North Star with Ellin Bessner

Cindy Seni is one of the cast members looking to find true love on the popular new Netflix series Jewish Matchmaking, which debuted on May 3. The show ranks among the streaming service’s most-watched programs in several countries, including in Canada and in Israel. But to Seni’s disappointment, you won’t hear anything on the eight episodes about her Canadian identity and upbringing—including growing up in Thornhill, Ont., and living there until she made aliyah in 2018—because the producers cut all that out. The Netflix series follows Seni, now 28, and a cast of eligible singles from all parts of the Jewish world, who have diverse connections to Judaism. They try to solve their dating problems by using the services of a professional Orthodox matchmaker, Aleeza Ben Shalom, who sets them up with one goal in mind: marriage. Seni joins The CJN Daily to dish about what it was like filming the show, how the experience has helped her love life and we ask whether she really did find her bashert. What we talked about Watch _Jewish Matchmaking _on Netflix Follow Cindy Seni on Instagram, her website and Tiktok Find The CJN in person at the Walk with Israel in Toronto on May 22 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.

Michael Kerzner is the highest-ranking Jewish member of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government. Kerzner was appointed as solicitor general last June, shortly after being elected in the York Centre riding—his first successful foray into politics—as part of the Progressive Conservatives’ sweep back to power in 2022. Now Kerzner is taking it upon himself to speak out for the Jewish community. Later today, he is scheduled to speak in the legislature about two hot-button issues: the annual Al-Quds day protest held in downtown Toronto a few weeks ago; and the anti-Israel positions held by a newly elected NDP MPP Sarah Jama, from Hamilton Centre. Kerzner calls Jama’s record of tweets and speeches antisemitic—which some members of the Jewish community also feel have been hurtful. Kerzner joins The CJN Daily to explain why he’s given Jama the silent treatment until now, but things are about to heat up as he ramps up his own personal protest against having her in the Ontario legislature. What we talked about How Michael Kerzner navigated attending the official Ontario event to mark King Charles III coronation on Shabbat, on The CJN Daily Michael Kerzner eyes run in the York Centre riding for the 2022 election, in The CJN Read political columnist Josh Lieblein’s take on Sarah Jama’s election to Queen’s Park 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.

The government of Newfoundland and Labrador will hold a news conference today, May 9, to officially announce its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. The move will be done by proclamation and unveiled at the Confederation Building in St. John’s. “We remain unwavering in our commitment to always challenge antisemitism, wherever and whenever it occurs,” said Gerry Byrne, the cabinet minister in charge of immigration, population growth and skills, in a media release. Officials say the adoption came after a request from local Jewish communities, and is being done as part of the province’s efforts to tackle racism in all its forms. With this, Canada now has seven provinces—plus the federal government—who have incorporated the IHRA definition of antisemitism as official policy. So why are reports of Jew-hatred incidents in Canada still in the thousands last year, according to a recent B’nai Brith report? Does this latest adoption mean a setback to those groups who oppose the IHRA definition, such as academics, unions, the NDP, some First Nations groups, and particularly the Independent Jewish Voices group? The CJN Daily spoke with Belle Jarniewski, a member of Canada’s delegation to IHRA, about the recent successes and where the challenges still lie. What we talked about Hear Ellin speak in Calgary on Thursday, May 11, for Jewish Heritage Month at The Military Museums at 7. p.m. Learn why Quebec supported IHRA—but Montreal did not adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism—in The CJN Read more about Hamilton adopting the IHRA definition, and Vaughan, 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.

When millions of people around the world tuned in to watch Saturday’s broadcast of the coronation ceremony of King Charles, one of them was Manitoba’s lieutenant governor, the Hon. Anita Neville. Neville felt a particular attachment to the new sovereign—and not just because her job is to represent the King in her province. Neville had, just weeks earlier, flown to London for an in person tete-a-tete with her new boss at Buckingham Palace. They talked about the environment, Indigenous Canadians and the inner workings of the coronation ceremony itself. “I think he’s going to be a very fine King,” Neville declared. Meanwhile, Ontario’s only Jewish cabinet minister, Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, found himself facing the same dilemma as other observant Jews in public office. The coronation was being held on a Saturday, and Kerzner had to keep Shabbat while attending an official ceremony in Toronto to mark the coronation. Kerzner and Neville join _The CJN Daily _to share their royal experiences. What we talked about Anita Neville is Manitoba’s new Lieutenant Governor in The CJN Michael Kerzner is elected to Ontario’s Doug Ford PC government, in June 2022, in The CJN Watch Maya Gamzu’s final performance on Canada’s Got Talent 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.

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. Now, the families are taking a new strategy. They’ve teamed up with Bygone Theatre, a theatre company in Toronto, to mount a live Wayne and Shuster stage show that opens at the University of Toronto’s Hart House Theatre May 25. It will go on a national tour, too. Audiences will get 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 join The CJN Daily, along with Rosie Shuster and the producers of the play, Emily Dix and Conor Fitzgerald. What we talked about Learn more about the new Wayne and Shuster live show and buy tickets 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 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.

