On Oct. 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas terror attack on Israel, Fred Hahn—the president of Ontario’s chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)—wrote a tweet on his social media account: “I’m thankful for the power of workers, the power of resistance around the globe. Because #Resistance is fruitful and no matter what some might say, #Resistance brings progress, and for that, I’m thankful.” It was a controversial post, due to the timing, though Hahn denies he was referring to Oct. 7—even though the longtime labour leader has a history of pro-Palestinian activism, and CUPE Ontario has long come under fire for years for harbouring antisemitic sentiments. For Carrie Silverberg, it was the last straw. The Vaughan, Ont. woman–who is a CUPE member as required by her job in a public school board–decided to take Hahn, and the union to court. The education worker is the lead plaintiff in a human rights complaint filed with Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal. Her case was also joined by nearly 80 other union members. For years, Silverberg has fought to change her union’s anti-Israel policies; it makes her sick that CUPE uses her mandatory membership dues to support anti-Israel boycotts, calls to renew UNRWA funding, and standing with the recent encampments on university grounds. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, Carrie Silverberg joins to explain why she’s in for a long legal fight. What we talked about: Read more about CUPE Ontario’s adoption of a pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy in 2006, in The CJNLearn about the time a CUPE local at the University of Toronto hosted a speaker who had been ordered to be deported from Canada because of his ties to the PFLP terrorist organization, in The CJNCUPE members supported and participated in the U of T encampment in May, 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

On July 19, the International Court of Justice in The Hague demanded Israel leave the disputed territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, after occupying them since 1967. The UN’s high court also instructed Israel to repay Palestinian residents an untold sum for taking natural resources, segregating the Palestinians, forcing Palestinian families to flee their homes due to settler violence, transferring Israeli Jews into the area illegally and unlawfully turning what was once a legal postwar military occupation into a de-facto civilian annexation full of settlements. The ruling was the first time the UN’s highest court has ruled on the legality of Israel’s control of the area, which it captured 57 years ago from Jordan, during the Six-Day War. Israel immediately rejected the court’s non-binding ruling, asking how Jews could be occupying land that historically belong to the Jewish people. The Canadian government officially “took note” of the ruling but has said nothing further. So today, we ask: Is the ICJ declaration a game-changer for the Palestinian cause? Or is it, as some of the dissenting judges and critics have said, just another one-sided, politically motivated attack by the UN on Israel while the Jewish state fights for its survival against Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other nearby enemies? On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we unpack the latest ICJ findings with two guests: Ben Murane, the executive director of the New Israel Fund of Canada, and Arsen Ostrovsky, who just wrapped a week of meetings in Canada as the CEO of the International Legal Forum, an Israeli-based NGO that uses courts to defend Israel around the world. What we talked about: Read the International Court of Justice advisory opinionLearn more about the International Legal Forum and the New Israel Fund of CanadaHear what the January 2024 ICJ ruling on Israel’s war in Gaza means, from human rights lawyer Tamara Kronis, 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Fredericton's annual LGBTQ pride parade wound its way through the New Brunswick capital on July 21—with the Fredericton Palestine Solidarity group leading the event as grand marshals. The march went ahead despite the mayor and provincial lieutenant-governor pulling out due to the event's distinctly political tone. Local Jewish leaders and groups, meanwhile, tried to keep the parade apolitical and convince sponsors to boycott it. The parade has become the latest anti-Zionist flashpoint in Fredericton since Oct. 7, after at least three hate crimes against Jews have occurred in the past few months. A synagogue was vandalized before a Holocaust remembrance event; an Israeli high school girl was badly beaten by a Muslim classmate, with charges pending; and, most recently, a large rock was thrown through the apartment windows of an Israeli man studying at the University of New Brunswick. And so, on today's episode of The CJN Daily, we ask: What's going on in Fredericton? To hear some answers, we're joined by Ayten Kranat, a leader of the city's Sgoolai Israel congregation, and by the Israeli UNB student who was targeted because he displayed his Israeli flag in the window of his off-campus apartment. What we talked about: Why Pride events in Fredericton and Newfoundland became the centre of controversy after organizers chose to appoint Palestinian community groups as parade marshalls, in The