Winnipeg Negev Dinner 2025

Rabbi Yosef Benarroch was born in Spanish Morocco in 1957. His family moved to Winnipeg in 1963 where they were received with open arms by the Jewish community. The family lived in the North End on Lansdowne Avenue. They attended the Talmud Torah Synagogue and Yosef went to Talmud Torah Elementary School and graduated from Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate in 1976. He attended the University of Manitoba, where he received a degree in Phys Ed. In 1982, Yosef went to Israel to study at a Yeshiva for a year, but ended up studying at the Yeshiva for ten years! During that time he made aliyah, met his wife Elana, started a family and was ordained as a Rabbi. He served in the IDF in 1989. 

His first Rabbinic position was in Phoenix, Arizona. He then served as Rabbi of Congregation Beth Hamidrash, a Sephardic synagogue in Vancouver for 8 years. The family returned to Israel in 1999. He served as Rabbi at the Sephardic Educational Center in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 2010, Rabbi Benarroch, along with a business partner started the first post high school seminary for Sephardic women in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 2016 he took the position of Rabbi at the Adas Yeshurun Herzlia synagogue in Winnipeg.

He and his wife, Elana are distinguished Zionists. They have seven amazing children, 3 boys and 4 girls. They are blessed with 14 grandchildren. They live in the beautiful hills of Gush Etzion in Efrat.

Al Benarroch holds a BA (Hons.) in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. Al operated a private counselling practice for 10 years, working exclusively with Indigenous peoples, on and off reserves, Indigenous child welfare agencies, schools, and communities. Al’s graduate research focused on health psychology in mental illness, including the impacts of prenatal drug and alcohol exposure on development. Al is certified Master Trainer in ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training), the world’s leading suicide first-aid intervention training program.Al joined Jewish Child and Family Service (JCFS) in 1999 as Clinical Director, and in 2014, assumed the role of Executive Director (currently President & CEO), moving the agency into new areas of growth, and service expansion through innovative planning and creative programming. Al’s passion is in finding the interconnection between Judaism and clinical practise. Synagogue and community service is in the Benarroch blood. Al sat/sits on community boards and committees both within the Jewish community (Board of Jewish Education, Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Synagogue, the Simkin Centre and more. He also sits as a board



member of the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies. Al is presently the board chair of the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre. Al is very active in synagogue life and ritual communal life. He is an active synagogue member at the Adas Yeshurun-Herzlia Synagogue and also serves as the lay spiritual leader and cantor of the Chevrah Mishnayes Synagogue.Al is married to Brenlee Sucharov, the father of 2 adult daughters, Amber and Simone, and is also raising his 12-year-old twin nieces, Miley and Macey Sucharov.