I was born and raised in Winnipeg and grew up in River Heights, but my Jewish origins go back much further than that.

Israel Pesach and Golde Devora Rosentzweig, my great-grandparents on my father’s side, arrived from Vilnius, Lithuania, in 1906 with their three sons and five daughters, one of whom was my grandfather Morris Rose.  My grandmother, Dinah Berg, was orphaned as a child and emigrated from Ukraine. While the abbreviated Rose name was used early on, it wasn’t legally changed until sometime in the 1950s.  My father, Irving (Sonny) Rose, and his twin sister, Lillian, were born in 1929.   During the Depression, Morris and Dinah ran and lived above a small grocery store in downtown Winnipeg on the corner of Dagmar and McDermott.  Later, Morris partnered with his brother Sam to own and operate a glove manufacturing business, Utility Glove, in the Winnipeg garment district.

In 1961, my grandfather and my father established Thorkelsson-Rose, a garden furniture manufacturing business. My Zaida Moshe, as he was known to me, died when I was very young, and that business eventually closed, but I did manage to spend much of my childhood years with Baba Dinah, both in the city and at Winnipeg beach.

On my mother’s side, my grandfather, Ben Conner, arrived from Russia in 1916 with nothing but the shirt on his back.  He lived in Winnipeg’s North End for the next decade with his cousins Jacob and Rachel Shuckett and their seven children.   He became a business partner with Jacob and opened Winnipeg Lumber in Elmwood.  It is unclear when or how he met my grandmother, Belle Turner, who arrived in Canada as a young child and was raised in Regina.  They were married, and shortly after, my mother, Libbye Conner, was born in 1929.  My Aunt,  Sheila, arrived eight years later.

My mother lived with her family on Bannerman Avenue in Winnipeg’s North End, not far from my father’s family, who lived on Scotia Street by the river.   She was best friends with Lillian Rose; that is how my parents met.  Irving Rose and Libbye Conner were married in 1951 and bought a house in Winnipeg’s South End. My older brother Scott was born in 1953, I arrived in 1957, and my younger brother Daniel was born in 1961.  I was named after my great grandfather Israel Pesach, with whom I share my Hebrew name.

Both sets of grandparents eventually moved to the South End to be closer to my parents’ home in River Heights.  We frequently gathered at my grandparents’ homes, the Conners on Waverley Street and the Roses on Queenston Street.  My father’s twin sister Lillian and her husband, my Uncle Harvey Stoller, were ubiquitous at family dinners, where we celebrated Rosh Hashanah, Passover and Chanukah together.  We also enjoyed many dinners with Auntie Lil and Uncle Harvey at their home in Garden City, together with my cousins Lawrence Stoller and  Barbara Stoller Fayerman.  We spent many fun summers together at the Rose cottage on Pine Street in Winnipeg Beach, where I would stay much of the summer with my mother and Baba Dinah and hang out at Playland with Scott.  

Growing up, I also spent part of my summers at B’nai Brith Camp in Lake of the Woods, where I learned about camping, canoeing, and what it meant to be Jewish. I spent many weekends in the city with my friends at the old YMHA on Hargrave. In high school, I joined BBYO and socialized with many other young men and women within the Winnipeg Jewish community.

I was accepted in 1977 to the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba, graduating in 1980, and was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1981.  In 1982, I was accepted into the business school at the University of Western Ontario (now the Ivey Business School), graduating with my MBA in 1984.  

I returned to Winnipeg following my graduation and began working in early 1985 for Qualico Developments, a Winnipeg-based real estate developer.  Over time, I advanced to my current position of Senior Vice President, and I remain at Qualico after nearly 40 years.

In 1984, I met my wife, Marlene Reiss.   Marlene owned a thriving optometry practice on Henderson Highway.  We purchased our home together in Tuxedo in 1989 and married in 1995.  We celebrated that joyful occasion in the presence of both my parents, Libbye and Irving, and Marlene’s mother, Rose Reiss.  Since then, we have travelled much of the world together.  We also spend summers at the Winnipeg Beach cottage we purchased more than 20 years ago, and more recently, we have been spending part of the winter in Palm Springs.  Marlene sold her practice and retired in 2018 after almost 40 years in optometry.

Over the years, we have tried to spend as much time as possible with our many nieces and nephews: Christopher, Brandon, Katie, Robert, Shayla, and Jakob on the Rose side of the family, and Noam, Haylee, Harlie, and Janna on the Reiss side of the family.

More recently, eyeing retirement in the not-too-distant future and wanting to give back to the community, I joined the Board of Directors of both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Football Club and the St. Boniface Hospital Foundation.

Marlene and I are fortunate to have been successful in our chosen professions.   We, therefore, decided to celebrate our Jewish roots and honour the Winnipeg Jewish community by making a legacy commitment to the Jewish Foundation.  We hope this donation will ensure that the Jewish community in Winnipeg continues to thrive long into the future.

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