Yehupetzville with Ralph Benmergui

S3E5 - Why is Azerbaijan suddenly so focused on promoting its Jewish community?

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 19:45:52 -0000

In recent months, the small nation of Azerbaijan has been making a big push to show off their Jews. The leader of the local Jewish community, Rabbi Zamir Isayev, has gone around the world promoting Azerbaijani-Jewish life, making his pitch to Canadians during a visit in November 2022. Here at The CJN, we've received numerous pitches and press opportunities to go on free trips to visit the country's "Mountain Jews". (We haven't taken them up on any.)

There may be grander geopolitical logic behind all this. Sandwiched in the mountainous Caucasus region between Russia and Iran, the dominantly Muslim country has emerged as an important strategic ally for Israel, who threw its support behind Azerbaijan in the last decade during Azerbaijan's ongoing conflict with Armenia. The culmination of all this has been Azerbaijan opening its first embassy in Tel Aviv in late March 2023.

To get a clearer picture about why Azerbaijan is making this push, and to understand the on-the-ground human element underscoring these international trends, we're joined by Rabbi Isayev in Baku, who paints a very glowing picture of Jewish life in his home country.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN.

S3E4 - Why Ralph left Toronto for Hamilton—and never looked back

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 19:14:53 -0000

Ralph Benmergui has been hosting Yehupetzville, The CJN's podcast about small-town Jewish life in Canada and around the world, since its debut on Mar. 17, 2021. Since then, we've virtually visited Jews from Glace Bay to North Bay, Jamaica to Jasper, Little Rock to Lethbridge and beyond.

To mark the second anniversary of his successful show, we decided not to look outward, but to turn home—and home, for Ralph, is Hamilton, Ont.

Hamilton is not a small city, nor is its community of 5,000 Jews unimpressive. But its makeup is changing. The long-overlooked industrial city is now exploding with new developments, condos and gentrification, expanding with Toronto expats and new immigrants attracted by a vibrant urban life and (relatively) affordable housing. Local Jewish organizations have been trying to capitalize on this opportunity for years now, and the results speak to how the face of the city is evolving.

On today's episode of Yehupetzville, Ralph sits down with two community leaders who've been at the forefront of Hamilton's transition: Gustavo Rymberg is the CEO of the Hamilton Jewish Federation, and Laura Wolfson leads the Federation's "Welcome Home Hamilton" initiative, which helps newcomers transition smoothly into the city.

Credits

S3E3 - Oy, what a beautiful morning: Inside Tulsa's push for new Jewish life

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 15:27:12 -0000

Oklahoma is know for lots of things—country music, Native American history, tornadoes, Black Wall Street—none of which are particularly Jewish. But if you look into Tulsa, a thriving city of 400,000 people, you'll find a vibrant surge of new developments, incredible infrastructure and an active community of 2,600 Jews. Thanks to its numerous synagogues and organizations like Tulsa Tomorrow, the city is a surprising hotbed of Jewish life.

Rabbi Lillian Kowalski joins to discuss the years she spent in Tulsa during the pandemic, what life is like for a nomadic rabbi, and how she's finding her transition north of the border to Montreal.

Credits

S3E2 - Education and adaptation: How Kingston's Jewish community keeps thriving

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 18:14:44 -0000

Kingston's Jewish community is unique in Canada, doubling in size—from approximately 1,500 year-round to 3,000—with the influx of students studying at Queen's University each year. The result is a stable patchwork. The main synagogue transitioned from Orthodox to conservative; the Reform synagogue has no building; Chabad and Hillel dominate the campus space. Meanwhile, Jewish South Africans and Israelis have moved there in droves, finding jobs around the university, an affordable cost of living and burgeoning immigrant communities.

With so much transience, what's the roadmap for growth? How do you create a stable sense of identity when half the Jewish population leaves every four years? Who chooses to stay—and why? Ralph Benmergui is joined by Richard Kizell, a lifelong Kingstonian, to learn more about this one-of-a-kind community sitting at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S3E1 - How Heidi Coleman tapped into Kamloops' Jewish community—and quickly became their leader

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 21:39:59 -0000

When Heidi Coleman moved to Kamloops from Montreal in 2012, she had to deliberately seek out its Jewish members—asking around, searching for information that was not widely available. Once she found them, however, they welcomed her warmly... and then quickly asked her to become their president.

