North Star with Ellin Bessner – Details, episodes & analysis

Toronto resident Maayan Shavit is set to fly to Israel on Monday to attend the funeral of her cousin Carmel Gat, one of the six Israeli hostages found executed two days ago in a Hamas tunnel under Rafah. Carmel, an occupational therapist and yoga instructor, was kidnapped while visiting her parents’ home in Kibbutz Be’eri. Terrorists also took Carmel’s brother, sister-in-law and their young daughter hostage. They then tied up their mother, 67-year-old Kinneret Gat—a teacher and tour guide—and paraded her through the kibbutz before killing her. Although the Gats are not Canadian, their fate has resonated strongly with Toronto’s Jewish community, thanks to the tireless advocacy of their cousin, who has lobbied Canadian politicians and spoken at countless rallies and public events here since Oct. 7. On this episode of The CJN Daily, we speak with Maayan Shavit just hours after she learned the tragic news about her cousin. Shavit opens up about who she feels is to blame for what she called “a loss that could have been prevented,” and why she won’t stop fighting for the others who are still being held in Gaza.

What we talked about

• Watch the vigil which was live-streamed by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto at 8 p.m. Sunday Sept. 1, 2024.
• Read more about the efforts of Maayan Shavit to keep her cousin Carmel Gat’s plight on the front pages, in The CJN.
• How Canadians with families hostage in Gaza reacted to the release of 105 hostages in November, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner) [email protected]
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

When news broke of the Jewish National Fund of Canada losing its charitable status on Aug. 10, the move meant the Canada Revenue Agency also stripped the venerable Jewish charity of its ability to issue tax receipts to donors. This poses a serious challenge to the historic Zionist fundraising organization–which received $20.2 million in donations in 2023: will supporters still want to give money to JNF Canada for environmental and resilience projects in Israel if they can no longer write the philanthropy off on their Canadian income tax forms?

Some donors are taking a wait and see approach, but want answers as to why JNF Canada admits it kept quiet for years about its problems with the federal tax auditors who warned them about "repeated and serious non-compliance" with Canadian tax rules dating back to at least 2014, and earlier. But other philanthropists say the bureaucrats didn't treate JNF Canada fairly, and they expect the charity will win both of its appeals in court: to block the suspension, and to eventually overturn it.

On today's episode of The CJN Daily, we're joined by two prominent JNF Canada donors: Jonathan Goodman of Montreal, who is raising $10 million for JNF Canada's new Climate Solutions Prize to boost "green technology", and also by Mary Ellen Herman of Toronto, who donated half the cost of an accessible playground built in southern Israel.

What we talked about

• Learn more about the accessible playground JNF Canada helped build in Kiryat Malachi with the donation by philanthropist Mary Ellen Herman and family
• Read The CJN’s previous coverage of JNF Canada’s Climate Solutions Prize launched by Montrealers Jonathan Goodman and Jeff Hart, in thecjn.ca
• Read why JNF Canada has known for nearly a decade it was at risk of losing its charitable status, in thecjn.ca.
• Why JNF Canada hasn’t yet wound down its Canadian charitable operations just yet, in thecjn.ca.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

With the synagogue’s shattered front glass windows still boarded up with plywood sheets and an emergency fundraiser underway to repair the damage, Toronto’s century-old Pride of Israel congregation opened its doors to host a large community solidarity rally on the evening of July 31. More than a dozen federal, provincial and municipal politicians, as well as a senior Toronto police inspector, spoke to the crowd of 1,500 and pledged to work harder to stop the wave of antisemitic hate that began after Oct. 7, yet has intensified in recent weeks. Just in the past few days, there have been dozens of incidents of vandalism, graffiti and arson targeting Toronto-area institutions. So it was no surprise that tensions ran high at the solidarity rally, with organizers trying to prevent pro-Palestinian protesters from disturbing the event—while also keeping guests inside from being rude to the invited politicians… with varying degrees of success. On the The CJN Daily, hear the crowd boo during the remarks by Mayor Olivia Chow and Liberal MP Ya’ara Saks, hear from an uninvited pro-Palestinian Jewish protestor, Gur Tsabar, and from others speakers—including Ontario’s Solicitor General Michael Kerzner; newly elected Conservative MP Don Stewart; Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, the prime minister’s new special advisor on antisemitism; and Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader of the federal Conservative party—who pledged their solidarity and demanded that Jewish rights be protected.

