stand! (still from the movie)

The film Stand! comes out in Cineplex theatres across Canada on Nov. 29. Locally, it will play at SilverCity Riverport Cinemas in Richmond. The story of how the independent film got to the big screen is as interesting as the movie itself. And both it, and the musical on which it is based, started with a simple conversation.

The idea for the musical Strike! came over a deli sandwich in 2002. Then-Winnipeg Free Press editor Nicholas Hirst suggested to Winnipeg composer, producer and writer Danny Schur that there might be some musical-worthy drama found in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Schur – who already had two full-scale musicals on his CV – followed up, coming across a photo of Ukrainian-Canadian Mike Sokolowski, who was killed by one of the “special police” – the actual police force, who sympathized with the strikers, had been fired and replaced with thugs – in what is now known as “Bloody Saturday,” June 21, 1919. Being Ukrainian-Canadian himself, Schur was hooked.

He wrote 18 songs and the script for the musical Strike! by 2003. A workshop of it at the University of Winnipeg connected Schur to director Anne Hodges and writer Rick Chafe, who helped get the production ready for its première – first an abridged version, an outdoor show in 2004; then the full version in 2005. (Chafe is also co-writer of the film with Schur.)

“The idea for the movie first sprang from a conversation I had with Jeff Goldblum in 2005,” Schur told the Independent in an interview. “He was sitting beside me at the Winnipeg world première (he was in a relationship with our Winnipeg female star [Catherine Wreford], whom at that time had a Broadway career). After seeing the musical, he stated, ‘Big story, big ideas, it would make a great movie.’ And I thought, ‘If Jeff Goldblum says it will make a great movie, that must surely be the case.’ I naively believed it would take two or three years to come to fruition and it took 14. Shows what I knew!”

Those years would be filled with adapting the musical from stage to screen, raising the large amount of money needed to film a movie, casting the roles, finding a director, finding a production company, etc., etc.

The considerations in translating the stage production to film were legion, said Schur. “First, some songs had to go, because the average number of songs in a movie musical is eight; the stage show has 18. Some of the cuts were obvious – because some of the actors we cast were not singers. In all cases, it was a matter of what served the story best. What works on stage does not necessarily translate to screen. Rob [Adetuyi] was extremely helpful in this regard, having as much experience as he does with film.

“But the biggest change to screen was Rob’s doing: to make the film more diverse. Emma, the black maid, was a conscious change to reflect history better and have a more diverse film. So, too, was the case with the character of Gabriel [a Métis soldier who served in the war].”

When Adetuyi, the director of Stand! (whose mother is Jewish, as it happens), changed the maid character from being Irish to being a black woman who had fled racist violence in the United States, Schur wrote a new song, “Stand,” which became the title of the film.

Sokolowski is one of the main characters in both the musical and film. He and his son, Stefan, are struggling to earn enough money to bring the rest of their family to Canada from Ukraine. Among their neighbours are Jewish siblings Rebecca and Moishe Almazoff, the latter of whom is based on a real person. (Moishe Almazoff is the pen name for Solomon Pearl.)

Amid the harshness of life and their bleak future, Stefan and Rebecca fall in love. Schur told the JI that he based the interfaith romance on that of his aunt and uncle, “she the Christian, he the Jew.” Of course, the couple’s relationship isn’t welcomed by their families and respective communities. And, of course, the poor living and working conditions, the labour unrest, the threat of deportation and the violence are not conducive to love.

In a neat turn, the making of the film has led to changes in the musical.

“I always say, musicals are never written, they’re rewritten,” explained Schur. “So, where, before, the movie was substantially different from the stage musical, we have now edited the stage version to reflect the movie. So, now they’re pretty close. Having said that, the stage play has more songs.”

