The Shaarey Zedek lottery brunch which took place on Sunday, May 15 was a definite success—as measured by the fact that the food was plentiful and  a relatively high proportion  of the crowd emerged with  more money  in their pockets on the way out than they did on the way in.

The biggest prize was the final ticket which was a $4000.00 prize. Each individual of the four names on the final ticket drawn had to decide if he or she was willing to share with the others for one quarter of the $4000 prize. If any of the four had refused, then the names would have all been returned to the lottery and one name out of the four would have been drawn to win. 

Jen & Eli Goldenberg, Adrienne Meyers, David & Mona Rich, and Cathy Moser were the four participants who shared the winning ticket. After about one minute, it was announced that the four had decided to share the prize equally.

When asked what she would do with her windfall, Dr. Cathy Moser, who is on the Shaarey Zedek Executive Committee, laughed and told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that “This is only a drop in the bucket to pay off debt.”

Dr. Adrienne Meyers said she had “no idea” of what she’d do. “I have never won anything before. I can’t believe I actually won this.”

Jen Goldenberg, a member of the Shaarey Zedek Board of Directors said she was “going to use some of it to buy an engagement gift I have to buy.”

Neither David  or Mona Rich were able to be at the brunch.

The final winners were announced at the end of the brunch and one of the participants told the Winnipeg Jewish Review, “Did you note that no one has left this brunch early.  Everyone is still here. No one’s rushing off.”

Other winning Tickets were:1st ticket $100- Louis Bernstein, Clara Bernstein, Benji Goldenberg, Ronit Kantarzhi, 18th ticket- $100- Peter Leipsic, 54th Ticket- $100- Sheldon Blank, 72nd ticket- $100- Paul Granovsky and Mira Buchwald, 108th ticket -$200- Denny Segal, 126th ticket-$100-Ashley Leibl,162nd ticket- $100- Brent Schacter, 180th ticket-$100- Cyril Labman, 200th ticket-$200- Yuri Klaz.

Rabbi Pinsker  told the Winnipeg Jewish Review that while Shaarey Zedek has been fortunate in that its funds have been invested wisely, in the United States, “there are a lot of synagogue I know of  in the post-Madoff era who are going back to  what used to be  the more common way of raising funds for synagogues, the old fashion lottery, similar to this.”

Robert Didych, Communications Director of the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue said that for the Lottery Brunch “we sold 211 tickets, which is $21,100 in sales,” and “we’ve booked our 2011 lottery brunch for Sunday, May 15th.”