CJN.Fredericton police arrest a high school student after Israel classmate attacked and beaten, in The CJN.How the wider community turned out in solidarity after Fredericton synagogue vandalized, 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Six months have passed since the president of Harvard University was forced to resign after she refused to sanction pro-Palestinian protesters. Claudine Gay was one of several university leaders who came under fire at a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., last December during an investigation into how America’s Ivy League schools were failing their Jewish students and staff. In January, Harvard appointed a presidential task force to study antisemitism, and named professor Derek Penslar as co-chair. Penslar is a prominent Canadian scholar of Jewish history who runs Harvard’s Jewish studies centre. Just a few weeks ago, the task force issued an interim report, saying it couldn’t wait until the fall because they’d found a “dire” situation facing Harvard’s Israeli students, including derision and social exclusion. Harvard faculty and teaching assistants were also reportedly discriminating against and harassing pro-Israel students. On Tuesday, the report was publicly slammed by 28 Republican lawmakers as weak and a “re-inventing of the wheel”, while some Harvard Jewish students and leaders are upset the antisemitism group is committed to working closely with Harvard’s other task force currently studying anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias. Derek Penslar joins The CJN Daily from Toronto to respond to the criticism, and explain why he nearly quit in the face of allegations he wasn’t Zionist enough to do the job. What we talked about: Read the Harvard Presidential Task Force on Combatting Antisemitism’s preliminary report, and read the interim report from the Task Force on Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab bias, both published on June 26, 2024. Read the letter from 28 Republican members of Congress slamming Harvard’s antisemitism task force’s findings, and released to the interim Harvard president on July 16. Read why Derek Penslar thought anti-Zionism was not a big problem for university campuses back in 2014, in the CJN archives. **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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

The head of Windsor’s Jewish community, Stephen Cheifetz, is calling in the big guns to fight back “significantly” against the University of Windsor, which agreed last week to accept a list of demands by its pro-Palestinian tent encampment protesters. In exchange, the protesters agreed to take down their two-month-old tent city peacefully. The July 11 deal is being described by Jewish groups and even by the Windsor encampment students themselves as the most far-reaching victory to date by campus protesters in Canada. It covers a request to divest from any Israel-related investments, to boycott Israeli universities, bring in more Palestinian students and scholars in light of what the UN deems a “scholasticide” when Israel bombed Palestinian schools where Hamas operatives were thought to be hiding. While the university itself insists it isn’t taking sides in the current Middle East conflict, school officials agreed to condemn what it terms “the illegal occupation of Palestine” and called for an immediate ceasefire. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we unpack the deal with law school graduate Sydney Greenspoon, as well as lawyer and former UWindsor law professor Stephen Cheifetz, who is now head of the Windsor Jewish Federation. What we talked about: Read the July 11, 2024 agreement between the University of Windsor and its pro-Palestinian encampment protesters, as well as the second agreement made with the UWSA, the student council. Learn why The University of Windsor has a history of anti-Israel activity, in this 2015 article in The CJN archives.Read The CJN story about the deal signed in May between Ontario Tech University and its encampment students, which agreed to bring in more Palestinian students to study and to publish any investments in military firms that are involved in the violence in Gaza. **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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

On the weekend, the IDF announced its forces had targeted a zone in the Khan Younis area of Gaza where the senior Hamas mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack had been hiding. Initial reports said the attack aimed to take out Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ military chief. International condemnation was quick to blame Israel for dozens of civilians killed in the bomb blast. And while official Israeli channels endeavoured put their spin on the important military operation, a group of civilian Jewish public-relations whizzes were in a Tel Aviv studio going live with their own English-language briefings and social media posts. It’s a job Eylon Levy used to do after Oct. 7 as official international media spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Levy’s earnest and calm handling of Israel’s p.r. war made him a celebrity, especially his expressive dark eyebrows that became famous in their own right on social media. But after six months into the war, the British-born former journalist was unceremoniously fired. The reasons are complicated. Levy pivoted, and assembled a team of p.r. pros to continue fighting the crucial information war for Israel. He’s come to Canada to drum up support for this new venture. