North Star with Ellin Bessner

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence against women, and may be disturbing   to some listeners. On March 4, days before International Women’s Day, the office of the UN’s Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict released their long-awaited report on what happened to Israeli women near Gaza on Oct. 7. The report paints a gruesome picture...

It’s been more than 150 days since Hamas captured Israeli hostages on Oct. 7 and took them into Gaza. Hamas leaders claim they don’t know where all the hostages are, or even if they are all still alive. But Nir Maman, a security expert who lives in Toronto, has his theories—including his take on why the Israel Defense Forces haven’t been able to rescue them. Maman, 47, is one of the older voluntee...

Brian Mulroney didn’t meet a Jew until he left his home in Quebec to go to boarding school. Yet despite this, the Canadian prime minister, who died on Feb. 29, made fighting antisemitism and supporting Jews—and Israel—priorities during his lengthy political career. Mulroney, 84, died after a fall in the bathroom of his home in Palm Beach, Florida, friends say. He had recently been treated for pros...

On Feb. 26, Canada signalled it is done waiting for internet giants and social media companies to protect children from consuming or being victims of harmful online content. Justice minister Arif Virani introduced Bill C-63, which sets up a new Digital Safety Commission to handle these cases and impose multimillion-dollar fines on social media sites for not complying. For the Jewish community, the...

Last Thursday, Feb. 22, the school of business at McGill University in Montreal had to quickly cancel its in-person classes and switch to online learning, because anti-Israel protesters blocked access to the department’s Bronfman building, off Sherbrooke St. W. The protest was called by a campus Palestinian club and was the latest incident in an escalation of what the authors of a new study have f...

Gary Grill and Leora Shemesh want an apology from the owners of the Toronto Raptors basketball team, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. On Feb. 22, security at Scotiabank Arena asked Grill to remove his black-and-white “Free Our Hostages” sweatshirt while the two were watching the Raptors play the Brooklyn Nets at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The reason given? Because it was “political”. On prin...

On Jan. 30, a striking piece of pop-up theatre was staged near Vancouver’s art gallery. A man dressed as a Hamas militant marched a woman in a white top and grey sweatpants down the street—her hands tied together, her crotch blood-stained (with dye, not real blood). Behind them was a placard: “This is what free Palestine looks like.” It was a re-enactment of one of the most infamous videos shot on...

Insp. Paul Rinkoff was known to Jewish leaders in Toronto before Oct. 7, 2023 for his diplomatic, low-key approach to establishing good relationships between the Toronto police and the Jewish community. But since the Hamas attack on Israel last Thanksgiving, Rinkoff has been thrust into the very public spotlight–as the highest profile Jewish officer in charge of the police force’s community partne...

As hospitals in Toronto announce they are beefing up their security procedures following Monday's anti-Israel protest outside Mount Sinai Hospital, on Feb. 14 police were called to the Thornhill constituency office of Canada's deputy Conservative party leader, Melissa Lantsman. Her staff arrived to work Wednesday to find anti-Israel posters plastering her office's front windows. After more than fo...

Canada’s century-old Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto was founded in 1923 by Jewish doctors who couldn’t find work elsewhere due to antisemitic hiring policies of the day. Now, the hospital which treats patients of all faiths and employs staff from all walks of life, has become the latest flashpoint for anti-Israel protesters and their campaign of intimidation and targeting of Jewish-affiliated ins...

You may have heard the story of Adi Vital-Kaploun, the Canadian citizen who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. The 33-year-old scientist died in the safe room of her home, murdered while protecting her two sons: four-month-old Eshel and four-year-old Negev. The boys, and their father survived the massacre, as did Adi's father, Yaron Vital. But for days, no one knew if Adi was dead or take...

Two weeks ago, Canada joined the United States and other top Western donors in announcing they will suspend further funding to UNWRA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. The move comes after intelligence from Israel and other sources proved the extent to which thousands of UNWRA employees and their family members have ties to Hamas—in some cases, even being full Hamas members and t...