A charismatic natural leader who is the CEO of the Royal Inland Hospital Foundation, Coleman has remained the community's president ever since, mostly because, as she says, nobody else wants to do the job. On this episode of Yehupetzville, Coleman joins to describe the beauty of their faraway Jewish enclave, the struggle of being more visible for newcomers, and how Kamloops Jews interact with their neighbours—including the Indigenous Canadians who infamously stood at ground zero of the unearthed mass graves sitting under residential schools.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E15 - Shalom, y'all: What life is like for the Jews of Little Rock, Arkansas

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 15:56:55 -0000

Canadian-born Rabbi Mark Biller has moved around a lot. But his latest adventure has taken him on his biggest leap so far: in the fall of 2021, he headed south to become the rabbi of Agudath Achim, one of a few synagogues in Arkansas, a state home to just 2,500 Jews. The community is so tight-knit that part of his job interview process was sitting down with rabbis from the local Chabad and Reform congregations for an hour to make sure they'd get along. (They did.)

In this episode of Yehupetzville, The CJN's podcast about Jews in small communities, Biller describes what he's found as striking similarities between Southerners and Canadians—politeness reigns supreme—and how local Jews interact with the overhwelming Christian majority.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E14 - This Israeli expat is making Jewish life happen in Prince Edward County

Wed, 23 Nov 2022 01:00:57 -0000

When Hadas Brajtman moved from Tel Aviv to Picton, Ont., she knew it would be challenging. But she didn't realize quite how difficult it would be. With no family or organized Jewish community to fall back on, she decided to try and make something happen herself, putting a call out to locals to join her family in their backyard for a sunny Shavuot celebration.

She expected a few people would show up—and then 50 did, mostly local Jews.

That kicked off Brajtman's new identity as a focal point of Jewish life in Prince Edward County, where the only Israelis are tourists and nearby Belleville has been struggling to keep its synagogue open during the High Holidays. With an influx of young families fleeing Toronto housing prices and a beautiful wine-country setting, Picton is one of the rare small Canadian Jewish communities that's on the rise—and doing things their own way.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E13 - 'You feel more of an obligation to assert your identity': How the Jews of Tasmania are slowly growing their community

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 14:35:45 -0000

Baltimore is more than 16,000 km away from Hobart, the biggest city on the Australian island of Tasmania. It's quite a distance—and one happily travelled by Jeff Schneider, the current president of the Hobart Hebrew Congregation, Australia's oldest synagogue.

But if you'd told a young Schneider he'd one day be president of a synagogue in Tasmania, he wouldn't have believed you. While the former penal colony island is now a pleasant home to more than half a million people, just 376 of them are Jewish, down from the community's peak of 454 in the 1850s. As Schneider learned when he moved to Tasmania and began raising a young family, the island's Jews feel obligated to practice their faith, continue their traditions and share their stories—which Schneider does here on today's episode of Yehupetzville.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E12 - Windsor's Jews have a strong pitch to grow their numbers. So why aren't more people moving there?

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 10:00:00 -0000

Mark Abraham comes from a long line of Jewish community leaders in Windsor, Ont. His grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, arrived in 1953, simultaneous to a great population boom migrating to the area for jobs in the auto industry; Mark's father became deeply involved in the local Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, acting as president and sitting on its board of directors; and his mother was president of her B'nai Brith Youth Organization chapter, among taking other roles over the years.

While past generations inform Mark of his responsibilities to the community, he's more focused on the future: specifically, getting more Jews in his native city. The Jewish population has stayed stagnant at 1,500 people for years now, but with housing prices skyrocketing elsewhere in the country—and remaining relatively affordable in Windsor—the border city faces a unique opportunity to pitch an affordable lifestyle for young families and retirees looking to flee the Greater Toronto Area.

Mark Abraham shares his family's story and explains his community's situation on this week's episode of Yehupetzville, The CJN's podcast about Jews living in small communities across Canada and the world.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E11 - Niagara Falls is losing its only synagogue—but the building's legacy lives on

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 17:07:11 -0000

Built in 1937, Niagara Falls' only synagogue—Congregation B'nai Jacob, later renamed B’nai Tikvah—has stood dormant in recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the congregants agreed to sell the building to a nearby developer, who plans to tear it down to build hotels in the near future.