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, Eylon Levy joins to explain why the Israeli government’s in house public relations efforts to date have failed to counter the lies and propaganda from the Iran-backed Hamas organization, creating a situation which he believes has driven a wedge between Canada and the Jewish State, and also between Canadians and their non-Jewish neighbours. What we talked about: Learn more about the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office, Elon Levy’s new private public relations work for Israel and the Jewish people.Learn how to donate via JGive to the New Israeli Discourse and Citizen Spokespersons’ Office. Follow their daily briefing Sunday to Thursday at 8 a.m. ET. **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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

At the end of June, a queer artist group's craft market was scheduled to celebrate Pride Month in Saskatoon with an event called Cheers for Queers. The organizers declared support for Palestine, later laying down an umbrella ban on Zionists. Jews could come, they said—just not Zionist ones. That's when a local parent recalled an interview they'd heard on this very podcast stream, aired exclusively to subscribers of The CJN Daily, in which a Montreal-based lawyer discussed ways to combat antisemitism. Now other parents have joined her to form a new grassroots organization to draw newfound attention to the myriad problems faced by Jews in their Prairie city since Oct. 7—including a disturbing antisemitic drawing made on the blackboard of a Saskatoon public high school classroom. The activists join_The CJN Daily_ to explain how they successfully got the anti-Zionist market moved, for now, how a little divine intervention worked in their favour, and what they hope to do next. What we talked about: Read the 2SLGBTQ organization's statement about why it opposes Zionism and IsraelLearn more about the Jewish community of Saskatoon expanding its community centre during the pandemic and renovating the Agudas Israel synagogue on The CJN Daily from June 2023To hear the episode that inspired these women, and catch more bonus content aired exclusively for subscribers, subscribe for free to The CJN Daily (and search for the bonus episode on June 3, 2024) 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. 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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

A few days ago, Israeli Knesset member Sharren Haskel, who was born in Canada, made headlines when she said her 88-year-old grandmother, who lives outside of Paris, had been badly beaten by two Arab suspects who noticed the visibly Jewish elderly woman wearing a Star of David necklace. The alleged attack is part of a series of antisemitic violence against French Jews that has sprung up since Oct. 7—and spiked even higher in the run-up to the recent French election. Over the weekend, early ballot results proved a surge in popularity for the federal far-right party with Holocaust-denial roots, led by Marine Le Pen, but also tallied the shocking victory of a hastily assembled leftist coalition whose leader has sided with Palestinians, engaged in antisemitic tropes and downplayed the antisemitism problem sweeping France. Haskel posted on social media that France has abandoned its responsibility to protect Jews, and argues it's time for her grandmother—and other Diaspora Jews—to move to Israel for their own safety. The Israeli politician warns that these same antisemitic currents in France are also at play here in Canada, and brought her message directly to this country's lawmakers and Jewish leaders during a recent trip to Toronto and Ottawa, sponsored by the Exigent Foundation. Haskel joined The CJN Daily's Ellin Bessner to explain why she thinks Canada is seeing the growing influence of the forces of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, and why Canada's pro-Palestinian stance on the war—including support for UNRWA—is like "a knife in the back" that "will cost Israeli lives." What we talked about: Read Haskel’s article in a French newspaper from July 3 about how France is failing to protect its Jews from radical IslamLearn why Haskel’s IDF military service during the Second Intifada coloured her views of possible peace with Palestinians, in The CJN from 2017, and read other Sharren Haskel coverage in The CJN archivesFollow Haskel on Instagram **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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Montreal-area Liberal MP Anthony Housefather said he is grateful to have been officially appointed on Friday July 5 as a special advisor to the Prime Minister and cabinet on relations with Canada's Jewish community, and on antisemitism. Housefather's new title also comes with a budget for travel, and to hire one extra staffer to help with the pile of files he is already working on, in the wake of unprecedented antisemitism which erupted in Canada since Oct. 7. Housefather isn't taking over the job currently held by Deborah Lyons, Canada's Special Envoy on combatting antisemitism and