On Israel’s 78th birthday, Israelis are marking that moment during a very different reality—two years after the October 7 attack, and in the wake of a ceasefire from a widening regional conflict that includes the U.S., Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In 1948, the founders declared Israel’s independence with a manually typed paper invitation to a secret, hurried ceremony in a secure basement, with a sense of both triumph and fear. Modern Israel has a powerful army, but the country continues to sacrifice its young defenders, while Israelis have spent countless hours in recent months sheltering in their secure basements and safe rooms to hide from incoming enemy rockets and drones.

This Yom ha-Atzmaut, our guests say the Jewish State is both an idea fulfilled, and a story that is still unfolding.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner brings you her interviews with two guests who embody the story of Israel: Hadassa Kingstone, 89, who was an eye witness to the birth of her country, and David Matlow, The CJN’s “Treasure Trove” columnist.

• Follow David Matlow’s “Treasure Trove” columns about the history of Israel through his vast collection of Zionist and Herzl memorabilia, in The CJN .
• Our readers share their own memories of Israel on her recent 75th birthday, in The CJN from 2023 .
• Hear Israeli American writer Yossi Klein Halevi, who lives part time in British Columbia, speak for Israel’s 76th birthday on why Israelis are "still an enormously powerful people” after Oct. 7, on The CJN Daily .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Friedman argues that after Senesh’s capture and execution in 1944, the young State of Israel helped shape her into a national icon because of a broader need for stories of heroism to inspire the next generation. His book is dedicated to the memories of two modern-day symbols of Jewish bravery after Oct. 7 whom Friedman knew personally: slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the young Nova Festival captive and Yuval Shoham, his friend who was an IDF tank corpsman and went searching for Hersh while on duty in Gaza before he, too, lost his life.

The book arrives ahead of Yom ha-Shoah, Yom ha-Zikaron—the memorial day for Israel’s war dead including victims of terrorism, which begins tonight—and Yom ha-Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, which falls the day after.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Matti Friedman about why, tragically, heroism is still being asked of the descendants of Senesh’s generation.

Related links

• Learn more about Matti’s Friedman and his new book “Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe” by McClelland and Stewart Canada .
• Watch the new rap song about Hannah Senesh by Kosha Dillz, on YouTube .
• Hear Canadian author Douglas Century explain why he resisted Hannah Senesh’s life in his new book which came out in November 2025, called “Crash of the Heavens”, on The CJN’s North Star podcast.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

In his new book The Forgiveness Experiment, Rabbi Yisroel Bernath of Montreal makes the case that forgiveness is a form of self-liberation, not a gift to those who caused you harm.

After Yom ha-Shoah but ahead of Yom ha-Zikaron on Monday April 20, that idea collides with a painful reality: for many Jews, October 7 is not history: it is still happening. As is the war with Iran and Hezbollah.

Among the 30,000 soldiers and victims of terror being remembered is the name of Yotam Haim. The kidnapped Israeli hostage managed to escape his captors in Gaza but then was mistakenly killed by the IDF. His family has publicly forgiven the troops involved.

That story of grace despite horrific pain is part of Rabbi Bernath’s new book. Bernath is a relationship expert, leader with the Chabad community in N.D.G. and at Concordia University. He lays out his own personal path and tackles the question of how to move on from being a victim.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s “North Star” podcast, Rabbi Bernath sits down with our producer Andrea Varsany to reveal how he did it.

Related links

• Learn more about Rabbi Yisroel Bernath
• Find the book “ The Forgiveness Experiment” to read his lessons on forgiveness and on moving forward from trauma and pain to peace.
• Rabbi Bernath was one of The CJN’s relationship columnists before the pandemic and now runs a Jewish matchmaking service.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Their product is made in a KSA-certified kosher plant in Etobicoke. It was personally selected by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen to be among his home-grown pantry during the crew’s 400,000 kilometre journey around the moon. It is the farthest distance any human, or cereal, has ever traveled from Earth.

And while that floating jar of Nutella in the capsule garnered global attention, which was also made in Canada and is kosher, the two Daniels’ all-natural, nut-free breakfast choice comes with a secret ingredient: Jewish pride.

Carson has been deeply rooted in the Jewish community, working for Camp Robin Hood and also the Magen Boys, while his childhood pal Schreiber, who he met growing up in Thornhill, was born in Israel.

On today’s The CJN “North Star” podcast, they speak with host Ellin Bessner about how it all started and about their next-level ambitions to bring kosher cereal to infinity—and beyond.

Related links

• Learn more about the two Daniels behind Goldy’s kosher KSA-certified oatmeal and cereals.
• Read more about the Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, killed when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry in 2003, in The CJN.
• Interview with Gregory Chamitoff, a Jewish astronaut who grew up in Chomedey, Que. and went to space on board Discovery, in The CJN from 2013.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

That’s why after publishing over 30 kids books with Holocaust themes, her newest effort Last Known Address, dropped just before Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Kacer uses “stolpersteine”s or “stumbling stones” to connect her young readers with the lives lost or disrupted during the Holocaust.

Kacer showcases the last homes where Anne Frank and 12 lesser-known victims of Nazi persecution lived. Most of the book focuses on Jews, but she also broadens her storytelling to include others targeted by Hitler’s regime: a Roma couple, a gay German man and a mentally disabled brother.

Several of her subjects survived, including the late Vera Katz Schiff of Toronto and Salman Schocken of Israel.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Kathy Kacer joins host Ellin Bessner to describe her voyage of discovery tracing the stumbling stones, and why she keeps speaking about the Holocaust to thousands of students at hundreds of schools.

Related Links

• Learn more and buy Kathy Kacer ’s latest book “Last Known Address ” through Second Story Press.
• Read more about Ellin’s personal encounter with Stolpersteine in the small German Rhine River town of Bacharach in 2017, in The CJN.
• Search more about the Stolpersteine on artist Gunter Demnig’s project site .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

This week, marking one year since her mother's death, Stepak set out on a 10-day, 300-kilometre walk to all 100 TPL branches. She’s calling it Every Library TO and is raising funds for library outreach programs that supported her mother in her final months.

In this episode of The CJN’s "North Star" podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Stepak about grief, memory and finding a way forward.

Related links

• Follow Marci Stepak ’s memorial walk for her late mother to all of Toronto’s 100 public libraries.
• Learn how to donate to her TPL fundraiser.
• Read more about Marcie Stepak’s background in The CJN from 2010, about the show “Being Erica.”

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

That prompted renewed expressions of frustration on Sunday, April 5, from some local residents and Jewish leaders who believe that the protesters should not be permitted to expand their traditional protest zone at the intersection. But police say there’s obviously some confusion, because they were never going to ban the anti-Israel protests entirely. Rather, they just want to keep marchers off residential side streets.

So did the new rules improve safety at all? Or was the heavy police presence the key factor in keeping things a bit quieter this time?

On today’s episode of The CJN’s "North Star" podcast, host Ellin Bessner brings you her on-the-ground report from the three-hour long duelling rally and march.

You’ll hear from several voices, including Toronto police Inspector Israel Bernardo, who explains why the new rules may have been misunderstood; James Pasternak, the local city councillor who says the protests are taking up valuable police resources for the sake of “glorified babysitting”; lawyer and activist Michael Teper, who describes his role in sparking a recent hate crime arrest; and one resident of the neighbourhood who feels the police’s new protest zone rules actually allowed the anti-Israel demonstrations to escalate.

Related stories

• Read more about how the new police protest rules were enforced at Bathurst and Sheppard on April 5, in The CJN.
• Why Toronto police announced March 22 that no protesters would be allowed to enter side streets, in The CJN.
• Hear legal experts denounce why so many antisemitic or anti-Israel protesters in Toronto are having their charges dropped, on The CJN’s “North Star” podcast .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

In the film, an Orthodox family gathers together for Passover, when long-buried allegations of abuse at the hands of an old rabbi teacher surface, forcing everyone to break years of uncomfortable silence. Etienne and many of his actors are themselves Orthodox. They worried about staging this controversial topic on the big screen, because of how reluctant their community has been to discuss the problem and deal with the predators.

Joel Etienne and first-time actor Ahava Spillman, who plays Rebbetzin Rosen, join today’s episode of North Star, just ahead of Passover.

If you are in need of help Jewish Family & Child Service in the Greater Toronto Area runs a 24-hour phone hotline 1-800 404-1393. During business hours contact 416-638-7800

Related links

• Learn more about the film “Sisters of Fate” and the cast, and how to book screenings.
• Read The CJN’s coverage of the Rabbi Mund tria l in Montreal in 2025. The elderly teacher was acquitted of two sex crime charges, after being arrested on Passover 2022.
• Why do sexual abuse cases go unpunished in the Orthodox community, in The CJN from 2022.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director), Yael Sher (graphic designer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

He had little time to settle into the role before the security situation changed dramatically: Wolle calls it “seismic shifts".

In recent months, Toronto police foiled an ISIS-linked terror plot; a boycott campaign targeted Jewish summer camps; and protests continue to spread through Jewish neighbourhoods, often without police intervention.

Then, after Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran began again in late February, tensions escalated further. In the span of a single week, three Toronto-area synagogues and several Jewish-owned businesses were targeted in drive-by shootings.

Elsewhere, hate charges were dropped against a Montreal café owner who had threatened Jews with “the Final Solution”; a long-standing Holocaust education event at Vanier College was cancelled; and political rhetoric around Israel drew renewed national attention ahead of Sunday’s election of Avi Lewis, a Jewish anti-Zionist, as leader of the NDP.

When Wolle started the job five months ago, his priorities included encouraging mainstream Jewish organizations to put aside “their egos” and work together more closely to fight antisemitism. He also hoped to persuade Canadian Jews not to abandon this country, but to stay and help improve the situation –even if this will take time.

Wolle spoke with The CJN’s North Star podcast host Ellin Bessner in an interview recorded in mid-February, right before the latest escalation between Israel and Iran. In that conversation, he laid out how he believes B’nai Brith’s role must evolve — in ways that now feel even more urgent.

Related stories:

• Hear Simon Wolle in his first interview with The CJN in February 2026 as B’nai Brith CEO push back on the disturbing campaign financially targeting Jewish summer camps, or watch it on The CJN’s YouTube Channel.
• Simon Wolle made his national debut as CEO of B’nai Brith Canada at a press conference in Ottawa in January, among other things calling for a Royal Commission to be created on antisemitism, in The CJN .
• See what B’nai Brith Canada told the Quebec government about secularism and rising antisemitism, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director), Yael Sher (graphic designer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Pte. Albert Henry Detmold, was the son of British Jews from London, and the nephew of Rufus Isaacs — better known as Lord Reading — who served as Britain’s Chief Justice and later as Viceroy of India.

It is the first time since Canada launched its missing war identification unit in 2007 that a Jewish soldier has been identified, although

Detmold enlisted instead as Presbyterian.

In this episode of The CJN’s “North Star” podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with the historians and forensic experts who identified Detmold through DNA and traced his family. Sarah Lockyer, Alexandra McKinnon and Melissa Davidson of the Department of National Defence’s Casualty Identification Unit describe how they uncovered both his identity — and a family history that had been largely forgotten.

Related links

• Learn more about Pte. Albert Detmold , and also about the 100,000 Canadians who fought in the Battle for Hill 70 in August 1917
• Read more about the 4,700 Jewish troops who wore a Canadian military uniform in the First World War, in The CJN from 2021 , and from 2016 ,
• Register to help identify Canadian war dead with no known grave, for the Department of National Defence’s Casualty Identification Program

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director), Yael Sher (marketing and communications coordinator)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Avi Lewis could follow in the footsteps of his late grandfather David Lewis, who led the NDP shortly after Avi was born. David Lewis remains the first Jewish Canadian in history to lead a national political party. (Annamie Paul led the Greens from 2020-2021)

But a lot has changed since his grandfather's reign. The NDP was decimated in the 2025 election, winning only seven seats and losing official party status. As they hope to rebuild and expand their coalition, some party members are worried about the younger Lewis’s criticism of Israel and his anti-Zionist beliefs; he is a member of the anti-Zionist organization Independent Jewish Voices Canada and his roster of prominent endorsers includes many activists with similar views.

Lewis’s closest rival is widely seen as Heather McPherson, the NDP MP for Edmonton Strathcona. She’s not Jewish, but holds similar sentiments about Israel. She has supported seven petitions against the Israeli government, wore a Keffiyeh in the House of Commons during a vote on Palestinian statehood, and wants Canada to investigate anyone who ever served in the Israeli army.

The CJN reached out multiple times to Lewis’s camp for an interview, but they declined.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, NDP insider and The CJN Political Panelist Noah Tepperman joins host Ellin Bessner to explain why he believes both front-runners are problematic for the country—but why Avi Lewis is much worse for Jewish Canadians.

Jewish former broadcaster Avi Lewis widely seen as the front-runner, but concerns are being raised about his strong anti-Zionist views.

Tags: #Canada politics, #NDP, #Avi Lewis, #Heather McPherson, #Jewish Canadians, #Israel, #antisemitism, #cdnpoli

Related links

• Read how the two leading NDP leadership candidates criticized the current U.S. and Israeli war with Iran, when the attack began Feb. 28, in The CJN .
• Learn more about the five candidates on the NDP’s leadership convention’s website.
• Hear The CJN’s Political Panel’s early prediction about the NDP leadership race, on “North Star” with Ellin Bessner , from Jan. 2026.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

The federal government’s Combating Hate Act is heading toward a final vote—after weeks of committee study. and a move recently to limit debate. The bill is being framed as as Canada's signture response to rising antisemitism after Oct. 7.

But will it actually work?

In this episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with two Jewish MPs from opposite sides of the aisle:

• Anthony Housefather (Liberal, Mount Royal), who argues the bill gives police the tools they’ve been asking for and Roman Baber (Conservative, York Centre), who says the law won’t make Jews safer and raises concerns about free speech

Both were asked about the same issues. Their answers could not be more different.

In this episode:• What Bill C-9 would change—and what it wouldn’t• Why the government moved to cap debate• The argument over enforcement vs. new laws• Concerns about free speech and religious expression• Whether the bill will actually reduce antisemitic incidents

Keywords: Bill C-9, Combating Hate Act, antisemitism Canada, hate crime laws Canada, free speech Canada, Anthony Housefather, Roman Baber, Canadian politics.

Related stories

• Learn more about the Private Members’ Bill that would have banned promotion of terrorism which Roman Baber, MP for York Centre, tried to have passed to strengthen Bill C-9, in The CJN , from November 2025.
• Why Canadian Jewish leaders supported Bill C-9 when it was at the Justice committee, in October 2025, in The CJN .
• Why the Canadian government said Bill C-9 is their response to growing antisemitism, in The CJN from Sept. 2025.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

The rookie MP represents the riding with third-largest concentration of Jews in Canada.  Gasparro was narrowly elected to Parliament last April 2025 on a platform to fight antisemitism and protect the Jewish community living in the area where he grew up.

After discovering that no one had been hurt or killed, Gasparro’s next thought was “We need to find these cowards who did this and we need to put them away.”

As Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime, Gasparro has been at the forefront of the federal government’s recent push to tighten bail, expand police investigative powers and crack down on hate crimes.

But while those policy changes have moved through Parliament in recent weeks, Gasparro says the synagogue shootings mark a dangerous escalation—and require resources beyond local policing.

On today’s episode of The Canadian Jewish News’s “North Star” podcast, Vince Gasparro sits down with host Ellin Bessner to discuss the incidents, the $10 million just granted for Jewish security and that there may be more coming.

Related stories

• What Jewish leaders and local Toronto-area politicians including Vince Gasparro said after three March 2026 synagogue shootings, in The CJN.
• Terrorism charges dropped against Irish band Kneecap in 2025’ MP Vince Gasparro had announced they were banned from performing in Canada, in The CJN.
• Vince Gasparro narrowly won the Toronto area Liberal riding of Eglinton-Lawrence in the April 2025 federal election, defeating Karen Stinz, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

When a missile warning sounds in Israel, people have only seconds to act — to get to a safe room or bomb shelter. But what if you can’t get there in time?

Nearly one in five Israelis lives with a disability. And for many, reaching safety isn’t always possible. Some shelters can only be accessed by stairs. Others may not receive alerts in time — or at all — if they’re deaf, blind, or unable to use smartphone apps. And for seniors or those without access to technology, those life-saving warnings can fall short.

Canadian lawyer and disability rights advocate David Lepofsky says this is a hidden crisis — one that’s been known for years, but still not fully addressed.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star, he joins me to explain how this war is exposing those gaps — and why they’re now a matter of life and death.

Israel, disability rights, accessibility, emergency alerts, public safety, war, human rights, bomb shelters, civil defense, Canada, CJN, North Star Podcast

Related stories

• Learn more about the Israeli disability rights organization Bizchut
• Subscribe to David Lepofsky’s new podcast called “Disability Rights and Wrongs: The David Lepodcast.”
• Hear Montrealer Neil Oberman’s first-hand account of receiving alerts on the phone and running to a bomb shelter, on The CJN’s ‘North Star’ podcast from March 2.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

In this episode of The CJN’s "North Star" podcast, Toronto lawyer Michael Teper and former Crown prosecutor Rochelle Direnfeld discuss why many protest-related charges tied to antisemitism in Toronto are later withdrawn, or diverted before reaching trial.

Teper, who tracks police-reported hate crimes against the Jewish community, says nearly half of roughly 100 recent cases have been handled that way. He and Direnfeld explain how Crown prosecutors make those decisions — and why they warn the pattern risks sending a message of impunity to those who would commit crimes.

Related stories:

• Read the ALCCA brief on the real problem behind the Toronto synagogue attacks.
• Learn why the National Post counted 94 of 154 Toronto protestors cases stayed, dropped or absolute discharges since Oct. 7, 2023.
• Read why B’nai Brith Canada thinks Ontario needs to start now to ban the 2027 Al-Quds Day rally, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Born in Canada, Haskel tells The CJN’s "North Star" podcast host Ellin Bessner why Israeli officials are watching closely, and why she believes the attacks are a warning of worse violence to come.