But the spirit of the community is not entirely lost. Despite the shul's numbered days, its stained glass windows, installed during a renovation in the 1970s, will be relocated to a nearby cemetery as part of its Holocaust memorial. It may not attract many of the 13 million tourists who visit the Niagara Region every year, but it will remind locals, and the city's remaining Jewish population, of what stood before.

In the meantime, the community still has work to do—services, gatherings, community outreach for which they don't need a physical structure. Bob Muller, head of the congregation, joins Ralph Benmergui to share his city's story on Yehupetzville, our podcast highlighting Jews in small communities around Canada and the world.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E10 - One woman's mission to revitalize the Jewish community of Quebec City

Tue, 06 Sep 2022 18:10:00 -0000

Over the past generation, the Jewish community of Quebec City has been decimated—first by the Quebec Referendum, slowly by an outward migration of young people, and finally by COVID-19, which coincided with a loss of funds to keep any paid staff. The outlook for the couple dozen active remaining Jews looked grim.

Debbie Rootman wouldn't accept that. She moved there in September 2019, and swiftly took it upon herself to revitalize the newsletter, organize events and galvanize community members as best she could. After facing extreme challenges in the last two years, Rootman felt so inspired by a recent episode of Yehupetzville that she reached out to share her own story—and share the proud, centuries-old Jewish history of her adoptive home city.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E9 - Small-town Judaism is in danger. Here's how it can be saved

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 02:18:43 -0000

Across North America, Jews are increasingly migrating to large urban centres, abandoning smaller towns for more opportunities and a more convenient Jewish life. One rabbi is on a mission to change that.

As a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Rachel Isaacs was assigned to a one-year stint in Waterville, Maine, with one small synagogue and a handful of Hillel students at a local liberal arts college. She quickly realized that the disparate, dwindling community had a chance at surviving through innovative thinking and consolidation: bring together the students and older families to make a minyan, get Hillel kids going to local homes for Shabbat, and foster a cross-generational, non-denominational community that would inspire younger Jews to get engaged.

Today, Rabbi Isaacs is the head of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life, a university program that runs events and brings together Jews from across the Pine Tree State. She's now expanding the concept to cities across the United States, from Honolulu to Lexington. Her pitch: if you believe Judaism is not a privilege to be enjoyed exclusively by those living in the densest cities in the country, the impetus is on you to help redistribute wealth and opportunity.

Rabbi Isaacs joins Yehupetzville to share her story, describe her project and explain why small-town Jews are so often primed to become community leaders.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E8 - How a handful of Jewish doctors formed an unlikely community in Sioux Lookout, Ont.

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 15:26:07 -0000

If you've heard of Sioux Lookout, a largely First Nations town of fewer than 6,000 people in Northern Ontario, you probably wouldn't expect it to be home to any number of Jews. The rural community, nestled between clear blue lakes and verdant forests, is an attractive summer getaway—but living there full-time can be difficult.

It's that much harder to practice medicine there, with little support or infrastructure, travelling north to fly-in First Nations communities with sometimes no resident physician of their own. But these are the challenges that attract a certain kind of doctor—and, as it happens, several of them are Jewish.

After Benji Goldstein, an Israeli-born doctor, became perhaps the town's first practising Jew, Ben Langer moved next door, on a mission to help underserved communities as a rural family doctor. Together, and with a few other Jews in the area, they began baking challah, celebrating Shabbat and building an ice hanukkiah every winter, becoming an unexpected focal point of Jewish life. Both men join Yehupetzville to chat about the risks and rewards of making a life so far from home.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E7 - Meet the Jamaican Jewish leader who once took Louis Farrakhan to synagogue

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 19:22:55 -0000

Despite Jews living on the island of Jamaica for more than 200 years, the Caribbean island isn't a logical hotspot for Jewish life. Yet Jewish life has thrived over the years. One man at the centre has been Ainsley Henriques, a longtime leader of Jamaica's Jewish community—he's worn many hats, including as the Honorary Consul of Israel in Jamaica, and met with many important figure, including Louis Farrakhan, whom he once took to a Shabbat service at the synagogue in Kingston.

To share that story and others, Henriques joins to discuss Jewry in Jamaica, the future outlook and the Jewish origins of Jamaica's tradition of "Saturday soup".

