North Star with Ellin Bessner

As Israel mourns its 24,213 fallen soldiers (and 4,255 civilians killed by terror) this Yom Hazikaron, Canada’s Jewish community also recently lost a war hero who fought for the State of Israel. Bill Novick of Montreal was the second-last surviving Canadian Machalnik—a nickname for volunteers from abroad—who snuck into Israel in 1948 to help the badly outnumbered Israeli military fight their War of Independence. Novick, who practised as an ear, nose and throat physician until the middle of the pandemic, died on March 23 after a brief illness. He was 99. On today’s “Honourable Menschen” epsiode of The CJN Daily, Ellin and Ron Csillag pay tribute to Novick and fellow Montrealer Jerry Gross, who also volunteered for Israel’s 1948 war; Toronto Jewish studies professor Rabbi Michael Brown; Leo Goldhar, who built Jewish projects in Toronto and Israel; and Winnipeg track star Lou “Lightning” Billinkoff, who took up racing only after suffering a heart attack at the age of 89. What we talked about Learn more about Lou Billinkoff in The CJN Read Rabbi professor Michael Brown’s obituary in The CJN Jerry Gross was one of the last Canadian Machal fighters for Israel, in The CJN Hear our extended interview with Bill Novick on _The CJN Daily _from May 2021 Leo Goldhar devoted his life to building Jewish Canada and Israel, in The CJN Find the names of all of Israel’s fallen soldiers 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.

Ofir Sofer is the first member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to visit Canada since pro-democracy protests began in Israel four months ago. Sofer spent a whirlwind day in Toronto last week, as part of a higher-profile trip to New York’s Jewish community, where his first stop was at the Chabad world headquarters. The cabinet minister is a member of Netanyahu’s coalition partner, the right-wing Religious Zionist Party, led by extremist leader Bezalel Smotrich, now also Israel’s finance minister. Sofer’s trip was his first-ever to North America, where he toured mainly Orthodox schools and Orthodox synagogues, encouraging students and staff to make Aliyah. But he also got an earful from some Canadian non-Orthodox Jewish leaders who are worried that his government will tighten eligibility for automatic Israeli citizenship under the historic Law of Return. Sofir’s visit was accompanied by a small protest outside the headquarters of the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. The CJN Daily spoke briefly with the minister, although he wasn’t giving interviews. On today’s show you’ll hear why. You’ll also hear from some of the Canadian leaders he met with, who stand on opposite sides of the current tensions in Israel: Rabbi Steven Wernick, Rabbi Elan Mazer, Rabbi Samuel Kaye, Gail Adelson from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs; and David Koschitzky. What we talked about Read more about the Canadian branch of UnXeptable, which is holding protests every Sunday in Toronto for democracy in Israel, in The CJN Why this Canadian Orthodox rabbi says we shouldn’t criticize Israel in public, on The CJN Daily Learn more about the 300 Jewish Canadians who signed an open letter published in Canadian and Israeli newspapers on The CJN Daily 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.Read transcript

An orphaned polar bear named Steve with not enough fish to eat meets a lonely electric vehicle named Eve who ran away to the North Pole to escape being bullied by gas-guzzling cars. That’s the plot of a new graphic novel for young readers by award-winning B.C. authors Paul Shore and Deborah Katz Henriquez. Launched at a book reading in March 2023, Steve and Eve Save the Planet: I Can Hear Your Heart Beep is the first offering in what the creators promise will be a series of books that tackle climate change. Shore, a trained engineer, and Katz Henriquez, a professor of nursing, hope their colourful characters and requisite gross-out jokes about herring breath and burps will entertain children—and also inspire them to take action. Paul Shore and Deborah Katz Enriquez join The CJN Daily to explain how their book promotes tikun olam, and why the message resonates with readers of all backgrounds. What we talked about Find out more about Earth Day and events in Canada this month Learn more about the authors and order the book Why more and more Canadian synagogues are going green, on The CJN Daily 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 Rosenstrasse Protest – which occurred in Berlin in 1943 just weeks before the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which we remember today – was the only demonstration by thousands of German citizens against the Nazis’ treatment of Jews during the Second World War. Eighty years ago this spring, non-Jewish German women stood their ground for a week near the Berlin headquarters of the Gestapo. They won the release of their 2,000 Jewish husbands, who had just been arrested and were slated for deportation. The roundups were part of the Nazis’ plan to make Berlin free of its remaining Jews. But nearly all the intermarried Jewish spouses later survived the Holocaust. Now, a role playing game is on sale that highlights the story of this largely unknown Rosenstrasse event. Its Canadian co-creator, Moyra Turkington of Toronto, joins The CJN Daily to showcase the historic but overlooked role which these brave non-Jewish women played in the Holocaust. What we talked about Read more about the Rosenstrasse game and order a copy Watch the national Yom ha-Shoah memorial ceremony from Ottawa Read about other Holocaust-themed games in The CJN Credit_s_ 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.