Related stories

• They want to scare us: hear from one synagogue member after the BAYT attack, on The CJN’s North Star podcast on YouTube.
• How Toronto synagogues ramped up security after the weekend gunfire targeting the BAYT and Shaarei Shomayim, in The CJN.
• Sharren Haskel is repeating her call made in 2024 on this show , for Diaspora Jews to move to Israel, in the light of revamped antisemitic attacks in Canada and France and elsewhere.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

When Laya Witty arrived for early morning Shabbat services at Beth Avraham Yoseph synagogue in Thornhill this past Saturday March 7, she noticed a police car parked at the entrance. Within moments, she learned why: overnight, gunfire had shattered the synagogue’s glass front doors.

Witty says she was relieved no one was hurt, and then she swung into action as a volunteer with the synagogue’s security team–screening guests and looking for unfamiliar faces.

Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, reached out personally on Monday to her synagogue’s senior rabbi, Daniel Korobkin as well as to Rabbi Sam Taylor from the other targeted congregation, Shaarei Shomayim synagogue, and Rabbi Debra Landsberg of Temple Emanu-El, to express his concern and support.

On today’s episode of The Canadian Jewish News‘ “North Star” podcast, Laya Witty joins host Ellin Bessner to share how it felt when attackers hit her place of worship, and why she fears eventually someone will get killed.

Related stories:

• Read The CJN’s comprehensive coverage of the week of gunfire against Jewish businesses and synagogues: beginning with Temple Emanu-El and a restaurant and education academy shot at on March 2 .
• Hear what it sounded like on the ground last weekend at the BAYT and also at Shaarei Shomayim, on The CJN’s North Star Podcast.
• Read what the politicians and the police promised on March 8, in The CJN. ****

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Gunfire struck three Toronto-area synagogues in less than a week, prompting police to promise a “relentless” investigation into what leaders say are antisemitic attacks.

In this episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner reports from outside Beth Avraham Yoseph synagogue in Thornhill and also listened in outside the Shaarei Shomayim congregation in North York Sunday as police, politicians and Jewish leaders gathered for a show of solidarity.

Bullet holes were discovered this weekend at Beth Avraham Yoseph congregation in Thornhill and Shaarei Shomayim synagogue in North York. Temple Emanu-El had been targeted earlier in the week. A Jewish-owned restaurant and a Jewish school were also struck the same day.

The attacks have stunned Toronto’s Jewish community and sparked calls for stronger action from governments and police before someone is seriously hurt or killed.

Keywords: Toronto synagogues, antisemitic attacks, Jewish community Canada, North Star podcast.

Related stories:

• Read The CJN’s comprehensive coverage of the week of gunfire against Toronto-area Jewish businesses and synagogues: beginning with Temple Emanu-El and a restaurant and education academy shot at on March 2 ,
• Then the BAYT and Shaarei Shomayim shot at separately on the night of March 7 .
• Read what the politicians and the police promised, on March 8, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

An Iranian-Jewish entrepreneur, Azarin was born in Isfahan and raised in Tehran before leaving Iran for Canada in 2001 with her husband and their newborn daughter. Today, that daughter is studying in Israel — making the conflict between the two countries Azarin loves deeply personal.

The latest escalation between Iran and Israel followed an Israeli air strike last weekend that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an attack reportedly carried out with support from the United States. The strike and Iran’s retaliation have raised fears of a broader regional conflict, leaving many people in the Iranian and Jewish diasporas watching events unfold with deep personal concern.

Growing up in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution meant living under strict social controls. While Azarin was at university, she was detained by the regime’s morality police. Some neighbours and relatives were killed. Now living freely in Canada for more than two decades, where she and her family are active members of Ottawa’s Jewish community, Azarin says she felt “overwhelmed with joy” after learning of Khamenei's death.

Despite everything, Azarin still dreams of one day bringing her children back to visit Iran to see the roots of one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities. Jewish life in Persia dates back roughly 2,700 years, although today fewer than 10,000 Jews remain in Iran.

On this episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, Azarin speaks with host Ellin Bessner about living between three loves — Iran, Israel and Canada — and how cooking Persian Jewish dishes helps her cope as she watches the conflict unfold.

Related stories

• Read an essay which our guest, Tina-Ahava Azarin, wrote for the Ottawa Jew Ottawa Jewish Bulletin ish Bulletin in January 2026 while she was watching the tensions build in Israel and Iran.
• Meet Iranian Jewish Canadian lawyer and politician Dyanoosh Youssefi, who fled Iran as a schoolgirl with just the clothes on her back, in 1982, after the Islamic Revolution,  on The CJN’s North Star podcast from 2022.
• Why Jewish Canadians have been receiving support at their pro-Israel rallies from the Iranian Canadian community, in The CJN from 2024 .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Now, after the military campaign launched by Israel and the U.S. this past weekend that took out Iran’s Supreme Leader, and many of his top regime officials, Cotler isn’t thinking about letting down his guard. Instead, he’s speaking out about what must happen next, even with the war is still going on.

In today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, Canada’s former justice minister and retired Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism argues that this moment is not only about celebration — but should be about accountability, too, including for the estimated 35,000 Iranians executed by the regime in January’s popular protests. And Cotler explains to host Ellin Bessner why what he calls a 26-year “culture of impunity” which persisted for so long, may finally be coming to an end.

Related stories:

• In 2024, Irwin Cotler was warned of an imminent threat on his life at the hands of Iranian agents, and received 24-hr protection, on The CJN North Star .
• How Canada’s lax immigration policies allowed Iranian regime members to come quietly to live in Canada, Irwin Cotler charged, on The CJN North Star podcast from June 2025.
• Read Irwin Cotler’s letter to The CJN after Ottawa scrapped the position of Canada’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, from Feb. 2026, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Israel's air defences continue to intercept most, but not all of the incoming Iranian drones and missiles–however, the death toll in Israel is climbing. And Israelis, and Canadians living or visiting that country, are moving in and out of shelters as alerts have been sounding since the attacks launched Saturday Feb. 28.

On today's episode of The CJN's flagship "North Star" podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Montreal lawyer and parent Neil Oberman–currently visiting his son in Israel–as the family's rides out the hostilities. During our conversation, rocket sirens sounded and he took us along (virtually) to the bomb shelter to finish the interview.

We then speak with Middle East expert Professor Thomas Juneau, of the University of Ottawa, about what this moment means strategically — what it does not mean — and what is likely to happen in the next 24-48 hours.

Related stories:

• Learn more about Neil Oberman , who was a Conservative candidate in the last election, his legal warfare in support of Montreal’s Jewish university students and safety zones around places of worship, in The CJN .
• Read how Canadians in Israel from North to South are riding out this latest war, in The CJN.
• Toronto’s Jewish and Iranian community held separate and also joint celebrations on Sunday: for Purim, and the death of the Ayatollah, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Hirsh says it was "the thrill of a lifetime" to be selected, to fly down to the Alex Trebek studio at Sony Pictures in Culver City, near Hollywood, where he taped several episodes of Jeopardy. It all happened about three weeks ago, but he's had to keep quiet about how he fared. Until now, as the episodes began to air this week on millions of television screens across North America.

Hirsh had decades to prepare for his small-screen debut: as a teenager, he was reigning champion at his summer camp's version of the game show, over four seasons. The prize money back then was enough to buy some beers. This time, his actual Jeopardy! winnings will help the father-of-three pay off his family's mortgage. He also won a custom Jeopardy! hat and a tote bag, but he says the best prize is a coveted tagline to his bio: he can now say "I was on Jeopardy!"

On today's episode of The CJN’s "North Star" podcast, host Ellin Bessner chats with James Hirsh about what it was like under the bright lights, what questions stumped him and–how he regrets wearing the wrong shoes.

Related links:

• Follow James Hirsh on The CJN’s “Menschwarmers” podcast and subscribe, for free.
• Missed watching his Jeopardy shows live? Catch all the episodes beginning Feb. 24, 2026 where James Hirsh was a contestant. The show streams on Crave TV in Canada. Tune in Friday in Canada on YES TV to find out how he does on Day 4.
• Read this Jeopardy fan page for a play-by-play of how James’  Feb. 24 game played out.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

But what began as a ruling about construction permits has quickly become something bigger.

Members of Israel’s governing coalition are advancing legislation this week that would effectively bring the broader Kotel site, including Robinson’s Arch, under the authority of the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate. The law could mean prison terms of up to seven years for anyone deemed to be desecrating the holy site — and observers fear the new proposal could ban any alternative forms of Jewish prayer around Judaism’s holiest place.

This raises a deeper question: where does that leave millions of Jews, especially outside of Israel, who are not Orthodox?

On today’s episode of The CJN’s “North Star” podcast, Toronto Rabbi Elyse Goldstein joins host Ellin Bessner to explore what’s at stake. The Rabbi is a longtime advocate for pluralistic prayer, for women’s place in Judaism, and a supporter of the Women of the Wall movement’s decades-long struggle for equality at the Kotel.

Related stories:

• Read about the Israel Supreme court decision on Robinson’s Arch Feb. 19, 2026, and reaction, in The CJN
• Learn more about what Rabbi Elyse Goldstein experienced joining the Women of the Wall’s 25th anniversary prayer service in 2013, in The CJN .
• Hear what it was like in July 2023 at a Women of the Wall prayer service in this eye-witness account by The CJN’s producer Zachary Judah Kauffman , who was studying in Israel and produced this podcast for The CJN’s North Star Podcast.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

Some families are actively scouting Florida, despite the political and immigration challenges which the U.S.A. poses. Others are traveling to Panama, to explore buying property there just in case-where permanent residency is attainable. Real estate agents and immigration lawyers in Israel and beyond are fielding new calls. And communities in the U.S. and Israel are marketing directly to Canadians: you will have heard about Lech L’Tulsa, Oklahoma.

But is this a real demographic shift — or is it something deeper: a rupture in confidence about the future of Jewish life in Canada in response to rising antisemitism and uncertainty?

Today on The CJN’s flagship podcast North Star, host Ellin Bessner examines why some Canadian Jews are looking for Plan B: we speak with Aryeh Snitman and his wife Heather Snitman of Thornhill who’re exploring both Florida and Panama; with Jaqueline Lewis, of Toronto, who bought a place in Panama just a few months ago; and with Lauren Cohen, a Canadian-born lawyer based in Boca Raton, Florida who provides immigration business and real estate guidance to clients considering moving to “Mechaya Florida”.

Related links:

• Learn more about Tafsik’s Plan B resources, their next trip to Panama in March , and watch their Zoom video about moving to Panama.
• Read more about Lauren Cohen’s immigration and real estate services designed for Canadians interested in relocating to Florida, or elsewhere in the United States.
• Why these Canadian Jews moved to Israel months after Oct. 7, 2023, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler, The CJN’s Editorial Director
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter https://thecjn.ca/newsletters/
• Subscribe to North Star https://thecjn.ca/north https://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianJewishNews
• https://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianJewishNews Donate to The CJN + get a charitable receipt
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

The Ontario government recently put more than half a dozen school boards, including in Toronto and Ottawa, under the supervision by the ministry of education. This has effectively halted official school board discussions on the issue there – for now, but the debate over anti-Palestinian racism policies, or APR for short, isn't over: it's just moved out of the spotlight.

For weeks, our Mitchell Consky, The Canadian Jewish News’s Local Journalism Initiative reporter, has been digging into why the campaign for school boards to adopt APR policies has become such a flashpoint, what's at stake for Jewish and Israeli families, and also for Palestinian ones, and their allies. 

His story was published last week. His investigation also uncovered evidence that the Canadian government has been funding APR advocates who strongly oppose Canada’s widely-accepted definition of antisemitism known as the IHRA Definition, even as the APR groups accuse this framework of causing anti-Palestinian racism. 

On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, Consky joins host Ellin Bessner to tell us more about his reporting, what APR is, and how the clash is playing out on the ground and in the schools.

Related stories:

• Read Mitch Consky’s investigative story about the controversy over the campaign to have school boards in Ontario adopt anti-Palestinian racism policies, in The CJN .
• Hear Mitch Consky evaluate why some Jewish teachers and even a Jewish school board trustee were accused of anti-Palestinian racism, on The CJN’s North Star podcast from June 2025.
• Learn more about why this Jewish advocacy group for parents warned that identity politics are feeling antisemitism in Ontario schools, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

• Watch our podcasts on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN

• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

The campaign was launched Feb. 4. They released a report online urging official camping associations in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes to de-certify the accreditation of these Jewish camps. They also asked the federal tax department to strip the camps of their charitable status because the programming supports “a genocidal state”.

The campaign came to light ahead of the Family-Day long weekend weekend, on Friday Feb. 13, afer the Ontario Camps Association released a blistering statement condemning the targeting of Jewish campers and staffers. The board also denounced the singling out for discrimination of its own executive director, Joy Levy. Levy was accused of being a “Zionist who publicly supports Israel, its military, and promotes anti-Palestinian racism,” among other things. 

While public reaction has been swift from some Jewish advocates and some allies, none of the individual Jewish summer camp directors we contacted responded to our request for interviews, except for Camp Northland, who declined to comment. It appears the camps have decided to not amplify the boycott’s impact.

But on today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship podcast “North Star”, host Ellin Bessner gets reaction from Risa Epstein, the CEO of Young Judaea Canada, an umbrella group for nine Zionist camps operating in Canada, and also from Simon Wolle, the CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, who previously was director of Camp Northland. You’ll also hear what Joy Levy had to say.

Related links:

• Read Ellin Bessner’s in-depth print article about the boycott campaign and how it has impacted Yonge Judaea’s nine camps, and also Joy Levy, the executive director at Ontario Camps Association, who was personally targeted, in The CJN.
• Read about Israeli kids finding respite from war at Canadian summer camps, in The CJN.
• How Canada’s Jewish summer camps provided a safe space to discuss the geopolitical issues in the Middle East, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.
• Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for "North Star" on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!) https://www.youtube.com/@TheCJN

His sports-marketing company is called Tribe NIL. (NIL stands for Name, Image and Likeness, a new monetization route for college athletes to make money off their work.) The company aims to boost the careers of hundreds of talented Jewish college athletes, including more than a half-dozen Canadians playing for U.S. college football, baseball, hockey, basketball and swim teams, among others.

Moses was raised in Montreal. He’s the middle son of retired Montreal Rabbi Lionel Moses and Yiddish scholar and editor Joyce Rappaport. His brother, Zev Moses, is the founder and executive director of the Museum of Jewish Montreal.

Jeremy Moses moved to Brooklyn where he’s worked in the sports and entertainment field. He and business partner, the comedian Eitan Levine, founded Tribe NIL last spring. This year, they’re doubling down on the Manischewitz campaign, looking for one male and one female Jewish athlete to reward with $10,000 in prize money each, a “L’Cheisman Trophy” and international fame as this year’s faces of Manischewitz matzah.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship podcast North Star, Jeremy Moses joins host Ellin Bessner to share more about his campaign—plus they get into the myriad Jewish sporting news of the week, including Jewish Olympians and Robert Kraft’s controversial Super Bowl antisemitism ad.

Related links

• Learn more about co-founder Jeremy Moses’s company, Tribe NIL and see some of the 250 Jewish NCAA college athletes they represent (including some Canadians).
• Follow Manischewitz’s contest with TribeNIL for Jewish male and female college athlete of the year, with winners to be announced in March.
• Listen to The CJN’s Not in Heaven podcast discuss whether parents want their kids to be professional athletes.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.

The Paris-based body ruled against the Jewish family on Feb. 2. in a printed decision, after an in-person hearing last month, The court said it's denying the Canadian family's case because France has immunity for acts done on foreign soil–and because the old lease was signed in the 1960s in the city of Baghdad, so local Iraqi laws apply.

The case has garnered international headlines because it involves a much wider story: the historic injustice done to nearly a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who were forced to flee their regimes' growing anti-Israel sentiment after 1948. They were stripped of their citizenship and their assets were seized.

The CJN's flagship podcast "North Star" has been following the story since last year, and on today's episode, host Ellin Bessner sits down with Philip Khazzam, the Montreal businessman on a mission to seek justice for what happened to his grandfather's beloved mansion.

Related stories

• Read the French administrative court’s Feb. 2 decision in The CJN.
• Learn why Philip Khazzam launched his $30 million legal challenge against France for unpaid rent and damages last year, in The CJN .
• Hear the survival stories of Canadians of Iraqi descent who survived the “Fraud” pogrom against Baghdad Jews in 1941, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.

The delegation from Toronto’s Beth Sholom synagogue spent the past week delivering pharmacy supplies and other necessities–which they donated to Jewish seniors, Cuban synagogues, and even to a pharmacy housed inside the Jewish community centre in Havana, which supplies Jewish Cubans and also nearby hospitals.

Local Jewish leaders say this group is the first Canadian Jewish mission to come to Cuba in nearly seven years, since before the pandemic in 2019. And officials worry there might be fewer going forward. The Canadian government raised its travel warnings for Cuba on Feb. 4, citing widespread economic problems impacting tourists, including more frequent power outages, lack of food and fresh water, and fuel shortages.

The island, a popular destination for Canadians, was hit in October 2025 by a damaging monster hurricane. But the country’s difficulties worsened noticeably in the last month, after the U.S. president ordered all shipments of Venezuelan oil to Cuba be halted, as part of the capture of Venezuela’s former dictator Nicolas Maduro on Jan. 3.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship podcast “North Star”, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Beth Sholom’s Cantor Eric Moses, who organized the trip, and with William Miller, a Jewish community leader in Havana; plus we hear from Benji Tock of Toronto. The teenager didn’t make the trip, but his bar mitzvah project–collecting eight duffle bags full of donated baseball bats, cleats, gloves and other gear–arrived safely in Cuba, too, destined for local Jewish players bound for this coming summer’s Maccabiah Games in Israel.