The music is certainly one of the highlights of the film. In this regard, and also another of the Jewish connections to the production, Schur noted, “Gail Asper is the hugest supporter of the movie, having invested in the stage show and the movie, and she convinced Montreal’s Sharon Azrieli to do the same. Sharon, who is an opera singer, sang the closing credit song, ‘Change,’ which I wrote for her.”

As for the feat of getting an independent movie a national release, not to mention deals for distribution in the United States and Japan, Schur said, “This is a truly indie release; in other words, there is no distributor involved. We went to Cineplex and said, ‘We have an audience. Please give us some screens.’ Where Cineplex could have given us a token, small number of screens, they provided screens from sea to shining sea, which is a testament to their belief in the film. I cannot say enough good things about the good people at Cineplex for giving us our chance to make a stand, especially in the midst of so busy a late fall season.”

Stand! showtimes and tickets are listed at cineplex.com/movie/stand.

“The movie is a unique opportunity to take the experience of the Jewish community in Canada circa 1919 and apply the lessons of the era to today, be those lessons for the community itself, or the broader community of immigrants,” said Schur. “In an era where discrimination is on the rise, the movie is a metaphor that teaches us that ‘love thy brother’ is the best way forward.”

Holidays as a child

A Klein family portrait. (photo from Libby Simon)

As I get older, I look forward to my childhood memories of the High Holidays with my original family. This year, Rosh Hashanah begins before sundown on Sept. 29 and ends on nightfall Oct. 1, Yom Kippur.

My parents, four older brothers and I had moved to several rental houses after our arrival in Winnipeg’s legendary North End, but the one on Robinson Street is the earliest in my awareness as a preschooler. The neighbourhood was refuge for a host of other immigrant Jewish families who came from the same geographical area and shared the same culture, language and religion. This bond and kinship brought these landsleit together and they congregated around the Talmud Torah Hebrew Free School, where my father taught the children, and the Chevra Mishnayes Synagogue, directly across from our house, giving us the opportunity to attend services in a building that also acted as an unofficial community centre.

Papa attended all Shabbat services at the shul, which was the centre of many family weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals. Since we observed the Orthodox Jewish religion, women and men did not sit together, so, while the men were seated on the main floor, the women were sequestered in an upstairs oval-shaped balcony overlooking the activity below. Not particularly interested in the liturgy, they tended to talk to one another about their children, their homes and other areas of interest, especially cooking on the High Holidays. This “noise” often interfered with the men as they recited the prayers. At some point, the shamas (the person running the service) would look upward, pound on the podium and shout “Schveig, viber!” (“Quiet, women!”) as if we were all one big family. Things subdued for awhile until the chatter swelled again, requiring intermittent reminders with more pounding, and a commanding, “SHHAA!”

Our old, wood-framed house had a screened veranda where I played and sometimes slept on warm summer nights. Once I was old enough, on Saturday mornings, I was allowed to cross the street to join Papa after a bar mitzvah celebration. There were always treats after the service, and he would prepare a small plate of schmaltz herring and chickpeas for me, and a piece of honey cake for dessert. I loved schmaltz herring and would devour it quickly while Papa looked on with a broad, proud smile.

But clouds of the Great Depression hung heavy over this North End community and there was widespread poverty. Most women did not work outside the home and, like many other men, my father lost his teaching job for a period during the Depression.

When I accompanied Mama to the grocery store or the kosher butcher shop, I didn’t understand why her face flushed and her eyes looked away as she stammered out in Yiddish, “I need food for the children. Can you put this on credit? We will pay you as soon as we can.” Her embarrassment and humiliation collided with my father’s shame, and resulted in many heated arguments between them over money.

The stress was particularly hard on Mama because she wasn’t well and had a large family to care for. She developed a “milk leg” while pregnant with my youngest older brother, Matty. It created a painful swelling of the leg after giving birth, which caused inflammation and clotting in the veins and affects some postpartum women. I vividly recall the too-numerous times when an ambulance came tearing down Robinson Street to our house with wailing warnings. Big men dressed in white would rush in, lift Mama onto a stretcher and take her away amid the shrieking sirens that were now competing with the high-pitched howls of her two frightened preschoolers, Matty and me.

