We are Canadian Jews from a variety of backgrounds. We are academics, civil servants, trade unionists, authors, and activists who want to provide a progressive voice for Canada’s Jewish community.
Staff
Executive Director, Maytal Kowalski was born in Winnipeg to an interfaith family and made Aliyah in 1994. She has lived on a Kibbutz, Moshav, and in the mixed city of Nazereth Illit/Nof Hagalil, and attended junior high and high school within the kibbutz schooling system. She currently lives in Vancouver. Maytal has spent the entirety of her career in the non-profit and charity space with a focus on fundraising, marketing, and strategic communications. Maytal has served on the board of the New Israel Fund of Canada, participated in the Shalom Hartman Institute's Canadian Community Leadership Program, and is a 2021 Israel Policy Forum Atid Charles Bronfman Convener.
Board of Directors
Chair of the Board, Norm Hanson's local (Edmonton) volunteer work has included serving as Treasurer, and then President, of Edmonton's Talmud Torah School, where he successfully led the project to design and build a new building for the school.
His volunteer work related to Israel was as a board member of the New Israel Fund of Canada for 8 years until the end of his term in 2019. He now sits on the NIFC Advisory Board, and remains an avid supporter of NIF.
Norm is passionate about Israel and its place in the world, believes strongly in the critical need for a just and peaceful solution as a path to true security for Israelis, as well as to self-determination, dignity, and security for Palestinians, and dares to dream about what could be accomplished in Israel-Palestine if those two vibrant, tough and wonderfully engaging peoples were able to build connections across the chasm.
Since his first trip to Israel in 1976 at the age of 18, Norm has made about 30 trips to Israel, most recently in 2023 when he participated in a tour led by Palestinians, to have the opportunity to see the place through the Palestinian lens.
Norm is functionally fluent in Hebrew, and has taken the first steps in learning Palestinian Arabic, in the hopes of one day being able to speak with Palestinians in their own language.
Norm is married to Roberta, and together they have two adult children, two children-in-law, and five amazing grandchildren.
Esther Blum defined herself, in her younger years, as both a Canadian and would-be Israeli. She studied at the Hebrew University, volunteered on Kibbutz Be’eri for a year in 1973, was a social worker in a High School in Tel Aviv, taught at Bar Ilan Faculty of Social Work and spent a Sabbatical Year at Ben Gurion University. However family kept her grounded in Canada. She’s a transplanted Montrealer, who taught at the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba and has been living in Winnipeg for 40-plus years. Her teaching, research and community work focused on immigrant and refugee issues, cross-cultural and anti-racist training and forwarding educational equity policy and programming. In her retirement years, understanding, exploring and working towards Palestinian-Israeli co-existence has become a priority.
David Borzykowski is one of those Jews who have always felt a little out of place. He’s a believer in Israel as the homeland for Jews, but he’s critical of the current Israeli government and advocates for the rights of Palestinians. With a Masters of Arts in Politics focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a decade of experience in communications, and time spent living and studying in Israel, he hopes to support JSpaceCanada in their mission to promote peace in the region. He knows how much disinformation and propaganda is out there on both sides, and he wants to better communicate the stories and realities, and discuss true politics and not just opinions.
Felicia Brooker was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Kibbutz Nahal Oz in Israel three weeks after graduating high school. After completing her military service in the air force, Felicia returned to the kibbutz and worked in the dairy, eventually moving to Tel Aviv and attending law school. While in law school Felicia taught both ulpan and ESL, and also volunteered for the Peace Now movement and the political party, Meretz. After finishing law school, Felicia made a sharp pivot to follow her dream of being a screenwriter, returning to Toronto to study film. While in film school, Felicia also worked for Ve’ahavta, as a grant proposal writer and fundraiser for their AZT initiative for an AIDS hospital in Zimbabwe, and was also a leader on a mission to the Jewish community in Cuba. After graduating film school, Felicia continued to work in the law at the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Ontario Public Guardian, while working to break into the film and TV business. Her first big break came when one of her pilot scripts was chosen for the CanWest Global Prize at the Banff Television Festival in 2010. Now a full-time television writer/producer and a super proud mom of two boys and a girl, ages 8 to 18, Felicia is also an active member of the downtown Toronto Jewish community, including serving on the board of Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism. A life-long believer in a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine, Felicia is very excited to join JSpaceCanada and work with like-minded people to bring about change.
Dr. Matthew Flisfeder is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communications at The University of Winnipeg. He is the author of Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media (2021), Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner (2017), and The Symbolic, The Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film (2012), and he is also the co-editor of Žižek an Media Studies: A Reader (2014). Dr. Flisfeder’s current research focus centres on defending the renewal of universal humanism as a rhetorical, aesthetic, and political orientation for grappling with contemporary problems tied to climate change and the rise of digital automation and artificial intelligence. Dr. Flisfeder’s interest in Jewish advocacy comes at the intersection of his focus on universal humanism and Labour Zionism. Originally from Toronto, Dr. Flisfeder moved with his family to Winnipeg in 2016, and enjoys being part of such a vibrant and tightly knit Jewish community, and one that values ideals of progressiveness and equity. Dr. Flisfeder is interested in progressive Jewish advocacy, the building of a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, and campus activism pushing for Jewish inclusion and diversity.
Ori Gilboa was born in Israel and raised on the Moshav Ya’ad in the Galilee before immigrating to Toronto, where she currently resides. She earned her degree in Peace, Conflict & Justice from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and is now pursuing her PhD at the University of Toronto. She is enrolled in a collaborative program with the Department of Sociology and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. Her research interests focus on the sociology of atrocities, with particular attention to how individuals and institutions interpret and respond to extreme political violence in its immediate aftermath.
Jacob Kates Rose was born and lives in Toronto, and is a proud boger of HaShomer HaTzair Canada at Camp Shomria. After studying Peace, Conflict and Justice at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Jacob began working in municipal politics in communications, relationship building and strategy. Jacob was a leader at UofT Hillel, where he co-founded Peace Now at UofT, a student organization aimed at promoting dialogue and understanding amongst Jewish and Palestinian students on campus. At the same time, he was the Jewish programming intern at UofT's Multi-Faith Centre. Jacob joined JSpaceCanada out of a deep conviction that there is a better way for Israelis and Palestinians, and that the diaspora has a role to play in promoting peace, justice, dignity and equality for all in the region.
Jeffrey Larry provides clients with practical, business-focused advice. He has extensive experience in complex commercial, securities and insolvency litigation. Jeff also represents clients frequently in shareholder disputes, banking litigation, fraud, and commercial real estate proceedings. Jeff is also an active part of the firm’s class action practice. He acts regularly before the Superior Court of Ontario, the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Ontario Securities Commission, and has appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada. He has received recognition from Lexpert, Best Lawyers in Canada, and Benchmark Litigation as a recommended and leading lawyer.