North Star with Ellin Bessner

Boris Brott, who was killed this week at 78, was an iconic Canadian violinist, composer and conductor who tried to make people fall in love with classical music by making it accessible. He brought energy and levity to his performances like few of his contemporaries could. The sudden news of Brott’s death has left his fans, colleagues and students in shock, while tributes and messages have been pouring from from around the world for the internationally acclaimed star who studied with Leonard Bernstein, founded several orchestras and played for two popes. To commemorate Brott, we're joined by a few artistic collaborators who knew him well: Gideon Zelermyer is a classical tenor turned cantor in Montreal; Deborah Corber is the chair of the board of the Orchestre classique de Montréal; and violinist Janna Sailor, after working as Brott's apprentice, now leads an all-female orchestra in Vancouver. What we talked about: Learn about Brott's planned tribute symphony to Ukraine Read Brott's obituary at thecjn.ca Learn more about Janna Sailor at jannasailor.com and Gideon Zelermyer at shaarhashomayim.org Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

Last week, after a fiasco at the Academy Awards resulted in Will Smith assaulting Chris Rock with a slap heard around the world, Rabbi Joshua Corber prepared a special sermon for his congregation at Beit Rayim in Toronto. He revealed that he, like Jada Pinkett Smith and 147 million more people around the world, suffers from alopecia—the autoimmune disorder that causes missing patches of hair and often results in baldness. Rabbi Corber ended up posting the text of his sermon to his Facebook page, where more than a hundred people have commented and reacted to his honesty. He says he didn't go public with this news for attention or sympathy, but rather to use it as a teaching moment, to discourage body shaming and direct Jews to passages in the Torah that deal with lashon hara, or malicious speech. Rabbi Corber joins to unpack these thoughts and talk about his own experiences with alopecia. What we talked about: Read Rabbi Corber's post on Facebook Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

This week, delivery trucks will be rolling out across Canada, driving thousands of boxes of kosher-for-Passover groceries, meals and seder items to people in need across the country. In Montreal, the MADA Community Center is delivering 2,000 Passover food baskets and 8,000 ready-made meals; Jewish Family Service Calgary has prepared 55 packages; Vancouver is sending nearly 600 parcels, plus 400 seders-in-a-box; and in Toronto, at least 3,000 boxes are heading to Jews in need, thanks to the local Federation and the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada. In every city, local agencies are seeing sharp rises in the number of food boxes required to keep up with demand. On average, since the pandemic, there's been a 20-percent increase in donations. How are these non-profits handling the surge? We're joined by Romy Pilarski, a volunteer in Toronto, and Shelly Feldman and Eva Karpati of the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada. What we talked about: Donate to the MADA Passover food campaign in Montreal Learn more about the NCJWC's Toronto Passover Food Drive Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

Every year, starting as early as February, Jeff Dobro calls supermarkets around Toronto for months leading up to Passover. His question? Whether or not they have a special kind of Coca-Cola in stock—the kind that's kosher for Passover. While normal Coke is made with high-fructose corn syrup, Passover Coke is made with cane sugar, as many observant Jews are not allowed to consume corn-based products during the holiday. Many Coke drinkers—including non-Jews—prefer it, because it tastes sweeter, they say. The Passover varietal also brings about a sense of nostalgia for the good old days, back when Coca-Cola was made with real sugar, before cheap corn lured the drink-maker to cut costs in the mid-1980s. On today's episode, we learn how Coca-Cola's bottling plant sanitizes its line to product the kosher product, what the origins are and how Jeff Dobro feels about this must-have addition to his seder table. What we talked about: Find the Kosher Chef on Facebook Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

When Stacey Leavitt-Wright, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, booked a vacation to Israel, she had no idea she'd end up in the middle of the worst terror spree the country has seen since 2009. But that's exactly what happened. In the last month, 11 Israelis have been killed in three separate attacks that occurred in Beersheba, Hadera and Bnei Brak. They struck just as Israel's government welcomed Arab foreign ministers to a milestone peace summit in the Negev desert—and also shortly before the start of Ramadan. Questions are now being asked about the efficacy of Israel's intelligence system and the connection some gunmen have to ISIS. Now, as police and army patrols continue hunting down collaborators and restricting border crossings, Israeli streets are quieter than usual. To understand what life is like on the ground, we'll hear from two Canadians in the Holy Land: Stacey Leavitt-Wright and Adir Krafman, a former spokesperson for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, who has left the organization and moved to Israel. What we talked about: Watch Stacey Leavitt-Wright's dispatches from Israel on Jewish Edmonton's Instagram page Read about the terror spree at the BBC Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