Related stories

• To donate to the Cuban Jewish community, contact Toronto-based Cantor Eric Moses cantor@bethsholom.net
• Donate to the Global Seder initiative of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. https://www.jewishtoronto.com/donate
• Learn more about Canadian efforts over the decades to help the small Jewish community of Cuba with kosher food and basic daily supplies, in The CJN archives.
• In 2014, four Toronto bar mitzvah boys raised thousands to help Cuba’s Jewish community purchase medical supplies, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.

The closed-door discussions strove to understand what tactics to tackle anti-Jewish hatred are working worldwide, which Canada might try; Norway, for example, has found success bringing young Jewish “pathfinders” into schools to meet their peers.

The international experts also told the government what Canada doesn’t need: more laws.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner sits down with two of those experts. Sally Sealey runs the U.K. envoy’s office for post-Holocaust issues and chairs the Holocaust memorial foundation, which is building the country’s new education centre in London; Carl Yonker, meanwhile, is the senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, which also publishes an annual global antisemitism monitoring report.

Related stories:

• Read Irwin Cotler’s column about Canada scrapping its special envoy office, a role which he first held from 2020-2023, in The CJN .
• Reaction was swift to Canada’s surprise announcement Wednesday that the government is ending its Special Envoy position for Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, (and the other one for Islamophobia) in favour of a single advisory council on rights, equity, inclusion, in The CJN.
• Read the latest global antisemitism report from Tel Aviv University published in April 2025 , and the Israeli Diaspora ministry’s newest interim report on international antisemitism, from January 2026.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) info@thecjn.ca
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)
• Watch our interviews on our YouTube Channel

The prisoners lived in harsh conditions at nine prisoner-of-war camps in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. In some cases, they were locked up together with groups of real Nazi soldiers and German U-boat crews who’d been captured by the Allies during the Second World War. But they weren’t spies—they were doctors, professors, Yeshiva students and bankers who fled to England to escape the Holocaust. The British government soon realized their mistake, but Canada took until 1943 to release all the prisoners. Some experts blame widespread antisemitism in the Canadian government for the undue delay.

Many of those former internees later became prominent community leaders in Canada, including the late Rabbi Erwin Schild, who died in 2024 at age 103; Justice Fred Kaufman, the first Jewish judge on Quebec’s Appeal court; Alfred Bader, a chemist and philanthropist to Queen’s University; businessman Eric Exton; printer Leo Klag; philosopher Rabbi Emil Fackenheim; and two Nobel Prize winners.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner is joined by Andrew Cassel; Jewish historians Paula Draper, and Jennifer Cousineau of Parks Canada, who collaborated to release a new podcast spotlighting the story of one of the POW camps south of Montreal; and Blatant Injustice author Ian Darragh, who is spearheading the apology petition.

Related stories

• Learn more about the new Parks Canada podcast  spotlighting European Jews deported from Britain to Canada in 1940 as enemy aliens and held in POW camps in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. 

• Read the petition , initiated by author Ian Darragh , sponsored by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, asking the House of Commons for an apology and educational programming and commemorative plaques at the sites of the former POW camps.

• Read more about the Andrew Cassel’s father, Henry Cassel , and also about the late Toronto Rabbi Erwin Schild  and Dr. Walter W. Igersheimer , all former internees.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) info@thecjn.ca
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )
• Watch our podcasts on YouTube.

Canada abstained or voted yes to motions and resolutions that were critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and military campaign against Hamas. Canada called for a ceasefire and condemned, with other nations, Israel’s settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and the Golan. (Canada also did try, early on, to get the U.N. to censure Hamas for its massacre of Israelis, but the motion failed.)

Last fall, at the 80th U.N. General Assembly, Canada unilaterally recognized the State of Palestine—which Rae says he fully supports. He also supports funding UNRWA, the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, where some employees were fired for being linked to the violence of Oct. 7. But while Israel and many Canadian Jews feel the U.N. and its leadership are obsessed with demonizing Israel, the outgoing ambassador disagrees.

Rae’s term as Canada’s envoy to the U.N. started during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and ended in November 2025. Since then, he’s joined two universities and a think tank, and has been a regular commentator in the Canadian media. Rae joins The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast host Ellin Bessner to unpack what’s behind his support for Canada’s tougher stance on Israel—and what that’s cost him.

Related stories

• Hear former Ambassador Bob Rae discuss the whether the Russian invasion of Ukraine unleashed genocide, in a 2022 interview on 

The CJN’s Bonjour Chai

podcast.

• Rae spoke to broadcaster Ralph Benmergui last year about how his spiritual side mixes with his political career, on The CJN’s “

Not That Kind of Rabbi”

show. 

• When Bob Rae was a Liberal MP from Toronto, in 2010, he told a Haifa University fundraising event in his honour that co-existence between Israelis and Palestinian is the only way forward, in  The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (@ebessner) info@thecjn.ca

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)

• Music:

Bret Higgins (https://www.brethiggins.com/)

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how? Click here)

• Watch our podcasts on

YouTube.

This spring, the garden will begin its third season of growing food and flowers for programs at the shul, and school, as well as for clients of Vancouver's Jewish Family Services, and hosting dozens of volunteers–all the while teaching environmentalism and food security through a Jewish lens.

When the garden was officially opened in the spring of 2023, we interviewed the team behind the idea, likely the highest Jewish community garden in Canada. The episode originally aired May 31, 2023.

The Vancouver Jewish Community Garden had its official ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 28, 2023, a fitting debut for the $200,000 initiative. On North Star (formerly The CJN Daily), we’re joined by the organizers: Congregation Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld; Emily Greenberg, head of school at VTT; and Tanja Demajo, executive director of Jewish Family Services in Vancouver.

Related links

• Watch a video of the construction of the Vancouver Jewish Community Garden 

on You Tube

• https://youtu.be/oUQJ9yKCd_o

In Toronto, the Shoresh farming agency ran a community garden in peoples’ backyards, in 

The CJN

Read more about environmental programming gaining popularity in B.C. in 

The CJN

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (senior producer),

Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

Alicia Richler (editorial director)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Subscribe to North Star

https://thecjn.ca/arts/podcast-how-to/

• Watch our podcasts on

YouTube

• Donate

to The CJN + get a charitable receipt

Montreal filmmaker Ezra Soiferman loves the winters in his native city so much, he’s made a new film about them, called Montreal, Snowbec. It’s a love letter to the season where the city is covered by nearly six feet of white stuff each year. In the film, Soiferman showcases the beauty of Place Ville Marie’s searchlight, plus many Jewish winter scenes, including two Hasidic men walking through a snow covered lane, and the famous St. Viateur bagel bakery, in the snow.

Soiferman feels Montrealers who spend winters in Florida or Arizona are missing out on the joys of the season, from watching snowplows clean the streets to driving by the white-capped iconic Orange Julep restaurant.

Ezra Soiferman’s film was released two weeks ago and is already getting people smiling, which was his aim. He joins North Star host Ellin Bessner—a former Montrealer—to compare notes and memories of potholes, driveway plastic car protectors and sledding on Mount Royal.

What we talked about

• Watch 

Montreal, Snowbec

for free on

Ezra Soiferman’s YouTube channel

• Read more about the filmmaker

on his website

• Learn about Ezra Soiferman’s previous films, in

The CJN

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

After Jerry died in 2021, Kapelus took up the mantle as a Holocaust educator, sharing his father’s story. Recently, at the age of 70, Kapelus decided to take one extra step: he got that same number, B-7619, tattooed on his own left arm.

The act is a growing trend among descendants of Holocaust survivors, known as “re-marking”, taking ownership of something that was done against the will of the Nazi’s victims. The tattoos are done for many different reasons: some do it in defiance of their grandparents’ persecution, while others see it as a way to honour the six million killed. Kapelus’s motivation was to spark conversations.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Gary Kapelus ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.

Related links

• Read more  about Gary Kapelus’s father, Jerry.

• Why descendants of Auschwitz survivors are tattooing their own arms, in  The CJN  archives (from 2021).

• Learn more about the  (Re)marked project Stories from the Skin  at the University of Waterloo.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (senior producer),

Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

Alicia Richler (editorial director)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Subscribe to North Star

• Watch our podcasts on

YouTube

• Donate to The CJN + get a charitable receipt

There’s a teaching that appears almost word-for-word in both Jewish and Islamic scriptures: whoever kills a soul, it's as if he killed the entire world; anyone who saves one soul, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. Judaism and Islam diverge on many points—but on this one, they’re in unanimous agreement.

Yet over the last two years, both Jews and Muslims in Canada and around the world have felt like they’re in a constant state of mourning over the violence and death in Israel and Gaza. And it’s not just the weight of the loss itself—there is also rage when it feels like someone else’s grief is being prioritized above your own, or when the reality of your grief is questioned.

At the same time, grieving is fundamentally not about death. Grief can heal us and bring communities together—as it has for both guests on today’s episode of In Good Faith.

First, you’ll hear from Layla Alsheikh, a Palestinian mother whose six-month-old son died after inhaling tear gas that Israeli soldiers shot into her West Bank village in 2002. After her story, Yonatan Zeigen discusses life after the murder of his mother, the Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, at the hands of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. What connects these two bereaved voices? After suffering a brutal loss, both wound up turning toward peace-building as a way to honour the legacy of their late family members.

Credits

• Hosts:  Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold

• Producers:  Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman

• Editor:  Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

This parliamentary effort comes after a Liberal MP from the Montreal area, Sameer Zuberi, asked officials with the Canada Border Services Agency to screen for non-Canadian citizens entering Canada who served in the IDF and may have participated in breaches of international law. Simultaneous to all this, families of Canadian IDF soldiers are still reeling after a Canadian media outlet created a public database of hundreds of former or current soldiers, effectively doxxing private citizens.

One young man on that list is Eitan Ellis, 29, the son of Israel Ellis, an author and podcaster who is campaigning to get the website shut down. For reaction to this societal pivot against the IDF Canadians have witnessed over the last several months, Israel Ellis joins today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship podcast, North Star, along with David Kalman, an entrepreneur in Toronto who served his compulsory military service over thirty years ago. He calls the targeting of people in his situation a “witch hunt”.

Lastly, at the end of this episode, hear a clip of host Ellin Bessner’s exclusive interview with Israeli comedian Guy Hochman, who was held for nearly six hours by Canadian border agents before a scheduled performance at the Prosserman JCC in Toronto—and found himself greeted with anti-Israel protesters once he arrived at the venue.

Related links

• Read more about the RCMP’s structural investigation into possible war crimes by IDF veterans in The CJN from June 2025 , and in Jan. 2026 .

• Learn more about Israel Ellis’ new book “10.7 The Wake Up Call” and his “The Unfiltered View” podcasts via his website .

• Follow Israeli comedian Guy Hochman .

• Learn more about David Kalman’s pest control business Good Riddance Critters .

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer),

Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

Alicia Richler (editorial director)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Subscribe to North Star

• Watch our podcasts on

YouTube

• Donate to The CJN + get a charitable receipt

Toronto business journalist Jared Lindzon, also the host of The CJN’s Geltwise podcast, has a new book out digging deep into this concept. His book is called Do More in Four: Why It’s Time for a Shorter Workweek, published by the Harvard Business Review. He co-authored it with an Irish-Canadian academic, Joe O’Connor, who has been helping corporations around the world try out this new way of working. The results have helped companies’ financial bottom lines and the mental health of their employees, who report less burnout, more equal opportunities for women, and a greater environmental impact.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Jared Lindzon sits down with host Ellin Bessner to share why his new book reveals a work-life recipe worth trying. And check out the giveaway contest at the end of the episode to win our one free copy of Do More in Four.

Related links

• Follow Jared Lindzon at his 

website

and learn more about how to buy 

his new book

• Listen to The CJN’s 

Geltwise

podcast.

• Why Canadian cabinet minister Evan Solomon is funding so many applications of artificial intelligence, on 

The CJN’s “North Star” podcast

.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer),Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Alicia Richler: The CJN’s Editorial Director

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Subscribe to North Star

https://thecjn.ca/arts/podcast-how-to/

• Watch our podcasts on 

YouTube

• Donate

to The CJN + get a charitable receipt

But while communal Jewish leaders welcome the Senate’s attention to antisemitism, they maintain they don’t need another study that gathers dust on the shelves. Lawmakers have a mandated deadline of the end of 2026 to release the report—but one committee member, Senator Leo Housakos, the leader of the Conservative party in the Senate, wants the final document of non-binding recommendations to come out much sooner. He believes it is urgent to convince the Carney government to tackle “a terrible crisis, and we need action quickly to start protecting our Jewish community.”

Housakos feels he represents the voice of Canada’s mainstream Jewish community on the nine-member permanent committee, which currently lacks any Jewish senators. Four of those committee members, including the chair, have either signed open letters critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, or spoken about it in the Senate.

Housakos wasn’t thrilled by some of the anti-Zionist witnesses nvited to testify. He clashed with one witness, who said any groups that support the State of Israel should be destroyed. He also frowned on those who urged Canada to scrap the current IHRA definition of antisemitism, which the government adopted in 2019. The committee also heard that antisemitism is being exaggerated and in some cases, carried out by Jews on themselves.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Senator Leo Housakos joins host Ellin Bessner to explain his urgent priorities for the expected antisemitism report.

Related links

• Take a deep dive into the  Senate’s hearings on antisemitism , which wrapped up Dec. 9, 2025.

• Why U of T professor Robert Brym told the Senate committee studying antisemitism they had been given “weaponized” information from some anti-Zionist witnesses, on  North Star .

• Read what the House of Commons committee studying antisemitism recommended in its report on antisemitism in Canada, published in Dec. 2024, in  The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer),

Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Subscribe to North Star https://thecjn.ca/arts/podcast-how-to/

• Watch our podcasts on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianJewishNews

• Donate to The CJN + get a charitable receipt https://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianJewishNews

Anti-Zionism is often presented as simply a political critique of Israel. But in reality, it frames Zionists as a hostile, genocidal group, while often collapsing Jews and Israelis into the same stereotype due to their support for the Jewish State. From that perspective, anti-Zionists can quickly fall into racist tropes against Israelis, flattening identities into caricatures and seeing scapegoating Israel in broadly conspiratorial ways.

The consequences ripple outward. Some anti-Zionists end up sidelining Muslim and Palestinian voices that don’t fit a rigid ideological script, diverting attention from corruption and repression elsewhere in the Middle East. It also reshapes identity politics, excluding Jews from multicultural events, and turning “Zionist” into a charged label that Jews are pressured either to renounce or wear as provocation.

On this week’s episode of The Jewish Angle, Phoebe Maltz Bovy sits down with Adam Louis-Klein, a writer and academic currently completing his PhD in Anthropology at McGill University. He is the founder of the Movement Against Antizionism and a pundit who covers this topic in the media. As he explains, by creating an activist organization with academic roots, Louis-Klein is on a mission to help Zionists prepare responses to public anti-Zionist claims while reframing the discussion entirely.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman

• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

Among the estimated eight million Venezeulans who left, tens of thousands are Jewish. They faced additional pressure to escape: the regime was strongly anti-Israel, supporting Iran and Hezbollah, which led to the harassment of the local Jewish community. It’s a stance first adopted by Maduro’s predecessor, the late former president Hugo Chavez, in 2006.

While Maduro now faces drug and racketeering charges in New York City, the uncertainty about what happens next has kept Venezuelans confined to their homes, with schools temporarily closed and paramilitary forces patrolling the streets. Some political prisoners are being released, in a gesture of goodwill by Maduro’s replacement, while President Trump is vowing to bring billions in investment to revamp Venezuela’s oil production. While some Venezuelans say they have great hope now that Maduro is gone, others think restoring democracy is still a long way off.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship _North Sta_r podcast, we hear reaction and analysis from three Venezuelan Jews who have made their homes in Canada. Jonathan Rosemberg Kort and Rebecca Sarfatti join from Toronto, while Daniel Topel joins from Ladner, B.C., south of Vancouver.

Related links

• Read what Irwin Cotler and two other experts concluded in 2018 that Venezuela was committing crimes against humanity, in

The CJN archives

.

• Why Maduro’s predecessor, president Hugo Chavez, embraced Jew-hatred and hatred for Israel, in

The CJN archives

.

• Montreal Rabbi Adam Scheier feared for the safety of Caracas’ Jews after a visit to the country in 2009, in

The CJN

.

• Learn more about Jonathan Rosenberg Kort’s new book on corporate change, published in Nov. 2025.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• https://thecjn.ca/newsletters/

https://thecjn.ca/donate/

• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here )

• Watch our podcasts on

YouTube

Related links

• Learn more about the latest 2025 Order of Canada winners of Jewish faith, in  The CJN.

• Read more about Les Muses, t he training school  founded in Montreal by Cindy Schwartz.

• When autistic artist Adam Wolfond’s poetry, and his mother’s creations, were on display at the Koffler Centre for the Arts in 2025, in  The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner info@thecjn.ca

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

• Watch our podcasts on YouTube

But Winnipeg police say the suspected hate crime is affecting not only the Jewish community, but the city as a whole. And it’s prompted them to call on residents to take a stand against hate, report suspicious activity, and refrain from acting as vigilantes.

Meanwhile, the Shaarey Zedek congregation has welcomed the outpouring of support in the last few days, which it received from Manitoba’s premier, Winnipeg’s mayor, the Lieutenant Governor, federal members of Parliament, and religious leaders of other faiths. But despite the solidarity, some Jewish leaders say what’s really needed is for existing hate laws to be enforced, and for Canada to quickly appoint a new special envoy on antisemitism—a post that’s been vacant since July 2025.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, you’ll hear first from Inspector Jennifer McKinnon of Winnipeg’s Major Crimes Unit, then Rabbi Carnie Rose of Shaarey Zedek congregation and Belle Jarniewski, a Holocaust educator and director of Manitoba’s new Institute to Combat Antisemitism, which recently launched.

Related links

• Why Winnipeg police retrieved a suspicious item from the Shaarey Zedek property on Sunday Jan 4, 2026, in The CJN .

