The CJN Magazine: Passover 2024

As we gather with family and loved ones around the Seder table to celebrate the eternal and unyielding strength of the Jewish People, we pay tribute to those Israelis who are being kept away from their Seders, their families, and their lives.

Here at home, Jewish Canadians are facing extraordinary challenges. Now more than ever, for the sake of our collective future, we must work together to confront them.

Head to www.cija.ca/4morequestions to include Canadian Jewish Advocacy as par t of your Seder.

Canadian. Jewish. Advocacy.

We hope that spring brings hope for peace and better days ahead

For more information: Nomi Yeshua, JFC Executive Director

nomiy@jerusalemfoundation.ca / 416 922 0000

www.jerusalemfoundation.org

Contributors

Avi Finegold (p 10) founded the Jewish Living Lab in his native Montreal, and launched the Bonjour Chai podcast on The CJN Podcast Network in March 2021 He recently relocated to Deer field, Illinois, with his wife Rabba Rachel Kohl Finegold and their three daughters, which gives him plenty of time to formulate contrarian rabbinical views while driving around the suburbs of Chicago

Phoebe Maltz Bovy (p 60) is the co-host of Bonjour Chai, and also the Feminine Chaos podcast with Kat Rosenfield, making her the newest Canadian citizen dedicated to talking about the culture wars. A contributing columnist for the Globe and Mail along with her role at The CJN, she’s writing a book on female heterosexuality published by Signal, an imprint of Random House Canada

Jonathan Rothman (p.50) is a multidisciplinary kibbitzer who might also be The CJN’s first staff news reporter to speak Brazilian Portuguese He has written for Spacing, Exclaim! and Now Magazine, reported for CBC Radio, worked as an editor for Yahoo! and was a creative events producer at The Walrus all the while aspiring to spend more time in tropical and Mediterranean locales

With the generous support of our donors, The CJN can continue to provide quality Jewish journalism at no cost to our community. Give

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Greetings from our new CEO: Michael Weisdorf

sAthe vibrant hues of spring unfurl around us, I’m reminded of new beginnings and the promise of optimism this season brings With it, we embrace the oppor tunit y to embark on new journeys, both personally and professionally. It is also a time for reflection as the Jewish communit y comes together to celebrate Pas sover.

This pas t winter, t wo dec ade s into my profe s sional c areer, I joined The C anadian Jewish News with a mix of emotions . On one hand, I felt exhilaration upon joining a public ation that I remembered reading weekly at my grandparent s’ house. Yet, on the other hand, I was joining The CJN at a time when antisemitism reached a new peak in my lifetime

Jewish voice s have been silenced acros s C anada amid hateful and violent prote s t s Modern media and me s s aging platforms allow inflammator y, one - sided, and hateful rhetoric to reach a wider audience than ever before It was through this lens that I realized the increased impor tance of an outlet dedic ated to the prac tice of ethic al journalism combined with the promise of greater connec tion

those who haven’t previously connected with The CJN

You can help us get a head star t by sharing this is sue with your family and friends, and sug gest they visit thecjn ca to read breaking news stories, sign up for free digital newslet ters, and subscribe to the eclectic shows of fered through The CJN Podcast Network

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Origin stories

The essence of Passover is recounting our history. Or is it?

Trauma myopia It’s a term I encountered recently in the New York Times, in an ar ticle about alliances and tensions between Jewish and African- American activists The journalist, Daniel Bergner, interviewed a young non-Jewish activist named Nicole Car t y, who spoke about “a Jewish propensit y for 'trauma myopia'.”

“I’ve been to a lot of Passover celebrations,” she told Bergner, “and it’s so weird that the story is only of Jewish subjugation, even though subjugation is still so present for other people ” She went on: “Black people still haven’t had their histories honored. We are still gaslit about the impact of slavery and the continued impacts of white supremacy ”

This highlighted a tension that has existed in Jewish thought for quite a while: How much of Judaism is rooted in par ticularism in the notion that ever ything we do as Jews is uniquely by us and for us? And how much of it is rooted in a universalist mindset, or the idea that we have a set of values that can be adopted and presented to the world at large? Are we required to remember ever ything that has happened to ever y group when we discus s our past ? What is the nature of the seder and why do we have one ever y year ? Who is it for ?

The majorit y of Jews and Jewish thought lives in between these two endpoints the upshot of which is that we need to grapple with this tension, especially at peak moments in Judaism such as the seder

Years ago, I was invited to give a series of talks entitled "Judaism : On Pleasure " The first ses sion was about Judaism’s relationship to food It was before Pas sover, and we got to talking about the seder and how gathering around food and meals shapes

us as a communit y One of the things I had mentioned as an aside was that there are rabbinic opinions that hold that one should not have any non-Jews at the seder. This stems from a technical halachic question, but it cer tainly became par t of the rabbinic question of who is the seder for If we say “let all who are hungr y come and eat,” we need to define who all is

To my surprise, at the beginning of the next ses sion I was told that my presence was a near thing: they had come close to retracting my invitation to finish the series. Just about ever yone at tending had non-Jewish family members, and they were insulted to learn that those kin might not be wanted at their seders

One of the formative questions that Judaism wrestles with is the relationship between universalism and par ticularism Which of our practices and ideas are meant to be something we share with the world (don’t murder, take time of f to rest, the value of learning) and which are specific to us as a people (pray with a quorum, sit in mourning for seven days, don’t eat leavened products on Pas sover)?

The seder might be the ideal moment to contemplate this tension, precisely because the seder might be the peak moment of par ticularism in traditional understandings of Judaism The stor y we tell at the seder is the stor y of our nation, our histor y, our relationship with the Divine

The stor y of the exodus is about of how a small family grew and evolved into a nation And just like an individual who grows up and needs to as ser t their own identit y, one of the central themes in this evolution is

dif ferentiating ourselves from our roots in Eg ypt When we arrive, we are the Children of Jacob We leave as B'nai Yisrael, a people that define ourselves, ver y of ten, by how we are not like the Eg yptians We were instructed to sacrifice a lamb which was sacred to Eg yptians Our faith is not rooted in the movement of the stars and planets but in the one who placed those spheres in orbit Most impor tantly, our ethical responsibilities are directly related

to how we were treated in Eg ypt We rest weekly because we were forbidden to do so as slaves ; we treat others fairly because we were not The seder by its nature celebrate our par ticularism, our dif ference

This argument for Judaism’s par ticularism does not mean we are creating a hierarchy of nations We are not inherently bet ter than anyone else, and if we invite non-Jews to our seders it isn't so they can hear us talk about how much bet ter we are than

them We have this origin stor y that gives us our unique character It is no bet ter or worse than any other nation's origin stor y, and by extension the ethics we derived from our origin do not make us bet ter