Back then, children were not allowed to visit in hospitals, for fear of transmitting disease, so we could not see our mother for intermittent periods. On one such occasion, my father had enough money to take us to the ice cream store a few blocks away. Holding Papa’s hand on one side, with Matty on the other, I felt safe as we all walked together. And the tears subsided.

Canada declared war on Germany in September 1939 after Hitler invaded Poland, and, although my parents’ family was safe in Canada, their hearts and minds were with the loved ones they had left behind. Yet, our home was filled with joy and laughter.

My mother played happy, lively Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew songs at the black upright piano that held a place of honour among the flowery wallpaper and sagging couches of our living room. The eldest of the five children would lead us in a conga line with me at the other end, and we would dance from room to room, up and down the stairs, and all around the house. Sometimes, he would pick me up, throw me over his shoulder and call out “A zekele zaltz!” like a peddler. “A sack of salt, I have a sack of salt for sale! Who wants to buy my little sack of salt?” Or sometimes I was “potatoes.” Whether salt or potatoes, he would haggle with whichever of my other brothers offered to “buy” me.

Although I was still a preschooler, I knew that Papa was listening to “the news on the radio.” The worry was in his eyes, his face, his body, and his words expressed his extreme concern for our families back in the homeland. But the true catastrophic human saga that was unfolding, even as he listened, would not emerge until the war ended. We would learn much later that most of the relatives left behind, including my maternal grandfather, died in the Holocaust.

Even Papa’s fears could not have fathomed such destruction. The radio had become so much a central focus and source of news that, when the war ended in 1945, I recall asking, “Papa, now that the war is over, will they close the radio?”

“Why do you think they will close the radio?” he asked with a puzzled look.

“Because what else would they have to talk about?”

Libby Simon, MSW, worked in child welfare services prior to joining the Child Guidance Clinic in Winnipeg as a school social worker and parent educator for 20 years. Also a freelance writer, her writing has appeared in Canada, the United States, and internationally, in such outlets as Canadian Living, CBC, Winnipeg Free Press, PsychCentral and Cardus, a Canadian research and educational public policy think tank.

Billinkoff runs in record time

With Lou Billinkoff, fourth from the left, are, from left to right, his grandson Asher, grandson Jordan, wife Ruth, son Errol, grandson Mitchell, son Lorne and daughter-in-law Marilyn. (photo from Lou Billinkoff)

Growing up in Winnipeg’s North End, Lou Billinkoff, 96, was never into sports, though, in his 20s, he did enjoy going for a jog once in awhile. Today, he is one of the fastest short-distance runners in his age group.

“I used to do some running but I never thought of it as competitive,” Billinkoff told the Independent. “I just ran for the pleasure of it when I was younger.”

Billinkoff worked as an engineer with Winnipeg Hydro (now called Manitoba Hydro) for 40 years, designing power lines. When he was well into retirement, at the age of 89, he had a heart attack.

“When I was recovering, the doctor suggested I take some rehab physical therapy at a centre they have here, a program specially suited for people recovering from heart attacks,” said Billinkoff. “Part of the program is to walk on a track. I did that for maybe a year and, when I recalled how much pleasure I got when I ran earlier in life, I thought I’d just try it out and see what I still could do.”

The first time Billinkoff tried, he could only run 40 metres but, more importantly, he liked it. Two days later, he ran 45 metres, and kept on adding distance with each try. Eventually, he was running well over 100 metres and loving it. So, he decided to set up a training program and reached the point at which he could run 100 metres 10 times in one session – a feat he refers to as “running a kilometre.”

“I did that for about two years,” said Billinkoff. “After that, I found it was getting too hard, so I went down to five times 100. Gradually, I found this too was getting too hard, so this past year or two, I’ve been running 50 metres.

