North Star with Ellin Bessner

Montreal professor Joseph Schwarcz doesn’t actually have a medical degree, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming a popular public figure in the Canadian media landscape as a reliable face of science. Schwarcz, 76, actually has a doctorate in chemistry from McGill University, where he has been based for more than four decades. In that time, he’s hosted a long-running weekly science radio show, penned a newspaper column for the Montreal Gazette, starred in YouTube videos and written over a dozen books on making science accessible to mainstream readers. Recently, McGill held an anniversary celebration to mark Schwarcz’s 25 years as director of the university’s Office for Science and Society. To help ring in the anniversary, Dr. Joe joins _The CJN Daily _ to explain why he can’t retire while witnessing a flood of unscientific wellness advice, from celery juice to anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists. What we talked about: Learn more about Joe Schwarcz and sign up for his weekly newsletter Buy his new book, Superfoods, Silkworms and Spandex: Science and Pseudoscience in Everyday Life, from ECW Press Watch his 25th anniversary lecture at McGill, hosted by journalist Josh Freed Read our coverage of Dr. Joe in The CJN archives from 2014. 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.  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.

Hagar Brodutch, her husband Avichai and their three children are settling into their temporary home in Toronto for an extended vacation after a horrific ordeal. Hagar and the kids were among the most high-profile hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7 by Hamas and released after 51 days, during a ceasefire deal in November 2023. Many Canadians followed the Brodutch case closely because they have family living in Toronto who advocated tirelessly on their behalf with Canadian and Israeli authorities. The Brodutches lived in Kfar Aza until their kibbutz near the Gaza border was attacked by Hamas terrorists who broke into the family’s safe room. The terrorists also grabbed a three-year-old child from next door, Abigail Edan, the daughter of an American-Israeli couple who were murdered right in front of their daughter’s eyes. Avichai Brodutch was not kidnapped. He was badly wounded in a firefight and was left behind, with injuries from a rocket-propelled grenade. When he woke up in an Israeli hospital, he discovered his kibbutz had been destroyed and his family was missing. While in Canada, the family is planning to sightsee and continue its journey of healing. They’re also sharing their story with the Jewish community to thank them for their support. But they're also calling for the war to be over—now that Israel confirmed that only 80 hostages of the remaining 124 may still be alive. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, Hagar Brodutch sits down with host Ellin Bessner and Lila Sarick, The CJN’s news editor, for a frank conversation about what her life has been like since that fateful day. What we talked about: Learn more about the efforts to help release the Brodutch family, in The CJN and on The CJN Daily Why so many Canadians wrote letters to the hostages even though the Red Cross didn’t deliver them for months, on The CJN Daily Meet Avichai Brodutch at the Walk for Israel on Sunday, June 9 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.  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.

Just hours before Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 the Israeli film star Swell Ariel Or was in Canada as the guest of honour at an Israel Bonds fundraiser. The twenty-something actor was fresh off her breakout role in the Israeli historical family saga “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” which aired on Netflix in 2022. She portrayed Luna Ermoza, the fashion-designer daughter of a Sephardic Jewish family living in pre-1948 Jerusalem. The actor did a sit down interview with The CJN Daily while she was in Toronto, although neither she or we could have predicted that the world would change just hours after her Canadian appearance. Post Oct. 7., Or immediately threw herself into volunteering to help Israeli soldiers. However, recently she’s been back on set again with one of the producers of “Beauty Queen”, but it’s not Season 3. This new series will be called “Handles”–about survivors of Oct. 7. With tonight being the eve of Jerusalem Day, or Yom Yerushalayim—a national holiday in Israel celebrating the country’s recapturing of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967—we’re now bringing you this interview with Or, in which she discusses what it was like filming Beauty Queen and why she moved to Hollywood, as well as a follow-up interview conducted after the life-changing events of Oct. 7. What we talked about: Follow Swell Ariel Or’s personal Instagram account. Learn more about the actor’s Israel Reservist Fund to reimburse Israelis who flew home to fight after Oct. 7. It is no longer accepting donations. Read why Ellin’s interview with Swell Ariel Or marked a turning point in her life, in The CJN. Watch “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem” on Netflix. 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. 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.

