Tributes to Roz Usiskin (1928-2022)

Former Chair, UJPO Winnipeg

Carl Rosenberg, Former Editor of Outlook Magazine

I knew Roz partly through UJPO, but mostly through Outlook Magazine, which I edited from 1998 to 2016. UJPO was, as long-time Vancouver UJPO activist Pauline Weinstein put it, the backbone of Outlook, and Roz was active both in UJPO and support for Outlook for as long as I could remember. 

Roz was Outlook’s Winnipeg Associate Editor from the late nineties until she stepped down in the early aughts and turned the post over to Mark Golden. She played a valuable role whenever we consulted Associate Editors on editorials, articles and many other aspects of the running of the magazine. Roz’s comments and criticisms were always cogent and constructive. Her approach was gentle and supportive, but also no-nonsense and well thought-out. Roz wrote many excellent articles and reviews for Outlook (including several co-authored with Ester Reiter) on the Jewish left in Canada and related subjects. She and her husband Larry were always warm and hospitable whenever Outlook editors visited them at their Winnipeg home when attending Outlook-related events in Winnipeg. 

Like everyone active in Outlook, Roz was deeply saddened when it folded in 2016. Nevertheless, we stayed in touch after that through our mutual involvement in UJPO, although Roz was far more active than I have been.

Roz made an enormous contribution to the Canadian Jewish community and the left in general, and to the Canadian Jewish left in particular. Her legacy will always be treasured, and all of us who knew her will especially cherish her kindness and friendship.  

Ester Reiter, Professor Emerita in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at York University

Roz was my friend almost since I first stepped foot in Winnipeg in 1968 and joined Voice of Women in the struggle against the war in Vietnam.  When I attended my first Sociology department meeting teaching for the very first time at the University of Winnipeg, I found my friend Roz was on the agenda to confirm the decision  to  award her the Gold Medal for her outstanding scholarship as an undergraduate student.  Her honour’s thesis “The Winnnipeg Jewish Community: its Radical Elements, 1905-1918, and a few years later her MA thesis on the Winnipeg Jewish Radical Community remain unparalled for anyone exploring the riches of our Winnipeg’s history.    Now that’s the formal part.  

How many amazing breakfasts, dinners and hours and hours of conversation did we share.  She always surrounded herself with beauty.  I didn’t know the little house in the North End where her sons were born but I remember the house near the river on Scotia St.  Then the years a bit farther north, and in the last years when her sisters convinced her to move to the condo where they all lived.  Everywhere she lived she surrounded herself with beauty.   

    We also found we had other connections.  I actually attended Mittlshul with her aunt’s sons in New York.  Her aunt, blacklisted because of her politics left Winnipeg and settled in Brooklyn.  And to think that she had actually met Almazov, the formidable leader and activist arrested in 1919 during Winnipeg’s General strike.  As I researched the history of Jewish radicalism, I came across people who came alive because she knew them.  One touching visit was when Leybl Basman’s  great grandson first came to Winnipeg and wanted to know about his great grandfather.  Roz invited me to brunch so we could talk about Leybl, who I had read so much about but never knew.  

I would tease Roz, because her contacts were so extensive.  They included a few rabbis, some prominent “makhers” [big shots] from the community as well as the academics.    She was loved, admired and respected all throughout the Jewish community, a pretty tall order given her radical politics and her critical views of the government of Israel.  Later in my academic career, when I was able to spend about four months of the year in Winnipeg, I sang with her  in the Winnipeg choir, which Roz strenuously supported. I have the songs she put together for the choir for the Warsaw Ghetto memorial concerts.  

Her loss is such a big one, its hard to begin to conceive of  a Winnipeg minus Roz.   Our tribute to her is to continue, to carry on all the important work in Yiddishkayt that she held so dear.

Jeanette Block, UJPO Winnipeg:

My dear friend Roz has left us but memories of her will stay with us.
She was unique. A matriarch, a progressive feminist, a translator, a leader who had many followers. Why? She was like a magnet. People were drawn to her because she cared about them. She fed them, not only with food, but with ideas for making the world a better place. She left us, but memories of Roz will stay with us.

