Not in Heaven

One of the hottest new Israeli shows is Chanshi , about a young Orthodox woman who travels solo to Israel, ditching her fiancé, with the sole mission of having sex with as many IDF soldiers as she can. The provocative story of self-discovery and sexual awakening screened at Sundance in January 2023 to rave reviews, and the woman who created it—the writer and star, Aleeza Chanowitz—joins the show t...

If you've ever wondered why it seems like there are more Chabad houses than Starbucks in Canadian cities, there's a reason: With their enormous menorahs and frequent sidewalk stalls, the Chabad movement easily represents the most prominent Jews in the public square. On campus, on the street, in smaller communities and online, their ubiquity is undeniable. How did they get there? Why is this small...

Over 110,000 protestors packed Tel Aviv’s city centre, in one of the country’s largest anti-government protests in the past decade. They were rallying against the newly elected, right-wing government’s proposals to overhaul the Israeli judicial system. The reforms, introduced by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, could shift a significant amount of power from the courts to the legislature and preclude...

It seems like discussions of antisemitism have devoured a larger share of the Jewish community’s mental bandwidth in recent years. It dominates the headlines in every Jewish publication, and the social media from Jewish organizations. It’s what we talk about at the dinner table, in synagogues, on the internet, when we lie down and when we rise up. On this episode of The CJN’s weekly current affair...

In the final days of 2022, Michael Marrus, an author, historian, and foremost scholar of Holocaust studies in Canada, died at age 81 . He authored eight books on Jewish history, edited a set of 15 volumes entitled Historic Articles on the Destruction of European Jews , and was a member of the Order of Canada. But the final years of his career were coloured by a comment he made to a Junior Fellow a...

Once upon a time, the swastika had no correlation to hate. It is, in fact, a millennia-old symbol of well-being and hope. It has been used—and continues to be used—by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and many other Eastern religions as a sacred symbol in homes and temples. After its image to Western eyes became tarnished in the 20th century, its origins have fallen wayside—but a recent push to keep its or...

The idea of inhabiting and playing with an identity you usually don't exhibit isn't new to Judaism, with many aspects of Jewish identity being more fluid than labels can contain. Jews can easily put on masks to pass in mainstream society, becoming less Jewish if we choose. But there are always spaces to maintain our identity, from synagogues to schools—places where we allow all aspects of our iden...

Last month, a report from the pro-Palestinian group Independent Jewish Voices came out, titled "Unveiling the Chilly Climate – The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada." Those cited in the report claim that the institutional adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, otherwise known as the IHRA definition, has had a chilling effect on...

In the aftermath of Israel's elections, the return of Benjamin Netanyahu means a far-right coalition likely placing controversial political figures Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir in positions of power. A surge of international Jewish organizations and leaders, including many in Canada, expressed grave concern with the results. On the other side, many Israelis—and Diaspora Jews—see this outcr...

With winter holidays approaching, there's only one thing everyone wants keeping them warm by candlelight on a dark winter's night: a Jewish romance novel. You may laugh, but the subgenre is huge, spanning from rabbis to regency. What's the deal? Are Jews reading this—or is it for curious gentiles? Tamar Fox, an author and editor, joins to explain the plots, the meaning and what the books actually...

In 2019, 70 Holocaust survivors joined the March of the Living trip to Poland. In 2022, that number plummeted to eight. Separately, but relevantly, Israel recently announced it would stop sending students on school trips to concentration camps in Poland, in the wake of Poland’s memory laws prohibiting educators from talking about Polish involvement in the Holocaust. The conclusion is clear: we’re...

With major elections coming up in the United States and Israel, we faraway Canadian Jews—many of whom just voted in our own municipal elections across Ontario, British Columbia and Manitoba—wanted to better understand what's on the ballot in the two countries with the highest Jewish populations on the planet. As Israel approaches its fifth election in three years, how has the landscape changed (or...

The Stanley Cup may have already been awarded this year, but an even greater cup has yet to be bestowed to a true national champion: the winner of the Great Canadian Sermon Slam. After receiving many entries and spending hours deliberating, we've selected our winner: Rabbanit Rachael Turkienicz. Rabbanit Turkienicz joins us today to discuss some of the foremost issues on her mind and on the minds...

