Morris Winchevsky School

10/24/2024

Rise Up Cabaret
An UJPO community fundraiser
Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave, Toronto
December 11, 2024, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Doors open 6:30 pm
Tickets: $35 each

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/rise-up-cabaret-an-ujpo-community-fundraiser-tickets-1053527060799?aff=oddtdtcreator

The United Jewish People’s Order, Canada’s 100-year-old home for leftist Jewish culture is now more relevant and necessary than ever. UJPO has been keeping the flame of progressive Jewish education, culture, arts and language alive for a century, while maintaining an unshakeable commitment to social justice.

This unprecedented and heartbreaking time has called on UJPO to go ever further and more boldly into action within the Jewish community and beyond. Our organization is a key player in Canada’s movement of Jews who advocate for Palestinian (and universal) human rights and dignity.
As more and more Jews turn away from institutions that are no longer compatible with their values, UJPO is determined to offer a vibrant, enriching home for the Jewish left. To do this, we need to expand our resources.

On Wednesday, December 11th at 7pm, UJPO will bring our message of peace and justice to Innis Town Hall, to celebrate our beautiful legacy, to spread the word about all we do and to invite old and new community members to help secure our next 100 years.

Join us for an evening of entertainment, inspiring words and community joy.

Rise Up Cabaret
Live and in-person:
Michele Landsberg
Nobu Adilman
Bob Wiseman
Roula Said
Maryem Tollar
Ali Hassan
Martin van de Ven
David Wall & Marilyn Lerner
Zing Zing Zing!
Marching Disorder
And joining us from Vancouver-
Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis

10/23/2024

Camp Naivelt, Canada’s only left, secular family summer retreat, is turning 100 in 2025!

In preparation for a spectacular birthday party next August, we are collecting stories and testimonials from Naivelters past and present. We are holding a last minute online story circle tomorrow evening.

If you would like to join, please email Ruth Howard at: [email protected]

09/14/2024

Still a few spots left to register your children in our experiential, social justice Jewish shule for our 2024/2025 year, in Tkaronto. We offer classes from kindergarten to B'Mitzvah.

Sign up now! It's not too late... https://www.winchevskycentre.org/mwstuition

07/29/2024

PLEASE SHARE WITH QUALIFIED CANDIDATES.

We are currently hiring an Education Director for the Morris Winchevsky School. This part-time position offers a unique opportunity for the right person to join an established organization with a strong and active Board of Directors, a small staff and a passionate membership who treasure a culture steeped in social justice.
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The United Jewish People’s Order (UJPO) is a non-profit, social justice, secular Jewish cultural and educational organization with its largest branch in Toronto. The Morris Winchevsky School is a registered charitable organization, founded in 1928 by UJPO, and committed to experiential social justice education and to making secular Jewish life relevant through a wide variety of cultural, social and educational programs, including our Sunday school. Camp Naivelt, our family-oriented summer community, operates in the summer on a beautiful piece of land near Brampton. For more information: http://winchevskycentre.org.

We are looking for an enthusiastic staff member who:
-Understands and will champion social justice, antiracist, and secular Jewish values
-Is committed to inclusive, respectful, democratic engagement and leadership
-Is able to promote and integrate secular Jewish culture, education and social action into all facets of the shule’s curriculum and holidays
-Is eager to make an impact, and turn values into education and events
Start Date: August 19, 2024 or flexible
Location: 918 Bathurst Street, external locations during special events.

For a full job description please visit www.winchevskycentre.org/employment

07/22/2024

Do you know a great teacher? We're hiring!

Canadian Holocaust historian Max Wallace reveals the dramatic, untold story of how the N***s were deceived into ending the Holocaust.

07/15/2024

Welcome to the 2024/2025 Morris Winchevsky School (MWS) Registration. The MWS is Toronto’s secular Jewish Shule, focused on social justice.​ Offering a range of programs for pre-school all the way to B’Mitzvah groups, our Shule focuses on experiential education, immersing our students in an environment where they get to learn, play, and experiment with secular Jewishness and social justice practices.