• Rabbi Carnie Rose returned to Winnipeg in the summer of 2025 to lead the city’s Shaarey Zedek congregation where he grew up, and be close to his brother Rabbi Kliel Rose who leads Congregation Etz Chayim in the same city. Then their parents moved back too. On The CJN’s North Star podcast.

• Under Belle Jarniewski’s guidance, Winnipeg’s Holocaust education centre got a redesign in 2023 aimed at accommodating more visits. Hear the story in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

But Canadian Jews have their own concerns at home, worrying about whether lawmakers will keep last year's promises to fight antisemitism and remain proactive about hate-fuelled terrorism. And some federal policy is less clear: how will Canada change its relationship with Israel in the wake of recognizing Palestinian statehood? Will the federal New Democratic Party choose former broadcaster and anti-Israel activist Avi Lewis as their new leader? Is Pierre Poilievre, a staunch ally of Israel, going to survive his party's leadership review in January? And what about the economic problems our country continues to face stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war?

On today's episode of North Star, The CJN's political panelists weigh in.

Joining host Ellin Bessner today are Dan Mader a Conservative strategist and a founder of Loyalist Public Affairs, who sits on CJPAC's advisory board and volunteers with Friends of JNF Canada; David Birnbaum, a former Liberal member of the Quebec National Assembly for the riding of D'Arcy-McGee in Montreal; and Noah Tepperman, a past president of the Windsor-Tecumseh NDP riding association, who has advised the federal and provincial NDP on Jewish issues.

Related links

• Read more about Canada recognizing the State of Palestine in Sept. 2025, in 

The CJN.

• Hear federal Liberal cabinet minister Evan Solomon on how his government is taking antisemitism seriously, as well as the safety of Jews, in 

The CJN.

• How Toronto’s Jewish community gave a warm welcome to Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre at a synagogue in December, in 

The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how? Click here )

Two of the students, Yonathan Machlis and Ayala Dahan, along with Hartman's director of the Center for Israeli & Jewish Identity, Ronit Heyd, joined North Star producer Zachary Kauffman for a panel discussion about what gives them hope amid a challenging time for Israeli democracy. The panel also shares their vision for Israel's future and what it means to enact democracy as the Jewish State heads towards an election in October. 

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

In an interview with The CJN’s North Star podcast, two of the family members reveal how proud they were to represent Judaism on the small screen—bantering in Yiddish with comic host Gerry Dee—even though their episodes ended up airing during difficult times. The family watched themselves on TV last week, shortly after losing patriarch Nat Bernstein, 101, in Montreal. And while the timing around Hanukkah was convenient for celebration (especially given how much gelt they won), the terror attack at Bondi Beach in Australia cast a pall over their excitement.

To find out what the experience was like, why they auditioned, and what the five of them will do with the prize money, siblings Shaun Bernstein and Alexis Orchard join North Star host Ellin Bessner.

Related links

• Watch the Bernstein family’s three episodes on Family Feud Canada on CBC Gem , or see clips on YouTube .

• Read about the Kestelman family including Rabbi Stephen Wise and his wife Cheryl, who runs the synagogue's supplementary school, his sister Renee Cohen of TanenbaumCHAT, and other relatives win on Family Feud Canada back in 2022, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

Solomon spent much of last week carrying out his official role as Canada’s first Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, making funding announcements to support local researchers and entrepreneurs. But on Dec. 14, the rookie politician made a point to tell Canadians about the impact that the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre had on Canada’s Jewish community—including himself.

Having already spoken to his rabbi and congregants at his synagogue, Holy Blossom Temple in midtown Toronto, he quickly headed downtown to City Hall to film a video of support, inviting Mayor Olivia Chow to join. Days later, he took part in a roundtable discussion with RCMP officials and other Canadian law enforcement agencies, where politicians and Jewish community leaders were briefed about the possibility of a domestic copycat attack.

Solomon insists his government is “highly engaged” with what he calls the “unacceptable level” of antisemitic attacks and the “threat level” that’s causing fear and anxiety for his community. On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Solomon sits down with host Ellin Bessner to explain what is being done.

Related links

• Evan Solomon was one the two Jewish MPs from Toronto who were appointed to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new government in May 2025, in

The CJN

.

• Hear Evan Solomon’s (and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow’s_ message to the Jewish community for Hanukkah, after last week’s Australian Bondi Beach massacre, on

The CJN’s North Star podcast.

• Learn more about Evan Solomon’s election campaign for the Liberals in Toronto Centre, one of the key ridings to watch in April 2025, with a tiny Jewish electorate at 1.4% of the population, in

The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (

@ebessner

)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here

)

The three progressive Jewish organizations that commissioned the survey concluded it proves how nuanced conversations about Israel are within Canada’s Jewish community after Oct. 7. It also showed how no one can claim to speak for the majority of Canadian Jews, they added—not the mainstream centre-right organizations, nor the anti-Zionist far-left ones.

All the while, the author himself has been quietly fuming, as he believes his original findings have been “weaponized”, deliberately misinterpreted by Jewish groups—mainly Independent Jewish Voices—in order to bolster their own political goals. This came to his attention a few weeks ago in the Senate, where a committee has been studying antisemitism in Canada.

Byrm has been sitting on the results of a new study he did earlier this year, which he says proves them wrong. He revisited the same nearly 600 people who answered the first time, and asked why 51 per cent felt they could not call themselves Zionists. Now that his paper has been published in the latest issue of the academic journal Canadian Jewish Studies, Brym is eager to set the record straight: while he found the same overwhelming support for Israel as a Jewish state at 94%, modern interpretations of the word “Zionism” are making many Canadian Jews reject the label.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Ellin Bessner sits down with Brym to unpack his latest findings and to hear his advice for people who support Israel but don’t want to use the Z-word.

Related links

• Read Brym’s new 

2025

study just published in the Association of Canadian Jewish Studies' latest journal edition. 

• Read his first 

2024 survey

done on behalf of NIFCanada, JSpaceCanada and Canadian Friends of Peace Now

• Hear how the heads of New Israel Fund of Canada and JSpace Canada broke down the findings of the first 2024 survey, on 

The CJN’s Bonjour Chai podcast from Dec. 2024.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how? Click here)

Gencher blames what happened squarely on the Australian government. He believes much more could have been done by the federal government over the last two years to crack down on escalating antisemitic hate, which included street protests and firebombings.

Meanwhile, Jason Adessky, a former Montrealer, was near Bondi Beach with his children and their Canadian grandmother on Sunday to pick up Hanukkah treats. They nearly brought the family to the beachfront festivities, but decided against it because of the heat. Now Adessky is “trying not to think about the ‘what ifs'”.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner is joined by Jason Adessky and Michael Gencher to hear how the massacre has affected them personally, along with Australia’s 117,000 other Jewish residents.

Related links

• Read about how Canada’s Jewish community is responding to the Australian terrorist attack, in The CJN.

• Watch the broadcast of the funeral for Rabbi Eli Schlanger, the Chabad emissary gunned down at his Hanukkah beach festival by ISIS-influenced terrorists on Bondi Beach on Dec. 14.

• Hear Canadian political leaders warn that our governments must do more to prevent a similar attack here, on The CJN’s North Star podcast .

• Donate to help the victims' families in Australia with links on the Chabad of Bondi website.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

As of Sunday night EST, the death toll in New South Whales had risen to 15 victims, including the host of the Bondi Beach candle-lighting event, Chabad Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who has deep ties to Toronto and Ottawa. Meanwhile, officials believe up to 60 other festival-goers were wounded, including the rabbi’s wife, a mother of five. One of the two shooters was also killed.

In Canada, rabbis and Jewish leaders urged their community to push back against terror, show extra pride and make an effort to attend public candle-lighting ceremonies this Hanukkah. But some fear Canada is equally ripe for an attack like Australia’s, due to the failure of public officials to stop hate speech and protests on our streets featuring chants like “Globalize the Intifada”.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast with Ellin Bessner, you’ll hear what Jewish Canada sounded like while mourning Jews on the other side of the planet. We’re joined by Richard Marceau, a senior official with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, who just returned from an antisemitism conference in Australia six days prior to the attack; award-winning Canadian author Sidura Ludwig, who lined up early to buy special sufganiyot at a Thornhill bakery; Sara Lefton of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto; Rabbi Levi Gansburg of Chabad on Bayview, who knew the murdered rabbi; and political leaders, including Prime Minister Mark Carney, Toronto mayor Olivia Chow and cabinet minister Evan Solomon.

Related links

• Read more about how Canadian Jewish leaders and politicians have reacted to the mass terrorist shooting in Australia, in The CJN .

• Why Australia’s prime minister accused Iran of trying to destabilize their country, including by masterminding the arson at the Melbourne synagogue in 2024 and firebombing of a kosher deli, in The CJN.  

• This Australian Jewish leader said his country and community are ignoring online hate, at their peril, during a visit to Winnipeg in February 2025, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

Moskovitz, a Grade 12 King David High School student with a passion for finance, is halfway through his term serving as BBYO International’s treasurer. Elected in February, he’s the sole Canadian teen on the current leadership board of the century-old Jewish youth organization. As treasurer, a title known as Grand Aleph Gizbor, Moskovitz has many duties—among them, overseeing a global fundraising blitz last week, called #GivingBBYODay, where they raised $1.6 million in a single day.

But Moskovitz, 17, is equally proud of his success revitalizing BBYO chapters here in Canada and attracting hundreds of new teens to find community and a safe space after Oct. 7.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, we hear from Levi Moskovitz in Vancouver to hear why BBYO is sort of a family business. His father, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, himself a former BBYO international leader, also joins, and we’ll hear from BBYO’s regional director in Winnipeg, Jonah Posner.

Related links

• Read more about why Levi Moskovitz was nominated this fall as one of The CJN’s Chai Achievers

.

• Learn more about BBYO’s Canadian activities, including in the Vancouver area and Winnipeg's Global Shabbat Dec. 12.

• Discover when this Ontario teen was elected president of the international B’nai Brith Girls organization, in The CJN, from 2014.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here)

But community leaders—including rabbis, political offices and some tenants—believe the true number is significantly higher, anywhere from 60 to 110. Police acknowledge their count is probably low, but they need the victims to report the crime before they can confirm it.

Beginning Sunday, Toronto police’s hate crime unit and other officers combed through the 14-storey West Don Apartment complex in the Jewish area of Bathurst and Steeles. By the following afternoon, volunteers from the Jewish Russian Community Centre and Unapologetically Jewish replaced more than 60 mezuzahs.

But the disturbing crime spree has left many residents shaken, including one who reportedly asked if the mezuzah could be installed inside their apartment, not outside, to avoid being targeted. The City of Toronto has stationed personnel from the public housing division’s Community Safety Unit at the seniors building for the next couple of weeks “for safety and security support”.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner brings you her on-the-scene report, where you’ll hear from tenants including Lev Zaidel and Shoshana Pellman, and also from some of the volunteers, including local Rabbi Yirmi Cohen, Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman and Rabbi Shmuel Neft, who showed up to help.

Related links

• Read more about how the Jewish community came together to help the seniors who were victims of the mezuzah theft, in

The CJN

.

• Learn more about how to

donate mezuzahs

through the Jewish Russian Community Centre.

• This Toronto condo complex had 7 mezuzahs stolen in 2017. What did the victims say? In

The CJN

.

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here )

That policy has been law since 2018, and has led to strained relations with Israel, Holocaust survivors and academic scholars, including award-winning Canadian professor Jan Grabowski. Grabowski, a historian at the University of Ottawa and the child of a Warsaw Holocaust survivor, has spent years researching how ordinary Poles denounced, betrayed and helped carry out the murder of 200,000 Jews—mostly without any prodding from the Nazis.

That’s why Grabowski, who has been sued by the Polish state over this issue, has been closely monitoring the recent flare-ups involving Poland, Israel, and even Germany, which began at the end of November.

It started on Nov. 19, when the new U.S. ambassador to Poland—an observant American Jew who used to run the Jerusalem Post—told a startled Warsaw conference that it was “a grotesque falsehood” and a “historic injustice” to blame Poland for Holocaust crimes committed by others.

After that, a popular far-right member of the Polish parliament stood outside the gates of Auschwitz to oppose the country’s plan to adopt a new antisemitism strategy. He called for Jews to be kicked out of the country.

Then, on Nov. 25, the Israeli ambassador to Poland was summoned over a social media post from Yad Vashem.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship news podcast North Star, Grabowski joins to unpack why his native country continues distorting the truth about its past involvement in the Holocaust, and how Polish officials are dismissing the historical records he’s unearthed, which tell a more nuanced story of who killed Poland’s Jews.

Related links

• Example

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (

@ebessner

)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here

)

That’s what Shawna Magence quipped to her new husband, Steven Weiss, about three weeks ago, after a freak accident marred their joyous marriage ceremony in Florida.

Magence, 55, from Toronto, had just stood under the chuppah on Nov. 16 with her husband-to-be, an American from the Five Towns area of Long Island, New York, for the traditional breaking of the glass. Suddenly, people noticed puddles of blood on the floor. It turns out, the broken wedding glass had pierced the groom’s right foot, causing a deep gash. Paramedics arrived soon after. Weiss, 59, was strapped onto a gurney and wheeled out to a waiting ambulance. But he didn’t depart for the hospital right away—the rabbi had the couple complete the next stage of their wedding inside the emergency vehicle.

Eventually, the groom got nine stitches, while the bride returned to the reception, alone, to tend to their guests. And the wedding? It took another day to complete. Meanwhile, the couple is taking the accident in stride, considering it just one more memorable challenge they’ve had to overcome after the pair, both in their 50s, met in 2024 and embarked on their unexpected, late-in-life romance.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, we hear the whole incredible wedding story with Shawna Magence—while her groom recuperates.

Related links

• Learn more about

“After Forever”, the support group and resources for separated, divorced or widowed Jewish people, co-founded by Shawna Magence.

• Watch the video of the newlyweds’ bloody wedding mishap, on The CJN’s YouTube channel

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (

@ebessner

)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here

)

The project is by a group called “Active Jewish Adults 50+”, and grew out of a call-out by The CJN in mid-October, following the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and subsequent release of the remaining 20 living hostages. The CJN asked readers to send in their reactions—and these seniors took that request to heart.

They meet each Tuesday at the Kehillat Beth Israel synagogue in Ottawa for programming and lunch. Upwards of 50 regulars, between the ages of 70 and 100, took part in this special letter-writing project. But they didn’t just send their reactions to The CJN—they decided to publish the letters themselves.

The result is a new booklet called Reflections on the Release of the Hostages, launching the week of Dec. 1, just as Hamas handed over more unidentified remains to the Red Cross. Israel hasn’t confirmed whether they belong to the final two deceased hostages, still considered missing since Oct. 7.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship news podcast North Star, host Ellin Bessner asks some of the creative seniors to read their submissions and share how the war has affected them. Plus, we hear from Sheila Osterer, the group’s executive director, who initiated the project.

Related links

• Learn more about  AJA 50+  and their activities in Ottawa.

• Read  the new booklet containing letters and poems about Oct. 7, written by the Ottawa Jewish seniors “Creative Connections” group.

• Hear when Ottawa native Jacqui Rivers-Vital and her husband shared the story of their murdered daughter Adi with the AJA 50+ members, in February 2024, on  The CJN Daily .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

Oren is on the “no side” together with right-wing former Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked. They’ll take on a former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert former cabinet minister Tzipi Livni, who will be arguing for the “yes” side.

The debate is already attracting controversy for several reasons: there were no Palestinian voices invited on the program, and organizers are expecting protests, so security has been ramped up. They also had to move from their traditional venue, Roy Thomson Hall, for the first time in 15 years. But despite the side show, Oren believes the Munk Debates are important to reach a massive online audience with reasoned arguments, including why most Israelis oppose the so-called two-state solution in any near future. He calls the proposal “deranged”, especially after Oct. 7, even though most Western countries, including Canada, are doubling down on the idea. And says the two-state solution is a tragedy for Palestinians.

So what’s in store for Israel, the Palestinians, and the Middle East? Oren joins The CJN‘s “North Star” podcast host Ellin Bessner on today’s episode, for his take.

Related Links:

• Learn more

about watching the Munk debate on Dec. 3, 2025.

• Follow Amb. Michael Oren’s columns, his Israel 2048 organization and his books, at his

website

.

• Read Amb. Michael Oren’s praise for former Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper and foreign minister, John Baird, during a 2013 speech in Montreal, from

The CJN archives

Credits:https://munkdebates.com/membership/

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner (

@ebessner

)

• Production team:

Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN

(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star

(Not sure how?

Click here

)

Rabbi Dee, 53, has since become a sought after speaker and an activist on behalf of other grieving families. So when he announced in June that he was getting remarried, to Aliza Teplitsky, a Canadian formerly of Toronto, the news prompted an outpouring of well wishes. Fans rejoiced that Rabbi Dee had found happiness again, two years after his family was shattered.

The new couple had intended to spend two weeks in Canada in July. But Iran had other ideas. Israel’s brief war with Tehran broke out just before their trip, forcing it to be postponed until after their high profile marriage, which took place in August in their West Bank community of Efrat.

Now though, the newlyweds have arrived in Canada, for what they jokingly refer to as their “workingmoon”, because the private visit also includes meetings and speeches to the Jewish community, and others. The Dees hope to inspire people with his story about how he rebuilt his life, and balances his sorrow with his newfound happiness. It’s also why he’s written a new book entitled “The Seven Facets of Healing.”

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Rabbi Leo Dee and Aliza (Teplitsky) Dee join host Ellin Bessner to talk about their self-described rom-com, and about healing, but also to share some harsh criticism of Canada’s recent declaration to unilaterally recognize unilateral Palestinian State.

Related links

• Hear Rabbi Leo Dee and Aliza Dee in Toronto Nov. 28 and 29 at Shaarei Shomayim synagogue. or in Whitby on Nov. 30 a local church.

• Learn more about Rabbi Leo Dee’s new book “The Seven Facets of Healing” available now on Amazon.

• Read about the murders of Rabbi Dee’s late wife Lucy, and their daughters Maia and Rina, in this tribute by former Montreal Rabbi Mark Fishman, from April 2023, in The CJN..

