Video Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
JEWISH HERITAGE MONTH
Video Greetings
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
From the heart of Canada – Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Treaty One territory – I’d like to join you all in celebrating Jewish Heritage Month.
In my home province, the ancestral and present-day home of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Red River Metis, Dakota, Dene and Inuit peoples, we are working to move forward in partnership to build a society of understanding, opportunity and healing.
During Jewish Heritage Month my thoughts are drawn back to my family’s story. I think of my mother’s parents, who fled Bessarabia to escape a climate of murderous antisemitism – with my mother being born en route to a better life in Canada.
I think of the difficult life they and my father’s grandparents had as new arrivals in a city and a country that wasn’t fully convinced of the benefits of immigration – especially not by the likes of them, and I think of the community they and other Jewish immigrants built.
They built synagogues and schools. They built businesses and charitable organizations.
They and their children and grandchildren created works of art, fought illness and intolerance, advanced the boundaries of knowledge and fostered prosperity that transformed Canada for the better – for their community and for all communities.
This month, we join with the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada in paying tribute to the many Jewish contributions to our country and our world.
As the first Jewish Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, and as the grand-daughter Jewish immigrants who travelled to Canada in search of human rights and human dignity, I invite you all to celebrate Jewish Heritage Month in Canada.
Thank you, Merci, Meegwich.