As the hosts of Bonjour Chai sat in their temporary dwellings to celebrate Sukkot, they got to thinking about housing—specifically, affordable housing in the Jewish community, where just paying rent can be a challenge. Across Canada, as of September 2022, the average cost of rent shot up 15.4 per cent from the previous year, averaging $2,043 per month. The most expensive areas, of course, are in a...

In the last couple months, the Miami Boys Choir—a pop group comprising Orthodox Jewish kids that's been around since the 1970s—began inexplicably trending on TikTok . Since mid-August, every video uploaded has been heard more than 100,000 times; often that number is over a million, or close to it. But the reasoning behind the sudden fame is harder to discern. Are teenagers actually getting into Or...

We are smack in the middle of teshuvah season, when Jews usually focus on repentance in the lead-up to Yom Kippur. But the Hebrew root of the word comes from the idea of returning—implying that teshuvah, in fact, happens after you realize you've strayed from the path you should be on and return to where you were, or where you always wanted to go. In this way, teshuvah can be a lifelong journey. We...

As we stand on the cusp of the year 5783, we're getting ready to reflect on our own lives and actions—and the hosts of our weekly current affairs podcast Bonjour Chai thought, hey, why not do the same thing on air? Were our topics just and proper? Did our opinions prove themselves right? Will Bonjour Chai be inscribed in the Book of Life? From Indigenous issues to post-pandemic synagogue numbers,...

New York's Jews weren't surprised when The New York Times published an exposé on significant issues plaguing Hasidic schools in the state. The local Jewish community had been reporting this story for over a year, even circulating summaries to some of the schools in question, hoping for comment once they knew the mainstream story was imminent. Even outside media circles, any current or ex-Hasid kno...

It's campaign fundraising season across the country, as Jewish organizations hold banner events with big-name speakers to bring in machers and dollars for major projects. Toronto's Federation is hosting Stephen Harper and George Bush, while Vancouverites are joined by Mayim Bialik and Fran Drescher—the latter focusing on Vancouver's forthcoming JWest, a new community centre and residential complex...

Last week, we convened a panel to discuss the role and effectiveness of day schools in 2022. The response to that episode was huge and mostly positive—so we wanted to do a follow-up. Avi sits down with Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, to discuss what qualifies as success and how much social differentiation we really want. Plus, David reports on Pride Shab...

The first day of school is coming up, and when the topic came up in a recent CJN editorial meeting, we realized many CJN staffers had strong opinions about the state of Jewish education. Did the kids enjoy it? Did they get a better education than they would have in public school? Was it worth the money? And if you attended day school yourself: did you regret it? Fundamentally, we're asking what de...

Until 2017, if you were queer and Jewish and looking for someone the same, you had to settle for one of the few Jewish dating apps—or a queer one—and hoped to match with someone that was both. Joanna Halpern Zisman wanted to change that. So the Toronto-based software engineer created Yente over the Rainbow, the world's first dating site for LGBTQAI+ Jews. To celebrate the love still lingering in t...

With David on honeymoon and Ilana off camping, we're taking a break from our usual programming. Instead, with ever-more natural disasters and heat waves striking across the world this summer, we wanted to re-air an interview we did last year with acclaimed climate activist Tzeporah Berman about the intersection of Judaism and climate activism. Also, you'll hear Ilana's extended interview with the...

Mazel tov to David Sklar, co-host of our weekly current affairs podcast,  Bonjour Chai . David just got married this week—to a non-Jewish man. To celebrate their love, the Bonjour Chai team is dedicating this entire episode to the topic of interfaith marriage. We dive into both sides of the issue: those who support the expansion of Jewish life, and those who prefer to keep the boundaries of Judais...

Earlier this summer, we produced an episode on the modern ethics of kosher food . It was so popular, the following week we recorded a spiritual sequel, tackling the high cost of kosher meat . The result: the executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, Rabbi Saul Emanuel, reached out wanting to share their side of the story. Rabbi Emanuel also heads up Montreal Kosher, better kn...