We're taking a day off at The CJN Daily, so please enjoy this podcast from our friends at Montreal's Federation CJA, which aired last month. To subscribe to their feed, click here. In this episode of the Federation CJA 360 Podcast, host Glenn Nashen talks about using the law and the courts to fight back. Meet lawyer Neil Oberman, who is standing up for the Montreal Jewish community and helping fight against the scourge of antisemitism and Jew hatred through the courts. We’ll also hear a behind-the-scenes interview from the film One Life with director James Hawes. And we’re happy to welcome our newest reporter, Dan Laxer, to the podcast. Dan is a freelance content provider whom Montrealers know from his years at CJAD Radio, and his contributions to The Suburban and CTV. Dan will bring us a report on a heartwarming Passover seder organized by Federation CJA volunteers for the JEM workshop employees. 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. Oour theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. 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.

Yafa Sakkejha was named after the city of Jaffa, where, until 1948, her Palestinian grandparents lived and owned property and managed orange groves. Sakkejha’s mother grew up in East Jerusalem, but left the country during the First Intifada in the late 1980s. Sakkejha, who was born and raised in Toronto, feels deep pain over the devastation that has resulted from Oct. 7—not just for the Palestinian people and her own relatives still living in the war zone, but also for the Israeli victims, hostages and Canadian Jews facing antisemitism. Which is why Sakkejha is now taking an active role in an Israeli peace-building initiative called Friends of Standing Together. It’s a branch of the original organization founded in 2015 by Israelis–both Jews and Palestinians living in Israel–to work for peace, civil and human rights, and security for both sides. Since the war began, Standing Together has focused on calls to end the fighting. Yafa Sakkejha joins The CJN Daily to speak about her personal experiences since Oct. 7, and what she wants her Jewish neighbours to understand. What we talked about: Read more about Standing Together and why it is gaining popularity in Canada, in The CJN Learn more about Yafa Sakkejha on Instagram, and listen to her podcast on Spotify 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.  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.

Since Oct. 7, at least five mezuzahs have been torn off the doors of Jewish students living in residence at Queen’s University. At the University of Windsor, a law professor urged a Jewish student not to attend their class because “Zionists aren’t welcome”. And in just the last few weeks, some protesters who set up pro-Palestinian tent encampments on Canadian university campuses have celebrated Hamas’ slaughter of 1,200 people in Israeli last fall—while urging Jews to “go back to Europe”. Against this backdrop, hundreds of Jewish post-secondary students have teamed up to form a brand-new national organization, the Canadian Union of Jewish Students (CUJS). They’re raising their voices against campus hate and gathering evidence to lobby governments to do better. They’re not trying to replace Hillel or other Jewish campus clubs—but in light of the situation facing Jews at Canadian universities, they believe they can complement them by focusing solely on political action. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we hear from CUJS founder Nati Pressmann, a Toronto native who is currently studying at Queen’s University, and from several CUJS organizers: Lindsay Cogan of Winnipeg, Jacqueline Snidman-Stren and Hayley Kupinsky of Toronto, and Miranda Collard of Vancouver. What we talked about: Learn more about the Canadian Union of Jewish Students on their Instagram page Watch members of the CUJS and others testify on Parliament Hill on May 9, 2024, about antisemitism on campus, or read the transcript Why Jewish students at Canadian universities say they are hiding their identities on campus after Oct. 7, in The CJN 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.  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.

One day after the weekend targeting of Bais Chaya Mushka, a Jewish girl’s school in Toronto, by suspects who sprayed the front of building with bullets, the school’s students and their families have gone from initial shock and fear, to the determination not to be intimidated. They turned out in large numbers at a popular park to join the city’s Chabad Jewish community for a fun-filled day of balloons, clowns, archery and a parade marking the religious festival of Lag b’Omer. News of the pre-dawn shooting targeting the private Jewish school rocked the community when they learned about it after Shabbat ended late Saturday. It is the first time that Canada’s largest city has experienced a similar attack to what several Jewish schools in Montreal went through, shortly after Oct. 7. Some leaders are calling this incident a “heinous act of hate” and a “brazen and deliberate attempt to intimidate” the Jewish community. But as The CJN Daily’s Ellin Bessner found out when she attended the celebrations on Sunday, the school is finding a lot of support from the wider Jewish world, who will be present on Monday morning as the school reopens its doors. On today’s episode, you’ll hear from parent Mirel Freund daughter of Rabbi Mendel and Toby Bernstein who founded the all-girl’s school, as well as from the school principal Rabbi Yaakov Vidal. What we talked about: Read why security equipment at Bais Chaya Mushka School helped deter the suspects from causing more damage on May 25, in The CJN. Join Mizrachi Canada and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto in a rally of solidarity outside Bais Chaya Mushka School at 8:30 a.m. Monday May 27. Details here. Learn more about the Hebrew schools which Bais Chaya Mushka School founder Toby Bernstein now runs in Vaughan, Ont. in The CJN. 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. 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.