As ceremonies are held across Canada for Yom ha-Shoah, the commemoration of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, we bring you the little-known story of a Montreal father of four who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although Harry Cohen had been born in Poland, he’d immigrated to Canada in 1919 and lived for decades in Montreal with his wife and the couple’s four children. On the eve of the Second World War, in June 1939, Cohen decided to take a quick trip back to Europe – he wanted to see his sister and to inspect some of the family’s fabric factories in Opatow. But when Hitler invaded Poland after Cohen arrived, his Canadian residency documents were not enough to help him escape the fate of Europe’s Jews under Hitler’s Final Solution. Although Cohen’s family never heard from him again, and still don’t know exactly when he was killed, they’ve pieced together what happened thanks to a mysterious parcel that arrived back in Canada after the war. It contained his tallit, siddur (prayerbook) and some travellers cheques with his Montreal address on it. The sender? A Polish Christian woman who had risked everything to hide him before the Gestapo found him. Harry’s family has donated his tallit to the Montreal Holocaust Museum, where his granddaughter Ann Cohen now volunteers to take students on tours and shares the tallit’s incredible story. She joins The CJN Daily, along with the Museum’s marketing director Sarah Fogg. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

As the world prepares to mark Yom ha-Shoah on Monday night, April 17, thousands of Jewish visitors have descended on Poland for the annual March of the Living. On Tuesday morning, more than 150 Canadian students and adults—including seven Holocaust survivors—will be taking part in the large silent march between Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps near Krakow. The commemoration comes amidst a heated debate over the way the Polish government wants its own version of Holocaust history told. Since 2018, a new law has made it illegal for researchers and academics to say that Poles were collaborators with the Nazis, or that they helped hunt down, round up and murder the country’s three million Jews. According to critics—including Ottawa history professor Jan Grabowksi—Poland’s new “feel-good” narrative downplays its wartime responsibility in favour of a nationalistic fable that portrays Poles as victims who even helped the Jews. Grabowski joins The CJN Daily to explain his latest battleground against Holocaust distortion: one that’s now taking place on Wikipedia. What we talked about Read more about how Poland sued Grabowski for libel on The CJN Read Grabowski’s new study on Wikipedia’s distortion of the Holocaust Watch the 2023 March of the Living live in Poland at 8 a.m. on April 18 here Read the Yad Vashem statement on Israel and Poland’s renewal of school trips 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. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