promoting Holocaust remembrance–but will continue working closely with her office, as he has been doing for the past three months. However, now the new title gives Housefather "an added level of respect", as he put it, when he knocks on the doors of politicians, university presidents and the police. In late March, Housefather said he was deeply unsure whether to remain in the Liberal party following a motion in Parliament on the Israel-Hamas war that all but three Liberals supported, which initially proposed Canada unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state. But after a tete-a-tete with Justin Trudeau resulted in an offer of a new role helping Ottawa tackle antisemitism, Housefather chose to remain in government. He joins The CJN Daily to explain why the announcement took 13 weeks, what he can do about campus encampments, the controversial new Canadian Human Rights Commissioner Birju Dattani, and keeping Jewish schools and synagogues safer from protests and attacks. What we talked about: Read the official announcement from the Prime Minister’s Office on July 5, 2024 appointing Anthony Housefather as Special Advisor on Jewish Community Relations and AntisemitismWhy Anthony Housefather was thinking about quitting the Liberal Party over its stance on Israel-Gaza in March 2024, in The CJNHear our interview with Anthony Housefather from April 8, when he outlined what his new role would likely be, 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

An estimated 500 people turned out on Sunday, June 23, to march through the streets of Kitchener, Ont., carrying Israeli flags and raising funds to help victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent war. The number might not sound like a lot, but to organizer Jeff Budd—whose family has sponsored this Walk for Israel for generations, and who expected maybe 150 people might turn up—it was astounding. The turnout was especially noteworthy against a backdrop of rampant antisemitism and anti-Zionism that's washed across the country. The region has been no exception: Kitchener's Beth Jacob synagogue was vandalized last month, and the University of Waterloo has been struggling with a vibrant pro-Palestinian encampment for the past six weeks. But the unexpected show of solidarity, including neighbours applauding from their porches, galvanized the city's small Jewish community of 2,400 people. Budd joins The CJN Daily with Rabbi Moshe Goldman of Chabad of Waterloo to explain how the walk came together and why they're feeling optimistic about Jewish allyship in Canada . What we talked about: Learn more about the recent Walk for Israel held in Kitchener and see their donation pageRead about a white supremacist convicted of hate threats against a Kitchener rabbi and lawyer, in 2018, in The CJNHear Ellin on The Globe and Mail's The Decibel podcast, speaking about how Canadian Jews have been impacted by antisemitism since Oct. 7 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.  We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. D

Birju Dattani is a Canadian human rights lawyer who worked in the Yukon and his home province of Alberta before being catapulted into the highest-profile human rights job in the country a few weeks ago. In mid-June, Canada’s justice minster announced Dattani’s appointment for a five-year term as chief commissioner at the federal human rights watchdog. But the ink was hardly dry on the Order-in-Council before disturbing allegations began surfacing about some anti-Israel social media posts and lectures he made a decade ago while a university student in England. Jewish groups and other researchers discovered he’d shared a panel with a virulent Islamic terrorist, protested outside the Israeli embassy and once shared an article that compared Israelis to Nazis. Now the federal justice Minister Arif Virani has launched an investigation—although he isn’t rescinding the job offer, despite calls to do so from CIJA, B’nai Brith, Canadian Friends of Simon Wiesenthal and the federal Conservatives. Dattani denies he is antisemitic, saying he didn’t do the things he is accused of, has apologized if the revelations caused harm to the Jewish community, and is confident he will be vindicated. But as we’ll hear on today’s episode of The CJN Daily, at least one prominent Jewish outfit has a hard message for Dattani: “Apology not accepted.” Shimon Koffler Fogel, the CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, joins from Ottawa to explain his position. What we talked about: Hear Michael Geist discuss his concerns about the new Online Harms law and the changes to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the powers it will give to the CHRC, on The CJN Daily.Read Birju Dattani’s official statement on his LinkedIn page distancing himself from the allegations, denying them, and expressing confidence he will be vindicated.Learn more about the changes to the Canadian Human Rights Act as part of Bill C-63, introduced in the spring of 2024, in The CJN.Read the order in council appointing Birju Dattani to the new position, on the Government of Canada’s website. 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. 