Show notes Seniors are in the spotlight this week as Canada and other countries are meeting at the United Nations to discuss ways to help the world’s billion people over the age of 60. And Dan Levitt is in the thick of it—the longtime nursing home administrator from Vancouver, who started as British Columbia’s official seniors advocate in April, flew down to New York to advocate for a binding international convention for seniors’ rights. The urgency is real: he predicts a “silver tsunami” has already started and Canada will have a full quarter of the population over the age of 65 within the next 10 to 20 years. Levitt has been in a unique spot in his provincial government. Since last month, he’s been bringing the concerns of B.C.’s million seniors and their caregivers directly to the ears of provincial politicians. And those concerns have been expansive. Canadian seniors are worried about the cost of living, housing, transportation, employment and even something that’s become his pet peeve: how so many birthday cards aimed at the silver-haired crowd are actually ageist. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, Levitt explains why he took the job and how it helps him fulfil the biblical commandments about honouring one’s parents. What we talked about: Read more about Dan Levitt, B.C.’s new seniors advocate How this 104-year-old Montreal super-senior stays engaged in life, on The CJN Daily Why Camp B’nai Brith in Montreal had trouble with a summer program for seniors, in 2020, in The CJN. 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.

The CJN Daily‘s Honourable Menschen is back, just ahead of Lag b’Omer on June 11, when tens of thousands of observant Jews traditionally make a pilgrimage to Israel’s Mt. Meron to visit the tomb of Rabbi Simeon Bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar. Ahead of the calendar anniversary, it felt important to shine a spotlight on the legacies left by these recently departed Canadian Jewish figures: Patricia “Patti” Starr, who rose to notoriety at the centre of one of Ontario’s biggest political scandals; Harry Davis, a boxer turned legendary boxing referee; Jack Prince, who caught the last boat out of Poland before the Holocaust and became a philanthropist in Israel and Canada; Alexander Eisen, a self-taught engineer and Holocaust survivor; Rabbi Dovid Schochet, who built the Chabad Lubabvitch community in Toronto; and Lita-Rose Betcherman, a women’s rights advocate and author who was told she shouldn’t pursue her PhD because she was a woman. The CJN’s retired reporter Ron Csillag joins to share his personal recollections of covering these trailblazing Canadians. What we talked about: Read more about author Lita-Rose Betcherman in The CJN Watch the video recording of Patricia Starr’s funeral Read The CJN’s obituaries of Toronto’s Chabad Lubavitch founder Rabbi Dovid Schochet, boxing referee Harry Davis, Halifax philanthropist Jack Prince, and Alexander Eisen 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.

Eitan Cohen, 13, is determined to head back to class after the Victoria Day long weekend—despite months of being bullied, taunted, threatened and assaulted by a few fellow students in his school in Toronto, in the wake of Oct. 7. It came to a head on May 17, when hundreds of neighbours and friends came to walk Eitan to Faywood Arts-Based Curriculum School. It was a show of solidarity for the boy and his family. His parents—two Israeli doctors who came to Canada for specialized training—say they initially tried to enrol their four children in private Jewish schools while they were in Canada, but eventually decided to send them to public school so the kids could to learn about Canadian diversity. But after Oct. 7, they say they have been complaining in vain to Toronto school officials—and also to Toronto police—about the atmosphere of Jew-hatred impacting both Eitan and his younger brother Hillel, who also attended the same school. Toronto’s police confirm the hate crime unit is now actively investigating one incident from last week, alongside two other investigations that remain open. The Cohens are already making plans to return to Israel and Eitan could have switched to a Jewish religious school until the end of June. But he won't quit: if he leaves now, he says, it will mean open season for bullies to ramp up antisemitic attacks on other Jewish students who attend public schools in Toronto. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, Ellin Bessner sits down at the home of Eitan and his parents, Moshe Cohen and Adi Halberthal Cohen, to find out what safety plans are in place for this week—and why they went public with their struggles. What we talked about: Learn more about the Toronto Jewish community accompanying the Cohen family to school on Friday May 17, 2024, in The CJN. Read the Fredericton police news release about an arrest being made in the beating of an Israeli teenager on April 30. Read the back story on the Fredericton family’s antisemitism problems at their daughter Shaked’s school, in The CJN. 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.