A new documentary is giving viewers unprecedented access to the unconventional life of the Hon. Rosalie Abella, the first Jewish woman—and first refugee—to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. The film, Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella, had its world premiere this week at Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival. The film follows Abella, a child of Holocaust survivors, during the final months of her 17-year-long tenure on Canada’s highest court. She retired in 2021, when she turned 75. Over the years, she has been credited with seminal social-justice court rulings, paving the way for same-sex marriage in Canada; advocating for women’s workplace rights; ensuring job opportunities for minorities; and enshrining the right to strike. The film follows some of these cases while also diving into Abella’s fierce work ethic and her courage to take unpopular positions on public policy. We also see her private side, including a home and office where every surface is covered in colourful pop art, collectibles and figurines. Abella originally did not want to have a film made about her life, but her late husband Irving Abella—who died during filming—convinced his wife it would be a good idea. Abella wasn’t giving media interviews before the premiere, so we sat down with the documentary’s director, Barry Avrich, just ahead of the film’s weeklong festival run. What we talked about Watch Without Precedent at Hot Docs or online Read past coverage of Abella in the pages of The CJN here and here Learn about the late Abraham Lieff, the first Jewish judge on Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice (and CJN Daily host Ellin Bessner’s grandfather), in The CJN Vote for Maya Gamzu in Canada’s Got Talent here 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.

She’s not even 15 years old, but this Israeli immigrant to Canada is blessed with a powerful singing voice that belies her years. Now Maya Gamzu is hoping that her current success on this season’s reality TV show Canada’s Got Talent (airing on Citytv) will be her ticket to stardom. Gamzu and her family moved from Tel Aviv to Richmond Hill, Ont. four years ago. She was already performing in Hebrew back home ever since she was a toddler, but mastering the English language was a challenge she took on so that she could reach a wider audience. Although she doesn’t flaunt it, her Jewish and Israeli roots are a huge part of Maya’s identity: for her audition episode, she wore a red string bracelet around her left wrist which she had brought from the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Originally, Maya had hoped to make a connection with the lone Jewish judge on the show, Toronto-born comedian Howie Mandel. But surprisingly it was the award-winning rapper Kardinal Offishall who became her champion, and awarded the Grade 9 student at Westmount Collegiate Institute the so-called “Golden Buzzer” – which means she went straight through to the semi finals. That episode airs tonight Tuesday, May 2. Maya Gamzu and her father Sergei join The CJN Daily to take us behind the scenes of the popular show. What we talked about Watch Maya Gamzu’s audition and interview with Canada’s Got Talent on Citytv Follow her on Instagram Vote for Maya Gamzu after the episode airs, using this link 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.

When B’nai Brith released its annual antisemitism report on April 17, documenting 2,769 incidents of Jew hatred in Canada last year, we wondered why the numbers were so high. After all, the Canadian government’s own data on police-reported hate crimes against Jews accounted for a fraction of that number. In France, whose Jewish population is bigger than Canada’s, there were just 469 cases in 2022—six times lower than in Canada. And the American numbers are relatively the same as Canada’s although they have 17 times as many Jews as we do. So The CJN Daily _asked B’nai Brith’s director of the League for Human Rights, Marvin Rotrand, to help explain the numbers. As we begin Jewish Heritage Month today, on May 1—and _The CJN Daily turns two years old today—we kick off the month reflecting on these troubling statistics, asking how safe it is for Jews in Canada and what these disturbing data actually look like. What we talked about Read how the Montreal Jewish community reacted to a recent flag-burning in The CJN Why there were 2, 769 reported incidents of antisemitism in Canada last year, according to B’nai Brith’s annual audit, 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.

Hadassa Kingstone’s parents escaped Hitler’s Europe, snuck through the British blockade of Mandatory Palestine and settled in pre-State Haifa, where she was born in 1936. Her memories include hiding Haganah weapons in her father’s factory while their apartment was used as a clandestine radio station in the lead up to the 1948 War of Independence. But after serving in the first Arab-Israeli War at the Suez Canal in 1956, Kingstone left to see the world. She made it to Montreal, where she fell in love, married and remained for three decades. Along the way she encountered some of Israel’s iconic founding leaders, including Golda Meir and Menachem Begin. But the pull of her native land saw her move back to Israel in 1990, after her children had grown up. Kingstone has spent the last 30 years with a front-row seat to Israel’s more recent history, from Intifadas to Start-Up Nation to the current pro-democracy protests engulfing her homeland. On Israel’s 75th birthday, she joins The CJN Daily from Tel Aviv to share her personal journey, which closely mirrors the story of the Jewish State. What we talked about: Read how other Canadians remember their first trips to Israel in The CJN Hadassa Kingstone’s niece, Heidi Kingstone, writes her memoirs about covering the war in Afghanistan, in The CJN, from 2015 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.

What does Jeopardy co-host (and former Big Bang Theory star) Mayim Bialik have to do with Israel’s 75th birthday? Why does the winner of the Tour de France bicycle race wear a yellow jersey? What year did the Dead Sea Scrolls leave Israel and go on display in Montreal? Here’s your chance to test your own knowledge. To celebrate Israel’s 75th birthday, The CJN Daily has teamed up with David Matlow, creator of The CJN’s popular Treasure Trove column, to explore the history of Israel though his 75 carefully-curated pieces from his massive personal collection of Zionist artifacts. In fact, Matlow has just released a new book, 75 Treasures, where you’ll find all the answers. Listen to the end of today’s episode for your chance to win a hard copy of the book. What we talked about Download a free digital copy of the _75 Treasures _book via David Matlow’s website Never miss a new Treasure Trove column in The CJN Hear Mayim Bialik’s interview with Bonjour Chai 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.