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E6 - Born in Barbados, Simon Kreindler spent years chronicling the island's Jewish history

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 13:00:00 -0000

Simon Kreindler was born in Barbados, where he lived until he graduated high school. After that, it was off to Canada—he left behind the Caribbean island's few dozen Jewish families and studied medicine at McGill University. But decades later, in 2013, he felt an urge to revisit memories of his old home and his family's settlement there.

He began researching his parents' journey from Europe to Barbados, and reached out to acquaintances who shared their own family histories. Kreindler stitched these tales together into a self-published book, Peddlers All: Stories of the First Ashkenazi Jewish Settlers in Barbados, released in 2017.

Kreindler joins to discuss his research, what's left of Barbados's community and what it was like growing up Jewish under the Caribbean sun. Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E5 - 'I was not ready to move on': After schoolyard antisemitism struck Stratford, Carrie Wreford took action

Mon, 30 May 2022 18:49:42 -0000

In big cities, Jews have large organizations that can advocate on their behalf. In small towns, it's the locals themselves that need to step up. That's what happened when antisemitic incidents were recently revealed to have happened at a school in Stratford, Ont.—just one of a rash of similar incidents in Ontario schools this year.

After Carrie Wreford heard about Hitler salutes and inflammatory videos at her son's school, she wasn't satisfied by the school's reaction, which focused on this specific incident—but didn't get at the root of the problem. So she initiated class tours of a local Holocaust museum exhibit on loan from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which she hopes will educate local kids about the dangers of hatred and bigotry against all people, not just Jews.

Wreford shares her story, and describes life as one of the few Jews in Stratford, with Ralph Benmergui on Yehupetzville, The CJN's podcast about Jews in small-town Canada and beyond.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E4 - It's a lonesome life for a Jew in Western Newfoundland—and that's just how Sheina Lerman likes it

Tue, 17 May 2022 19:26:21 -0000

Sheina Lerman has moved around a lot in life, but never has she wanted to live in a big city. After moving to Newfoundland some years ago, during the pandemic, she decided to settle in Deer Lake, a town of 5,000 people—perhaps none of them Jews. She found a nice house across from a sandy beach. Life, for the most part, is quiet.

Except when it isn't. Like in 2021, when she decided to stand for the provincial New Democratic Party in the Liberal stronghold that was home to former premier Dwight Ball, who handed it over to his successor, Andrew Furey. Furey won with 2,838 votes; Lerman came in third with 107. But when you're a come-from-away Jew in small-town Newfoundland, you're no stranger to being the odd person out in a crowd.

Lerman sits down with Yehupetzville host Ralph Benmergui to chat about why she chose this quaint and coastal life, and why she believes more Jews need to leave urban centres and make their presence known across the country.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E3 - Remembering the last Jews of Maitland, Ont.

Wed, 04 May 2022 23:01:00 -0000

Elena Kingsbury grew up in Maitland, Ont., a small town of about 1,200 people—including just two Jewish families. She would hop across the St. Lawrence River into Ogdensburg, NY, where her family were members of the international Anshe Zophen synagogue, which supported congregants from nearby towns on both sides of the border.

In 2000, Kingsbury would be the last bat mitzvah in the now-closed synagogue. The 9/11 attacks made border crossings too difficult, and a declining population led to the regional exodus of many young locals—including herself. Now an education specialist at the Friends Of Simon Wiesenthal Center For Holocaust Studies in Ottawa, Kingsbury joins to recall her years growing up in the tiny riverside town, and how it shaped her conception of what it means to be Jewish.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S2E2 - The rise, fall and rebirth of FrumCity, the Orthodox migration to Innisfil that never happened

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 15:06:31 -0000

Years ago, a small group of Orthodox Jews from Toronto decided to start a new community north of the city. They chose Innisfil, a town south of Barrie; plans began to build news houses, import kosher food and leverage a nearby 80-year-old synagogue, Tent City, that's been enjoyed during summers by beach-seeking vacationing Jews for generations. They called the project "FrumCity".

It never happened. The original plan required at least 90 families to buy in—but too few were willing to take the plunge, and housing prices have only risen since then, prohibiting even more off from entering the real estate market.

