Show notes:

In just a few weeks, Ruby Grinberg will be packing her red ball gown and heading to Montreal to compete in the 2024 Miss Canada competition. The 20-year-old Toronto-born political science student will vie for the tiara against 20 other young women in the venerable contest—a pageant that, when it started in the 1940s, was all about beauty and bathing suits, but these days is more about personality. Grinberg isn’t your typical pageant contestant. In fact, she actually entered the event as a bit of a lark. But she isn’t totally unqualified: she’s a world-champion public speaker, debating coach and award-winning community volunteer. She hopes to use her voice and upcoming national platform to raise awareness about cancer, a disease that has directly impacted her own family. However, Grinberg is also acutely aware that being a Jewish woman competing in a public event these days likely will open her up as a target for some ugly antisemitism post Oct. 7, which is why she’s played down that important part of her life… for now. To hear more about her strategy, Grinberg joins The CJN Daily, and later, CJN podcast producer Zac Kauffman tells the history of Connie Gail Feller, his aunt’s sister, who was the first Jewish Miss Canada in 1961.

What we talked about:

Read more about Ruby Grinberg’s efforts to win Miss Canada, and learn how to vote
Read about previous Canadian Jewish pageant contestants, from the archives of TheCJN.ca
Read about the first Jewish Miss Canada from 1962, Connie Gail Feller (Salomon).

Credits:

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

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