I t i s w h a t we d o wi t h t h o s e e t h i c s t h a t s h a p e s u s I f i t i s v i c t i m h o o d t h a t w a s t r a n s fo r m e d i n to t h i s s e n s e o f re s p o n s i bi l i t y t h a t we c e l e b r a te a t t h e s e d e r, t h e n w h a t we d o wi t h t h a t re s p o n s i b i l i t y i s we s h o u l d d we l l o n

The series of talks I'd given where the question of non-Jews at the seder came up was held at a Reconstructionist congregation The movement (which now calls itself Reconstructing Judaism) is rooted in the theolog y of Mordecai Kaplan, an American rabbi born into an Or thodox family with some renegade tendencies His thought was ver y much about the tension between nationalism and universalism

Shira Stutman, who was the senior rabbi of

Israelites making bricks in Egypt Illustration by William Hole (1925) Old Testament History retold and illustrated London Eyere & Spottiswoode

the historic Sixth & I synagogue in Washington D C (and can be heard weekly on the Chut zpod podcast) told me that for her, particularism is unequivocally impor tant even in a time of universalism “In our moment in histor y, it's about a balance between the two When do we lif t up universalism and when do we lif t up par ticularism?”

Stutman also remembers the moment of disbelief she had when she learned that some Jews don’t have any non-Jews at their seders She thinks that for many Jews, Pas sover is the not only the stor y of our liberation but also a way to suppor t liberation for all This universalist glos s on a what was once a par ticularistic holiday is one of the main reasons why many Jews continue to celebrate the seder

Sid Schwar z, a rabbi who grew up Or thodox, was ordained in the Reconstructionist movement, and now works extensively in trans -denominational set tings, put it this way: “Most les sons about chesed and the responsibilit y towards the other are best learned in a par ticularistic set ting ” He continued by stres sing that if someone remains in a par ticularist set ting, however then you haven't actually learned the lessons you're meant to At Pas sover, the stor y of going from slaver y to freedom is cer tainly a par ticular one But it is the star t of an emotional and intellectual journey, not an end in and of itself The les son in the stor y is to help others, whoever they might be, in their journey from slaver y and oppres sion to freedom and autonomy

This is what Nicole Car t y seems to be mis sing when she talks about trauma myopia at the seder There are many Jews who have taken these les sons to hear t many who feel the pain of others and do the work needed to make meaningful changes But that work of ten needs to be rooted in something else, in our own stor y I don’t expect others to center my stor y in their lives, and I want to be able to celebrate my stor y alone at cer tain points in my Jewish life

This year, in the wake of Oc t 7 and the ongoing war, Pas sover will inevitably have a dif ferent feel to it Many people will, naturally, want to discus s those event s at their seder s and this is not, I don't think , a collapse into univer s alism. The ver y nature of what we discus s in the Hag gadah is at the core what is currently happening with this war Many of our value s as Jews s tem from this origin s tor y, and there is so much to draw from when we discus s this conflic t that is rooted in the se ver y nation- forming value s Ignoring them would be foolish and pretending that this s tor y is jus t ancient his tor y or myth is jus t plain wrong .

It would also be wrong to as sume to know what le s sons the Hagaddah holds about the war

In the seder, we are reminded that in ever y generation there are those who rise up to annihilate us, and we are saved from them, and we ask God to pour wrath upon the nations that do not know God So maybe let's hear out what cousin Shmuli from Sderot has to say about how this is manifesting today, and accept that we are dealing with a fear that runs deep and is par t of our collective unconscious

But this is not the end point The fact that we were once slaves in Eg ypt is exactly why the rabbis remind us to care for those that are les s for tunate than us and are in need of care and comfor t We are required to imagine ourselves as if we are leaving Eg ypt If that doesn’t make you feel compas sion for a Palestinian who is star ving and under constant bombardment, then you might be doing it wrong

The seder is the per fect moment to celebrate our par ticularism as a nation, and also to remember that it was shor tly af ter our own liberation that we were given a set of rules about how to govern ourselves, not just internally, but with relation to the rest of the world as well n

The giving of the law on Mount Sinai Illustration by William Hole (1925)

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The space between

Dr. Karen Devon on how MAID is a reflection of survival and freedom

While her hectic surgical schedule usually has her per forming life - saving thyroid cancer procedures in the operating room, occasionally Dr Karen Devon is as sisting patients approved for the Medical As sistance in Dying (MAID) program, as one of about 1,500 specially trained practitioners in Canada

MAID allows patients suf fering from serious or terminal illnes ses or disabilit y to be put to death with the help of drugs administered by a physician or nurse practitioner

Finding herself carr ying out an as ses sment in Yiddish is but one example of where her back ground came in handy She also happens to be one of the first female Jewish general surgeons to ever work at the Universit y of Toronto.

A medical ethics specialist, 47-year-old Dr. Devon is also the daughter of Holocaust sur vivors, who regularly presents her late father Moishe Devon’s stor y to generally non-Jewish school groups

And while these two par ts of her life have opened her to criticism specifically, from those wondering how she could condone put ting anyone to death af ter what the Nazis did she believes her father, who died of natural causes in 2021, would have considered MAID if it was a neces sar y way for him to avoid pain and suf fering

It’s nearing eight years since MAID became legal in Canada, on June 6, 2016. Where did it begin for you as par t of your practice?

One of my own patients with metastatic cancer was suf fering terribly I was present for her MAID procedure, and I was able to see what a peaceful and pain-free death that allowed her to have It was then that I decided I wanted to be involved with facilitating this for patients in general Like most MAID practitioners in Canada, it’s not usually the main par t of our job, but it’s something we really feel strongly about: giving patients autonomy and the abilit y to make that choice for themselves

How many patient s are you per sonally helping on an annual ba sis and ha s that number been increa sing over time? And have your views on it changed along the way ?

Cer tainly we know there’s been a grow th in MAID because it’s now about four percent of deaths in Canada, about 19,000 per year I’m a provider who only does

MAID in the hospital, although many of my colleagues do it in people’s homes or other places Sometimes I’m helping people several times a month other months have fewer requests

Mostly, I’ve just learned what a privilege it is to be in the room, to witnes s someone suf fering and to just be there, to be trusted at this really intimate moment in their life And I remember, when I first star ted, thinking this must be a lit tle of what it’s like to be a rabbi, playing a role in these impor tant life events and helping to counsel patients, especially because several of those who I’ve helped are Jewish

“From a Jewish values perspective I have no issue with that connection. I’m a proud child of a survivor and I proudly do this work.”