Dora Rosenbaum, UJPO Winnipeg:

During the time when UJPO had the camp at Husavick - each week-end our youth div. would invite different ethnic youth divs. i.e. Russian, Uk. Polish and in particular Nigerian university students. Roz played a leading role in that activity.

Mark Etkin, UJPO Winnipeg - Sholem Aleichem Community

In the early 90’s Frances Arnold and I were wondering how to provide Jewish culture and education for our young children. We knew that we wanted to engage other friends who were also parents, to raise our kids with a sense of Jewish community, and to do this in a secular way. We were not interested in engaging a rabbi, joining a synagogue, or having a traditional Jewish religious experience. We knew that there were a few families who had been gathering for Passover every year. We decided to develop a plan, and talk to a few folks.

Shortly after, we got a phone call from Roz. She had heard about our plan. She wanted to help, and she told us that other members of the United Jewish People’s Order were very interested in supporting our initiative. Roz offered to invite other people she knew of who were in family situations similar to ours. She attended our initial meeting, and she came along with Dora Rosenbaum and with Abe Arnold. Together they offered to be “advisors” to our young group, and to help us out in any way they could. And they did. They offered some start up money; they offered to host meetings and provide food. Over those first few years they were instrumental in helping us to set up a Jewish Sunday School, to solidify our organization, and to begin to plan Jewish holiday celebrations, in which they took on very significant roles. Roz also suggested a name, one with personal and historical significance for her and for UJPO, as there had been an earlier secular Jewish day school in Winnipeg with the same name. Within a short period, we had a new and successful secular Jewish organization up and running in Winnipeg - the Sholem Aleichem Community.

Mark Etkin - Roz and The UJPO Peace and Solidarity Tour to Israel and Palestine
UJPO came early to the realization that Israel’s development in the Jewish Holy Land had displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their historical and family-owned property, and indeed, from their country itself. The events of 1948 and 1967, in increasing the land claimed by Israel, resulted in the further displacement of Palestinians.

Roz had been a peace activist her entire life. It became evident to her that one of the principle ways that the Palestinian calls for peace and justice could be supported was to bear witness to their struggles. In working with her dear friends from Toronto, Ronnie and Sam, the 2005 UJPO Peace and Justice Solidarity tour was born. I was very fortunate to know Roz at that time, and to receive an invitation to participate in that tour.

Roz was a principal organizer of the Tour. She promoted the idea to friends and colleagues. Approximately half of the tour participants were from Winnipeg. Following the tour, there was much discussion about the need for a Canadian Peace Organization that would champion the Palestinian cause from within Canada. Roz was supportive of this call, and at the same time was of the clear opinion that UJPO could not be that organization. Roz believed that if UJPO were to focus on this major issue, that it would soon become a one-issue organization, and she believed that this would not serve either the organization itself or UJPO very well. These initial discussions became the basis for the development of the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians, which, within a short time, morphed into Independent Jewish Voices - Canada.

Ellen Karlinsky, Acting Chair UJPO Winnipeg

Roz was an amazing woman. I loved being in her company. She was so clear headed and intelligent and always got to the heat of the matter. She also always got to the heart, with her warmth and her hospitality. She took an interest in people and made us all feel valued. This is how she encouraged each of us, one by one, to join UJPO, to get on the Board, to reach out to others, to make a difference and to also do more …. always do more.

I knew Roz years before joining UJPO when we were part of the Sholem Aleichem Community. I was so busy with young children that I didn’t take advantage of her presence. I wish I had.

Covid robbed us of time spent together. Our meetings became zoom gatherings and of course it was not the same. But Roz was still mentoring and inspiring us all with an ever growing number of projects and initiatives.

Roz had such depth and substance. She always provided us with a meaningful context for what we were doing in UJPO. Roz knew our history and she taught us that it was important and shouldn’t be diminished. She persuaded me to join the National board by making solid arguments about continuity and connection and shared history.

Roz got me excited about Yiddish. About family history. About the past and the future.

I wanted many more years with Roz. I am so grateful I knew her.

Be at peace Roz.

Photos from Roz Usiskin’s Celebration of LIfe, held at Winnipeg Beach, July 9, 2023.