“When I was running the 100 metres, my son, Errol, clocked me and said, ‘You know, you’re running in championship speed rankings?’ This was a surprise to me. Errol suggested I get into competition. I wasn’t really interested to pursue it, but Errol entered me into a competition here and, the first time I ran, I ran quite well.”

Nowadays, Billinkoff runs 50 metres three times per workout session at the Reh-Fit Centre, where he goes three times a week. While he ran outdoors when he was younger, he feels that, at his age, it is wiser to run at the centre.

“Going outside has limitations,” he said. “The weather is not always good. You can fall and break your neck and nobody would see you. It’s not a good idea to be running outside.”

Once Billinkoff hit the competitive circuit, he began sending his running times to Athletics Canada.

“The way the rankings work is that age groups go in five-year periods,” he explained. “So, when I started out, I was in the age group of 90-94. They call that the M90. Now that I’m 96, for the last year and this year, I’m in the M95 group, which is 95 to 99.

“In the M90 group, I had the fastest time in Canada, at 29.73 seconds. And, in the M95 group, in the 50-metre record, my time indoors was 14.58 seconds; a good speed. Later, I ran the outdoor in 15.68 seconds, and I had strong wind against me. It took me a second longer and I attribute that to the wind.”

In most races, Billinkoff has been the only runner in his age category, often running with people half his age.

“There are so few people my age running that you very seldom – unless you live in New York or Chicago – get more than three or four people running in my age group,” said Billinkoff. “I don’t think it’s worth the effort for me to spend several days of discomfort and hardship [traveling] to run for a couple of seconds. They have a Canadian registry where all the Canadians who are competitors send in their results and they set up their rankings. Then, they send it to a world organization that sets up the rankings throughout the world.”

A few years ago, Billinkoff hired a coach for a few months. “He gave me some tips about getting away fast from the start,” said Billinkoff. “And he explained that running is just as much psychological as it is physical. He helped me, psychologically, to have confidence, and that’s very important.”

For now, Billinkoff is keeping up with his training, hoping to compete again next summer. He will continue to do so, he said, “as long as I’m able, and I get pleasure out of it.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Safe spaces, diverse voices

Bradley West and Shayna Plaut (photos from conference organizers)

As part of Winnipeg Pride Week in May, local organizers put on the first-ever Queer and Faithful Conference.

A grassroots event created to give voice to LGBTQ2+ people of colour and their experiences with faith and spirituality, the conference featured two panel discussions with opportunity for informal roundtable discussions. The keynote speaker at the May 25-26 conference at Robert A. Steen Community Centre was writer, facilitator and performer Jenna Tenn Yuk. She spoke about exploring identity and the intersections of race, queerness and faith through personal storytelling, spoken word poetry and facilitation; encouraging interfaith conversations around intersectionality, privilege, social location and other aspects; creating safer spaces for LGBTQ2+ people of colour in faith-based environments; and ensuring safe spaces to ask questions and explore the issues as a community.

Bradley West, who has been involved with Winnipeg’s queer community for more than 20 years, and Shayna Plaut, a former Vancouverite who now lives in Winnipeg, were part of the conference’s Jewish panel.

“I think the conference came about because there were people who had been talking about the importance of keeping their faith, while also celebrating their gender and sexual diversity, and there were some people who were finding that to be a little difficult,” West told the Independent.

Explaining that it was an uncomfortable topic for many people in the broader queer community, he said, “In fact, one of the members said, on Saturday, that, ‘because faith rejected us so soundly, we have rejected faith.’ We need to create a safe space where we can come together and have these conversations – where people from the various faith communities and also from the queer community can come together in a mutual space.”

While such conversations have been going on for some time, typically led by faith leaders and queer community organizers, the aim of the recent conference was to offer a more personal approach.