What we talked about

• Read the latest hate crime data from the Toronto Police Service, in The CJN
• Go inside the Pride of Israel solidarity rally and read Ellin's written version of the story, in The CJN.
• How worshippers discovered the Pride of Israel synagogue had been vandalized when they arrived for Sunday services on June 30, 2024, in The CJN
• Hear the controversy over Ya’ara Saks’s March 2024 photo op with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, on The CJN Daily

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner) [email protected]
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Get free emails from The CJN
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

As 2023 comes to a close, the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has sat down for a lot of year-end interviews with major Canadian journalists, and The CJN Daily has been asking for one with him, too–for months. But to no avail (we will keep trying). Canada’s Jewish community (and The CJN) have a lot of questions to ask about this government’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war since Oct. 7, including why it continues funding for UNRWA, why Canada’s initial strong support for Israel has now changed with a recent UN vote calling for a ceasefire, why it took Canada’s foreign affairs minister so long to say she believes Hamas terrorists raped and murdered Israeli women, and why CBC News continues to be permitted not to call Hamas ‘terrorists’. So we’ll ask the next best thing: our panel of experts to evaluate how well or in many cases how poorly Canada’s elected leaders have handled these big issues, especially from the Jewish community’s perspective. And we’ll get them to make their predictions for the New Year.  Ellin is joined from Toronto by Stephen Adler, a former Conservative insider now a senior director with National Public Relations; by Emma Cunningham, a former NDP riding president in Pickering, Ont. who quit her provincial party over antisemitism–she is now a trustee with the Durham District School Board but is speaking on her own behalf; and by David Birnbaum, in Montreal, a former Liberal member of the Quebec National Assembly for the riding of D’Arcy McGee, retired in 2022.

What we talked about

• Last chance to donate to The CJN for 2023, to support our work, get a tax receipt, and receive our sparkling CJN magazines 4x per year. Hear why The CJN is important to me, in this short message.

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. Our title sponsor is Metropia. 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.

The latest hate crime figures released by the Toronto police show they are at their highest level in a decade–with 147 reported hate crimes targeting Jews in Canada’s largest city to date in 2023. That’s more than double 2022’s total. Most of these have occurred since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, prompting Israel’s retaliation. Nearly 50 people have been arrested, and charged with everything from mischief to assault. There have been 111 cases of verified antisemitic graffiti this fall, compared with 27 anti-Muslim cases. Meanwhile Toronto police are coping with what the chief described as a “staggering” number of 248 protests in the past 10 weeks. These new numbers show the unprecedented spike in antisemitism facing the Jewish community in Toronto–a spike that some Holocaust survivors and others have said reminds them of 1939 all over again. Yet, despite disturbing sightings of posters with swastikas equating Israel with Nazis, and the targeting of Jewish businesses such as Indigo books, plus a terrorist bomb plot in Ottawa and Molotov cocktails thrown at Montreal Jewish schools, we’ve also seen six Canadian provinces recently announce mandatory Holocaust education in school, and in some cases, expanding it into even younger grades. So how can both things be true at the same time? Will Holocaust education need to change in order to help what’s happening right now? On today’s The CJN Daily, we speak to Nina Krieger, director of Vancouver’s Holocaust Education Centre, and to Dara Solomon, head of the Toronto Holocaust Museum.

What we talked about

• Read the hate crime statistics released Tuesday, Dec. 19, by the Toronto police chief, Myron Demkiw and Jonathan Rothman's print story in The CJN.
• Learn more about the provinces that brought in mandatory Holocaust education this year, in The CJN.
• Hear why Ontario’s education minister, Stephen Lecce, was inspired by his Italian heritage to make Holocaust education mandatory, 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. Our title sponsor is Metropia. 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.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has also been playing out in one of Canada’s smaller Jewish communities: Victoria, B.C.—where a city councillor sided with Hamas and wore a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, and where 400 Jewish students at the University of Victoria reported being spit on, and they and their Jewish professors have to run the gauntlet of anti-Israel protests on campus. Although the B.C. premier, David Eby, and other provincial politicians have thrown their support behind the Jewish community by announcing mandatory Holocaust education in Grade 10 by 2025, and have condemned antisemitism–as has the university president–the anti-Israel climate in the B.C. capital now is, as one Jewish leader put it, making Jews feel unsafe to go downtown on weekends. To learn more, we’re joined by Sharon Fitch, president of the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island, and Noa Arama, a student at UVic who is co-president of the campus Hillel club.

What we talked about

• Read more about the controversy surrounding Victoria city councillor Susan Kim, and calls for her to resign, in The CJN.
• Learn more about the situation for profs and students at the UVic, in The CJN.
• Victoria is the fastest growing Jewish community in Canada, according to the latest census figures, 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. Our title sponsor is Metropia. 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.

David Hofmann has seen it before. Hofmann, a terrorism expert and professor at the University of New Brunswick, has spent years researching extremist hate groups operating in Canada, including neo-Nazis but also homegrown Islamic terror sympathizers. He’s published widely, particularly about the case of the “Toronto 18”, a large group of mainly young Muslim men arrested in 2006 in a foiled plot to blow up several Canadian landmarks, storm Parliament, take hostages and behead then-prime minister Stephen Harper. Hofmann wasn’t directly involved in the RCMP’s arrest on Friday, Dec. 15 of an Ottawa teenager who was charged with two counts of terrorism: instructing someone to carry out an attack against Ottawa’s Jewish community, and giving them material on how to use explosive material. The teen has been held in custody all weekend and is set to appear in court today Monday Dec. 18. But while the youth’s young age means the RCMP won’t release his name or any identifying information, Hofmann believes that the kind of charges laid, plus other details, point to something involving a young Muslim man who likely became radicalized online after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. We have extensive coverage of the story, including Ellin Bessner's story in print on The CJN.ca, and also on today’s The CJN Daily, where she's joined by professor David Hofmann for his take. We also we hear from Sarah Beutel, the interim-CEO of Ottawa’s Jewish Federation.