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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Canada Day is usually a holiday of patriotism and pride. But this year, nine months after Oct. 7 sparked new waves of antisemitism across the country, many Jewish Canadians continue to feel isolated, vulnerable and anxious. It seems like every few weeks, a new synagogue is attacked or vandalized; Jewish and Israeli children are being routinely bullied; open supporters of Israel can find themselves doxxed online, their businesses boycotted or alienated from their industries. To reflect on what’s changed, _The CJN Daily _gathered together some of the country’s leading intellectuals and newsmakers on a panel about the state of Jewish life in Canada. Their message: yes, life feels difficult. But don’t give up just yet. Joining the show today are Selina Robinson, an independent MLA in the British Columbia legislature who was ousted from the NDP caucus because of the Middle East conflict; David Weinfeld, a Canadian professor of Jewish history and former CJN contributor now living in Philadelphia; Artur Wilczynski, Canada’s former ambassador to Norway, just appointed the new antisemitism advisor to the University of Ottawa, now living in the nation’s capital; and Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, the spiritual leader of Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom in Montreal. Hear our guests on past episodes of The CJN Daily: Selina Robinson explains why she quit the B.C. NDP over its poor handling of antisemitismWhat Artur Wilczynski thought after Canadian lawmakers gave a standing ovation to an elderly visitor who turned out to be a Nazi war criminalDavid Weinfeld contributed to this book edited by David Koffman on why Canada remains the best place in the Diaspora for Jews 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. 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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Author Robert Rotenberg never imagined that his newest police crime novel, written against the backdrop of European fascism, would come out at the same time that far-right political leaders are sweeping into office across the continent. Nor did he plan that What We Buried would be published in the aftermath of one of the most embarrassing moments in recent Canadian history, when lawmakers from all parties stood in the House of Commons last fall to give a standing ovation to an elderly guest who, it turned out, had been a former Nazi soldier. The incident shone a spotlight on Canada’s troubled legacy of unapologetically allowing thousands of former enemy soldiers into the country, legally, after the Second World War. Rotenberg’s newest novel, his seventh, is a departure from his trademark police procedural material based on real-life Toronto headlines. Instead, this story has a more international scope. It revolves around a true Nazi war crime that took place 80 years ago this month in Gubbio, a small hilltop town in Italy, where the Germans massacred 40 innocent civilians on June 22, 1944. Rotenberg joins The CJN Daily to talk about why he’s hoping the book resonates with readers in Canada, where Jewish groups have long felt the country’s never really come clean about its dark legacy of allowing Nazi soldiers to make new lives here. What we talked about: Read more about Robert Rotenberg’s book What We Buried and buy itWatch the video recording of Ellin interviewing Robert Rotenberg live onstage at the University of Toronto’s Innis Hall, on the occasion of his book launchRead reviews of Rotenberg’s other books in The CJN archives from 2012, and on The CJN Daily from 2022 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Like the Taylor Swift song about her ex-boyfriend, El Al airlines is likely “never, ever, getting back together” with Canada, at least not in the form of direct non-stop El Al flights with the Star of David logo on its planes. Two years ago on June 21, 2022 the Israeli carrier announced it was shuttering direct service to Toronto. After 40 years of service to Canada, the Toronto office was closed, 30 employees were laid off. The Toronto airport infrastructure was abandoned. But El Al’s new senior vice president for the Americas, Simon Newton-Smith, isn’t completely abandoning the Canadian market, which he calls “a huge contributor to our overall sales”. He wants to figure out why El Al couldn’t make money here despite flights being full, at least before the COVID pandemic ravaged international air travel. Newton-Smith came to Toronto recently, on June 5, for his first Canadian visit since being appointed to the new job, which was, luckily or unluckily for him, right after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Needless to say, he started work just as the war in Gaza combined with the tensions on Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah to decimate foreign tourism to Israel. El Al, though, has reported record profits so far this year–as other international airlines stopped flying, including Air Canada. Now, as the summer travel season gets into high gear, Simon Newton-Smith joins The CJN Daily to share his plans for El Al’s Canadian operations. What we talked about: Read more about El Al closing its Canadian operations in 2022, in The CJN. Hear the people on the last El Al flight leaving Toronto on Oct 27, 2022 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