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

Some observers believe it’s a response to growing concerns in Quebec since Oct. 7, 2023 over the frequent, intimidating anti-Israel protests where Muslim demonstrators block traffic to hold prayer services. Others say it’s a sign the ruling CAQ government is in trouble at the polls, which is why lawmakers are doubling down on Quebec’s existing secularism restrictions. Since 2019, many government employees have been banned from covering their faces, and from wearing religious symbols like hijabs and kippahs at work. Then just a few weeks ago, Bill 94 was passed on Oct. 30, that expanded these bans to more people in the Quebec education system. It also revoked the practice of giving public school staff and students accommodation via time off to observe their religious holidays.

While there is some fear this coming week’s newer proposals could impact provincially-subsidized day schools, and ban kosher meals in public institutions, Jewish leaders say they will wait to comment until the actual bill is tabled.

All this comes after recent local elections, which saw Montreal elect a new mayor who is seen as friendlier to the security concerns of the Jewish community, while in the majority-Jewish municipalities of Côte Saint-Luc and Hampstead, two kippah-wearing mayors have now officially been sworn in to office. The CJN’s Quebec correspondent Joel Ceausu joins “North Star” host Ellin Bessner–back from vacation–to unpack all these developments.

Related links

• Read about Côte Saint-Luc’s newly elected mayor, David Tordjman, in The CJN .

• Learn more about Montreal’s new mayor and some of the key issues impacting Jewish voters, in The CJN .

• How Quebec moved to tighten secularism laws, bans religious symbols and face coverings for school staff, with more to come, in The CJN .

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

For the past 20 years, Ari Sitnik has taken small acting gigs on the side in Toronto. But nothing compared to two weeks ago, when he got a call to show up at the Royal York Hotel for the top-secret filming of Drake’s new music video, “Falling Back”.

The video shows a lavish wedding featuring Drake getting married to 23 Instagram models. Sitnik, as the officiant, appears right at the beginning, clad in his ultra-Orthodox outfit, asking the betrothed if they will act "according to our values and traditions." He then pronounces them "man and wives."

Today on The CJN Daily, you'll meet the real Sitnik, the father of four who works as a computer specialist, who doesn't call himself "Rabbi Sitnik," who was born in Brazil before moving to Canada—and who isn't too worried about Jews criticizing his portrayal of our religion for what is currently the most popular (and controversial) music video on the internet.

Related links

• Watch the video for " Falling Back "

• Watch Sitnik in the " Slammin for Shabbos " video

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

Mainstream Jews, who support Israel and consider themselves Zionists, feel like they are under attack. When they see people wearing keffiyehs and storefronts stamped with Palestinian flags, they hear an implicit attack: "You are not welcome here."

But for Palestinians, watermelons and keffiyehs aren't anti-Jewish icons at all: they're symbols of national pride. 

How can everyday Canadian Jews and Muslims even start a conversation when words and symbols have such different meanings to different people? Telling people they're overreacting isn't an effective tool, nor is public shame, arguing over historical facts or posting online memes.

What might work: navigating difficult conversations. On today's episode of In Good Faith, The CJN's interfaith podcast miniseries, we speak with two people who are working toward exactly that.

Niki Landau and Bashar Alshawwa both came to conflict resolution through trauma. Landau lost a close friend, Marnie Kimmelman, to a terrorist pipe bomb on a Tel Aviv beach at age 17; Alshawwa was shot by an Israeli army sniper during a protest in 2014. Now they're touring Canada, bringing Jews and Muslims together for lengthy closed-door dialogue sessions, with a singular goal: create a toolkit to guide Canadians through conversations they desperately don't want to have.

Credits

• Hosts:  Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold

• Producers:  Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman

• Editor:  Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

More than five years have passed since the still-unsolved murders of philanthropists Barry and Honey Sherman in their Toronto home. Despite a $35-million reward for clues to solve their killing, the case remains a mystery.

Conspiracy theories abound over who did it and why, with fingers being pointed at the Clintons, Big Pharma, the Sherman children, a cousin or even the Mossad. Police haven’t released any clues in more than a year. But interest is about to heat up again as two major Canadian news outlets give the story the true-crime treatment, each releasing podcasts about the Shermans—this same month.

The two shows take very different approaches. One is hosted by Kevin Donovan, the Toronto Star reporter who broke most of the Sherman case and wrote a book about it; the other, produced by the CBC, is hosted by Jewish journalist Kathleen Goldhar. She has produced previous hit shows about a romance scammer and the cult that ensnared two Bronfman sisters.

Today, both podcasters join The CJN Daily to explain why they have been pursuing the case for years and whether either of their competing shows actually provide closure to the unsolved mystery.

What we talked about:.

• Learn why the Toronto police  released this video  of a person of interest

• Hear Kevin Donovan on  The CJN Daily  talk about his book  The Billionaire Murders , which the new podcast is based on

• Read about  the philanthropic legacy  of the Shermans

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

On the night of Oct. 16, 2024, Jews around Canada welcomed the holiday of Sukkot, having erected temporary wooden or cloth structures outside their synagogues and homes. While celebrating in their makeshift shacks, many told stories of the huts that ancient Israelites lived in after their exodus from Egypt.

Meanwhile, in modern-day Canada, a different kind of exodus is happening across the country: young Jewish families, along with Canadians of all stripes, are finding themselves priced out of the housing market, fleeing their home cities to find affordable houses in ever-farther destinations. While the cost of a sukkah kit may seem steep these days, in the hundreds or low thousands, it pales it comparison to the national average cost of a house: nearly $650,000.

As a result, housing organizations are stepping in to find creative solutions. One such company with deep Jewish roots is Ourboro, whose COO, Eyal Rosenblum, is the son of Israeli immigrants. The company essentially buys a stake in your house by lending you up to $250,000 for your down payment. Whatever the percentage of the down payment is, that’s what you’ll have to pay them back once you sell. The idea has caught on, with real estate developer Miles Nadal having joined Ourboro as a key investor. Eyal Rosenblum joins The CJN Daily to explain how this concept can help some Canadians afford homes, and why his Jewish values align with the idea.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner )

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)

• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here )

Over the last two years, a flood of gruesome images have emerged in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and ensuing war in Gaza. In Canada, thousands of kilometres away, Jews and Muslims have watched this horror online—and, in many cases, found their social lives overturned by them. Friends, acquaintances and colleagues have made comments online, often over-simplified, that they’d never say out loud.

What happens when politics become personal? When geopolitics half a world away breaks apart relationships between parents and children, romantic partners and close friends?

That’s what happened to Ronit Yarosky and Ehab Lotayef. They met in the early 2000s, during the Second Intifada, at a dialogue group for Jewish and Arab residents in Montreal. Both of them have deep connections to the region. They became close friends, celebrating festivals together and dining in each others’ homes, marching side-by-side in activist circles—until October 2023.

Hear how they fell apart, and found their way back together, on the second episode of In Good Faith.

As Heller discovered his grandfather's fascinating untold stories, he decided to expand his scope of inquiry to include his grandfather's circle of Jewish veterans who fought in the Second World War, and also Israel's War of Independence as overseas volunteer fighters called mahal. In one story, Heller discovers previously unpublished details about a long-unsolved plane crash in southern Israel that cost the lives of three Canadian military volunteers in 1948.

Heller combined these stories into a new nonfiction book, Zaidy's Band, to be released Nov. 11, 2025, for Remembrance Day. Heller joins North Star host Ellin Bessner to share stories about his late grandfather and the parallels between that elder generation and those who are defending Israel today.

Related links

• Learn more about Aron Heller’s new book [Zaidy’s Band ](https://aronheller.com/)and see where he's holding book talks across Canada from Nov. 11-19.
• Read Aron Heller’s tribute to his late grandfather Mickey Heller, in [The CJN archives](https://thecjn.ca/opinion/even-as-he-turns-100-rcaf-veteran-mickey-heller-goes-back-to-memories-of-the-second-world-war/).
• Read Aron Heller’s coverage from Israel of Oct. 7 in [[The CJN](https://thecjn.ca/opinion/canadian-dispatches-from-israel-at-wartime-like-father-like-daughter/)]

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN
• Subscribe to North StarClick here

The family eventually translated the documents into English at the Montreal Holocaust Museum in the summer of 2023. And because Woods is an award-winning sound editor, with both a BAFTA award and an Emmy nomination on her resume, she turned a microphone toward herself and her mother and recorded hours of tape during trips to Hungary, Poland and Israel, shortly after Oct. 7.

The mother-daughter duo explored the places that shaped Olga's remarkable life. As a teenager, Olga had been deported from eastern Hungary to Auschwitz; she was later shipped off to a slave-labour factory, and sent on a death march. They also explored the source of their mother's Holocaust trauma, which they firmly believe has impacted three generations of their family.

The long-lost manuscript might eventually become a book. In the meantime, Woods has released a six-part audio podcast entitled Olga, Erika and Me, which launched in Montreal in Sept. 2025. On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner is joined by Woods and her mother, Erika Ciment, to discuss how the audio format will enhance the storytelling.

Related links

• Listen to the six-part podcast Olga, Erika and Me
• Watch the trailer for the podcast on YouTube
• Learn more about the podcast via the Montreal Holocaust Museum

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Israelis breathed a collective sigh of relief after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire that included the return of the remaining hostages and and end to the fighting in Gaza. But the question remains: What comes next? What does the future look like for embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heading into next year’s elections? How are Western political figures like U.S. President Trump perceived in the region after this fragile peace deal?

To get an inside view of life this month in the Holy Land, we bring on Lahav Harkov, a senior political correspondent for Jewish Insider and co-host of the Misgav Mideast Horizons podcast, who is based in Israel but writes for a Western audience. She sits down with Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle for a discussion of Israeli political polling, Israeli views on Canada and what are the ramifications of a possible Zohran Mamdani mayoralty in New York City.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: “Gypsy Waltz” by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

Related links

• Learn more about Douglas Century’s new book about Hannah Senesh at the Canadian book launch on Nov. 19 at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple. 
• Order the book “Crash of the Heavens: The Remarkable Story of Hannah Senesh”.
• Read The CJN’s Treasure Trove from 2024 paying tribute on the 80th anniversary of Hannah Senesh’s execution.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about the life of the late Fania Fainer in The Canadian Jewish News.
• Read the obituary of the late Cantor Ben Maissner from Holy Blossom Temple, in The CJN.
• Find out more about the life of the late Carole Grafstein, who raised millions for charity, in The CJN.
• Read how the late Sid Stevens co-founded Montreal’s Sun Youth organization, started first food banks, and Crime Stoppers, in The CJN.
• Learn how the late Ben Schlesinger survived Kristallnacht as a child to become a renowned Canadian social worker at the U of T, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• See Rabbi Dave Rotenberg as part of the “Funny Jews” comedy performance at Yuk Yuk’s in Ottawa on Sunday Nov. 2
• Learn more about Rabbi Rotenberg through his Instagram.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

That's a conversation starter for the new youth discussion forum Ha'ikar, founded by two Toronto friends, which has served as a support group for Canadian Jews under 40 who have been affected by Oct. 7.

A few months after Oct. 7, the group started meeting monthly at Temple Har Zion in Thornhill, Ont., where co-founders Jacob Weiss and Jay Ginsherman had bonded as kids. They admit that they themselves never would have come to Jewish programs like Ha'ikar, but with the explosion of antisemitism in Canada over the past two years, the pair wanted to create a space for young people to unburden their fears and look for community.

Since its inception, Ha'ikar has held meet-ups in two other synagogues, and spawned an adjacent group for older Jewish adults called Ha'ikar Zahav.

The founders try to keep politics out of their conversations, instead allowing attendees to disagree respectfully. Attendees share anecdotes and confessions, like how their "Judaism was not taken seriously as a real culture in my private school."

On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, producer Andrea Varsany goes behind the scenes at a recent Ha'ikar meet-up to hear some of the powerful, personal stories told therein.

Related links

• Learn more about Ha’ikar’s meetings for 20’s+30+ year olds.
• Learn more about the Ha’ikar Zahav group meetings for older adults.
• Follow Ha’ikar on Instagram.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Louis Helbig’s 1948-built Luscombe aircraft and see photos of the tiny plane once owned by Peter Gluckmann, a German Jewish Holocaust survivor and later amateur pilot who made record-setting flights beginning in 1953. 
• Read about Louis Helbig’s environmental photography projects about the St. Lawrence Seaway and also the Alberta Tar Sands.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Andrea Varsany (producer), Zachary Judah Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about the Jewish Renewal movement in Canada through their ALEPHCanada website.
• Hear Aleph Canada’s new Executive Director Ralph Benmergui interview Toronto Jewish Renewal Rabbi Aaron Rotenberg for The CJN’s Not That Kind of Rabbi podcast.
• Why Ralph Benmergui became ordained as a Spiritual Director with the ALEPH Jewish Renewal movement, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read the resignation letter from Michal Cotler-Wunsh as Israel’s antisemitism envoy, and then read the announcement of her new job.
• Israel’s antisemitism envoy says she wasn’t consulted by the Diaspora minister about his controversial guest list at an antisemitism conference where far right speakers were invited, in The CJN.
• Why Canada’s antisemitism special envoy Deborah Lyons quit, well before the end of her term, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Sukkah in the Square.
• Follow the Kingston Jewish Council.
• How Kingston’s Jewish community is thriving, in The CJN 

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read the letter to Mark Carney from the families of the eight Canadians murdered on Oct. 7.
• Learn about Adi Vital Kaploun’s life through her parents’ mission to keep her story front of mind, in The CJN from 2024.
• Read more about the families' legal efforts to hold Canada to account for funding UNRWA, in The CJN.
• Watch Jacqui Vital’s conversation Aug. 8, 2025 with former Nepean MPP Lisa MacLeod, during the Jerusalem resident’s summer speaking tour across Canada.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Listen to our original interview with Joy Frenkiel from Oct. 26, 2023 in The CJN and our original interview with Shye Klein, on Nov. 27, 2023, both in The CJN.
• Follow Shye Klein now to see and support his latest project, “Beyond the Supernova”. 
• Book Joy Frenkiel to speak to your group about her experiences.
• Learn more or donate to SafeHeart, the Israeli therapy organization for Nova survivors who were on psychedelic drugs.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn where to buy tickets to the screenings in Canada and the US for “The Road Between Us” as the film debuts in theatres Oct. 3-9.
• Read how Canadian Jewish community leaders went to bat to have the film reinstated after the TIFF film festival originally excluded it over copyright issues and security concerns, and other coverage of this story in The CJN.
• Hear what it was like at the Sept. 10 public screening of the film, when TIFF’s CEO apologized, on The CJN’s “North Star” podcast.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Mitchell Consky’s film “The Top of the Stairs” on CBC Gem (create free account to watch).
• Hear Mitch discuss his debut book “Home Safe”, published in 2022, on The CJN Daily.
• Buy the book.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read Justice Harry LaForme’s remarks in Tel Aviv at the Irwin Cotler Institute’s Democracy Forum in May 2025. 
• Learn what Justice LaForme told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in May 2024 about antisemitism and Indigenous rights, together with Indigenous advocate Karen Restoule. 
• A new book by York University professor David Kauffman about the ties between Canada’s Jewish and First Nations peoples, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Beth Radom’s Hebrew school and the now-concluded 2025 winter edition of Cantor Jeremy Burko’s Jewish Superheroes course.
• Read more about when award-winning Canadian Jewish graphic artist Miriam Libicki was banned from exhibiting her work at a Vancouver Comic Fair as a result of anti-Israel boycotts, in The CJN. 
• How a Jewish Heroes Corps. comic series was born, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more reaction to the proposed changes to the Criminal Code to outlaw terror symbols and the Swastika, and better define hate and intimidation outside Jewish buildings, in The CJN.
• Learn more about why Canada banned the Irish band Kneecap from performing next month, in The CJN.
• Why B’nai Brith Canada lobbied Whitby, Ont. to agree to ban the Swastika, on The CJN Daily (now “North Star”) podcast.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Rabbi Kliel Rose returning to Winnipeg in 2018 in The CJN and about his brother Rabbi Carnie Rose returning July 1 this summer.
• Rabbi Neal and Carol Rose’s departure from Winnipeg in 2017 after 45 years left a void, in The CJN.
• Why Winnipeg’s largest remaining North End synagogue, Etz Chayim moved to the city's south in 2023, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Beth Jacob Synagogue in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont, and how to lend artifacts for the exhibit.
• Read more about Sault Ste. Marie’s famous novelist, author and lawyer Morley Torgov, profiled in The CJN archives.
• Watch the 1973 National Film Board documentary on small Jewish communities in Northern Ontario and how they survive.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Watch the Sept. 4 verdict and the victim impact statements given by Dan Markel’s family to the Florida court.
• Read Ruth Markel’s book which she penned about her grief and her family’s journey as murder survivors following the killing of her son Dan in 2014,
• Hear Ellin’s first interview in 2022 with Ruth Markel on The CJN Daily

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Watch the trailer for the Oct. 7 film “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue”.
• Read about how the Jewish community responded, including donors from the Reitman family, when TIFF originally announced the Oct. 7 film could not play, in The CJN.
• Learn more about why, after receiving 60,000 emails of protest, TIFF officials agreed to screen the film, in The CJN

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read  Gdalit Neuman’s recent article about antisemitism and anti-Israel activism taking place on York University campus, and also as part of international academic associations.
• Learn more about the pervasive antisemitism found in Canadian university and college social work programs, and also read the scholarly research by social worker Annette Poizner, published in 2023.
• What happened when pro-Israel speaker Eylon Levy was trapped in a University of Calgary classroom last fall, in The CJN. 