“The organizers wanted to have voices of the people who are more marginalized in our community, because of their skin tone, or religion, or spirituality, or faith,” said West. “They wanted to make sure it wasn’t just centred around white voices; white, Christian voices….. Oftentimes, when we are having conversations about faith in this Canadian landscape, we default to the dominant voice which, in our historical context, is Christian.

“So, they definitely had a lot of Christians who were there and who were involved, but, in terms of the planning and the panel speakers, and in terms of how they wanted people to think, was thinking of how we might be able to create an open dialogue with each other … to be able to, first, honour our own faith journey, but then also to understand the faith journey of others, especially when that faith journey is very different from our own.”

According to conference organizers, 70 to 80 people attended over the two-day period, with attendees coming from Winnipeg, as well as from surrounding areas, such as Morden, Selkirk, Steinbach and Portage La Prairie.

“From what I experienced, everyone … was approaching it with a spirit of reflection,” said West. “They were definitely gently challenged by the speakers to reflect on their own personal participation in terms of do you really believe your faith is the only faith or the true faith … and does that subtly reinforce this idea that those who are different are ‘less than’?”

The speakers, he continued, “were gently challenging people to think about how we interact – not only with the different denominations in our faith, but everyone of Abrahamic faiths, with different strings of denominations, and also those outside of some of the faiths … different groups practising different versions of the larger faith. Sometimes, we have a tendency to think that our journey and our view is the view that is shared by everyone in our faith … and so, there were those gentle reminders to reflect on that. Overall, as a participant, I would say there was a sense of a call to self-reflection, and there wasn’t any resistance in terms of the intent to self-reflect, for sure.”

For West, one thing that struck a chord was that, even though he was in a room full of strangers at the beginning of the event, everyone got to know one another very quickly. “I think it was very much about, yes, we have differences, but we also have commonalities and, as we move forward, we need to look at both … have a bifocal lens in honouring our differences – not minimizing or whitewashing, or asking us to abandon our differences in order to get along … just focusing on our similarities. We’re going to honour that and work together, and look at how we’ll create spaces and places within our own lives. And then maybe, by extension, our own communities will allow more of these dialogues.

“The gathering had the flavour of us coming together and having these conversations, and continuing to do so outside of this space,” he said. “That core that comes from great changers, like [Mahatma] Gandhi, talking about that idea of, if you want to change something, first, change yourself, because, wherever you go, there you are. If you change yourself, you’ll automatically change the spaces you go into, because you are no longer the same person.”

Plaut’s faith has changed over the years. Born into a Chassidic home in the United States, her family decided to follow Conservative Judaism when she was 5.

“The joke I like to say is, I’m queer, I’m Jewish, I’m a mom, I have seven tattoos, 13 earrings, and I keep a modicum of kosher,” said Plaut. “I teach at the University of Winnipeg and work in the field of human rights and journalism.”

When asked to help organize the conference, Plaut jumped at the chance. She took on the role of food coordinator and ensured all the food was vegetarian, so that everyone could eat, regardless of their religious or dietary restrictions. She also took it upon herself to make sure that not only the Abrahamic faiths were represented, but also Hindu or Sikh, by reaching out to some of her students.

“Folks would use their own experiences and explore some of the strengths that they found within their faith and also some of tensions,” said Plaut about the conference. She said that some people feel like they have to choose, in terms of their identities – religious, cultural and sexual – and that the conference encouraged an exploration of various faiths’ strengths and limitations in terms of guiding people, and what it means to find acceptance within a faith.

The conference attracted a range of attendees.

“Many of the folks who came, not all, but a good proportion, may not have identified as being queer themselves,” said Plaut. “Many of them were grandparents, actually, or parents who wanted to know how to better support their children or grandchildren. They wanted to learn.”

While organizers worked hard to share with and connect people, they left it up to the participants whether to exchange their contact information with one another. Some attendees expressed interest in continuing the conversation beyond the conference and organizers are working on determining the next steps. Many of the participants joined the nearly 50,000 marchers at the Winnipeg Pride Parade, which took place June 1.