A handful of Jews, however, took up the mantle, and one of them joins us today. Joseph Friedberg currently has a house being built in Innisfil and plans to move there later this year. And while he isn't yet backed by a mass migration of community support, he's hopeful that between him and a few others making the move, the dream of a simple, traditional, self-sustaining Orthodox community—more affordable and more enjoyable than renting in the big city—will still come true.

What we talked about

Learn about Tent City Shul at tentcityshul.ca
Read about the original plans for FrumCity, circa 2016, at thecjn.ca

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S1E24 - Meet the Canadian who hung up the first mezuzah in Girona's Jewish Quarter since 1492

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 19:38:53 -0000

When Leah Stoch Spokoiny moved to Girona, halfway between Barcelona and the French border, in the heart of Catalan, she finally felt at home. The smells, food and social norms connected with her immediately, even though she wound up there almost by chance.

The irony in her feeling at home is that she sticks out—not just as a Canadian, but as one of perhaps 50 Jewish residents in the city of 100,000 people. Despite Girona being the hometown of the Ramban, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, today it has barely any Jews living there, especially in its historic Jewish Quarter. That is, Until Stoch Spokoiny moved in.

Since nailing up perhaps the Jewish Quarter's first mezuzah since 1492, Stoch Spokoiny has joined the board of the city's Jewish community, planning communal events and promoting her people's history in the region. She joins Yehupetzville as the first guest in our second season, which will feature Jews living in small communities beyond Canada's shores, anywhere around the world.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S1E23 - After fleeing Toronto, this artist found inspiration in the Canadian woods—and Israel

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 18:34:42 -0000

Alan Glicksman grew up moving around the Toronto area. But even after graduating from high school, he kept moving around—he took up stints as a dishwasher, garbage collector and postal worker over a period of years that saw him bounce from affordable studio apartments in Toronto to an Israeli kibbutz to the small rural town of Flesherton, Ont.

Knowing he was sick of the pollution and chaos of the big city, he finally settled in Owen Sound and dug into his passion for painting. Now with gallery exhibits across the country, including in his hometown's acclaimed Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Glicksman has lived a unique kind of Jewish life, blending kabbalistic practice with artistic expression in snowy solitude. Except he's also lived next door to possible Nazis. (Nobody said living the small-town Jewish life was easy.)

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, watch this video.

S1E22 - Goldie Morgentaler: Keeping Yiddishkeit alive in Lethbridge

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 04:00:00 -0000

Goldie Morgentaler is a literature professor and Yiddish expert who's been active in local synagogues, engaged her university's administration on antisemitic incidents and translated into English the work of her mother, the Yiddish-language poet Chava Rosenfarb. You might assume she lives in a hub of Jewish culture—but you'd be wrong.

In 1997, Morgentaler moved from Montreal to Lethbridge, Alberta, where she teaches at the university. The city has perhaps fewer than 20 Jews left, but that hasn't stopped Morgentaler from keeping the spirit of her community alive.

Listen as she describes what life is like in a city with virtually no Jews, how she handled a prominent incident involving a Holocaust-denying colleague and how she feels about the trucker convoy blocking the border at Coutts, just an hour south of her home.

Credits

S1E21 - Welcome to Waterloo: A lot of Jewish life for not a lot of Jews

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 21:15:32 -0000

Despite there only being around 1,500 Jews in Kitchener–Waterloo, there are two synagogues—and Jacob Sivak has belonged to both. Sivak has spent 50 years living a Jewish life in Waterloo, raising children, researching its Jewish history and writing for various Jewish publications. With a campus Hillel and active Chabad house, Judaism in KW has never been more popular. It's a positive trend for a community whose shuls have had ups and downs with memberships and inconsistent rabbi tenures—but will it sustain the community in the future? Sivak joins to discuss.

Credits

S1E20 - Can North Bay's decimated Jewish community make a post-pandemic comeback?

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 22:00:00 -0000

When Belle Kizell moved to North Bay in 1973, she says, the Jewish community comprised at least 40 engaged families. Women belonged to Hadassah and kids went to Hebrew school. By 2015, they couldn't even form a minyan for the high holidays.

The story of what happened is a familiar one for listeners of this podcast: shrinking industries led to a population decline, young Jews moving away in search of big-city opportunities. But Kizell is optimistic. With remote work on the rise and North Bay's average house listing still under $300,000, southerners are flocking north in search of a more affordable, more comfortable life. Will it help the city's few remaining Jews?

