North Star with Ellin Bessner

As the annual Tu B’Shevat festival takes place Monday, Feb. 6, the yearly observance—which some consider the Jewish Earth Day—was marked over the weekend by environmental events across Canada: from vegan Shabbat dinners to walks through parks. But some synagogues and sites are embracing sustainable Judaism year-round: they’ve installed solar panels on the roof, put LED lights in the sanctuary, and...

Hanina Hoffman originally didn’t want to accept the offer to write a Hollywood horror flick with a Jewish theme. But he changed his mind once he realized he could help change the way Hasidic Jews are so often portrayed on screens, big and small. He wanted to create something more sympathetic, like “ Shtisel , the horror movie”, instead of something in the vein of shows like My Unorthodox Life and...

Reena was born in 1973 because a handful of Jewish parents in Toronto wanted to keep their disabled children in the community—rather than putting them in an institution. Fifty years later, it’s the largest Jewish organization in Canada offering supportive housing for people with disabilities. But as we begin Jewish Disability, Awareness and Inclusion Month, held annually each February, officials a...

The popular Montreal comedy duo YidLife Crisis is betting that their humour could have even greater worldwide appeal if what they’re saying was more widely understood. That’s why a 2015 episode explaining how some Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve has been translated now... into Mandarin. The revamped episode was recently released on YouTube, and on a Chinese social media platform Bilibili. T...

In the wake of the damning report by Dr. Ayelet Kuper about antisemitism at the University of Toronto’s Temerty medical school, the UofT’s anti-racism office hosted a “restorative circle” for Jewish students and staff. The unusual event on Jan. 23 saw Hillel’s UofT branch meet with about 25 people, via Zoom, where participants were asked to share their experiences with antisemitism, and then work...

Winnipeg's Holocaust Education Centre is Canada's smallest, at 1,000 square feet. You could park about five cars in it, side by side. And since the pandemic, the Freeman Family Holocaust Education Centre—inside the Asper Jewish Campus—has undergone a major redesign. It now focuses on teaching the Holocaust in a more modern way: using artifacts and digital technology to tell the stories of the 1,05...

When he was 19 years old, a Slovakian Jewish teenaged slave labourer named Walter Rosenberg (later he changed his name to Rudolf Vrba) did what only five Jews ever managed to do: successfully escape from Auschwitz. But his escape in April 1944 and subsequent testimony about the mass murder of Europes Jews at the Nazi death camp had an enormous impact: it reached the Allies, the Vatican and major p...

From one of the Jewish community's longest serving rabbis, Bernard Baskin of Hamilton–whose funeral was Sunday, he Jan. 22— to the musical composer Leon Dubinsky of Nova Scotia, who died at age 81, Canada has lost many prominent community leaders in recent weeks. Many were Holocaust survivors, but others came to Canada as immigrants from Scotland and America: they were actors, judges, furniture ma...

Ronen Hoffman arrived in Ottawa to be Israel’s new ambassador to Canada in November 2021, full of big plans. But after just a year in office, Hoffman took to Twitter on Saturday night (Jan. 21) to announce he has handed in his resignation. Was he pushed? Or did he time his announcement as a salvo to Canada's Jewish community and to Israel to beware of the hard-right members of Netanyahu's coalitio...

Lisa Levitan founded the Jewish Educators Group to help Ottawa-Carleton District School Board staffers like herself cope with increasing hatred. The award-winning elementary school teacher says she receives “two or three calls or emails a day” about antisemitism directed at colleagues or students—which she immediately sends to the appropriate principal and to the school board’s team. But the respo...

Funeral services were held Jan. 17 in Montreal for 96-year-old Joseph “Jerry” Gross, one of the last surviving Canadian veterans of Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. He served with the 52nd Battalion of the Givati Brigade, along with many other young volunteers. Gross regularly organized reunions of North American machalniks—the Hebrew short form for the nearly 5,000 “volunteers from abroad” w...

Before it became the glamorous playground of rich celebrities—and before Lincoln Road Mall’s humble shops were replaced by designer boutiques—Miami Beach was a popular and affordable winter destination for low-income Jewish snowbirds, who flocked from Canada and the northern U.S. to escape the winter months to fill up the low-budget Art Deco hotels. It’s a world that’s long since disappeared. Toro...