What legal frameworks are you operating under ? How would you explain the proces s of eligibility for MAID?

As a physician, I don’t feel a significant amount of legal risk Cer tainly, I want to make sure I’m doing my job well and asses sing a patient thoroughly The proces s each person has to go through is pret t y rigorous, involving a writ ten request form and two independent as ses sors ver y strict criteria So, par t of my job is to really talk to patients, understand their life, their illnes s, their suf fering, and determine whether or not I can help them in this way

I also talk to them about all the other oppor tunities or pos sibilities for alleviating their suf fering that might be acceptable to them We explore other options aside from as sisted death

The criticism comes from the view that a doctor is supposed to follow the Hippocratic oath of “Do No Harm,” and then you’re killing a patient…

Well, cer tainly that’s not what I see myself as doing If it’s a disease that’s harming the patient, the disease is killing them What my colleagues and I are doing is providing help through compas sionate care at a point where we can no longer cure someone We

are still able to think of them as a whole person and respond to their needs

The federal government has now paused opening up MAID to those with mental illnes s as a sole criterion, and minors under 18 aren’t in the cards right now.

Par t of my job is to ensure people understand all the options available to them At the same time, I don’t think we can hold people who are suf fering hostage to the feelings of our societ y I don’t think that would be fair, but this is a really difficult is sue We all have a lot of guilt about how our system works

But you’re the daughter of a man who spent ages 12 to 15 hiding in an underground bunker to evade the Nazis . It leads to you being asked about how you can reconcile counselling Jewish people who want to take their own life when Hitler murdered so many of us How do you deal with that?

My father was well aware of the work I was doing. He suppor ted me. And he was ver y, ver y proud of the way in which I’m able to help people.

But specific ally regarding the Holoc aus t, people sometime s conflate dif ferent is sue s What I see as the greate s t atrocit y of the Shoah is that people had freedom of choice taken away from them, the freedom to choose their own fate s In becoming a MAID provider, that’s exac tly what I’m doing for people, allowing them to have the freedom to determine their life For me, there is really from my moral per spec tive, from a Jewish value s per spec tive I have no is sue with that connec tion I’m a proud child of a sur vivor and I proudly do this work

And while I’m definitely not an exper t on Jewish law, I was raised with Jewish values, and raised to be kind and compas sionate with a commitment to social justice My role as a MAID provider fits well with the way I tr y to live my life

The over whelming re sponse I get from all patient s is that of immense gratitude I had a specific discus sion with someone who heard about the work that I do and knew that I was the child of a sur vivor bec ause I also have done some medic al ethic s work around medicine and the Holoc aus t and he sent me a book about euthanasia and the Holoc aus t You know what ? It’s a great book

People can see things as they wish, but I’m proud of this work I know that I’m helping people And that’s ultimately what I’m here to do, just to bring people mercy and to care about them This is the total opposite of what the Nazis were

You were the only child in your family

How did you decide that enrolling in medical school was something you wanted to do?

It’s sor t of clichéd but I was one of those people who, from the youngest age, knew I wanted to be a physician My first memor y was seeing a disabled child on the bus, and I star ted cr ying, because their mother was yelling at them I think that comes from having heard the Holocaust stor y from such a young age My father’s stor y I just always

had this extremely deep sense of empathy, which was also not always helpful to me

Yo u r f a th e r M o i s h e a l s o wo r ke d fo r th e C a n a d i a n c l o th i n g d e s i g n e r Fr a n c o M i r a b e l l i D i d th a t p l ay a r o l e i n th e f a c t th a t yo u ’r e r e c o g n i ze d fo r yo u r ow n fo n d n e s s fo r we a r i n g b i g c o l o u r s a n d b i g p r i n t s?

I like to think it’s genetic Both my parent s had an as tute sense of s t yle, and my dad would tell me if what I was wearing was no longer in fashion He’d be the one to tell me “mini is in now ” or “mini is out now ” He loved seeing me dre s s up and glowed with pride

What about your weekly Carr ying Testimony presentations about the Holocaust

to public school kids in Grade 5 and up?

Have those felt more urgent lately ?

I wa n t t h e m to c o n n e c t to a s p e c i f i c s to r y : to u n d e r s t a n d w h at a n t i s e m i t i s m i s , a n d t h at i t’s a fo r m o f r a c i s m I t r y to s i tu ate i t wi t h i n t h e i r ow n l i ve s a n d w h at t h ey c a n u n d e r s t a n d S o m e t i m e s I ’ m a s ke d, “ D i d yo u r fat h e r t h i n k a n t i s e mi t i s m wa s eve r go i n g to go away ? W h at wo u l d h e t h i n k n ow ? ”

And as much as he was an optimist and a satisfied and grateful person in his life–he would’ve always said, “It’s never going to be gone ”

The other thing I’ve thought is that it’s a good thing he hasn’t been alive to see what’s happened since Oct 7 I actually wish he was here to guide me He would’ve been disappointed, but also not surprised n

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A first draft of history

Lila Sarick, our website’s news editor, on the work of covering the Israel-Gaza war ’ s complex impact on Canadian Jews

Since Oct. 7, the Canadian Jewish News has published over 200 news stories and first-person columns on its daily website I’m the news editor, my byline has been on many of those stories and I have as signed and edited nearly all of them Repor ters, or at least old- school ones like me, were taught to be dispas sionate obser vers, and we maintain that profes sionalism here We repor t what we see and I leave it to our columnists and pundits to tr y and peer into the future But I also want to pull back the cur tain a bit and tell readers what it’s been like being a Jewish journalist in Canada over the last five months

On the morning of Oc t 7, I was visiting my adult son in the United S tate s A s we got ready for synagogue, we checked our phone s My colleague Ellin Be s sner, who hos t s The CJN Daily podc as t, had already texted me that there was breaking news from Israel

As my son and I scanned the repor ts, it was clear that something catastrophic had occurred, but it was hard to understand what exactly had gone on The one aw ful detail that rat tled around my brain all morning was a repor t from a southern kibbut z that a baby had been found, but the parents were mis sing What could have happened that a baby had been abandoned while the parents had disappeared?

Now, of course we know the details of those terrible hours and days in Israel

But that morning, as my son and I walked

to synagogue, all we had were questions. How could Israel’s securit y have been so thoroughly breached? What had happened to that baby’s parents?

