RUTH PHYLLIS SAIR-SEGEV

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RUTH PHYLLIS SAIR-SEGEV July 1932 - July 2004 Admitted to Grace Hospital on April 9th, for the removal of a kidney stone, Phyllis developed over the past three months a number of complications that culminated in the last week in the recurrence of a cervical cancer. She passed away peacefully on Wednesday, July 7, 2004 with her husband, Samuel Segev, at her bedside. A daughter of the late Sam and Esther Sair, Phyllis was active during most of her life in Jewish and Israeli affairs. At the age of 17, she was a member of the first Canadian-Jewish youth mission that went to Israel in the summer 1949 and spent three months in Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, a short distance from the city of Jenin and from the Jordanian and Iraqi positions in the West Bank. Upon graduating from the University of Winnipeg, Phyllis became active in various Jewish and pro-Israeli organizations. In the early seventies, she became the national chairman of Canadas UJA/women division. As such she led several missions to Israel, the Soviet Union, Poland and Romania. Phyllis was also active in the Jerusalem Womens Seminar, a North American NGO that brought non-Jewish prominent women to visit both Israel and Egypt. It was during one of these missions that she met and eventually married Israeli journalist and author, Samuel Segev, in June 1984. As part of the Jewish Agencys Project Renewal, and under the leadership of Dr. Benny Goldberg and Marjorie and Morley Blankstein, Phyllis monitored, on the ground, the construction of a modern community centre in Gan-Yavneh, southeast of Tel-Aviv. After the 1993 Oslo Agreement and the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, Phyllis became the development director of CISEPO, a Canadian NGO founded by Dr. Arnold Noyek, of Torontos Mount Sinai Hospital, that provided hearing relief to Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian children. Phyllis funeral will take place today, Friday, at Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, at 12:00 noon. She is survived by her husband, Samuel Segev, and nine grandchildren in Canada and Israel. Donations can be made for the establishment of Phyllis Sair-Segev scholarship fund for Jewish and Middle Eastern studies.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Jul 09, 2004