Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
SHAAREY ZEDEK SISTERHOOD 60TH ANNIVERSARY INTERFAITH LUNCHEON
Congregation Shaarey Zedek
Wednesday, May 28, 2025, 12:00 noon
(please check against delivery)
Friends and fellow Manitobans, believers in an understanding that transcends differences of faith, history and culture – thank you for the opportunity to listen, learn and share today.
We are gathered today in a sacred space in the heart of a land that is itself sacred. This synagogue and this city are built in the heart of Treaty One land and the heartland of the Red River Metis, in a province born through a coming-together of peoples.
As Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, I acknowledge that this province includes the treaty and ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota and Dene nations and the Red River Metis, as well as northern lands that are and were home to the Inuit. I am honoured to serve in a province committed to truth, reconciliation and collaboration among all of those who call this place home.
Manitoba has a long tradition as a place where people build bridges across barriers of faith – dating back to a time when Catholic, Protestant and Indigenous beliefs and traditions co-existed side by side in the fur trade or Manitoba’s Provisional Government.
But of course the opposite conditions have also applied during our history as a province and as a country.
From government efforts to suppress Indigenous religious practices, to the exclusion of Jewish refugees in the 1930s, to the backlash a short time ago over the acceptance of Sikh turbans in the RCMP, there are many examples of efforts to use faith to divide and exclude.
For 60 years, this luncheon has acted against fear and suspicion and division. The Shaarey Zedek Sisterhood has brought together Manitobans to explore the common human desire to find meaning and purpose in life.
And this event has been part of an effort toward greater understanding and appreciation of differences.
But we have seen in recent years that the work of these efforts are not done. Amid rising antisemitism and poisonous online discourse about race, religion, gender and culture, we need to celebrate interfaith and intercultural dialogue more than ever.
I look forward to Lisa Lewis’s words on common ground and connection and I anticipate a wonderful opportunity build bridges, make friends and explore ideas.
Thank you to the Shaarey Zedek Sisterhood for making this possible and for six decades of dialogue.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich. Shalom