“It was amazing, our biggest Pride ever in terms of participants in the parade,” said Plaut. “There were over 112 organizations that registered either floats or walking groups.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Artistic telling of strike

The book 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike by the Graphic History Collective and artist David Lester is not education for education’s sake, but rather a “useful organizing tool,” according to the preface. “This comic book revisits ‘the workers’ revolt’ in Winnipeg to highlight a number of important lessons that activists can lean on and learn from today as they fight for radical social change,” notes the collective.

Lester, a Vancouver-based illustrator, musician, and graphic designer and novelist, will give the talk Getting Graphic with Labour History on June 7, 7 p.m., at the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union Lower Mainland Area office. He will also give a presentation as part of the World Peace Forum Society event 100 Years After the Winnipeg General Strike, in which Jewish community member Gary Cristall (activist and grandson of a 1919 solidarity strike activist) and others will participate on June 8, 2:30 p.m., at SFU Harbour Centre, Room 7000. In addition, he and members of the collective are participating in a few panels at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (congress2019.ca), taking place at the University of British Columbia June 1-7, and are then heading to Cumberland, B.C., for a June 23 event during the Miners Memorial Weekend.

In the Acknowledgements section of 1919, the Graphic History Collective describes itself as “a not-for-profit arts collective. For us, solidarity is not just a winning strategy in class struggle. It is our artistic methodology. In taking seriously the idea that we can accomplish more by working together, we prioritize collaboration…. As GHC members, we volunteer and share our artistic vision and share our artistic, writing and administrative skills.” The collective recognizes the many people who “contributed knowledge, labour and funding to this project. Most importantly, we recognize that this comic book would not have been completed without David Lester’s incredible talent and artistic labour.” Other GHC members who contributed are Sean Carleton, Robin Folvik, Kara Sievewright and Julia Smith; Prof. James Naylor of Brandon University’s history department wrote the book’s introduction.

“In 1919, 35,000 workers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, staged a six-week general strike between 15 May and 26 June,” the narrative begins. Lester’s two-page depiction of the strikers gathering at Portage and Main gives an idea of the vastness of the protest and the small area within which it took place. It is easy to see how people would have had nowhere to run and the panic that would have ensued when the Royal Northwest Mounted Police and the “special constables,” violently broke up the strike on “Bloody Saturday,” June 21, 1919. The police were among those who had voted to strike but were given dispensation to work by the strike committee; however, the city dismissed the whole force on June 9. The mayor, the Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand (formed of business leaders and others) and the federal government opposed the strike and worked together to end it by various means, using fear of immigrants (aka racism) and eventually violence to do so.

1919 gives a history of the pivotal event from the perspective of the strike leaders, workers and their supporters. The textual narrative drops away, for the most part, in the telling of what happened on Bloody Saturday and the impact of Lester’s images builds as the day progresses, from 9:30 a.m. to 11, to 2:20 and so on. Just before 3:35 p.m., two strikers are shot, one dies on the spot, the other from gangrene. The violence continues. At 4 p.m., the special constables take control. By 6 p.m., Canadian Army Service Corps trucks – equipped with machine guns – are patroling Main Street. By the end of the day, in addition to the two strikers killed, many are wounded and 94 people are arrested. The book then describes some of what happened in the trials that followed, and the strike’s legacy.

Lester shares some of his artistic process and inspiration in the essay “The Art of Labour History,” especially the Bloody Saturday pages, and this is followed by a photo essay called “The Character of Class Struggle in Winnipeg.” The notes are useful in providing context for some of the images, and the bibliography shows the depth of research. Short bios of the contributors and a list of the Manitoba unions that supported the publication conclude the book.

“Art bears witness to the injustices of the world and, in reflecting on the pain and struggles of the past, offers hope in working together for a better present and future,” writes Lester. “Art can aid the momentum of progressive social change, and that is what keeps me going…. I am trying to capture and convey the inspiration and spirit of solidarity in class conflict. That is the art of labour history.”