Our Shule is thriving! We had a tremendous year last year, despite being set against the backdrop of a war on Palestine. I want to congratulate Lia, the teachers, the TAs, our Shule assistant, all students, B’Mitzvah grads and parents, on such important and needed reflection, questions and dialogue. Lia’s brilliant curriculum continues to get revised, refined, and reinterpreted, as our teachers roll out vibrant and experiential lesson plans in a Jewish social-justice context. This context comes from our broader vision and mandate developed by the United Jewish People’s Order (UJPO). Our Shule is supported and sponsored by UJPO, and we hope our MWS families feel welcomed to participate in our UJPO events and holiday observances, as well as our summer programming at Camp Naivelt.

We have two pricing categories for Shule tuition. An UJPO Member category (receives a 15% discount on tuition), and a Non-member category. By becoming a member, you are directly supporting the existence of UJPO, which ensures the continuation of the Shule, Camp Naivelt, and all our cultural programming and solidarity work. For a complete list of member benefits and to become a member, please visit our website. To become a member, fill out our online membership form, and someone from our membership committee will reach out to welcome you.

In each pricing category we then have two pricing tiers where we ask for you to self-select according to your ability, one called Community and one called Sustainer (pricing can be found in the registration form and out website here) Please also bear in mind that if you are registering more than one child, you will be asked to fill out one form per child. If you have any questions about MWS, UJPO, or Camp Naivelt, please contact me at [email protected].

We are pleased to welcome you back to MWS for our 2024/2025 year. We also hope to see you at our upcoming high holiday events. Over the summer, you will be able to find more information on our holiday events on our website and on our social media platforms. And to our families who are new to MWS, we’re so glad you found us! Please reach out to any one of us if you have any questions.

Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf0Eab24eQ64BqMbYHzG8jPsC5GiG9fGrwBjD7T5m_qqs9RCg/viewform

03/22/2024

Date: Saturday April 27, 2024
Time: Passover Seyder- 5:15 pm, Dinner- 6:45 pm
Location: Lithuanian Hall, 1573 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M6P 1A6
*This is a fully accessible space.
Music: David Wall, Marilyn Lerner & Special Guests Roula Said & Mariam Tollar, and more!
*This is an in-person Seyder, that will be livestreamed for virtual participation.
You are invited to join us for UJPO’s Annual 3rd Seyder! This year, UJPO is collaborating with Jews Say No to Genocide (JSNTG), the Jewish-led, Palestine solidarity coalition that UJPO has joined in the streets during these past seven months. We will be reflecting and focusing on our Jewish - Palestinian solidarity and collective liberation— in particular, the events that have transpired in our communities since October 7th, 2023. We are asking, how can a Passover Seyder give us the tools to radically imagine a future without hate or need?
There is a Passover teaching that says that every object on the seyder plate represents a part of our journey to freedom. Just like this teaching, we believe that each one of our community members holds profound wisdom and skills needed for our collective liberation. Every community member who joins us is invited and encouraged to bring an object that represents your role in our fight for justice. The object will be added to our collaborative and visionary seyder plate, a focal point for what it means to be in the work of freedom together.
Ticket Prices
Adult: Member - $60 / Non-Member - $70
Young Adult (14 - 30) / Low Income / Underemployed: Member - $50 / Non-Member - $58
Children (2 - 13): Member - $45 / Non-Member - $52
Virtual (per device): Member - $18 / Non-Member - $21
*Subsidies available- email Lynn Lubitz [email protected] for more info.
No one gets turned away.
You can grab a link to register here: https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSddJ7tMIl3Ist.../viewform
Can’t wait to see you there. ❤️🌿🥚🫒🍷🍷🍷🍷

03/12/2024

Please join us for a fascinating evening of films and conversation. As an almost 100-year-old organization, UJPO includes many multigenerational activist families. Our panel following the films on April 3 will include: Rachel Epstein & Sadie Epstein-Fine; Alan Silverman & Karine Silverwoman; and Marilyn Tate & Dylan Tate-Howarth & Sasha Tate-Howarth. We’ll be talking about the good, the bad and the ugly of growing up with activist parents.