My son belongs to a lively and thriving independent minyan where decisions are made collectively. That morning, a brief but uncomfor table debate broke out about whether to add a psalm for Israel, just before the Yizkor memorial ser vice Some people had not looked at their phones because it was a holiday and didn’t yet know the news Others had already heard from family in Israel who had been called up to fight and were distres sed And one or two, who opposed the addition of a psalm were ambivalent (at best) about Israel (In the end, a psalm was recited )

On the walk home, another que s tion arose What would this mean to us in C anada where sentiment s about Israel were already complic ated and conflic ted? Was this an at tack on Israel’s ver y exis tence, so eerily similar in timing to the Yom Kippur War in 1973? Should we march to the Israel Bonds office, chequebooks in hand, as many in my parent s’ generation had or was this something equally terrible but dif ferent ?

These two parallel currents the trauma of what had occurred in Israel and its impact on Nor th American Jews have preoccupied me since that morning

The fir s t s tor y The CJN published about the at tack was on Oc t 8 I inter viewed the

childhood friends of Vivian Silver, a Winnipeg peace ac tivis t, who was pre sumed to have been kidnapped from her home on Kibbut z Be’eri

Lynne and Michael Mitchell had talked to Silver jus t a few days before the at tack and they were c areful to speak about their friend in the pre sent tense, even while Lynne’s voice cracked a lit tle They told me about her commitment to peace bet ween Israelis and Pale s tinians and their hope that all her good deeds would somehow spare her Tragic ally, Silver’s body was identified weeks later, in the burned-out ruins of her home

The stories of the Canadians killed in the at tacks were hear tbreaking some were just kids at tending the now infamous rave

A few were killed in their homes Net ta

Epstein died protecting his girlfriend, Adi Vital-Kaploun, was killed while shielding her two lit tle boys Two were older women, Silver and Judih Weinstein-Hag gai, who had chosen to live on the southern border despite the risks

We wrote about as many of the Canadians who were killed in the at tacks as we could, contacting their friends and families to paint a picture of how they lived, rather than only about how they died

Although it was initially believed, and hoped, that some of these people were alive and being held hostage in Gaza, in the end none of the Canadians sur vived

I have heard that in Israel, people will

symbolically adopt one par ticular hostage whose life somehow resonates with them

For me, that hostage was Ofri Brodutch, an Israeli girl who was abducted, along with her mother, two younger brothers, and a 4-year-old neighbour, the day before her tenth bir thday

Ofri had spent the past summer in Canada, going to one of the Zionist camps here and visiting her aunt and uncle who live in Toronto She reminded me so much of my grown daughter and her friends who had star ted camp together at that age Ofri’s uncle Aharon was tireles s in his ef for ts to help his brother’s family He met with politicians pleading for the Canadian government to exer t its international pres sure and

facilitate the hostages’ release

In a news conference from Ot tawa, he recalled how the Israeli soldiers who had searched his brother’s family home af ter the at tack cried when they found Ofri’s bir thday cake still in the fridge

Ofri and her family were freed on Nov 26 The video released by the Israeli hospital where they were taken, showed them having a joyful reunion with the family dog

Keeping the stor y of the hostages, especially those who remained in Gaza, in front of our readers has been one of our priorities The Jewish communit y found creative ways to keep the hostages’ stories before the mainstream media, when their at tention flag ged We have writ ten about

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march during a rally outside US Consulate General and marched in downtown Toronto, on December 16, 2023

the empt y strollers and empt y Shabbat tables symbolizing the mis sing hostages that are temporarily installed in public spaces I inter viewed people who prepared care packages containing teddy bears and hand cream that were delivered to the Canadian Red Cros s, in an ef for t to highlight the International Red Cros s Commit tee’s refusal to aid the hostages

The only thing we didn’t do, as a publication, was view the 45-minute video of the horrors of the at tack, filmed by Hamas terrorists themselves, that the Israeli consulate in Toronto showed to Canadian repor ters Both Ellin and I declined we had no doubts about the gruesome details and the veracit y of the repor ts and we didn’t think our readers did either

Writing about the victims of Hamas and a Canadian-Israeli soldier who was killed in bat tle was tragic, but the parallel stor y of protests and violence against Jews and Jewish institutions in Canada has proven more challenging in some ways

The word unprecedented is used so of ten in reference to antisemitism that it has lost much of its meaning But in truth, the eruption of antisemitism acros s the countr y is greater both in numbers of incidents and ferocit y than we have ever seen

My morning routine was to read the news and look for the most egregious antisemitic incident from that day, not the only one but the worst one in the countr y and then think, how can I find a repor ter to cover this?

The CJN operates with a small staf f and even though we worked weekends and evenings, it was frustrating that we couldn’t cover ever y stor y It was, however, a relief to work for a news organization where we could call the Hamas at tackers what they were terrorists.

Many media outlets, including the CBC, have shied away from the term and those responsible for the Oct 7 mas sacre are simply called at tackers I think it would have crushed my soul a lit tle to abide by that newsroom policy

Not long af ter Oct 7, I ran into a senior educator, who was distraught Jewish students and teachers were haras sed and vulnerable while their clas smates par ticipated in mas s walkouts, yelling, “Free Palestine” and, “From the river to the sea ”

The educator had spent much of her career teaching tolerance and cultural sensitivit y but at that moment questioned whether she had done enough “People don’t know how bad it is,” she said Perhaps, but many of us would learn

Ever y cit y in Canada saw pro-Palestine (or anti-Israel, depending on your viewpoint) marches that blocked downtown streets week af ter week. These were not calls for a two- state solution or decr ying the rule of Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers They were, point-blank, a call for the end of the Jewish state, with Zionists labelled white colonial set tlers, who were ordered to return to wherever they came from (as long as it wasn’t Israel)

Even more disturbing were the ways the anger and hatred for Israel mutated into frank antisemitism, especially against children There were shots fired at two Montreal schools and a call from Hamas leaders for a global “day of violence” that led parents to keep their kids home, fear ful of what could happen

I stood in the rain as the principal of Toronto’s largest Jewish high school described the bomb threat the school received and the decision to evacuate the building and a nearby daycare For tunately, no one was injured in any of these incidents, but they succeeded in their objective: evoking fear

A bridge not far from my home became briefly infamous when it was blocked by raucous Palestinian protests ever y week-

Pro-Palestinian supporters on the Avenue Road bridge, Toronto, on January 6, 2024

end for weeks on end The tipping point was when a police officer delivered a car ton of Tim Hor tons cof fee that demonstrators on the barricaded bridge had ordered I was standing with the residents on the far side of the bridge that morning and couldn’t see the cof fee deliver y, which police chief Myron Demkiw had to is sue an apolog y for But the residents, not all of whom are Jewish, had plent y to say about the protesters

They were both angr y and intimidated by the masked demonstrators who used the highway overpas s as a site to launch smoke flares, hang flags and chant, “Zionists out ”

