A special 613archives podcast: An interview with founder Bernie Shinder
To help mark the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation's 50th anniversary, 613archives, the podcast for the Ottawa Jewish Archives, dedicated an episode to the Foundation that includes an interview with Bernie Shinder, the only surviving member of the Foundation's founders. In this interview, Mr. Shinder explains how the idea of the Foundation wasn’t a new project, but a continuation of one that many Jewish communities across Canada had been trying to realize for years.
“It was not even an idea it was something that Jewish communities had been trying to do for many years. The province did not want a Jewish Foundation... there were all kinds of problems with it. Who was a Jew? How could be a member? If somebody wasn’t Jewish but wanted to be a member, would we have to allow them to be a member? And this was right throughout the entire country. There was no public trustee… the public trustee was the person who gave you the right to be a foundation and certainly there was no public trustee in Ontario that wanted a Jewish federation and that was true for every other province as well.”
Bernard Shinder