What we talked about

• Read reaction from the Canadian Jewish community to the terror charges, in The CJN_._
• See the RCMP media release about the suspect’s arrest and charges, and the force’s concerns about online radicalization
• Read one of professor David Hofmann’s scholarly articles about the Toronto 18 and continued threats to Canadian security.

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. Our title sponsor is Metropia. 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.

It appears there’s more to the story about why Calgary’s mayor, Jyoti Gondek, abruptly cancelled her participation in the Jewish community’s 35th annual Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony on Dec. 7. Organizers of the now-infamous ceremony at City Hall acknowledge they had actually wanted the event to be an even stronger show of support for Israel, and let city officials know this in meetings during the days leading up to Hanukkah. Here were some of the original requests: let guests and dignitaries hold up posters of the Israeli hostages now captives of Hamas. Play a video of a Hebrew prayer for the hostages, called “Acheinu”. Stage a pro-Israel demonstration outside the City Hall after the candles were lit. Bring Israeli flags into the building. The city turned these down.

Rabbi Menachem Matusof of Chabad of Alberta in Calgary said his committee reluctantly agreed to follow the restrictions, although he balked at the flag veto. The city also frowned on two slogans on the publicity posters: “Support for Israel” and “Israel Bonds raffle”. The rabbi promised them the evening would be a celebration of Hanukkah, and not a demonstration.

But mayor cancelled anyway, claiming the organizers “repositioned” the traditional lighting ceremony “as an event to support Israel.” The move has been felt as a slap in the face to the Jewish community in Canada’s fourth-largest city, especially during this time of rampant antisemitism in Canada and the world.

On today’s The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner goes behind the scenes of Calgary’s chanukkiah debacle with event organizer Nelson Halpern; Rabbi Mark Glickman of Temple B’nai Tikvah and journalist Jen Gerson, who slammed the mayor for not doing her job.

What we talked about

• Watch the Calgary city council menorah-lighting ceremony, presented by Chabad of Alberta
• Why Calgary’s mayor pulled out of the official menorah ceremony, in The CJN
• Read Jen Gerson’s opinion piece on Mayor Gondek’s misstep in The Line
• Read about the anti-Israel protests in Calgary and why the police dropped hate-motivated charges against one of the leaders, 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. Our title sponsor is Metropia. 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.

Canada’s ambassador to Israel, Lisa Stadelbauer, has offered this country’s help to Israeli law enforcement teams who are now piecing together evidence of systematic sexual violence against women and girls by Hamas during and after the terrorist attack on Oct. 7. Stadelbauer officially reached out to the Israeli police, to women’s groups and the chair of Israel’s civil commission on sex crimes by Hamas. The Tel Aviv–based diplomat may have been the first Canadian ambassador to publicly declare that she believes Israeli women: she made her statement on Nov. 24, more than two weeks before Canada’s own minister of foreign affairs, Melanie Joly, tweeted the same thing on Dec. 7. The issue of feminists around the world not believing Israeli women has gained traction in the last week, while Hamas denies its militants sexually violated any Israeli victims or hostages. On today’s The CJN Daily, Lisa Stadelbauer speaks out, saying she is personally ashamed that it took her so long to realize what Israeli investigators have been telling the world.

What we talked about

• Learn more about #MeTooUnlessUrAJew on last week’s episode of Bonjour Chai
• Why a city councillor in Victoria, B.C., denied that Hamas used rape against Israeli women, in The CJN
• CJN columnist Phobe Maltz Bovy on why there is no #MeToo for the victims of Hamas rapes

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the

For the past eight weeks, Canada has welcomed at least 900 Israelis who’ve arrived looking for a temporary respite from the rockets and warfare in the Middle East. While many stayed only briefly and have already returned home, some are giving up on Israel after Oct. 7, hoping to make the move permanent. They are all enormously grateful for the support they’ve received from the Jewish communities in the form of housing, schooling, mental health counselling and even recreation programs at JCCs. But, as you’ll hear on today’s episode of The CJN Daily, they’ve also been shocked by the wave of antisemitism crashing across the country. Host Ellin Bessner speaks with Maya Tobin Gonen, now staying in Ottawa, whose family survived the attack on their moshav on the Gaza border by hiding for 11 hours in a shelter; Maya Trajtenberg Madar, who left Tel Aviv with her four-month-old baby boy and two older sons to spend the fall in Toronto; and Gabi and Galit Uzan, who initially fled Ashkelon for northern Israel and are now trying to put down roots in Canada.

What we talked about

• Learn more about Yair Shpiler’s Jewnity Sports project to bring Israeli orphans to North America for a basketball holiday in January 2024
• Read how JIAS is helping Israelis coming to stay temporarily (or longer) in Toronto
• A tribute to Vancouver’s Ben Mizrachi, killed at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 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. Our title sponsor is Metropia. 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.