They were outraged the protests were targeting a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood rather than the Israeli or American consulates places where foreign policy is actually made And even before the cof fee faux pas, they were frustrated with the Toronto police force’s practice of deescalating tensions rather than stopping the protests

The next week the police chief (who had by then received a phone call about the mat ter from the prime minister) declared the bridge of f limits and warned that protesters would be arrested

Predic tably, a few people te s ted their luck the following S aturday and s trolled

out on the bridge, although without any flags or signs . And equally predic tably, police warned them to leave and then made three arre s t s

This time I was standing among the pro-Palestinian protesters and what I heard was not political but personal and chilling “How would they like it if their babies were killed” they said among themselves, referring to the rising death toll in Gaza “Who do they think they are? Why is their neighbourhood so special?” “We’ll show those ‘Zionists ’”

These protests have become increasingly disruptive as the winter, and the war in Gaza, drag ged on In Toronto, a protest stopped in front of Mount Sinai Hospital and people loudly chanted “intifada” underneath the hospital windows, while a self-described “Palestinian Spiderman” scaled the building to wave a flag

In early March, as I was writing this column, protesters blocked the entrance to the Bronfman building at McGill Universit y and a few days later, surrounded a Jewish communit y building where Concordia students were hosting an event

The Jewish communit y held its own rallies, which we covered, but they were ver y dif ferent in tone Whether they were large

events organized by Jewish federations, or smaller ones planned by both lef t or rightwing groups, they tended to focus almost exclusively on the hostages and their desperate situation

C anadian Jews hold a wide range of views , e specially concerning Israel and the current government But af ter Oc t 7, at leas t temporarily, there was a tacit agreement to focus on the one thing all c amps could agree on : the release of the hos tage s

Meanwhile, the anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism unleashed af ter Oct 7, continued to seep into new cracks, in disturbing ways. The CJN wrote about the cancellation of a play set in Israel, The Runner, about an Or thodox volunteer who grapples with the fallout af ter saving a Palestinian woman’s life and leaving a fatally wounded Israeli soldier behind

Per formances of The Runner were cancelled by a Victoria B C theatre which said this was not the time for a play that could fur ther incite tensions in the communit y Soon af ter, a theatre festival in Vancouver pulled the play from its lineup af ter a Palestinian ar tist threatened to withdraw his work from the event

I inter viewed Leah Goldstein, a championship cyclist and motivational speaker who had ser ved in an undercover unit in the IDF 30 years ago She was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a women’s festival in Peterborough, Ont , but was abruptly disinvited when the organizers asked her for a statement on Israel and then cancelled the engagement, before she could even reply Goldstein told me that af ter Oct 7 her agent has been unable to book any speaking events

The festival in a small Ontario cit y became an international news stor y, and in the end, organizers cancelled the entire event for this year

I could go on Nearly ever y single one of the hundreds of s torie s we have published and aired since Oc t 7 has been coloured in some way by the absolute tragedy of that day

It would be a fool’s errand to tr y and predict what Israel will look like as it absorbs the los ses of Oct 7 and the toll of the war Similarly, there’s no way of telling how Canadian Jewish life will be reshaped by the violence and antisemitism here For now, all we know is that those two parallel stories are still being writ ten n

Nathan Philips Square in Toronto, at a rally marking 100 days of captivity for the hostages on January 14, 2014

War reporting from the hear t

Ellin Bessner on how her Jewish journalism mission changed forever

There’s a poster I’ve hung on to from just a couple of days before Oct 7 It reminds me how much has changed in what I do as a Jewish journalist and as a Jewish person in general, too

The poster was promoting a Toronto visit by Swell Ariel Or, the Israeli star of the television series The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem Her fundraiser for Israel Bonds was the kind of event I’d typically cover for The CJN Daily over the prior two-and-a-half years

Af ter watching the first season on Netflix, I was confident the podcast audience wanted to hear about her role in the historical-fiction tale of a Sephardic family in the years leading up to the founding of the State of Israel

Plus, there were questions to ask the 20- something actor: what it was like to work with Shtisel star Michael Aloni, and her recent move to Hollywood in a year when productions were plagued by strikes.

Or arrived wearing an elegant blue pantsuit and stilet to heels. Ever yone in attendance at the Kehila Centre in Thornhill, Ont. wanted a photo with her, but she broke away for a 30-minute sit-down inter view

In the Beauty Queen show she played Luna Ermoza, a designer of haute couture gowns. But in real life? She can’t even sew.

“Not a stitch,” Or confes sed, adding that she didn’t do the fashion drawings herself either, but she took this as a compliment about her per formance

The series also addres sed domestic violence, in scenes where the actor playing her husband was initially reluctant to physically strike her but she felt it was impor tant to make it look realistic The show’s initial airing on Israeli T V was accompanied by the numbers of hotlines to call for help

“S o, maybe even if we managed to s ave one woman out of it,” she s aid, “we did our job ”

It was 36 hours later when I realized airing this inter view would have to wait

I woke up in the middle of the night and, as one does, I checked my phone My hear t raced with the news that thousands of rockets were being launched from Gaza rockets aimed at Sderot, but also as far as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

We s tar ted hearing repor t s that several thous and terroris t s had s tormed acros s the lightly defended border bet ween the Gaza S trip and Israel, unleashing s avager y upon the unsuspec ting re sident s of many

of the close s t kibbut zim and village s , and mowing down soldier s and police officer s in their wake

The at tackers killed 1,200 Israelis and foreign workers, and took hostages But we didn’t know the extent of it yet I learned the names of unfamiliar places now burned into our collective memor y: Kibbut z Be’eri, Kfar A za, Kibbut z Holit, the Nova music festival Nahal Oz

The Canadian Jewish News doesn’t publish on Shabbat It was also the holiday of Shemini At zeret and Simchat Torah, with the Thanksgiving long weekend adding to a scheduled break

But I recognized this at tack meant we would have to scramble to cover the biggest Jewish stor y of my career.

Ihad been on bereavement leave since July 26, when my son Evan was killed in a tragic accident. He was 23.

I was unsure whether I wanted to come back to work at all, but I’d returned in September for two days a week Repor ting supplied me with a structure during those early terrible times And I was grateful for the suppor t of colleagues.

Suddenly, on Oct 7, I felt it was time to jump back into action. All in. It’s what my family wanted me to do Evan would have said, “Man up, Mom!”

Now, if there was ever a time when my stor ytelling skills mat tered, it was here.