One of the lesser-known consequences of the horrific Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, has been the shutdown of normal life for Israelis living in northern Israel: hundreds of families who live near the border with Lebanon had to be evacuated from their homes to escape the barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah forces, which continues to this day. And that has meant the suspension of hock...

On Feb. 1, the Canadian government announced it wants to postpone until 2027 the commitment to expand medical assistance in dying (MAiD), which currently does not allow patients with mental illness to end their lives with a physician’s or nurse practitioner’s help. MAiD has been legal for terminally ill patients since 2016, and since 2021, for those with chronic illness, allowing nearly 45,000 Can...

As the rabbinic leader at Temple Sinai Congregation in Toronto, Rabbi Michael Dolgin has gotten used to speaking to a crowd. But now Dolgin and an all-Canadian cast are appearing in a new commercial about combating antisemitism that was filmed completely in Toronto in January, mainly in the Kensington Market. The ad was commissioned by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, set up in 2019 by Rober...

When the trustees of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board convene their monthly public meeting on Tuesday Jan. 30, the trustee for Zone 9, Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, will not be permitted to participate. It’s a result of the sanctions imposed on the high-profile physician, back in December, for what the board voted were breaches of their trustees’ code of conduct. In effect, the sanctions bar her...

What did Friday’s International Court of Justice ruling mean? Did Israel actually get convicted of carrying out genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza during its three-month military campaign that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7? Why did Israel’s own judge on the panel, Aharon Barak, vote against his country in some rulings? And what happens now? While the ICJ didn’t tell Israel to...

A Federal Court judge has ruled that the Trudeau government broke the Charter of Rights by invoking the Emergencies Act to stop the truckers’ convoy in 2022. In today’s encore presentation of The CJN Daily (because Ellin is still sick) we revist her interview with Benjamin Dichter, who rose to fame as a spokesperson for the Freedom Convoy that overtook Ottawa (and other parts of Canada) in 2022. S...

In one of 2023’s buzziest blockbuster films—Oppenheimer, about the real-life head of the top-secret wartime Manhattan Project—the film’s director neglected to include an important Canadian figure. A Jewish scientist from Winnipeg, Louis Slotin, was a key part of the team of groundbreaking researchers at the Los Alamos atomic laboratories. He helped build and assemble the bombs that would be droppe...

A note to listeners: I am sick in bed with the flu and have lost my voice (since Friday). Apologies, but there is no new show today. Check The CJN.ca website for the latest breaking news or catch up on episodes you might have missed-like this one, just ahead of Tu B’Shevat later this week: about how Canadian synagogues are going green. The yearly observance—which some consider the Jewish Earth Day...

Did you know the late Toronto men’s fashion retailer Harry Rosen actually paid for his first store with a bag of quarters? Or that George Cohon, the lawyer who founded McDonald’s restaurants in Central and Eastern Canada, later brought Big Macs and fries to the USSR? In the last few months, Canada’s Jewish community said goodbye to Rosen, Cohon and many other esteemed community builders. And on to...

Last week, at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Jewish State was accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a case launched by South Africa. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly both gave oddly confusing statements, in which they said Canada’s support for international law “does not mean” they support South Africa’s accusat...

Last week, the International Ice Hockey Federation—the sport's governing body—announced they were barring Israeli national teams from competing in crucial championship matches this winter. The move is seen by many as an unfair penalty against the Jewish State in the wake of the war with Hamas, in which an estimated 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, resulting from Hamas's terrorist attack on Oc...

For the first time since Oct. 7, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several Liberal Members of Parliament met with a large group of Toronto-based Canadian Jewish leaders on Jan. 10 at Beth Tzedec synagogue in Toronto. While the prime minister’s office and community guests had to keep the details secret ahead of time for security reasons, The CJN has learned what was discussed. The group pressed the...

Vancouver rabbis Dan Moskovitz and Carey Brown spent four days in Israel in December 2023 as part of a delegation of eight spiritual leaders from the city. They carried 21 duffel bags full of supplies, toured Kibbutz Be’eri and heard from survivors, met with mourners and visited the grave of Vancouver’s Ben Mizrachi, who was murdered at the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. Three months af...