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read the United Nations Watch announcement of former Canadian Senator Linda Frum as the new chair of its board.
• Follow UN Watch’s latest research on keeping the UN accountable.
• Hear two views of Canada’s plan to recognize Palestine as a state, on The CJN’s North Star podcast.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read Dr. Bar-Halpern and her colleague’s scholarly article, about Oct. 7 and traumatic invalidation, in The Journal of Human Behaviour in the Social Environment (22 pages).
• Learn more about Dr. Bar-Halperin, through her website.
• Attend the workshop Friday Sept. 5 in Toronto designed for mental health professionals to train them how to better support Jewish patients suffering from traumatic invalidation because of antisemitism.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Ottawa police arrested the suspect on Aug. 27, shortly after the attack. The man was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a dangerous weapon. Later, when police investigated the suspect’s antisemitic social media posts, the case was classified as a hate-motivated crime.

News of the attack has shocked the capital’s Jewish community, especially because it happened at a grocery store that stocks the largest selection of kosher products in Ottawa. And while it’s prompted an outpouring of support and condemnation from political leaders—including a statement signed by 32 Liberal Members of Parliament calling for action to combat rising antisemitism in Canada— some members of the Jewish community say it’s merely lip service, adding that social media posts aren’t enough to counter the sense of fear and anger that they feel after the stabbing.

Police say the victim was taken to hospital with serious injuries, but has since been released and is recovering at home. While she and her family are keeping her name private for the time being, they have asked for prayers, and hope the community prays for peace.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Jewish community leader Cantor Jason Green of the Kehillat Beth Israel synagogue, where the victim used to sing in his choir, and also with David Roytenberg, an editor at the Canadian Zionist Forum, who was shopping in that Loblaws store when the attack occurred.

Related links

• Learn more about how Ottawa’s Jewish leaders reacted to the stabbing in The CJN’s coverage from last week.
• Watch Cantor Jason Green’s “emergency” sermon from Saturday Aug. 30 at Kehillat Beth Israel synagogue in Ottawa.
• Read the Ottawa Police’s news release classifying the stabbing as a hate-crime

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

In July, the New York Yankees drafted a Canadian shortstop from Wyoming, Ont., named Core Jackson. They did so despite knowing that Jackson, as a 17-year-old freshman at the University of Nebraska, had drawn a swastika on a Jewish student's dorm room while he was, he later told The Athletic, "blackout drunk."

But this isn't a run-of-the-mill case of antisemitism. By all accounts, according to the Yankees' ground scouts and the recent investigation by The Athletic that ran Aug. 20, Jackson was, simply, acting like an ignorant drunk teenager, and was forthright about the incident with teams before the draft. The team did significant due diligence, engaging with New York's Jewish community and sending scouts to learn about Jackson's family and personality.

The resulting story is less about the insipid rise of casual antisemitism, and more about the power of forgiveness when people—especially teenagers—make mistakes and try to do better. Keith Law, a longtime baseball journalist and former front office worker with the Toronto Blue Jays, broke this story for The Athletic. He joins us to share his impressions of Core Jackson and how the Yankees are viewing this opportunity.

After that, podcast hosts Gabe and Jamie run through this year's hottest Jewish sports movies, from Happy Gilmore 2 to both Safdie brothers' award-season offerings, The Smashing Machine and Marty Supreme. Then they give a quick NFL preview and recap Zach Hyman's ceremonial opening of the new ice hockey rink at the Schwartz/Reisman Jewish Community Centre in Vaughan.

Credits

• Hosts: James Hirsh and Gabe Pulver
• Producer: Michael Fraiman
• Music: Coby Lipovitch (intro), chēēZ π (main theme, "Organ Grinder Swing")

Support The CJN

• Follow the podcast on Twitter @menschwarmers
• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to Menschwarmers (Not sure how? Click here)

Sharon Chodirker and Chaim Bell consider themselves lucky: they were among the tens of thousands of tourists and residents in Jasper who were evacuated from the forest fires that devoured a third of the buildings in the iconic Rocky Mountain resort town on July 24, 2024. The Toronto couple, who were on a hiking trip, managed to escape Jasper while smoke and ash rained down on their rental car. When they reached a safe spot across the border in British Columbia, they slept in their vehicle and dined on kosher snacks they'd stored in their portable cooler.

Two days after their frightening journey, flames up to 100 metres high swept right through where their hotel stood, destroying several buildings. Now they're sharing their survival story from the safety of their Toronto home, while the town of Jasper remains off-limits except for emergency crews—and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who visited on Aug. 5, 2024.

On this episode of The CJN Daily, we hear from the Toronto couple personally, as well as Rabbi Dovid Pinson of Canmore, who runs the new Chabad community centre outside Banff and hosted the evacuees. We'll also hear from Heidi Coleman, the head of the Jewish community in Kamloops, B.C., who felt like she was starring in the musical Come From Away when she helped a busload of stranded Jasperites in her city.

What we talked about

• When Rabbi Dovid Pinson ran the annual Hanukkah car menorah parade in Edmonton during COVID in 2021, in The CJN


• Learn more about Chabad in the Rockies


• Hear how Heidi Coleman came from Montreal to Kamloops and became their Jewish leader, on the podcast Yehupetzville


Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Original Music: Dov Beck-Levine
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Canadians of a certain age will remember listening to the comedy duo of Wayne and Shuster on the radio—and, later, watching them on television from the 1950s well into the 1980s. The duo met in high school in Toronto’s prewar Jewish neighbourhood around Harbord Collegiate, where they began writing and performing sketch comedy. After returning from entertaining the troops overseas during the Second World War, they joined the television era, with specials pulling in audiences of millions and worldwide syndication.

Since their fathers' deaths, Wayne and Shuster’s children have been campaigning to convince the CBC—which owns the broadcast rights to much of their parents’ material—to air it for the first time in years for a new generation of Canadians to enjoy. These efforts have not been successful, so the families are taking a new strategy. They teamed up with Bygone Theatre, a theatre company in Toronto, to mount a live Wayne and Shuster stage show that opened at the University of Toronto’s Hart House Theatre in May 25, 2023. It went on a national tour, too. Audiences got to see high-profile Canadian actors perform such classic W and S skits as “Rinse the Blood Off My Toga” and “A Shakespearean Baseball Game”. Michael and Brian Wayne joined The CJN Daily, along with Rosie Shuster and the producers of the play, Emily Dix and Conor Fitzgerald.

**What we talked about
**

• When the City of Toronto named a lane after Wayne and Shuster, in The CJN

• For Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017, The CJN ran this profile of Wayne and Shuster

• Watch “Rinse the Blood off my Toga” on YouTube



Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)

• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Original Music: Dov Beck-Levine

• Current Music: Bret Higgins



Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter

• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

On March 19, 2022, 12-year-old Naomi Hochman will celebrate her bat mitzvah at Winnipeg's Shaarey Zedek synagogue. And while she's the first girl in her family to have a bat mitzvah—her older brothers had theirs, and she just took for granted she would enjoy one too—bat mitzvahs are in fact a relatively new phenomenon.

Naomi's bat mitzvah actually takes place on the 100-year anniversary of the very first bat mitzvah in North America. The daughter of an American reconstructionist rabbi, Judith Kaplan, earned that distinction on March 18, 1922.

In Canada, what is believed to be the first bat mitzvah wouldn't take place until decades later, in 1949. Miriam Lieff led a Friday night service at Agudath Israel Synagogue in Ottawa, paving the way for generations of Canadian girls to take a more egalitarian role in Jewish religious life. Now 89, Lieff joins to recall her experience during a time when girls weren't even allowed to stand on the bimah—and Naomi will talk about how she feels carrying that torch so many years later.

What we talked about:

• Submit your bat mitzvah story to the Jewish Women’s Archive

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Original production team: Victoria Redden (producer)
• Current Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Original Music: Dov Beck-Levine
• Current Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

You've probably heard "Skinnamarink", the classic children's song by Sharon, Lois & Bram. But you probably haven't heard it on TikTok, where Sharon Hampson, now 82, is putting out quick snippets of classics and new material with her newfound family band.

She's recruited her daughter, Randi, and grandsons Elijah and Ethan Ullmann, both full-time students at the University of Toronto. Although they grew up in a musical dynasty, it took an international lockdown for them to agree to help their Bubbe's resurgent Zoom-based career.

At the time of recording, they were preparing to mount their first live indoor show since the pandemic began, at the Regent Theatre in Oshawa, Ont., back in May 2022. And despite Sharon's worry that her voice isn't as strong as it used to be, her relatives say she’s still got it. All four join to explain how they're trying to make music that stays relevant for a generation raised on the Frozen soundtrack and "Baby Shark".

What we talked about

• Learn about the performance and others at sharonloisandbram.com/events

• Learn about the Brott Music Festival at brottmusic.com

• Listen to "Talk About Peace"

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Original Production team: Victoria Redden (producer)
• Current Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Original Music: Dov Beck-Levine
• Current Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Son of a Seeker and get tickets to see the film in Toronto on Aug. 20.
• Read about the filmmaker’s sister, who co-produced his documentary, once winning _Chopped Canada’_s teen cooking contest in 2017, in The CJN archives.
• Watch the trailer of "Son of a Seeker".

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about how the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiations had a front row seat during the 2005 Gaza Disengagement.
• Read more about our guest, negotiation expert John Shulman of Alignor.
• Why some Israelis want to return to live in the Gaza Strip, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn why the Israel-Hamas conflict since 2023 has contributed to hundreds of protests and 577 hate crimes or hate incidents in Montreal, in The CJN.
• Read more about reaction to Friday’s attack on a Montreal Haredi man with his daughters, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Why Montreal’s main Pride organization has reversed course and welcomed back two pro-Israel Jewish groups to participate, in The CJN.
• How Toronto’s  2SLGBTQIA+ community faced some hard decisions whether to participate in the 2025 Pride events, in The CJN.
• Learn more and follow Harvey Brownstone’s interviews show.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more or donate to the newly renovated Naomi Bulka community mikveh in Ottawa.
• Learn more or donate to the new community mikveh in Saint-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec, built by Congregation House of Israel.
• Why this Chabad family in Kelowna, B.C. built the only mikveh between Vancouver and Calgary, in The CJN archives.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about Canada’s pledge to recognize Palestine in September, in The CJN.
• Read Prime Minister Mark Carney’s official announcement on why Canada will recognize Palestine.
• Hear the former Palestinian envoy to Ottawa say there can't be elections because Israel is occupying East Jerusalem, the Palestinian capital, on CBC News.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about the Toronto Druze community’s efforts to raise awareness about the massacre of their people in southern Syria, in The CJN.
• Learn more about the Beit El Jebel Organization of Druze in Toronto, and how to donate.
• Meet an Israeli Druze IDF veteran who was wounded after Oct. 7, who came to Canada to recover, in The CJN

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

After his guilty plea, a Superior Court justice released Aspenlieder on bail until the sentencing process starts in the fall. He must leave Ottawa and remain under supervision until then at his parents' home near Alliston, Ont. He is under what the Crown Attorney described as "extremely strict" bail conditions, including wearing a GPS-tracking ankle bracelet, staying off social media, and keeping away from Jewish or Israeli buildings. He is also banned from discussing the conflict in Gaza with anyone except mental health specialists.

The prosecutor argues this was a hateful act, and the government intends to ask the judge for a prison term because of the fear he instilled in the Jewish community. But Aspenlieder's defence maintains their client was "driven by a profound sense of compassion and moral urgency—not by hatred or prejudice."

On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner gets reaction from Ottawa's Jewish community, including Mina Cohn, the chair of Ottawa's Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship, and lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who is co-chair of the National Holocaust Monument Committee.

Related links

• An Ottawa judge originally denied bail to the man who later pleaded guilty to defacing the National Holocaust monument.
• Why the Ottawa police hate crime team and the Ontario Crown prosecutor laid three charges, including criminal harassment, against the suspect Iain Aspenleider.
• Why Ottawa’s Jewish community held an interfaith rally June 15 at the Holocaust monument site after the June 9 defacing.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Rabbi Emanuel Carlebach and his Congregation House of Israel’s Pre-Shabb’o’at on a Lake Near You program.
• Send a note to The CJN to register for the weekly Shabbat on the Lake/Shabbat Sur Le Lac which Howard Stotland runs in Ivry.
• Watch videos of Shabbat On the Lake and Pre Shabb’o’at on A Lake Near you on The CJN’s YouTube Channel

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

There were no medical or mental health issues that prompted her decision, she says. It was, in part, exhaustion after spending nearly two years “waking up every day to a fight”. It was hard to get people to speak up for the community. Some wouldn’t even agree to speak with her personally. Over time, she grew “despondent and despairing” over how few Canadians have stood up against the anti-Jewish hatred that has flared up in this country since she took the job, soon after Oct. 7, 2023.

Despite serving a term as Canada’s ambassador to Israel from 2016 to 2020, her appointment raised eyebrows in some quarters—including in the Jewish community—because she herself is not Jewish. Nonetheless, she maintained to The CJN how important it was for her to accept the job to show what allyship can look like and to fight for a better Canada.

Now, however, she is leaving the post highly critical of various Canadian sectors. Canadian business leaders, religious leaders and politicians have failed to support the Jewish community. Governments, she believes, found it easier to hold summits to fight carjackings and tariffs—yet could not cooperate when it came to combatting hate.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship news podcast North Star, Deborah Lyons sits down with host Ellin Bessner for an in-depth interview to explain her resignation and why Canadians need to stop being bystanders in what she calls a fight for the future of our country’s children.

Related links

• Read reaction from the Jewish community as Ambassador Deborah Lyons announces she is stepping down on July 17, in The CJN.
• Hear Deborah Lyons’ first interview after being appointed Special Envoy to replace Irwin Cotler, in The CJN, and her later one after releasing the new IHRA handbook in the fall of 2024.
• Her last initiative before resigning was a study of antisemitism in Ontario public schools, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

The piece in question was written by a Lebanese doctor living in Beirut who has no apparent ties to Canada. She treated hundreds of wounded Hezbollah members in her local emergency ward in September 2024 on the night thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies suddenly exploded, as part of the stunning Israeli operation to take out terrorists who planned attacks on the Jewish State after Oct. 7.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, Kalin explains to host Ellin Bessner what the reaction has been to his protest. Because they refused to retract the story or explain how it was published in a peer-reviewed journal that usually talks about care standards for Canadian patients, he speaks frankly in saying there is no longer a place for him in the Canadian organization of family physicians.

Related links

• Read the Canadian Family Physician magazine article about the wounded Hezbollah patients and the complaints and the CFPC response.
• Find out more about Santé Kildare, Dr. Michael Kalin’s family medicine clinic in Côte Saint-Luc, Quebec.
• Learn more about the exploding pagers operation in Lebanon, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

For Irwin Cotler—the acclaimed lawyer, former justice minister and chair of the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights—commemorating this anniversary brings a deeply unsettling sense of déjà vu. For two decades, he has been pushing the Canadian government to take stronger measures against the Islamist regime, resulting in an Iranian murder plot planned against him. Today, Cotler will be speaking on a national Federation panel entitled "The Islamic Republic's Long Shadow of Terror".

On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner sits down with Cotler in his home in Montreal to hear exactly how Canada's lax policies on Iran have come home to roost.

Related links

• Watch the July 18 official ceremony and panel on the Islamic Republic’s Long Shadow of Terror, live at 11 am EDT Friday, sponsored by Canada’s Jewish Federations.
• Hear how Winnipeg’s Argentinian Jewish community remembers the 1994 AMIA bombing by Iranian-backed terrorists.
• Read more about the search for justice in the 1994 AMIA terrorist bombing of Argentina’s Jewish community, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about how Iranian Canadians are now concerned for their homeland, after initial hope during Israel’s raids on the nuclear bomb building sites in June, in The CJN.
• How Canadian government agencies are preparing for Iranian domestic threats, in The CJN.
• Why Iran’s terror regime is creating common bonds between Jewish and Iranian Canadians, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

They comprise her new art exhibit, Tablet Tableaux. Nemtin Levine calls it a journey of exploration, complete with inspirational messages and famous quotes. Audience members are encouraged to physically engage with the works by touching the grains of sand, family photos and architectural blueprints for the Israelites' portable desert tabernacle.

Nemtin Levine's work, which has been displayed at several synagogues across Montreal, has recently been used at Jewish high schools for special b'nei mitzvah study modules. The project has also spawned a coffee table book, a free audio guide and a forthcoming documentary video series. On today's episode of North Star, Nemtin Levine shares her story with host Ellin Bessner, who visits the artist in Montreal to see the work in person.

Related links

• Learn more about the Torah Tableaux at the artist Sheila Nemtin Levine’s website.
• Watch the exhibit's launch in Montreal, on YouTube.
• Read and explore the free audio guide to the 54 chapters: https://tablettableaux.orpheo.app/#/

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Over the last century, North American Jews have poured untold millions of dollars into an alphabet soup of legacy institutions: UJA, CIJA, ADL, JNF, et al. And yet, after 19 months of rising antisemitism—while Canadian and American Jewish communities feel like they’re free-falling through a crisis—many have been asking, “What have we been giving all this money for? Where are the results?”

To wit, two recent pieces published in the New York Post ask these exact questions. Rachel Sapoznik, an entrepreneur, wrote an opinion piece headlined “Why I’m ending my donations to US Jewish groups and seeking new leadership to protect US Jews,” in which she calls for American Jews to support (mostly Republican) pro-Israel politicians instead of the Anti-Defamation League. Kathryn Wolf, a journalist, wrote a similar piece in the same publication that juxtaposes major organizations’ glitzy galas and celebrity endorsements against a growing wave of grassroots Jewish activism.

In Canada, against the backdrop of louder upstart Jewish advocacy groups, the Centre for Israel Jewish Affairs parted ways with former CEO Shimon Koffler Fogel, a diplomatic leader who held the post for nearly 40 years, and replaced him with Noah Shack, who accepted the permanent position on June 27. “We have to be nimble,” Shack told The CJN. “We have to try new things and do whatever we can to win.” But to what extent should the Jewish community pivot away from these legacy organizations, who’ve spent years building goodwill with all levels of government and non-Jewish organizations? Is any support the Jewish community now finds not due to years of quiet, behind-the-scenes bridge-building?

Not in Heaven host Avi Finegold has long been critical of Jewish communal organizations—though he might also find himself disagreeing with the most vocal activists vying to replace them. In this week’s episode, we unpack the pros and cons of how far these institutions have taken us, and what comes next.