Trying to make access equal

Dr. Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg (photo from Rockman-Greenberg)

In the 1970s, when Dr. Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg was eyeing the budding field of genetics as a career, she had to become a pediatric doctor first. Now, Rockman-Greenberg counts her clinical background as a blessing, one that, today, geneticists no longer require.

“Having a strong background in clinical medicine certainly always helped me in my career, because the kind of genetics I was always interested in was in rare metabolic diseases,” said Rockman-Greenberg. “These are diseases often caused by enzyme deficiencies that go by very elaborate names. Having a good foundation in clinical medicine through pediatrics certainly helped me.”

Rockman-Greenberg, who lives in Winnipeg, was invited to speak at the city’s Congregation Shaarey Zedek Sisterhood Interfaith Luncheon on April 30.

“I learned that the luncheon was spearheaded through the sisterhood in many ways to promote information sharing between the faiths,” she said, noting that a purpose of the event is education and “to look at how we can build bridges between people of different faiths and not build walls.”

“From a global perspective,” she said, “I think it fits the themes of the interfaith luncheon. And, from a Jewish perspective, I’ve certainly been involved over the years, particularly with the National Council of Jewish Women, of increasing awareness of the importance of genes for health, and bringing together some of the advocacy groups in rare genetic disorders.

“I helped the National Council put out a brochure on carrier testing on new genetic disorders in the Ashkenazi Jewish population that has been extremely well-received worldwide. This information is always evolving.”

At the luncheon, Rockman-Greenberg was planning to discuss, among other things, Bill S-201, also known as the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act, which passed into law in Canada in 2017, though it is still being challenged by insurance companies in Quebec.

“This is a remarkable act in the sense that it does protect Canadians from the use of genetic test results outside of medical care and medical research,” Rockman-Greenberg told the Independent. “In other words, genetic test results do not have to be disclosed to insurance companies or employers. We’re one of many countries who have such legislation in place, and many people here have worked for years and years lobbying for similar legislation for Canada.”

Methods of genetic testing continue to advance, said Rockman-Greenberg. Tests that were nonexistent or very complicated to administer as recently as two decades ago can now be done quickly and inexpensively.

“The evolution has dramatically changed over the past 10 years, particularly in the sense that the techniques we use to diagnose genetic disease have dramatically changed – from studying one gene at a time, to being able to sequence the entire genome of an individual,” she explained.

When Rockman-Greenberg refers to “new genetics,” she is referring to the ability to offer state-of-the-art, revolutionary genetic testing that was not possible just 10 years ago. It is this access that Rockman-Greenberg is lobbying for now.

“Everybody doesn’t have the same access to the testing in Canada,” she said. “It’s certainly not uniform from province to province or within provinces. So, many people are very committed to ensuring there are strategies in place to promote fairness.

“Notwithstanding that, the legislation is going to protect people against disclosing information that is already in place. I think we are ahead of the game because we have this in place. But, we are not ahead of the game in making sure people are going to have access to new diagnostic testing and new therapeutics in a way that’s going to be equal across the board.”

Rockman-Greenberg’s focus on rare metabolic diseases means that she has witnessed firsthand the struggles to get specialty drugs approved through a system focused on the big diseases, such as diabetes and cancer.

“You may get a new drug for diabetes that will be approved and available for patients very quickly, whereas some of the new drugs for other diseases I treat can take years and years before they go through the approval process,” she said.

Rockman-Greenberg thought that the topic was an appropriate one for an interfaith gathering, “as everybody having the same chance to be successful is very important to me. I work with families and patient support groups to help remove barriers and help people feel empowered.”

She said, “There are many challenges in dealing with rare diseases and I try to work both sides: the patient side, as well as advocate for changes at the government level, to make sure there is fairness in access to new therapies.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.