For legions of mahjong players, this is the most exciting time of year. In the next week or two, the new 2022 version of the official card rules will be arriving from the National Mah Jongg League headquarters in the United States. For untold numbers of mahjong fans—including many Jewish Canadians—the new card poses new challenges, but also brings uncertainty. The COVID pandemic has severely impacted how people played the game these last two years —if they could play at all. To chat about what mahjong lovers can expect, we're joined by Shirley Hanick, a majhong teacher and collector from Toronto; Carol Seidman, her friend and fellow collector; and Aviva Reinitz, who teaches the game in Montreal and Florida. What we talked about: Learn about the National Mah Jongg League at nationalmahjonggleague.org Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

Every night this week, Daniel Kollek hasn't been at the ER at his usual hospital in Burlington, Ont. Instead, he's been working in wartorn Ukraine, driving between two different clinics near the Polish border for 12-hour overnight shifts. A member of the non-profit Canadian Medical Assistance Teams, the 64-year-old doctor is one of more than a dozen medical volunteers treating exhausted Ukrainian refugees, arriving by the busload after long journeys spent without medicine or access to proper health care. When the refugees arrive, they are met by a pop-up clinic the Canadians built from wooden fruit crates and a mattress on the floor. Kollek joins today to describe what he’s seen, the parallels between the current crisis and Holocaust, and why he took the time to say some prayers at the Belzec death camp, where 600,000 Polish Jews were murdered. What we talked about: Learn about Canadian Medical Assistance Teams at cmat.ca Click here to find out more about the campaign to find Bernie Grempel Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

It’s estimated that about 50 women currently play hockey in Israel—at any level. There are no professional women's leagues. But despite these challenges, last summer, Esther Silver decided to try to get a national women's team together. The Toronto native used to play goalie in amateur games before moving to the Holy Land. She organized tryouts, and the Canadian embassy came through with financial support for some of the equipment. Last week, the fledgling national team arrived in Belgrade, Serbia, to lace up for a three-day tournament against other European countries. Israel scored just a single goal in the entire round robin, compared with 21 goals they allowed. But the team hopes their international debut will serve them well in their next challenge: competing in this summer's Maccabiah Games. To talk about their struggles and successes, we're joined by manager Esther Silver, 16-year-old centre Pnina Basov and team captain Chen Kotler. What we talked about: See the game schedule and results here on the IIHF website Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

Julia Koschitzky was an internationally recognized philanthropist and community leader in Canada. She died of cancer on March 21 at the age of 78. Koschitzky has been described as Jewish royalty, a giant of activism and philanthropy. She spent many years as a leader with Toronto’s United Israel Appeal, raising money in annual campaigns to pay for community services such as schools, summer camps, libraries and Meals on Wheels for Holocaust survivors. In the 1990s, she helped raise US$100 million dollars from Canadian donors alone to help fly hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to new lives in Israel. Messages of condolence and appreciation came flooding in after her passing, including from the president of Israel, Issac Herzog, and also Nachman Shai, Israel's minister of diaspora affairs. On today's episode of The CJN Daily, you'll hear stories of her life and accomplishments from six people who knew her well, including Gerald Sheff, a Toronto businessman and philanthropist; Daniel Held, a longtime executive director of The Julia and Henry Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Education; Linda Frum, a former senator and the board chair of the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto; a grandson, Yaniv Koschitzky; and two of her four children, Jonathan and Sarena. What we talked about: Read her obituary at thecjn.ca Watch her funeral on YouTube Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

Sonia Bazar, an artist and poet, is reaching out to any Jewish Canadians whose relatives are buried in the historic Back River Jewish cemetery in Montreal. She's looking for people whose fascinating stories were buried along with their bodies, in hopes that more Jews will visit the beautifully macabre landmark. During the pandemic, in search of outdoor inspiration, Sonia Bazar decided to visit Montreal's Back River cemetery, a historic Jewish site in the city's east end. The souls resting in Back River date back 130 years, to the first waves of Jewish immigrants who arrived from Eastern Europe. Bazar looked into some of the 6,000 Jewish people who are buried in the Back River site—including her own relatives, who endured hardships and tragedy Bazar had never heard about before. It is the final resting place for generations of Montreal families who escaped Russian pogroms and the First World War, who helped the city's Jewish community grow and flourish. She transformed those stories into a new self-published book of poems and photos called Pathways, launching March 23 at a live event hosted by the Museum of Jewish Montreal. For a sneak preview and insight into her artistic process, Bazar joins The CJN Daily on the day of her book's debut. What we talked about: You can reach Bazar with stories by visiting soniabazar.net Read the full obituary for Juila Koschitzsky at thecjn.ca Find out more about Sonia Bazar’s new book and the launch at the Jewish Museum of Montreal Buy Pathways at blurb.com Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden 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 learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.