Support The CJN

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to Not in Heaven (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Philip Khazzam’s uncle Mayer Lawee shows photos and recounts his time living in the family’s now disputed Baghdad mansion, in this interview with Sephardi Voices.
• Learn more about the 1941 Iraqi pogrom against its Jewish community, in The CJN.
• Why another Montreal whose family was forced to flee Egypt, tried for years, unsuccessfully, to sue Coca-Cola for stealing their ancestral property in Cairo, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Investigation into irregularities and ‘red flags’ delaying release of final Canadian results in World Zionist Congress election, in The CJN.
• Hear what’s at stake in the World Zionist Congress elections for Canadian voters, on The CJN North Star.
• Read more about the election on The Canadian Zionist Federation website.
• Why The CJN’s Treasure Trove columnist David Matlow urged Canadian Jews to vote in the WZC election.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

On today’s episode of Honourable Menschen on North Star (formerly The CJN Daily), host Ellin Bessner is joined by The CJN’s obituary columnist, Heather Ringel, to share their personal encounters with these prominent community members.

Related links

• Read about the life of philanthropist Larry Robbins in The CJN.
• How Elly Bollegraaf went from hidden Dutch child to Canadian scientist, in The CJN.
• Rabbi Mordechai Feuerstein of Vancouver built ties between his Orthodox Schara Tzedeck synagogue and local Reform Rabbi Philip Bregman, in The CJN.
• Why Moncton-native David Attis fought against an infamous Holocaust denier teacher, in The CJN.
• Herschel Segal came from Montreal garment industry royalty to found Le Chateau stores, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about the late Gerald Levenston’s role in accepting the German surrender in May 1945.
• Watch a video of the late Gerald Levenston describe why he got Canadian troops to rescue hundreds of priceless Van Gogh and Picasso paintings after the Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands from the Germans in 1945.
• Buy the book about Gerald Levenston’s wartime romance with Ada Hugenholtz, a Dutch nurse in the Resistance.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about how, if at all, Canadian universities moved to adopt any of the divestment requests of the pro-Palestinian encampments’ students, in The CJN.
• Learn how Jewish students on campus are publishing their own newspapers because pro-Israel, Zionist views are banned from longtime legacy campus outlets, in The CJN.
• Hear why the former dean of U of T’s medical school, Arnie Aberman, gave back his honorary degree in protest over campus antisemitism.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about Weizmann Institute Canada’s emergency fundraising recovery fund.
• Find out what Ben-Gurion University’s Canadian branch is doing to raise funds to rebuild labs and classrooms.
• How some Canadian wings of Israeli-Jewish charities quietly, and not so quietly, launched appeals for funds after hundreds of Iranian missiles targeted the Jewish State since June 13, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Hear why some Canadian young people on subsidized Israel-volunteer programs like Birthright and Olami got out of the country, while those with MASA did not, yet, in The CJN.
• How a Canadian survived a direct missile hit in Tel Aviv, by praying and channeling Queen Esther, her personal heroine, on The CJN’s North Star podcast.
• Read more about Philip Lerner and his advocacy for people with autism, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Hear more about how Canadians in Israel are being impacted by the Iranian missiles, on the North Star podcast of The CJN.
• Learn more about Alana Ruben Free.
• Read more about Alana Ruben Free’s art show in Israel, in the archives of The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about Eva Kuper, a prolific Holocaust educator, in The CJN.
• Order a copy of Eva Kuper’s autobiography A Beacon of Light, from the Azrieli Foundation survivors memoirs.
• Learn about the Journey for Hope sponsored by Montreal’s Federation CJA.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

The two only met this week, while participating in a government-sponsored trip for Jewish LGBTQ leaders who were meant to attend Tel Aviv's famous Pride parade. That was supposed to take place on June 13—but the parade was hurriedly cancelled, and their itinerary curtailed, as news of the initial strikes broke. Since then, every time air raid sirens go off, or their phones alert them to incoming Iranian rockets and missiles, they rush down to the bomb shelter and ride out the anxious hours, together with other tourists and Israelis alike.

While the death toll of Israelis killed and wounded continues to climb, and first responders try to dig out those still missing from direct hits on Bat Yam and other Israeli cities, the Pride delegates—who are required to stay within 100 metres of the hotel—are now also worrying about how they will get home, since all flights in and out of the country have been cancelled until further notice.

Maddy Eisenberg, a broadcaster and communications strategist in Ottawa, and Dave Heilbron, a human resources executive and Jewish leader now living in the Netherlands, join North Star podcast host Ellin Bessner to describe what they're seeing on the ground.

Related links

• What Global Affairs Canada is telling Canadians in Israel to do, in The CJN.
• Follow the IDF's official website account on “Operation Rising Lion”.
• How Canadian Dave Heilbron, a leader of a pro-Israel lobby organization based in Amsterdam, experienced the “pogrom” against Israeli soccer fans in his adopted country, in November 2024.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• How Canada, France and the U.K. rebuked Israel’s renewed military campaign in Gaza and threatened sanctions about expanding settlements, on May 19, in a joint statement.
• How Canadian Jewish leaders express concerns about Carney’s threat of sanctions on Israel.
• Here is Canada’s announcement of sanctions against extremist settlers, published June 10 2025.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about Roman Baber’s political career, including running for the leadership of the federal Conservative party in the election which Pierre Poilievre ultimately won in 2022
• Hear Tamara Kronis explaining the International Court of Justice’s 2024 hearing brought by South Africa against Israel for genocide.
• How the April 28, 202 federal election brought longtime Conservative politician Roman Baber and candidate Tamara Kronis to Ottawa, this time as rookie Opposition MPs.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about the sons of the late Vivian Silver, fresh from their June 4 Toronto fundraiser/celebration of their mother’s life, in The CJN.
• To learn about the Vivian Silver Impact award and to donate.
• Hear how Silver’s family and friends gathered in November 2023 in Israel for her private funeral and then for a separate public memorial service, on The CJN Daily.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Watch Dr. Nili-Kaplan Myrth’s resignation speech at the June 3, 2025 OCDSB meeting: she begins at the 4 hour mark.
• Learn about the disgusting threats sent by an Ontario man to Dr. Nili Kaplan Myrth that resulted in his recent conviction in 2025, in The CJN.
• Hear a previous interview with Dr. Kaplan-Myrth when she was initially sanctioned by the Ottawa public school board in 2024, on The CJN Daily. 

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner speaks with vote organizer Stan Greenspan, the president of the Canadian Zionist Federation, and himself a candidate. Plus you’ll meet candidates Jacob Kates Rose with the progressive Hatikvah Canada slate, and also Dr. Yizhar Hess, a high-ranking Jerusalem-based diplomat who came to Canada recently to drum up support for his slate known as Mercaz-Canada, which represents Conservative-Masorti Jewish values.

Related links

• How Canadian Jews can vote in the WZO’s elections from June 5-15, 2025. 
• What is the World Zionist Congress anyway? Read Ron Csillag’s 2020 feature in The CJN.
• Why the American Jewish community was split over voting in the WZO elections, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Meet three Canadians who converted to Judaism after Oct. 7, despite everything, on The CJN Daily.
• Why Alexandria Fanjoy Silver converted twice, on The CJN Daily.
• Read more from Emily Caruso Parnell about the conversion process she underwent from both Orthodox and Reform pathways, in The CJN archives.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Watch the March 28, 2025 Penn & Teller: Fool Us episode where Vancouver’s Vitaly Beckman won for the 3rd time in a decade.
• Check out Vitaly’ Beckman's website for news and future tour dates, and bookings.
• Learn how two Toronto Jewish magicians Ben Train and Jonah Babins pivoted during the pandemic to entertain their audiences online, on The CJN Daily.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read how the City of Toronto’s bubble legislation will keep protests 50 metres away from Jewish buildings, and come into force on July 2, in The CJN.
• Learn more about the exhibit about the Nova music festival now showing in Toronto until June 8, in The CJN.
• Learn more about the Tribe of Nova Foundation, which helps survivors and bereaved families of Nova victims.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

The most shocking news, of course, has been the recent murder of two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington, D.C., who were gunned down on May 21 by a man calling for “Free Palestine”. Amid the international condemnations, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated and appalled” by the attack, calling it “a violent act of antisemitism.”

But even before that incident, Carney was making news in Israel. Canada joined France and the United Kingdom in threatening sanctions against the Jewish State over the West Bank, and "actions" if it did not stop the renewed war in Gaza and begin allowing aid into Gaza. Carney’s new minister of foreign affairs, Anita Anand, made similar condemnations.

And while Israel did begin allowing aid trucks into the Gaza Strip, hours after the joint statement, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a rare press conference and openly promoted American president Donald Trump’s plan to push Palestinians out of Gaza and take complete control of the strip. And in the midst of all this, members of the Israel Defense Forces fired warning shots near a group of foreign diplomats—including two Canadians—in the West Bank city of Jenin. As a result, Anand formally “summoned” Israel’s ambassador to Canada for a meeting on May 21.

If you can’t keep all the chaos straight, we don’t blame you. That’s why The CJN Daily host Ellin Bessner wanted to sit down with Artur Wilczynski, a former Canadian ambassador and diplomat—and a veteran security and intelligence expert—to help make sense of what feels like one of the most dangerous political weeks in recent memory. Carney’s new government has put its foot down against Israel, punching above its weight on the international stage. What should we make of this? What concerns should Canadian Jews have about Israel and Canada’s longstanding friendship?

Related links

• Hear Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed discuss the newly-strained relations between his country and Canada, on The CJN Daily from earlier this week.
• Read a timeline of Canada-Israel diplomatic relations, in The CJN.
• Why former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper became one of Israel’s staunchest supporters, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

What we talked about:

• Read Canada’s joint statement with France and the U.K. on May 19 rebuking Israel’s “egregious” military escalation in Gaza.
• Read what Prime Minister Mark Carney told Israel's president Isaac Herzog about releasing the hostages, Hamas having no role in Gaza, and boosting humanitarian aid when the two men met while at the Vatican on May 18, 2025.
• Why the JSpace Canada organization launched a letter writing campaign to thank Prime Minister Mark Carney for his “principled leadership” after the rebuke of Israel.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

At the time, police quickly located the suspect, and charged him with a couple of assaults—spitting on Roll and her husband, hurling Nazi threats at them and making the Heil Hitler salute—and breach of probation. After a three-day trial this March, the man was convicted, but was not held in custody.

Earlier this week, on May 13, an Ontario judge sentenced Kenneth Gobin, 35, to a year in prison, with two more years of probation tacked on due to his lengthy criminal record.

With the man now off the streets, Roll says she can finally begin to process what happened, including how anxious and angry the incident made her. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, Tilda Roll explains how she hopes her court fight will encourage Jewish Canadians to fight back against rampant antisemitism.

Related links

• Read the judge's sentencing report sending Kenneth Gobin to prison for 12 months for two counts of assault and one of breach of probation.
• Why Jews are still the target of the most religious-based hate crimes in Toronto in 2024, in The CJN.
• A Quebec man who posted swastikas in his town was found guilty and fined $7,000, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about Mayor Olivia Chow’s relationship with the Jewish community in The CJN from 2024.
• Hear why Toronto city council deferred bringing in a draft bylaw to protect Jewish buildings in December 2024, on The CJN Daily.
• Learn more about how Mayor Olivia Chow voted to defer “bubble legislation” bylaw last May 2024 back to city staff for a report, in The CJN.
• In 2024, The CJN's Doorstep Postings columnist Josh Lieblein advised the Jewish community not to work so hard to seek a better relationship with Olivia Chow.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about the Winnipeg Schools’ Science Fair where the Marcus teens presented alongside 130 other projects.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about the It's Time peace summit in Jerusalem.
• Read how the Israeli NGO "Standing Together" has launched several chapters in Canada beginning in 2024, in The CJN.
• Listen to The CJN Daily interview with Yafa Sakkehja, a Canadian entrepreneur of Palestinian original, member of Standing Together Toronto, who organized the Canada Peace Summit on April 24.
• You can watch the recording of the Canada Peace Summit on YouTube.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

The son of Jewish immigrants to Fort William (now Thunder Bay) in Northern Ontario, Laskin was a gold-medal law student in Toronto during the 1930s. With widespread antisemitism in the profession in those days, it was challenging for Laskin to find an articling position, which he ultimately did—with a Jewish firm. Laskin then went on to complete multiple degrees, including from Harvard. After nearly two decades teaching law at the newly founded U of T law school–where the library now bears his name-Laskin was appointed to the provincial court in Ontario, where he developed a reputation as a champion of the labour movement. After former prime minister Pierre Trudeau appointed Laskin to the Supreme Court, Laskin’s judgments led to patriating the Canadian Constitution, enshrining the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and equalizing women’s marital property rights.

This new minute-long short film stars veteran Canadian Jewish actor Victor Garber, who was reportedly eager to take on the role due to his own heritage. It will be broadcast on more than 70 television stations and also online beginning May 7.

On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we’re joined by Sam Rosenthal, one of the creative team members behind the project, who explains the drive and meaning behind the project. Shelley Laskin, his niece and a Toronto school board trustee, also joins.

Related links

• Watch the Bora Laskin new Heritage Minute by Historica Canada on YouTube beginning May 8.
• Learn more about Bora Laskin, in The CJN.
• Read more in The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

The Canadian group, along with thousands of other travellers, were ordered to scramble into safe areas or bomb shelters inside the airport until authorities gave the all-clear about a half-hour later. While eight people were taken to hospitals in Israel, none of the Canadians was injured.

Many international airlines have cancelled or suspended flights for coming days. The March of the Living group used charters to reach Warsaw, then boarded a LOT Dreamliner aircraft, which landed in Toronto on Sunday night. The Houthi attack came after a tumultuous trip for the group, who had experienced the country’s biggest wildfire, which burned the forests between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem before Israel’s Independence Day on May 1. On top of that, the Iran-backed forces in Yemen have been escalating their ballistic missile attacks. Sunday’s hypersonic missile was the only one the IDF failed to intercept, leaving a significant crater in the airport roadway and damaging part of Terminal 3.

On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we hear from anxious March of the Living parents Jasmine Albagli of Ottawa; Mark Diamond and his wife Sharon, also from Ottawa; and Adam Cohen of Toronto. Aviva Klompas also joins: the Toronto-born author and Israel advocate, also happened to be at Ben Gurion airport when the attack struck.

What we talked about:

• Hear how anti-Israel protestors at Auschwitz tried to spoil the 2024 annual March of the Living while one Edmonton family showed resilience, on The CJN Daily.
• Read why fewer participants joined the 2024 March of the Living since it was the first after October. 7, and how the itinerary changed, in The CJN.
• Read about the 2023 March of the Living when the late Alex Buckman, a Vancouver Holocaust educator, accompanied the trip, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Where to donate through the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s  Filipino Community Emergency Support Fund.
• When Canadian Jews fundraised in 2013 to help disaster relief efforts in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan struck the country, in The CJN.
• When the Philippines rescued 1,200 European Jews during the Holocaust, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

• Read more about Ben Brown’s injury after Oct. 7, in The CJN.
• Hear how the Jewish community in Toronto came together to support Ben Brown’s family through prayer, on The CJN Daily.
• Why those Canadians who served in the IDF and were on a new list published by an anti-Israel paper are fighting mad, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• The CJN’s Jonathan Rothman takes the temperature of Jewish voters across Canada ahead of the April 28 federal election.
• The CJN’s Joel Ceausu reports from the riding of Mount Royal where incumbent Anthony Housefather faces off against Neil Oberman for the Conservatives.
• Lila Sarick reports on York Centre, in The CJN.
• Phoebe Maltz-Bovy on why she voted Liberal, in The CJN.
• What’s at stake in Winnipeg, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more about the impact of Trump’s tariff trade war on Canadian Jewish business owners, in The CJN
• What Canadian leaders think about the ICJ’s ruling on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, in January 2024, in The CJN.
• Why rising antisemitism is convincing some Canadian Jews to vote Conservative this election.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Instead, Jablonski’s courage for rescuing that young boy, Walter Saltzberg of Winnipeg, and a handful of others, will be honoured by B’nai Brith International and the KKL/Jewish National Fund at a gathering Thursday April 24 in the Martyrs’ Forest in Jerusalem. The two groups created the event decades ago to honour Jews who rescued Jews, and they have been campaigning ever since for Yad Vashem to change its policy.

Jablonski was 23 when he rescued Walter Saltzberg, who was just 13 at the time–and was badly injured by falling German bombs that destroyed the pair’s first hiding place. Jablonski treated the boy’s injuries, protected him from other hidden Jews who wanted to kill the boy when his moans risked giving their new location away to the Nazis. After five months, they were liberated, in 1945. Jablonski helped arrange surgery for Saltzberg to fix his deformed leg, and eventually Saltzberg was able to leave Poland for his new home in Canada, where as luck would have it, the two survivors reunited decades later.

On today’s The CJN Daily, we speak to the late Walter Saltzberg’s son, George Saltzberg, of Toronto, who is in Israel now where his late father's rescuer will posthumously receive the Jewish Rescuers' Citation. He joins to explain why he’s made it his mission to ensure Jablonski’s selfless acts aren’t forgotten.

Related links

• Watch the B’nai Brith International/KKL-JNF ceremony honouring the heroism of the late Peter Jablonski live from Israel on Thursday April 24, 2025.
• Read more about Peter Jablonski’s Holocaust story, and buy the book written by the young cousin he also saved, George Mandelbaum.
• Watch the Yad Vashem Yom HaShoah national ceremony live broadcast from Israel on Wednesday April 23, 2025.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• The CJN’s Jonathan Rothman takes the temperature of Jewish voters across Canada ahead of the April 28 federal election.
• The CJN’s Joel Ceausu reports from the riding of Mount Royal where incumbent Anthony Housefather faces off against Neil Oberman for the Conservatives.
• Get The CJN political columnist Josh Liebleine’s Passover take on the election campaign, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read Beth Torah’s allegations in the lawsuit filed March 27, 2025 in the Superior Court of Justice, and what Beth Shalom and our resident Rabbi Avi Finegold think, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

It was a sight and smell that the late Jack Marcovitch never forgot. The Ottawa veteran had only turned 22 when he arrived there as an army private in the closing weeks of the Second World War. His family believes he played a role in one the war's most iconic scenes: the arrest of Bergen-Belsen's commandant, Josef Kramer, notoriously dubbed "The Beast of Belsen".