With the yizkor memorial service fast approaching on the last day of Passover, April 13, The CJN Daily felt it appropriate to shine a light on the cemetery project undertaken by Montreal’s Jewish Genealogical Society. For years, the group’s main researchers, now led by Gary Perlman, have been lovingly cleaning, photographing and investigating nearly 80,000 people buried in Jewish cemeteries in his city and elsewhere in Quebec. A retired software developer, Perlman, who turns 67 this week, also posts this data online for posterity, so families can find out more about their ancestors. And fixes thousands of mistakes. It’s a massive project that involves graves on Mount Royal dating back to the 1800s as well as the largest cemetery, the Baron de Hirsch in Snowdon—and others include more recent burials located just outside of Montreal, including in Duvernay, Dollard and Beaconsfield. What connects them all is the shared story of the history of Jews in Canada. Some tragic stories bring Perlman to tears—and he joins The CJN Daily to describe this sacred work and share his itinerary for this spring and summer. What we talked about Find graves and research about Jewish burials in Montreal and the province of Quebec on the JGS of Montreal website Read a profile of Gary Perlman in The CJN from 2019 Research your ancestors buried anywhere in the world with the Jewish Gen Online Worldwide Online Burial Records 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. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

The CJN Daily returns Tuesday April 11, 2023 with regular programming but for today, Monday, April 10, we are offering a bonus – for subscribers only: the chance to sit down for the Great Canadian Seder, second edition, brought to you by our colleagues at The CJN podcast Bonjour Chai. Politicians and proletarians, cantors and comics, all coming together to share stories, songs, wisdom and musings from across the country. Hosts Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy were joined at their virtual seder table by: Sami Elmagrehbi Cantor Eric Moses Ellin Bessner Mindy Pollak Ralph Benmergui Rabbi Gila Caine Ophira Eisenberg David Birnbaum Rabbi Adam Stein David Bezmozgis Barbara Kay Jon Kay Jess Salamon Yael Halevi-Wise David Sklar and Ilana Zackon The Menschwarmers Marc Gold Rabbi Ilana Krygier Lapides Oro Librowicz David Abitbol 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. Support the show by subscribing to this podcast or donating to The CJN. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

As Jewish people around the world sit down for Passover seders this week, they may be using treasured ritual objects such as seder plates and wine goblets. But taking a more careful look at the tableware might reveal these items were made not by Jews, but rather in factories in industrial cities in China or India. These plants churn out orders of kippot, mezzuzot, Stars of David necklaces—and definitely the finger puppets kids use to count the 10 plagues. This outsourcing of Judaica to Southeast Asia or the Far East has become a common phenomenon, even while some independent gift store owners in Canada and around the world, try to support original Jewish artists as best as they can, while also selling the mass produced products. Does it matter where your Judaica comes from? Does it make your grandfather’s tallit or a cherished kiddush cup any less meaningful if it isn’t made by Jews? On today’s The CJN Daily, we hear from the owner of Israel’s The Judaica Centre in Thornhill, Jodi Segal, along with Judaica artist and scholar David Tzvi Kalman with the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. What we talked about Find Judaica products from Canada, Israel, China and India at Israel’s The Judaica Centre Browse David Zvi Kalman’s Haggadah products on his website Print-O-Craft Press.com Meet the Canadian inventors of the “Kosher Lamp” and other Judaica products 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. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Later this week, David and Jenny Spigelman will attend a traditional Passover seder at his parents’ Winnipeg home, along with the couple’s three young sons. Then, on Saturday, the Spigelmans will drive out to spend Easter with Jenny’s grandmother at her farm, and the boys—who are being raised Jewish—get to hunt for Easter eggs. It’s a compromise that’s taking place in many interfaith homes around the world right now. This April, both Passover and Easter (and Ramadan) fall within days of each other on the calendar. And with intermarriage rates among Canadian Jews rising in the past generation to at least 25 percent—and closer to 50 percent in Winnipeg—experts say successfully navigating the holidays this week calls for patience, conversations and celebrating the other’s traditions. David and Jenny Spigelman, who is from Manitoba’s Peguis First Nation, join The CJN Daily, along with Rabbi Aaron Levy of the Makom synagogue in Toronto where they do interfaith Sabbaths and Mimounas, with tips and advice. What we talked about Learn more about Makom’s interfaith Shabbat programs and the coming Mamouna/Iftar event April 16 on the synagogue’s website Why Winnipeg has 50% or more of its young Jews marrying non-Jews, in The CJN Listen to Bonjour Chai’s second annual Great Canadian Seder episode on 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. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.