An Ontario court judge is expected to rule as early as this week on whether the seven-week-old pro-Palestinian tent city at the University of Toronto will be allowed to remain, or whether it must be dismantled immediately—with police help, if necessary. Lawyers for the university were in court last week arguing the encampment is illegal and has done irreparable harm to UofT’s international reputation, while also violating the rights of Jewish and pro-Israel students and staff. Lawyers for the student protestors countered in court that their right to free speech and free assembly trumps any concerns the school may have. The Toronto encampment is one of about a half-dozen still up on Canadian university campuses since a wave of pro-Palestinian tent cities began in the United States in April. McGill’s was the first in Canada—and it’s still operating after two failed appeals to courts. Waterloo just issued a trespass notice on Friday, while five other schools have cleared theirs, usually with police help: York University, UQAM, the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta. Ontario Tech University in Oshawa was the first and only Canadian post-secondary institution to date to agree to the students’ demands, and saw the tents come down peacefully. The CJN’s Jonathan Rothman has been covering the UofT encampment since it went up, writing numerous pieces for us and conducting interviews inside. He joins _The CJN Daily _to describe what the tent city is like and predict what might happen next. What we talked about: Read more about Jewish groups intervening in the UofT encampment injunction court case, in The CJNFind out more about the criminal charges laid by Toronto police connected to the UofT encampment, in The CJNRead the University of Toronto’s legal application to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for a permanent injunction, and read all the legal briefs on the website of the law firm of Lenczner Slaght 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Rising, the new children’s book by award-winning Canadian author Sidura Ludwig, tells the story of a Jewish child and their mother preparing homemade challah bread for Shabbat. Ludwig wrote the story four years ago, during the pandemic lockdown, when she found solace in the weekly ritual of challah-making during those uncertain times. Now, releasing in a post-Oct. 7 world, Ludwig realizes the activity can serve a similar purpose: baking challah by hand has become a touchstone of hope for many people dealing with grief, despair and anxiety about worldwide antisemitism. An estimated 30,000 copies of Ludwig’s 40-page book, illustrated by Sophia Vincent Guy, are making their way this month into the homes of many young Jewish families, courtesy of the free PJ Library program. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner visited Ludwig in her home in Thornhill, Ont., to learn more and get personal about what challah means for each of them. What we talked about: Read more about author, Sidura Ludwig at her websiteFind out more about the new book _Rising _and where to buy itLearn how to get free Jewish themed books for your children and grandchildren from the PJ Library in your area. PJ Library members can get a free one-year subscription to The CJN Magazine 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. 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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

It’s been more than two weeks since an unknown suspect set fire to the front doors of Vancouver’s Schara Tzedeck synagogue on May 30, while people were inside attending a late-night meeting. A passerby saw the flames and called it in, while a shul member used his jacket to douse the flames. No one was hurt, but the incident left one of the building’s ornate silver doors blackened—and the community shaken. Vancouver police tasked the Major Crimes Unit to investigate, but to date have not released any updates. Schara Tzedeck was the eighth Canadian synagogue targeted by violent attacks since Oct. 7—but not the last. Another attack targeted the glass windows at Beth Jacob in Kitchener on June 7. A week later in London, Ont., on June 14, someone threw a rock through a glass door of the Beth Tefilah Synagogue. While politicians in B.C. made a point to attend Shabbat services after the Vancouver attack, Schara Tzedeck’s rabbi has a message for them: in his words, when you permit hate speech against Jews to go unchecked, and when you gloss over chants at university encampments that glorify Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, don’t be surprised when hateful or ignorant people take it a step further. On The CJN Daily, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt tells us what’s happened since the attack—and why the damaged spot has not been fixed. What we talked about: Read about the initial attack on Vancouver’s Schara Tzedeck synagogue in The CJNCheck out the London Police Service news release on Beth Tefilah’s window being smashed on June 14, 2024Watch Grand Chief Lynda Prince of British Columbia express solidarity with the Vancouver synagogue, on behalf of the Indigenous Embassy in Jerusalem, during a site visit after the arson incident 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. 