I became a repor ter in 1979, at age 18, while studying journalism at Carleton Universit y, and later held high-profile journalism jobs with CBC News and CT V News, including as a freelance correspondent based in Italy I covered the Vatican, three wars in Africa, Mafia killings, and also major Canadian events like the 1990 Oka Crisis a standof f between the First Nations and the Canadian Army west of Montreal not to mention all kinds of protests and mayhem on Parliament Hill

But I can’t tell ver y good stories until I gather ever y piece of relevant information I can find

I didn’t know how far the Hamas terrorists had infiltrated Israel I didn’t know that it would be hours before Israeli soldiers arrived with reinforcements

I just knew the first step was to find potential eyewitnes ses : I sent a WhatsApp mes sage to Gloria and Howard Wener, my cousins who’ve lived for 50 years in Sde Nit zan, a tiny moshav located les s than 10

kilometers east of Israel’s southern border with Gaza

They were under orders to lock themselves inside their house while the Israeli army tried to find the remaining terrorists in the area

They told me of rockets continuing to fly overhead Their children and grandchildren were safe but word arrived of friends and neighbours who had been killed, and others taken hostage The Weners were “fuming and disappointed” over what they saw as a failure by intelligence in Israel

But they promised to record any booming sounds they heard, to give listeners a sense of the sound of war.

“ This is what Jewish Canada sounds like ” That’s the slogan I coined for The CJN Daily when the podcast debuted in May 2021 The goal from the star t was to bring the voice of newsmakers to our audience

When I reached Iddo Moed on Oct. 8, the newly arrived Israeli ambas sador to Canada had barely been on the job for a few weeks But he called on Ot tawa to re -examine its long- standing policy of funding the United Nations Relief and Works A gency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) This was months before it became a political is sue af ter Israeli troops uncovered agency staf fer ties to Hamas

“It’s just another darker time in our histor y but from this we always get stronger,” said Moed

I then talked to journalist Ira Gershowit z and law yer Jonathan Shif f, two former Torontonians living in Israel who between them had seven children ser ving in the IDF While they were understandably anxious, we here in Canada were also facing a surge of antisemitism When a UJA solidarit y rally was set for Oct 9 at Mel Lastman Square, I wasn’t sure it would be safe to go

Still, I went in a group, with my husband and two Israeli-born friends We had to navigate closed subway stations and cordoned of f streets as Toronto police kept a small group of protesters away from 15,000 mainly Jewish at tendees For safet y reasons, I carried my large Israeli flag inside my purse until we got to the rally Then I took it out and wore it like a cape

Back at my desk, I star ted hearing from Canadians stranded in Israel, af ter major airlines paused flights from Tel Aviv

Gayle and Alf Kwinter, along with their

son Shayne, spent the High Holiday season in Tel Aviv They had planned a day at the beach on Oct 7 Instead, their morning was spent watching rockets soar by, with the Iron Dome deployed to destroy them One rocket hit the building next door to where my friend Mark’s mother Hadas sah Kingstone lives The war was impacting us here in Canada, too

Increasingly, there were questions about whether our government was moving fast enough to help Canadians who wanted to come home

Within the week, a plan was hatched to use the Royal Canadian Air Force to shut tle them out of Tel Aviv to Athens, Greece, where they could transfer to Air Canada

The first of these flights was set to land at Toronto’s Pearson International Airpor t on Oct 13 so I went to find reunions wor th repor ting on

Natalie and Jimmy Bit ton were scanning the giant screen for the arrival time of the flight carr ying their 18-year-old daughter Simona She was volunteering at a daycare

I recognized this attack meant we would have to scramble to cover the biggest Jewish story of my career.

in Tel Aviv, but a week spent in and out of bomb shelters, as things star ted heating up with Hezbollah in the nor th of Israel, led her worried parents to put their feet down The reunion was an emotional one, but Simona also shared her deepest feelings with me

“I want to go back ”

It was easier to repor t on tear ful reunions than to proces s the emerging confirmations of young Canadians murdered on Oct 7:

Net ta Epstein, 21, killed jumping on to a grenade the terrorists tossed into the safe room where he was hiding with his girlfriend

S h i r G e o r g y, 2 2, k i l l e d a t t h e N ov a m u s i c fe s t i v a l

Ben Mizrahi, 22, from Vancouver, used his army training as a medic to save lives at the festival before being murdered himself Alexandre Look, 30, of Montreal, killed while shielding his friends

I lef t it to my colleagues to do the follow-up inter views with their families I already wasn’t sleeping well due to my son’s sudden death

Evan Shayne Bes sner Friedlan was full of life Beloved by his family and friends, and office colleagues He was generous, smar t, fashionable He loved creating hip-hop songs, working out in the g ym, watching Rick and Mor ty car toons, and hockey He had his whole life ahead of him

I of ten imagined what it would have been like for me had he been a hostage, or if he had been murdered by Hamas Would that have made it more bearable, somehow? With a real enemy to blame?

As I was suddenly covering personal tragedies on the job, I chose not to reveal my

personal details to anyone I was interviewing You can’t compare griefs They’re all terrible

But soon the Israeli-based relatives of Tiferet Lapidot star ted contacting Canadian journalists to raise awarenes s that she was mis sing from the music festival, and likely in Gaza

Tiferet was about to turn 23

Her aunt and uncle, Galit Goren and Harel L apidot, were speaking on behalf of the family Both grew up in C anada, as had Tiferet’s father They all kept their citizenship when they moved back to Israel in the 1970s But officials at the C anadian embas sy in Tel Aviv weren’t get ting back to them

The Lapidots desperately wanted Ot tawa and Qatari officials to pres sure Hamas to hand her back, and hoped stories in the Canadian media would do the trick.

Goren explained why she wasn’t able to sleep in her own bed for worr ying that her niece might be spending nights tied to a chair, or on the floor in a tunnel under Gaza.

I cried, then For Tiferet For my son

I revealed that I was a newly bereaved mother.

I felt I needed to show them some kindnes s, and show that I understood some of what they must be feeling

Eleven days later, Israeli authorities confirmed Tiferet had actually been killed on Oct 7, at the music festival This would be a recurring theme in my stories over the weeks and months, as next-of-kin waited unusually long for forensic exper ts to make a positive identification

But there was only so much detail in the se atrocitie s that I could bear seeing for myself

While I didn’t personally know any victims or hostages, the war and the spike of antisemitism in Canada af ter Oct 7 brought its own distres s and feeling compelled to do something from this side of the world

We were grateful for those who organized the donation of items to help with the war ef for t, and the oppor tunit y to contribute to fundraising campaigns But there was no get ting around fear about potential threats to our lives as Jews living in Canada

Three times a week, I routinely visit a Jewish building in Toronto to swim Securit y had been ramped up, but I worried it was inadequate No one was checking my g ym bag or purse How were those with kids in Jewish day schools under threat coping in

these times? Anxiet y about the war and its impact here was af fecting the mental health of ever yone my colleagues, my inter view subjects, and the audience

Maybe there was something to learn from those more directly af fected Lynne Mitchell, a practicing psychotherapist in Toronto, was a lifelong friend of Vivian Silver, the 74-year-old peace activist originally from Winnipeg, who was initially believed taken hostage from Kibbut z Be’eri Lynne told me how she was using her profes sional training to counsel Vivian’s two sons, Chen and Yonatan, as they strug gled with not knowing what happened to their mother The technique was mostly one of listening.

