North Star with Ellin Bessner

This episode originally aired on The CJN's peace-building podcast, In Good Faith. To subscribe and hear more, visit thecjn.ca/faith. 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.

While host Ellin Bessner is on vacation, we're bringing you an episode from the archives of our show. This episode originally aired February 13, 2023. 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 )

This episode originally aired Oct. 15, 2024. 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 )

While host Ellin Bessner is on vacation, we're bringing you some highlights from other podcasts produced by The CJN. Today: The second episode of our interfaith miniseries, In Good Faith. 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.

Mickey Heller wasn't eager to open up about his Second World War military service. But his grandson, Aron Heller, a journalist and contributor to The CJN, was curious about his zayde's wartime past—and so, over the span of a decade, he asked questions durings phone calls, visits and emails. 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

Twenty years ago, when Ilanit-Michele Woods urged her grandmother Olga Fisch to write down her memoirs of life in Hungary before and after the Holocaust, Woods could never have imagined the journey that manuscript would make. The 75 typed pages, all in Hungarian, sat unread for decades in Montreal, long after Olga died in 2017. 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)

While host Ellin Bessner is on vacation, we're bringing you some highlights from other podcasts produced by The CJN. Today: The most recent episode of The Jewish Angle. 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

The name Hannah Senesh is a household legend for many Israelis, and also for Diaspora Jews of a certain generation–especially those who attended Jewish school. Over the years, there have been books and films and documentaries about her, and even a recent re-enactment of Senesh’s famous 1944 military commando mission when she and dozens of Jewish volunteers parachuted back into Nazi occupied Europe to try to rescue tens of thousands of imperilled Jews and also save downed Allied pilots. But Canadian journalist and author Douglas Century, of Calgary, felt there was more to discover about the brave Hungarian teenager who escaped growing antisemitism in her native Budapest at the start of the Second World War, to pursue her Zionist ideals as an illegal immigrant to British Mandate Palestine in 1939. Senesh was eventually captured by Hungarian collaborators, tortured, and despite an offer of clemency if she confessed, was executed by firing squad eighty-one years ago this week, on Nov. 7, 1944. She was only 23. Her poems and diaries were recovered after her death, and published, like Anne Frank’s. One poem, known as “Eli Eli”, is regularly sung at Holocaust remembrance ceremonies. Douglas Century joins host Ellin Bessner on today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast to explain why his new book about Hannah Senesh aims to challenge the historical record that the wartime mission was a failure. 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)

Fania Fainer’s friends risked their lives to celebrate her 20th birthday in a forced labour factory in Auschwitz, fashioning a tiny ersatz cake along with a folded paper greeting card shaped like a heart. Decades later, she was living in Toronto when she decided to donate it to the Montreal Holocaust Museum to further the cause of Holocaust education. Her origami heart was also featured in the recent Auschwitz exhibition at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. Fainer is one of the prominent members of Canada’s Jewish community who passed away recently. Just ahead of Holocaust Education Week, The CJN’s _North Star _podcast is paying tribute to her and to other community leaders as part of our recurring series, “Honourable Menschen”. On today’s episode, host Ellin Bessner is joined by The CJN’s obituary columnist, Heather Ringel, to share the stories of Fainer and: Cantor Ben Maissner, who served at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto for 40 years; Carole Grafstein, who helped found the Canadian Women Against Antisemitism group after Oct. 7 and raised millions for many charities as a member of the Toronto Glitter Girls; Montreal’s Sid Stevens, who co-founded the Sun Youth organization; and Ben Schlesinger, a child Holocaust survivor who transformed his trauma into a career in social work. 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)

Rabbi David Rotenberg got his first break performing jokes when he was 15 years old, in 1998. He had to rush out of his yeshiva’s Talmud class to get to a 7-Eleven store payphone and book the gig at the Yuk Yuk’s comedy club in his hometown of Ottawa. Over the past nearly 30 years, the Orthodox rabbi and Jewish educator chose to put his stand-up comedy career on the back burner for extended periods while he focused on his rabbinical duties and family. But he kept exercising his comedy muscles when possible, honing his material for mainly Jewish audiences, including at synagogue fundraisers. Since Oct. 7, however, the pull of the punchline proved too strong for Rabbi Rotenberg to ignore. He decided it was time to return to the comedy circuit, doing a mix of unpaid gigs and some paid slots. Rotenberg, who wears a kippah and tzitzit, describes himself as “edgy for a rabbi, but clean for a comedian,” with material that advocates for Israel, mocks antisemitism and gets his audience laughing, even with some Holocaust humour, depending on the crowd. Rabbi David Rotenberg joins host Ellin Bessner on today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast to talk about how comedy can help us process these last two turbulent years. 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)