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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Since Oct. 8, Hezbollah—the Iranian-backed Shia militia in southern Lebanon—has launched thousands of rockets into northern Israeli communities, including Metula and Kiryat Shmona, which for decades have been financially supported by Canada's Jewish community. But Israeli air strikes that killed a senior Hezbollah commander last week have escalated the situation. Hezbollah militants subsequently launched more rockets in a single day than at any point so far during the Israel-Hamas war. Yet there have only been 28 casualties, including 18 IDF soldiers, because for the past eight months, the border towns have sat largely empty. After Oct. 7, an estimated 60,000 Israeli residents fled or were ordered to evacuate their homes. Whole communities are now living scattered across Israel in hotels and other temporary accommodations. While the world has focused on southern Israel and Gaza, residents of the north wonder if they will ever be able to return home, and many feel an all-out war with Hezbollah is needed in order to make it safe. On today's episode of The CJN Daily, we hear from locals Meytal Novidomsky of Metula, whose Canadian husband coaches at one of Israel's most successful hockey schools; Sarah Mali, director of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA office in Israel; and philanthropist Barbara Crook, from Ottawa, chair of the Partnership2Gether twinning program between northern Israel and six Canadian Jewish communities. What we talked about: Hear how displaced Israeli teenage hockey players came to Canada this year for a break from the war, on The CJN DailyFollow the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA website for updates to see where they've allocated emergency funds to dateRead more about Partnership2Gether, a fundraising program that partners with five northern Israeli communities 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. 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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Alexandria Fanjoy Silver enjoys being a proud and loud advocate for Toronto's Jewish community, even though she only became an "official" Jew in 2009. Her parents brought her up as a member of the Anglican Church; yet, while growing up, she always felt an "obsession" and a pull towards Judaism. And so, as a university student in 2007, after visiting to the Nazi death camps in Poland, she decided to go through the conversion process. (There wouldn't be a Jewish man in her personal life until several years later.) Tonight, as Jews around the world mark the annual harvest festival of Shavuot, the theme of conversion is part of synagogue observances: the Book of Ruth is read, which tells the Bible story of a non-Jewish widow who chose to remain part her late husband's Jewish family, and is widely considered the religion's first recorded "convert". While it is usually not considered good manners to ask a convert why they converted, Alexandria Fanjoy Silver agreed to join The CJN Daily to share her journey and explain what it's been like to live as a Jew—especially now, after Oct. 7, when her choice directly impacts her non-Jewish family members. What we talked about: Read Alexandria Fanjoy Silver’s PhD thesis on whether the March of the Living is good or bad for participantsFollow Alexandria Fanjoy Silver’s regular columns in the Times of IsraelMake her Seven Heaven’s challah for Shavuot and learn about the traditional Sephardic recipe 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. 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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.

Ellin Bessner, host of The CJN Daily _podcast, was admittedly nervous ahead of Sunday’s 55th annual Walk with Israel, held by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. For weeks, pro-Palestinian protest groups in the city had been threatening to disrupt the important Jewish solidarity march—the first one since the deadly Hamas attack on Oct. 7. It was stunning watching the record turnout of an estimated 50,000 people—and also seeing the massive police presence that kept a lid on trouble. But by the time Bessner and her family completed the nearly five-kilometre walk on June 9, her anxiety over the Middle Eastern war and rampant domestic antisemitism fell to the wayside and joy took over, even if only for a short time. On today’s special feature episode of _The CJN Daily, Ellin invites listeners to join her on the walk and meet some of the people she met along the way: Israeli visitors Rami and Vered Gold, who survived the Hamas massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri; Michael Gilmore of Kehillat Shaarei Torah, the Toronto synagogue targeted by two recent hate crime attacks; Dave Fingrut, a public school teacher in Millbrook, Ontario; Noah Shack, UJA’s head of combating antisemitism, and others. Plus, you’ll hear directly from some of the pro-Palestinian protestors when Ellin asks them why they came. What we talked about: Learn more about Kibbutz Be’eri survivors Rami and Vered Gold, who are touring Canada to raise awareness and funds to rebuild their communityRead news editor Lila Sark’s account of the Walk for Israel in The CJNLearn more about the Brodutch family who attended the walk: four were held hostage in Gaza for 51 days, 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.  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. Hear why The CJN is important to me.