It would be December before Israeli officials found enough of her remains to declare Vivian had ac tually been killed on Oc t. 7.

It wasn’t quite Chesed Shel Emet, the Jewish commandment to honour the deceased without any compensation in return But I felt that by doing multiple podcast episodes about Vivian Silver, I was making my small contribution to her life and legacy.

The CJN Daily found Canadians who rushed to Israel to join the war ef for t however they could and also asked those who were already there, why they felt compelled to stay

Leora Prutschi’s original program of volunteer work in Eilat pivoted to helping do ar ts and craf ts with displaced Israeli kids forced to evacuate the Gaza area and stay in hotels Reichman Universit y student Maya Winkler had her clas ses cancelled for months, so she dedicated the study time to babysit ting children of soldiers Joey Lipet z, a yeshiva student in Mevas seret Zion, hand-tied the fringes of prayer shawls for soldiers to wear into bat tle

Ronnen Harar y, the co-founder of Toronto-based toy company Spin Master, shared the emotional experience of providing toys and games to Israeli children He also joined Montreal natives Franck A zoulay and Lawrence Wit t ser ving BBQ treats and burgers from a food truck to lineups of IDF soldiers about to head into bat tle

Toronto cardiologist Dr Bradley Straus s told me how he went to lend a hand in a hospital in Afula, as one of thousands of Diaspora medical personnel who turned up in the early days

O n e o f t h e m o s t re m a r k a b l e s to r i e s I d i d w a s a b o u t J oy Fre n k i e l , a s o c i a l wo r k-

e r o r i g i n a l l y f ro m C h o m e d ey, Q u e b e c , w h o s e m a i n j o b w a s h e l p i n g s o l d i e r s’ f a m i l i e s ge t t h ro u g h t h e d re a d e d “ k n o c k o n t h e d o o r ” –w h e n m i l i t a r y a u t h o r i t i e s b re a k t h e s o l e m n n ew s t h e i r l ove d o n e h a s b e e n k i l l e d i n b a t t l e

I told her that she was doing holy work which I felt because of my own recent first-hand experience I’ll never forget the compas sion the police officers showed to us on that fateful night in July

But even 25 years of experience couldn’t prepare Frenkiel for the second task she volunteered for It took place at the morgue on the Shura base, where families positively identified the remains of loved ones.

Amidst all the indescribable cruelt y at the hands of Hamas, she still can’t get two particular sounds out of her head : IDF soldiers hammering wood to build coffins, and the motors of refrigerated containers storing hundreds of still-unidentified bodies.

For this daughter of a Holocaust sur vivor, Frenkiel saw her ef for ts as her way to fulfill the mit zvah of giving kindnes s to the murder victims during the darkest period of Israel’s modern histor y

Speaking of former Montrealers, I consider myself in that categor y too, even if I was among the English- speaking Ashkenazi Jews who lef t in droves in the late 1970s I still consider it “home” given how it’s where my mom and sister and other family members still live

I wasn’t surprised to have to repor t on the spike in hostilities toward Jewish students at Concordia Universit y, and McGill In their day, my nephews had been among the vanguard of activists who opposed the Boycot t, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS ) resolutions pas sed by anti-Israel student councils But af ter Oct 7, ag gres sive street rallies became a fixture in the cit y

Then, on Nov 7, Montrealers woke up to shocking news Not only had a Molotov cock tail fire bomb been thrown at the door of a synagogue in Dollard-Des - Ormeaux, but gunshots had lef t holes in the doors of Yeshiva Gedola in midtown Montreal and at the Her zliah High School A Jewish busines s was also targeted

I was already booked to travel to Montreal to visit my family So, I tucked my microphones into my briefcase, intending to explore why my native cit y had suddenly become a dangerous place for Jews D

Journalists often don’t get personally involved with the people they interview. It prevents any conflict of interest in reporting.

After Oct. 7, I broke that tradition. This wasn’t just any story, but an existential struggle for my people.

t h e h e a r t o f S n ow d ow n , I s aw p o l i c e c a r s p a r ke d o p p o s i te t h e ye s h i v a s a n d t h e d ay s c h o o l s I h a d n’ t b e e n i n s i d e t h e Fe d e r a t i o n h e a d q u a r te r s o n C o te S t C a t h e r i n e Ro a d fo r d e c a d e s I n my yo u t h , I o f te n v i s i te d my m o t h e r ’s o f f i c e t h e re , a s s h e wo r ke d fo r t h e c o m m u n i t y M y l a te f a t h e r a t te n d e d m e e t i n g s i n t h e b u i l d i n g v o l u n te e r i n g fo r t h e M a rc h to J e r u s a l e m T h e J ewi s h P u b l i c L i b r a r y w a s a re g u l a r h a u n t B a c k t h e n , i n - p e r s o n c o m m u n i t y p a r t i c i p a t i o n fe l t c a re f re e

Now, as a repor ter on my way to inter view the Federation CJA’s CEO Yair Szlak, I had to pas s through metal detectors, plus a bag gage screening machine super vised by uniformed securit y I felt like I was at an airpor t I was told it’s been that way at the front entrance for years. And yet, this was a whole other level from what I experienced in Toronto, even af ter Oct. 7.