Marcovitch rarely spoke about his experiences at Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank had died of typhus just a few months earlier. Now, on the milestone anniversary of the camp's liberation, Marcovitch's daughters—Linda Eisenberg and Gloria Borts—join The CJN Daily to share what their father brought home with him and how the trauma marked him for life.

Related links

• Watch Jack Marcovitch at Bergen Belsen on an old CBC interview.
• Learn about some of the Canadians who survived Bergen-Belsen including the late Cantor Moshe Kraus of Ottawa,
• Learn about some of the Canadian soldiers who helped the survivors of Bergen-Belsen, on the Veterans Affairs Canada website, as well as about Bernie Delson, and Sol Goldberg.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Andrea Varsany (producer),Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Watch the documentary “Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants”, on CBC Gem, beginning April 11.
• Learn more about the volunteers lobbying for Lucy’s freedom, on their website Leap for Lucy.
• Read about Fern Levitt and her family volunteering to help an orphanage in South Africa, in The CJN, in 2008.
• Read the transcript on our website at Thecjn.ca

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Mark Weisblott, editorial director.
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about when the U.S. based Savours company entered the Toronto kosher food scene by buying Hartmans, in 2017, in The CJN.
• When Montreal’s MK Kosher and Toronto’s COR Kashrut organization were feuding over hechsher for Sobeys’ Thornhill location, in 2013, in The CJN.
• Why Passover food will be exempt from Trump’s extra tariffs this year, on The CJN Daily.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer),Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

But experts say that number doesn’t tell the whole story.

A new Statistics Canada report on hate crimes handled by Canadian police–4,777 total, including 900 hate crimes against Jews—contains some disturbing findings. According to the data, 72 percent of all hate crimes didn’t get solved in 2023, and more than half of all alleged suspects are known to police as repeat offenders. If there is any good news in the new report, Statistics Canada says that no one got hurt, in the vast majority of hate crimes against Jews in recent years, or 90 percent. Many were crimes of mischief against property, including synagogues and other Jewish community buildings.

So what do the numbers mean, and what message should Canadian Jews be demanding of politicians, law enforcement and the courts? On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we’re joined by two of Canada’s leading experts on police-reported hate crimes: from Statistics Canada, Warren Silver—himself a former Montreal police officer—and Mark Sandler, a criminal lawyer who chairs the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism.

Related links

• Read Statistics Canada’s new report on police-reported hate crimes for 2023 and early 2024.
• Why antisemitic hate crimes top the police charts in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.), while Jews in British Columbia report being victims of one or more antisemitic incidents.
• B’nai Brith’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents has surprisingly high numbers. How can this be? On The CJN Daily from 2023,

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director).
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

It turns out, the names were already public. Jared McBride, a history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently led his students on a class project that discovered more than a thousand pages of historic Royal Canadian Mounted Police war crimes files—all freely available online.

These typed and handwritten files from the 1980s show suspects' names, locations, case numbers, alleged crimes, and the results of the Mounties' investigations, including collaboration with Israel, Germany and Soviet authorities. They appear to match the still-secret parts of Canada's official 1986 Deschênes Commission of Inquiry's records on alleged or actual Nazi war criminals who got into the country.

Not knowing about these publicly available documents, Jewish groups and some media outlets still have lawsuits pending to force Library and Archives Canada to release its war crimes holdings. But, as the UCLA students found out, the archives already released the RCMP documents five years ago. And nobody did anything with them—until now.

On today's episode of The CJN Daily, Jared McBride joins to to unpack what, and how, he and his students uncovered in this breakthrough moment for national justice.

Related links

• Hear B’nai Brith Canada’s former legal director, and a former war crimes investigator turned historian both weigh in on the importance of Canada releasing the names of suspected Nazi war criminals who entered the country, on The CJN Daily.
• Why Canada was reluctant to prosecute suspected Nazi war criminals who entered the country, in The CJN.
• Get the secret RCMP war crimes files officially released by Canada in Jan. 2020, after an Access to Information request. The files are all hosted now on the Canadian-based Investigative Journalism Foundation’s public database collection.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

So the political science graduate spent a few days last week creating a new website, IsraelVotes.ca, which is already live. His goal is to make it easier for those eligible voters among the estimated 40,000 Canadians currently living in Israel to receive their ballots and cast their votes in what he's calling "one of the most consequential elections in recent memory," scheduled for April 28.

Gluck's website is non-partisan and completely free, and facilitates ballot delivery, including to and from the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv. He joins Ellin Bessner on The CJN Daily to explain his motivations, the nasty antisemitic comments he's received online, and why it matters that Jewish Canadians make their voices heard this month.

Related links

• Check out IsraelVotes.ca to learn more about how to vote from Israel in the April 28, 2025 Canadian federal election.
• Elections Canada’s website also explains about how to vote in Canadian elections if you are Canadian abroad, no matter how long you’ve lived outside of Canada.
• When Canada originally barred citizens living in Israel from voting from abroad, in The CJN, from 2015.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Andrea Varsany (producer), Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Many domestic business owners are pivoting. Some are focusing more on the Canadian market. Others are looking to expand in Europe and Australia. At least one Jewish business owner in Quebec moved his product assembly to Vermont, helping him keep his Canadian factory open.

On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we check in with two Canadian Jewish business owners, who give us their perspective on the trade war. Noah Tepperman is the co-owner of Tepperman’s, a furniture and appliance retail chain headquarted in Windsor, Ont., celebrating its centennial this month; and Michael Wiesel joins from Knowlton, Quebec to explain how he’s trying to save his DIY craft kit business, Kiss Naturals, which relies on U.S. customers for 80 percent of its business.

Related Links

• Hear how this Vancouver kosher grocer prepared to handle expected tariffs on imported U.S. Passover foodstuffs (which have since been exempted) on The CJN Daily.
• Why tariffs might send more Jewish poor to food banks, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Learn more about the book One in Six Million here.
• Read about the late Stanley Diamond’s passion for reuniting Holocaust survivors, in The CJN.
• Hear Stanley Diamond profiled on our newest Honourable Menschen podcast.
• Learn more about free DNA tests for Holocaust survivors.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

What we talked about:

• Why the families of the Oct. 7 victims are suing the Canadian government for funding UNWRA, as is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, in The CJN.
• How Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre spent the spring of 2024 courting Canada’s Jewish community, on The CJN Daily.
• In 2023, Canada committed $100 million over four years in funding for UNWRA, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Why Jewish groups and some politicians feel the annual Al-Quds marches in Canada need to be banned as hate fests, in The CJN.
• Why is Canada doing nothing about terror-banned group Samidoun leaders travelling to Beirut for Hezbollah leader's funeral, in The CJN.
• How to submit your opinion before May 1, 2025 to Toronto city council about how they should police protests outside places of worship, the so called "bubble legislation."

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read more reaction in The CJN from Jewish leaders about the arrest, charging with hate crimes, and then court-ordered release on bail of a suspect alleged to be behind terrorism-related spree of attacks on Toronto Jewish community buildings and people last year.
• Read the Toronto Police Service's news release announcing the suspect's arrest and bail conditions, March 17.
• Hear how Toronto's most targeted synagogue, Kehillat Shaarei Torah on Bayview Avenue, became more resilient after each of its eight attacks, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Why Israel's military escalation with Hezbollah impacts Canadians in Northern Israel on The CJN Daily from Jan. 2024.
• What Esther Silver said after the IIHF banned Israel's national hockey teams (temporarily) in 2024 from international competition, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Follow The Daily Brine on their website, or on Instagram, Facebook and X/Twitter.
• Learn more about buying their merchandise, including T-shirts.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

What connects these stories, and more than 500 others? These Canadians sought help from the new CIJA Legal Task Force, a free initiative created by the lobbyist organization the Centre for Israel Jewish Affairs. Created years ago as a professional development group, the task force has, since Oct. 7, evolved into a “rapid response” pro bono legal team that combats antisemitism directly—by taking the issues to court. Officials behind the group say that politicians, police officers, school boards, unions and hospitals have failed to take the problem seriously, prompting them to take matters into their own hands.

On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we’re joined by former federal crown prosecutor Nanette Rosen, who co-chairs the legal task force, and Richard Marceau, a lawyer and CIJA’s general counsel.

Related links

• Learn more about the CIJA Legal Task Force and how to apply for help.
• Why CIJA is helping some families of the Canadians murdered on Oct. 7 to sue Ottawa for resuming funding to UNRWA, in The CJN.
• Read the legal brief filed at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last April by a Toronto Metropolitan University student against her school, alleging toxic antisemitic conditions.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Read transcript

The development comes after Canada's biggest kosher food importer recently predicted that the on-again-off-again tariff dispute would rocket prices for imported kosher-for-Passover food by up to 60 percent. Canadian Jewish leaders have been lobbying Ottawa to give relief to the country's Jewish community as it heads into the holiday season.

While the news will likely bring a sigh of relief to consumers, it is only a temporary reprieve: its lasts only until the end of Passover.

For more on how these food tariffs are impacting Canadian kosher food stores and suppliers across Canada, and what advice they have for you, we're joined on today's episode of The CJN Daily by the owners of Vancouver's Kosher Food Warehouse, Tal Kinstlich and Stephanie Schneider. Jack Hartstein also returns: he's the vice president of Montreal-based Altra Foods, the largest importer of kosher foods in Canada.

Related links

• Read the list of imported Passover items to be exempt from Canadian tariffs, posted on the Canadian government’s website.
• Why kosher food prices for Passover are likely to jump by up to 60 percent this year, on The CJN Daily.
• Learn more about the Kosher Food Warehouse in Vancouver.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Bronfman, a longtime "green" campaigner, runs his family's private investment firms and supports the Birthright outfit, which his father founded 25 years ago. He has been watching Donald Trump's return to power south of the border with some alarm, because of his plans to roll back many laws that protect the environment, fire tens of thousands of government environment agency staff, lift restrictions on building pipelines, slow the electric vehicle trend, and permit unfettered development of the oil and gas industry, again. Or, as Trump called it during his Tuesday night speech to Congress, "Drill, baby, Drill!!"

Those are all red flags for Bronfman, which is why he is urging wealthy Jewish donors to step up and make it their business to protect the environment and mitigate climate change, now that it's no longer part of the Trump business agenda. (Also in Canada, the carbon tax is on its way out, no matter who is elected prime minister.)

This month, Bronfman is launching a new Jewish Climate Trust, with funds going to support climate solutions in North America and also in Israel, harnessing that country's eco-tech "start-up nation" know-how.

The new climate trust already has "a minyan" of investors, as Bronfman jokingly puts it, including some prominent Canadians. He joins The CJN Daily's Ellin Bessner to explain how his fund can also secure the future of Jews in Israel and build bridges in the region.

To read the transcript of the interview, go to the episode at www.thecjn.ca

What we talked about:

• Learn more about the Jewish Climate Trust.
• Read more about Stephen Bronfman’s efforts to promote the environment, in The CJN archives, from 2009.
• Bronfman’s initial board includes his father Charles, and also Montrealer Jeff Hart, the co-founder of the Climate Solutions Prize, honouring Israeli environmental research, through JNF Canada, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

To read a transcript of the episode, go to our website: https://thecjn.ca/podcasts/hassan-diab/

What we talked about:

• Read some of The CJN’s coverage of the Hassan Diab saga, and hear The CJN Daily’s interview on the Copernic bombing with Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed .
• Hear the Canadaland investigation podcast series The Copernic Affair.
• Read the Canadian government’s own scathing report on Canada’s extradition of Diab to France in 2018.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Joseph Fish (chase producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

What we talked about:

• Learn more about the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism.
• Read more about what Jewish leaders are expecting from Ottawa’s Antisemitism Forum, in The CJN.
• Hear why Ottawa has been urged to convene a national summit focusing on law enforcement and antisemitism, in The CJN.Example

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

What we talked about:

• Read more reaction from Canadian Jews and others to the news about the two children of the Bibas family’s murders last week, in The CJN.
• Read more about the Vancouver relatives of slain Nir Oz hostage Oded Lifshitz, whose body Hamas returned on Thursday, in The CJN.
• Meet the Canadians who are running, knitting and lighting candles for the hostages, on The CJN Daily.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read why “bubble legislation” is now a hot-button campaign issue for some Jewish candidates in the Ontario election, in The CJN.
• The CJN’s political columnist Josh Lieblein opines on a winter election, with Trump’s tariffs part of the campaign.
• A close race in Toronto-St. Paul's by Jonathan Rothman, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

The government archives department claims it can't release everything, because Canada received some key information after the war from an allied foreign government—who wouldn't like it published, even all these years later—and doing so could jeopardize Canada's international relations. Plus, releasing RCMP file numbers could be dangerous.

The OIC ruling suggested that B'nai Brith Canada, who has been lobbying for decades to unlock the Canada's murky wartime immigration policies, should take the case to the Federal Court of Canada. And that's just what B'nai Brith Canada has done. On Jan. 21, lawyers for the Jewish human rights group filed documents asking for a judicial review of keeping the so-called "Deschenes Report" secret.

On today's episode of The CJN Daily, we're joined by Sam Goldstein, former legal counsel to B'nai Brith Canada, and by historian and author Howard Margolian, a former war crimes investigator who thinks Canada let in relatively few hardcore Nazis back then—but wants the names released as well as their entire case files. Related links

• Read B’nai Brith’s legal application to the Federal Court for a judicial review of Ottawa’s refusal to release all the classified war criminals documents. Read the Office of the Information Commissioner’s ruling on B’nai Brith’s appeal.
• Read how Pierre Trudeau opposed prosecuting Nazi war criminals who had entered Canada–revealed in the most recent batch of 1986 Deschenes Commission war crimes documents, released by Ottawa in February 2024, in The CJN.
• Hear why B’nai Brith Canada and historian Alti Rodal continued to push for all the files and names to be released, on The CJN Daily from Oct. 2023 and from September 2024.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read the proposed Toronto District School Board antisemitism policy documents and the detailed report being presented Wednesday Feb. 12, 2025.
• Learn more about the controversy that erupted last summer over proposed anti-racism strategies at the Toronto District School Board since Oct. 7, in The CJN.
• Hear how Jewish students at Toronto District School Board schools have experienced antisemitism and anti-Israel hate after Oct. 7, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

The antisemitic incidents have shocked the local Jewish community of 1,000 families, members of which say, by and large, that most people feel relatively safe in Whitby. They're also grateful for the latest support from the mayor, town council, Durham regional police and local faith groups.

In response to the events, last week, the Town of Whitby voted to ask Ottawa to ban the Nazi swastika, also pledging to develop better internal protocols to handle future hate symbols when discovered. The town's motions have had a domino effect, and politicians in neighbouring communities are taking notice. Durham Region councillors will consider the same swastika ban on Feb. 12, while the Pickering will consider it at the end of the month.

On today's episode of The CJN Daily, we hear from Rabbi Tzali Borenstein, spiritual leader of Chabad of Durham; Whitby town councillor Chris Leahy, who brought the original motions forward; Whitby Mayor Elizabeth Roy; and professor Tessa Troughton, whose child has witnessed Nazi salutes at her local high school, including students mimicking Elon Musk.

What we talked about:

• Read the motions passed by Whitby Town Council on Monday Feb. 3, 2025 to a) support the call to ban the swastika and b) to develop a protocol to react better to cases of antisemitism when municipal staff discover it.
• Learn more about B’nai Brith Canada’s campaign to ban the display of the Nazi swastika by modifying the criminal code.
• Hear more from Durham District school trustee Emma Cunningham about antisemitism in Whitby, on The CJN Daily’s political panel, from Dec. 2024.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Related links

• Read a 2021 profile of Karina Gould when she was Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, in The CJN.
• Learn more about Karine Gould at her campaign website.
• Read what CJN political columnist says about the main candidates in the Liberal leadership race, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

What we talked about:

• Read the list of U.S. products slated for Canadian-imposed 25% import tariffs.
• Why the 2025 proposed Canadian import tariffs will be much worse for kosher food consumers than the previous 2018 trade war, in The CJN
• Learn more about ALTRA Foods.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

What we talked about:

• Read more on why Canada’s Agricultural Hall of Fame inducted Prof. Michael Eskin into the Class of 2024, for his decades of research on canola oil as a heart-healthy staple.
• Watch Prof. Michael Eskin’s rap video on lipids, on YouTube.
• Read why Eskin won the Order of Canada, in 2016.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Winnipeg's police department calls Charach a "community angel" for removing the tags, stickers, posters and slogans himself—for free—sometimes before the city's own clean-up crews can get to the scene. It's all happening since hate crimes have hit a historic high in the city after Oct. 7: in 2023, the last year with available figures, there were 46 cases of hate crimes, including 18 against Jews and five against Muslims.

On today's episode of The CJN Daily, Avrom Charach joins host Ellin Bessner to explain how this act of tikkun olam has made him an unpaid go-to graffiti buster.

What we talked about:

• Watch the Winnipeg Police news conference announcing the arrest in connection with antisemitic graffiti on Jan. 14, 2025.
• Read why Avrom Charach helped his Etz Chayim synagogue move to a bigger building, in the south end of Winnipeg, in 2024, in The CJN.
• More on the historic move from Winnipeg’s North End to the south side, where more Jews live, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

• Read more about Noah Shack’s Holocaust survivor relatives, the late Zalman and Pola Pila, of Toronto, in The CJN.
• Read Shimon Fogel’s outlook for the Jewish community, in The CJN archives. 
• Watch Shimon Fogel’s final testimony to the Canadian Senate about antisemitism, on Dec. 2, 2024. sure how? Click here)