Credits

S1E19 - Memories of growing up Jewish in postwar Manitoba

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 16:57:58 -0000

Prairie Sonata is a debut novel by Sandy Shefrin Rabin. Based on her own experiences growing up Jewish in Manitoba after the Second World War, the book follows a teenage girl's relationship with a recent immigrant from Prague, who teaches her Yiddish and violin.

She joins to discuss her book and personal experiences, including what parts of the book are based on her real life growing up in Winnipeg's vibrant mid-century Jewish community.

Credits

S1E18 - Kabbalat Shabbat on the beach: This is Jewish life on Bowen Island

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 16:35:36 -0000

A spiritual search was part of the reason Aryana Rayne moved to Bowen Island years ago. Judaism wasn't exactly part of that quest, but once she discovered a small Jewish community on the island of 3,600 people—mostly ad hoc gatherings, meeting in people's homes and celebrating potluck holidays, with an emphasis on the mystical side of Judaism—something clicked. She started going to seminars, reading up on her religion and becoming a lynchpin of the community.

Today, the Jews of Bowen Island have a driftwood Hanukkah menorah, a formal organizational name and a Torah scroll they purchased off eBay. Rayne joins to discuss life on the island, how she lives a Jewish life in her own way and how the future looks bright for their community.

Credits

S1E17 - Meet the 'Bagel Lady of Niagara', serving up the only true Jewish bagels south of Hamilton

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 15:21:28 -0000

From Niagara Falls to Grimsby, Port Colbourne to Port Dalhousie, you'd be hard pressed to find authentic Jewish baked goods outside of one young bakery: The Bagel Oven.

What began in the basement of a St. Catharines synagogue, and later moved to a remote building off a bumpy rural road in Beamsville, is now a fully fledged Jewish deli in Thorold South, serving up specialty challahs, deli-style cream cheese, smoked salmon and true Montreal-style bagels.

Its owners, Jessica and Steven Bretzlaff, join to tell their story of why they moved to Niagara, how they started their business, what makes the perfect bagel and how Jessica became known across the region as the "bagel lady".

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca. Learn about the Bagel Oven at thebageloven.ca.

S1E16 - The perfect storm: How one New Yorker found her way to Newfoundland—and never left

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 14:01:34 -0000

Fifteen years ago, Elizabeth Loder moved from New York to Newfoundland for what was meant to be a short meteorology assignment. Fast-forward to 2021: Loder, now married and raising three children in St. John's, is a lynchpin of the local Jewish community—a baal tefillah—while still working as meteorologist and engineer.

What has she observed as an outsider welcomed in? How has she brought her knowledge of Judaism to such a small community? How does she handle raising her children Jewishly, when they're surrounded by non-Jews? Loder answers all these questions in this deep dive into Jewish life on the Rock.

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S1E15 - The last native Yiddish speaker of Saint John reflects on the Jewish Maritime exodus

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 23:00:00 -0000

Before Robert Brym became an esteemed sociology professor at the University of Toronto, he was the only kid in Saint John, New Brunswick, whose first language was Yiddish.

Born to a religious mother and atheist socialist father, Brym had to navigate cultural and religious different Judaism while figuring out how Jews assimilated (or didn't) in a small Maritime society. From the 1970s, Saint John's Jewish population has dwindled, as Brym—and other Jewish kids from the Atlantic region—moved to bigger cities for school and work.

Brym, today one of the country's foremost experts on Canadian Jewish demographics, understands this exodus all too well, and joins to discuss his upbringing and wider Jewish demographics in small towns and beyond.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

S1E14 - Living the rural life in Uxbridge, Ont.

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 15:22:43 -0000

It had long been a dream for Charles Karstadt to own a piece of land in his life. And not just a suburban house, but a real plot of earth, where he could farm honey from bees and take hikes in the nearby woods with his partner, Shari Hirschberg.

They spent a long time looking for the right place, ultimately landing on a rural home in Uxbridge, Ont. With few public amenities and plenty of natural surroundings, it seemed perfect, even though it was far from their former Jewish community in Toronto. Then the pandemic hit—and suddenly, their decision was vindicated.

