One hundred years have passed since 75 women from the local Jewish community gathered at the Royal Alexandra Hotel on Higgins Avenue and Main Street to formally establish the Winnipeg section of the North American volunteer service organization, National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).

This fall, 150 women from that same community are celebrating the founding, longevity and achievements of that grassroots Winnipeg organization. That milestone celebration is being marked by the establishment of an endowment fund at the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba and a Nov. 4 Government House reception hosted by Lieutenant Governor Anita Neville. While the endowment fund will ensure continual financial support for the many community services, social programs and non-profits that the group has championed for decades, the reception will acknowledge the positive impact that the group has had in Winnipeg, as well as pay tribute to the women who founded the group and the women who have kept the group going for an entire century.

Sharon Allentuck is one of those women. She has been a volunteer with NCJW for 50 years.

Allentuck first joined NCJW-Winnipeg Section in the late 1970s at the urging of her sister and has since served in various executive positions, including as president of the local group and as president of NCJW Canada. She currently sits on the executive of the International Council of Jewish Women.

When Hillary McBride was growing up in a Baptist church in Alberta, her parents stood up for a member of the congregation who had been abused by a much-adored pastor.

When confronted in private, the pastor acknowledged the abuse. Later, in public, he denied it. When her parents continued to believe in and support the victim, they were ostracized by other members of the church.

Eventually, the church split over the issue, with many leaving to attend a new church started by that pastor.

“We lost our faith community over it,” McBride says, recalling that time. “The amount of vitriol directed at my parents cost them so much.”

Three days after Oct. 7, 2023, Ari Zaretsky received an email message that brought him to tears. The message expressed deep condolences for the massacre of Israeli civilians at the hands of Hamas, and a recognition of the pain and grief that Zaretsky and his family must be enduring.

The email was sent from Wesam Abuzaiter, who, like Zaretsky, worked at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. Abuzaiter, a pharmacist, is a Canadian-Palestinian Muslim originally from Gaza. Zaretsky, a psychiatrist, is a Canadian Jew and Zionist.

Together, they are the founders of the Sunnybrook dialogue group.

Abuzaiter and Zaretsky had crossed paths in the hospital a few years before —when he invited her to share her personal journey as an international graduate during an educational session with her colleagues. During that presentation, Zaretsky also shared that he was a child of Holocaust survivors.

When I was growing up in an evangelical church, many years ago, I was taught the “world” was to be feared and avoided.

This included things like dancing, drinking, smoking, movie-going and playing pool. Certain kinds of books were off-limits as well, as was union membership and joining a political party.

The rationale behind some of those things was a fear of being “unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” as the Apostle Paul warned in 2 Corinthians 6:14.

Voting was OK, but running for public office was likewise firmly discouraged. Politics in general was seen as a distraction from the real goal of sharing the Gospel.

“I wanted to quickly share a very inspiring story with you that happened last Saturday in Winnipeg in the Main/Higgins area,” the sender of an email I received in July excitedly said.

“About 20 or so young Christian adults got together at noon to spread the Love of Jesus to the homeless in the area.”

The sender went on to say that the group, from Winkler, had raised money to buy food, water and Bibles to give out to homeless people in that area. “They went out on foot and met face to face with the homeless residents in this area. They showed courage and love in spreading The Word. Four people were saved.”

The email pointed me to an Instagram site that featured additional photos and videos of that group, and others, including visiting encampments in Winnipeg to hand out food and water and doing evangelism.

Jews and Christians from various denominations, including some from the Indigenous and Filipino communities, met Monday in Winnipeg in an effort to promote an open dialogue between the two religions.

The meeting’s goal was to discuss how Christians and Jews can take their theologies more seriously in order to establish better relations.

Jewish historian Norman Tobias and Orthodox Christian priest Geoffrey Ready, who helped found the Christian Jewish Dialogue of Canada in 2024, spoke at the gathering. They are holding cross-country meetings to create a national movement to promote dialogue between Christians and Jews.

Ready, who is director of Orthodox Christian Studies at the University of Toronto, praised the work already being done in Winnipeg, saying he hoped it would translate to the rest of Canada to “combat the Christian theological roots of antisemitism.”