Nike may have issued the deciding word in the long standing debate about which city makes the best bagels in the world: the footwear company’s latest sneaker is out, and it’s an ode to the honey-dipped, dense, chewy bagel made in wood-burning ovens. The beige, low-rise sneaker was released on Jan. 13 in Montreal—before the rest of the world could buy one. As far as we know, this is the first time...

Sidney Nemes hasn’t been able to take more than a long weekend off work in decades of running his family’s kosher meat business in Montreal. But this week, the owner of J&R Kosher Meat and Deli in Cavendish Mall, is relaxing in Florida for at least a month with his wife Susie, who worked alongside him. The Nemeses are recovering from their decision to close the meat factory and retail store, w...

A much-anticipated concert in London, England by singer Bracha Jaffe on Sunday, Jan. 15, has raised the ire of some of that city’s rabbis—even though it’s being billed for an audience exclusively made up of women and girls. Ticket-holders have been advised not to attend by some hardei girls’ schools and the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations umbrella group. The concert will go ahead, but it’s...

There’s something fishy about 21-year-old Jeremy Urbach, who runs  Gishmak Herring . It’s a YouTube channel dedicated to reviewing forage fish. (Gishmak means delicious in Yiddish.) It started as a joke during the pandemic. But now, two years later, the Torontonian’s funny takes on the Ashkenazi dish are reaching a new generation of fans of all flavours of Judaism and beyond. Urbach is a graduate...

Irvin Studin used to be a professional soccer player, and the policy expert, academic and think-tank head likes sporting terminology. Which means, in the aftermath of the pandemic, the nation needs to win the next game—or we risk losing Canada. That’s the premise of Studin’s new book, Canada Must Think for Itself: 10 Theses for Our Country’s Survival and Success in the 21st Century . The son of Je...

When Canada went into COVID lockdown in March 2020, the weekly newspaper version of The Canadian Jewish News also stopped publishing, shortly afterwards. Advertising dried up, as community events were all cancelled. The CJN offices were shuttered. Staff was laid off—including editor-in-chief Yoni Goldstein. But within weeks, Goldstein realized he could not let the award-winning institution simply...

Marie Levine started creating fused glass menorahs in Ottawa after discovering her synagogue’s gift shop stocked only the traditional pressed-metal designs that were made in China, or Pakistan and had been on the shelves for thirty years. Now her menorah designs, with bright colours and shapes, are on display at museums and gift shops around North America – including the Gardiner Museum in Toronto...

After an unsettling encounter with a Holocaust denier in 2021, the small, energetic Jewish community of Bowen Island, BC, decided they needed to become more visible. That meant, among other things, showcasing their culture and traditions to the rest of the island. Matthew van der Giessen had an idea. Though he isn't an artist—he's a massage therapist—he began collecting pieces of driftwood off the...

If you follow The CJN on social media, or have our coffee table book , or are subscribed to our current magazine , you've probably seen this iconic blue moose menorah. Its antlers are candle holders and a little red bird sits on its back. What you may not know is that the quirky design turned 20 this year—and in all that time, the artist who makes them has never lit a Hanukkah candle. While Hanukk...

This week, Israel’s incoming prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will announce the country’s cabinet ministers. It’s all but certain that this will comprise his coalition partners, including Bezalel Smotrich, an extreme right-wing politician who wants to take control of the entire West Bank and Gaza and opposes rights for LGBTQ people; Itamar Ben-Gvir, infamous for his anti-Arab political stances;...

Phyllis Taylor credits Oprah Winfrey with sending her to prison—in a manner of speaking. After 30 years working at a law firm in Toronto, Taylor, then in her early 60s, was let go. But she wasn't ready to retire. Her friends brought her to hear Oprah speak in Toronto in 2012; the show featured six female inmates. Taylor was inspired—and she hasn't looked back. Since then, she's taught life skills...

This past year was as politically divisive as any in recent memory, and the Jewish community—both in Canada and internationally—was not exempted from the strife. So to round up the biggest political stories of 2022 and to make their predictions for the coming year, The CJN Daily has assembled its first-ever political panel and quiz game—and you're invited to play along. Joining us are three guests...

It's the fifth edition of Honourable Menschen, The CJN Daily's recurring segment reflecting on some of the noteworthy Jewish Canadians who've passed away in recent months. As always, retired CJN reporter Ron Csillag joins the program to walk us through their accomplishments and legacies. Today, we're commemorating five remarkable lives: Cynthia Gasner, a community activist and longtime writer for...