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S1E13 - The only rabbi in Vaudreuil: Why Alice Frank Patry moved from New York to suburban Quebec

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 14:53:25 -0000

After living in New York City for 10 years, Alice Frank Patry moved to Vaudreuil, a suburban town across the river from the Island of Montreal. There, married to a non-Jewish man, an hour's drive from the Jewish epicenter of Montreal, Frank Patry became ordained as a Renewal rabbi. She joins to discuss her reasons for moving, her connection to Judaism and how she celebrates her faith in a town with barely any Jews.

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S1E12 - Why Joel Axler loves being one of two Jews living in Walkerton

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 13:10:22 -0000

Many years ago, when Joel Axler first moved to Walkerton, Ont., he was sitting in a diner when a postal worker walked in and asked him a question: "Are you in the witness protection program?"

People from the big cities, she explained, don't usually move to the town of fewer than 5,000 people, which sits about halfway between Toronto and Tobermorey. Axler explained he was not being hunted by criminals—he just liked the place.

Axler spent years in show business, having co-founded the Yuk Yuk's comedy club in the 1970s. When a job opportunity presented itself in Walkerton, he found he enjoyed the simple life: no chasing invoices, pitching clients or dealing with politics. Life was affordable, nature was nearby. Why not stay?

On today's episode, Axler joins his old friend Ralph to talk about why he moved, why he stayed and what life is like as one of only two Jews in town.

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S1E11 - Take a tour of Jewish Northern Ontario

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:00:00 -0000

In October 2020, Robert Walker scratched a lifelong itch: he embarked on a road trip across Northern Ontario, from the major hubs of North Bay and Timmins to the smaller towns of Iroquois Falls, Chapleau and Wawa. Along the way, Walker—a religious Jew—sought out as many landmarks, old synagogues, store names and museum artifacts as he could find that brought to life these small, local Jewish communities. Walker joins today to share his incredible stories from that trip.

S1E10 - Reflections on the once-thriving Jewish community of Glace Bay, NS

Fri, 13 Aug 2021 12:00:00 -0000

Few Canadian Jewish communities have experienced such tumultuous changes as Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. In 1902, the coal mining town on the eastern edge of Cape Breton became the site of the first synagogue constructed in the Atlantic provinces. Over the years, Jewish workers shifted into retail and business, growing to several hundred families by the mid-20th century.

These trends held strong for decades, until the overall population of Glace Bay began to decline in the 1970s. The island's oldest synagogue closed down in 2010, and many of its Jews ended up moving away.

On today's episode, six Jews who grew up in Glace Bay join to share their memories of the once-thriving city, describe what antisemitism looked like and recall how Jewish shop owners formed a quiet alliance with striking coal miners.

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S1E9 - One British rabbi's quest to keep Regina's Judaism alive

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 13:22:03 -0000

Rabbi Jeremy Parnes left his home in England around a decade ago. He only planned on visiting Regina, Saskatchewan, for a year. But, as these things go, he wound up staying—and hasn't looked back. The Renewal rabbi took the helm of he city's Beth Jacob Synagogue, one of two local Jewish institutions (alongside the Chabad in Regina—not bad for a city whose Jewish populace sits in the hundreds).

On today's episode of Yehupetzville, Rabbi Parnes joins to share his story, explain why he stayed, describe his interfaith efforts and answer the burning question in every small Jewish community: what's the future of Regina's Jewry?

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada: learn more about them at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—you can find more great Jewish podcasts every day at thecjn.ca.

S1E8 - The deli men of remote British Columbia

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 13:11:05 -0000

British Columbia's smaller towns have a lot to offer: beautiful nature, oceanside getaways, a tranquil pace of life. But what they don't have is good deli. At least they didn't—until recently.

It's a mission that the comedy writer Howard "Buzzy" Busgang wanted to take on after leaving his Los Angeles home for Salt Spring Island, B.C. He opened Buzzy's, a Montreal-style deli, on what he likes to call "an island with more bears than Jews."

Little did Buzzy know that there was another deli man nearby: Zane Caplansky, owner of Toronto's famous Caplansky's chain, had moved to Tofino after nine years of running his shop on College Street. Caplansky isn't quite out of the business—he still has a restaurant in Toronto's airport, and sells mustards and merch online and through a few distributors—but by and large, he traded in the hectic life of a seven-day-a-week deli man for one of peacefulness in a peninsula town of fewer than 2,000 people.