Register here: https://bit.ly/3VqwFSX

02/29/2024

Have you been a TA before and feel ready to lead a small team of TAs? For the remainder of our Shule's 2023/2024 academic year, we are introducing this brand new position.

Please send us your resume and cover letter no later than March 11, 2024. We'd love to hear from you!

This position is for 3 hours every Sunday we have Shule.

bit.ly/3UZxiCp

02/26/2024

https://bit.ly/48tmXlx

Yiddish 101, Winchevsky-style!
Have you always wanted to learn Yiddish? Do you want to brush up on the skills you already have? Join brilliant Yiddish teacher, humorist and New York Times best-selling author, Michael Wex, for an 8 week, UJPO/Winchevsky-designed (leftist, secular), in person, beginner Yiddish course.

The course will focus on the fundamentals of Yiddish––nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs––and how to combine them into sentences. By the end of the course, students will be able to conduct a simple conversation, be comfortable with reading material on a slightly higher level and be able to sing “The Internationale” in Yiddish! Michael will be using Uriel Weinreich’s College Yiddish, supplemented by material from a textbook published in the 1930s by the International Workers Order.

**Prerequisite: Students will need to be familiar with the Yiddish alphabet before taking the course. This is easy to learn!
Some online resources:
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/learn-yiddish-alphabet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eD6fKqW6MA

What: Winchevsky Yiddish 101
Where: Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) Annex, 720 Bathurst Street (just south of Bloor)
When: Wednesdays, March 13, 20, 27, Apr 3, 10, 17, May 1, May 8
Cost:
Member: $200 for 8-week course
Non-member: $240 for 8-week course
Any questions can be directed to David Wall at [email protected]

* Educational subsidies are a bedrock of MWS values. Subsidies are considered on a case by case basis. If you would like to access a subsidy, please reach out directly to Lynn Lubitz: [email protected].

02/02/2024

To register: www.winchevskycentre.org/adulteducation

Did you miss the opportunity to have a B’mitzvah (bar/bat mitzvah)? Were you unable to have a B’mitzvah because of gender or were you misgendered at your B’mitzvah? Did you have a B’mitzvah but are seeking a different experience?

​

The UJPO/Morris Winchevsky School’s Adult Secular B’Mitzvah Program is a chance to cover big Jewish questions and some fundamentals of Jewish “ancestory”, history, and contemporary identity. Drawing on a set of Jewish texts from across the centuries and around the world, we will critically examine where “tradition” comes from and what it might mean to us in a secular Jewish context. Our curriculum explores Jewishness as a civilization of many diverse cultures and practices, and approaches our rich history & present from perspectives focused on social justice. We do not assume prior knowledge of Jewishness or Judaisms.



Every two weeks, the whole class will meet with the facilitator to discuss short readings and broad questions of Jewish history and identity; on the alternate weeks, students will meet with a classmate for an hour to discuss the week’s homework assignment. Each participant will also have an opportunity to do a research-informed project of their own choosing on any topic related to Judaism(s)/Jewishness, and everyone will have the option of presenting their work in a closing celebration for friends, family, and the wider UJPO/Winchevsky community.



Where: TBD in a downtown location.

When: Monday evenings from 7 - 9 pm. 7 week biweekly program, with an expectation of 6 rotating chevruta partners to meet for one hour in the off-weeks.

Dates: February 12 and 26, March 11 and 25, April 8 and 29, May 6
Ceremony in early June, date TBD

Who: Sharoni Sibony as Adult Educator.

How: In-person

Class size: min/max: 10 +

Cost: $280 / UJPO member, $322 / non-member