The two big-city expats who moved to small-town B.C.—who've never met before—both join us today to talk about why they made their life-changing decisions and why they have no regrets.

Learn about Buzzy's at buzzys.ca
Learn about Caplansky's at caplanskys.com

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada: learn more about them at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—you can find more great Jewish podcasts every day at thecjn.ca.

S1E7 - Keeping Judaism alive in Sudbury

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 18:00:00 -0000

Growing up in Sudbury, Ont., Emily Caruso Parnell wasn't Jewish. Later in life, after she converted to Judaism and spent years away, she returned to her native Northern Ontario home in search of a meaningful, quiet life (and an affordable house). In doing so, she became one of a handful of active Jewish residents in the former mining capital, keeping the Jewish spirit alive through campus outreach, local participation, virtual events and personal connections.

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada: learn more about them at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network; you can find more great Jewish podcasts every day at thecjn.ca. You can also follow Emily on Twitter: @teachontheverge.

S1E6 - Stories from Kelowna's tight-knit Jewish community

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 18:17:25 -0000

There are only a few dozen Jews maintaing a Jewish lifestyle in Kelowna, a beautiful town surrounded by forests, lakes, orchards and mountains in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley. When a newcomer wants to join a synagogue—in pre-pandemic times, anyway—they'd get taken out for coffee or ice cream, a warmer reception than you'd see in any big city.

In this episode, two locals, Sandra Blitz and Abbey Westbury, chat about the reality of living Jewish on the ground in Kelowna, touching on the recent rift between Chabad and the JCC, how to find matzah and the surprisingly large contingent of Jews for Jesus.

S1E5 - Aviva Chernick on the warmth of London, Ont.

Wed, 19 May 2021 10:00:00 -0000

Aviva Chernick is an award-winning queer Jewish artist living in Toronto. But she didn't grow up there: Aviva hails from the relatively small but still-strong Jewish community of London, Ontario. Despite having only around 2,000 Jewish residents, London has three synagogues, vibrant programming and a tight-knit community filled with eager volunteers. Aviva chats about all these aspects, plus the stark differences between being Jewish in London and Toronto.

Related links:

Listen to Aviva's music and learn more about her at her website, avivachernick.com.
Learn what's happening in London's Jewish community at jewishlondon.ca

S1E4 - The exodus from Forest Hill

Tue, 04 May 2021 14:00:00 -0000

In Toronto's Forest Hill neighbourhood, where Ralph grew up, there's a certain expectation that Jewish kids will stay in the tight-knit community. But Ralph didn't end up doing that—and neither did his three guests, each of whom moved to small communities across the country, from B.C. to Nova Scotia. In this episode, Ralph brings on three former classmates to talk about why they left the big city and what it's like being Jewish far from their hometown. Plus: Ralph gets some negative feedback on his last episode and confronts the listener face-to-face.

S1E3 - Gavriel Strauss on How to Build a Jewish Community

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 14:50:55 -0000

Gavriel Strauss doesn't move to be near Jews: he deliberately moves to places without vibrant Jewish communities. He's made it his mission to create those spaces wherever he goes, by using music, tradition and keeping his door open to everyone. In this episode, Gavriel chats with Ralph about what it was like moving to Guelph, Ont., and later Nelson, B.C., where he currently resides.

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca. Learn more about Gavriel's work at gavrielstrauss.com.

S1E2 - Humble Howard's humble beginnings in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 16:54:20 -0000

Before he was the humbler half of the longstanding radio duo Humble and Fred, "Humble" Howard Glassman was one of a scant few Jewish kids in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Hear Howard talk about the anti-Semitism he faced, why he left and how he feels whenever he returns home.

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca. Check out Humble and Fred and support their show at humbleandfredradio.com.

S1E1 - What's it like being Jewish in Moncton?

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 20:26:25 -0000

In our debut episode, Ralph chats with three Jewish residents of Moncton, New Brunswick, about the challenges they face and the struggle to keep the community alive.

Credits:

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui, and produced and edited by Michael Fraiman. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão, and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network.

Relevant links:

Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca
Read about Moncton's synagogue, Tiferes Israel, at tiferesisrael.com