“ There’s nowhere to hide,” Szlak told me in a c andid inter view. His team was consulting with loc al police, the RCMP, the FBI, even with law enforcement in France, where they were more accus tomed to violent at tacks on Jewish target s . He couldn’t go into more details , for securit y reasons But appeals to the cit y and province for more police including of f-dut y police c arr ying weapons to patrol schools–were going unanswered

Oliva Weizman, a loc al architec t, was so worried about the s treet prote s t s and targeted at tacks that she launched a petition to get the Quebec government to provide more securit y She admit ted her synagogue visit s now involved c arefully checking where the exit s were loc ated, in the event of an at tack

During my flight coming into Montreal, I’d removed a pin I usually wear on my coat lapel, featuring the Israeli and Canadian flags I was afraid to call attention to myself But on my way back to Toronto, af ter the shootings, af ter the Molotov cocktails, I felt mad enough to put it back on with kavanah Screw the haters, I said to myself Bring it on

Deeper into autumn, we star ted repor ting stories of Israeli families coming to Canada as displaced persons for a respite from the war While a few arrived with the intention of only staying a month or two, others made it permanent They want peace and quiet for themselves and their children They want to live in a house

without a safe room

These families lef t ever ything behind in Israel, and arrived with their children and a few suitcases poorly equipped for winter in Canada

It was inspiring to see how the communit y welcomed these newcomers, with free day school clas ses, mothers’ drop-in programs at communit y centres, and donation drives that allowed them to pick out their own needed supplies

DIn mid-Februar y, Jacqui Rivers Vital, a native of Ot tawa who lives in Jerusalem with her husband Yaron Vital, gave a Zoom talk to a seniors group from Ot tawa A J50+ They’re the parents of the late Adi Vital-Kaplun, an Israeli-born woman with an engineering back ground, who was murdered while hiding in the safe room of her home in Kibbut z Holit

I cried, then. For Tiferet. For my son.

I revealed that I was a newly bereaved mother. I felt I needed to show them some kindness, and show that I understood some of what they must be feeling.

Journalists of ten don’t get personally involved with people they inter view. It prevents any conflict of interest in repor ting Af ter Oct 7, I broke that tradition This wasn’t just any stor y, but an existential strug gle for my people

In my of f-hours, I collected household items and even bought Hanukkah gif ts for the children of these families I connected the adults with a tutor, reviewed their resumes, and called in favours to help their kids get to the right schools

But by Februar y, all the hate directed at Jews in Canada star ted over whelming me I felt scared I tried to talk about it with friends and family, but proces sing a daily deluge of information isn’t their job They’re not aware of all the repor ted incidents, the of ten-exag gerated social media outrage, the repetitious police news releases They don’t have to worr y about harsh online comments about their work, which I have also received

I asked people to s top texting me links to the “antisemitism du jour” s torie s , as I c all them I needed a break from seemingly infinite immer sion in example s of anti-Jewish hate

Adi’s husband was away on a camping trip that day She grabbed their rifle, bundled their two young sons inside the shelter, and barred the door S h e h a d t h e p re s e n c e o f m i n d to c a l l h e r d a d , w h o w a s v i s i t i n g fo r t h e we e ke n d b u t s l e e p i n g i n a g u e s t h o u s e a c ro s s t h e p a t h S h e to l d h i m i n n o u n c e r t a i n te r m s to s t ay p u t a n d n o t c o m e to t h e i r re s c u e S h e t h e n c a l l e d h e r h u s b a n d , a s ke d fo r a re f re s h e r c o u r s e o n h ow to u s e t h e we a p o n , a n d to l d h i m to s t ay aw ay, to o. T h ey a re c o nv i n c e d s h e s ave d b o t h t h e i r l i ve s

When the terrorists discovered Adi and the boys, she beg ged them to spare her children, told the boys she loved them, and opened fire at the terrorists She killed one, before she was killed.

The boys sur vived, although they were briefly stolen by the terrorists and carried towards captivit y in Gaza, before being let go the same day

Now her parents are doing vir tual speaking tours for Nor th American groups, and raising funds for her sur viving children The Vitals describe her as a liones s People in Israel consider her a hero

It was gut wrenching to listen to their stor y I lay on my bed and cried into my hands

I felt like we’re members of the same club : our children died too young

Our family’s tragedy happened before Oct 7 It changed me But on Black Saturday I knew I had to find a way to channel my personal grief and put it aside so that I could do what I trained to do for my whole life Be a journalist

I can’t say how this period would have been for me had I not been able to do something: I couldn’t wear a uniform Flying to Israel on a solidarit y mis sion wasn’t in the cards for me, either But I know how to tell stories And I hope a few of them have connected with you n

Jewish Canadians need a voice now more than ever.

In these difficult times, we need a voice like The Canadian Jewish News

A voice that unabashedly highlights the issues i m p a c t i n g u s , a n d s h i n e s a l i g h t o n r i s i n g a n t i semitism in our communities A platform for Jews to speak, and be heard.

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From Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and your Liberal MPs

De

Michael

Hon. Karina Gould Burlington Karina Gould@parl gc ca

Marie-France Lalonde Orléans Marie-France Lalonde@parl gc ca

Julie

Hon. Stevven Guilbeault

Laurier Sainte-Marie Steven Guilbeault@parl gc ca

Hon David McGuinty Ottawa South David McGuinty@parl gc ca

Hon.

Hon

Hon

Anju

Brendan Hanley Yukon Brendan Hanley@parl gc ca

Hon John McKay Scarborough Guildwood John McKay@parl gc ca

Hon.

Ken

Hon Marco Mendicino Eglinton Lawrence Marco Mendicino@parl gc ca

Hon.

Anthony

Too pious to serve?

Canada’s former ambassador to Israel on a nation perilously divided during wartime

We must be unified

We have heard this ceasele s sly since Oc t 7 in the Diaspora and in Israel Am Yisrael Chai

But we are not unified In fact, the social divisions tearing apar t Israeli society are more pronounced and threatening than ever Unit y is not decreed from on high There is no “King of the Jews” with the moral or actual power to dictate how we, the people, think and behave If anything, the opposite is true Those in positions of authorit y in Israel have failed the people and the nation so profoundly and repeatedly as to place us all in an existential crisis This despair and rage cros ses par tisan, ethnic, and socio-economic lines

A protester is taken away as ultra-Orthodox Jewish men protest against attempts to change government policy that grants ultra-Orthodox Jews exemptions from military conscription in Jerusalem, Feb 26, 2024

There is, however, consensus on one is sue in Israel at the moment of ten ar ticulated with deep pain : that we find ourselves in the most serious national crisis since the founding of the state in 1948 It cannot and should not be airbrushed It is real And, yes, it is dire

Oct 7 represented the failure of the paramount covenant embodied by the State of Israel : to provide a refuge for all Jewish people, af ter millenia of persecution and reasonably regular at tempts to annihilate us. Ironically, the hatred for tified Jewish solidarit y and identit y I have of ten thought that if we would just be lef t alone for a centur y or so we’d likely as similate, and the job would be done. But the pogroms recur, with a dependable frequency

On Oct. 7 the Israeli psyche was shattered by the magnitude of the total failure of the state to keep its most impor tant promise to ensure our physical safet y within our national borders.

S everal days ago, I met with Eyal Eshel, the bereaved father of Roni Eshel, who was murdered by Hamas mons ter s on Oc t 7 at the Nahal Oz army base in southern Israel Roni was an IDF soldier in an intelligence unit comprised solely of women, known as ‘scout s’ or ‘obser ver s’ Lore has it that women have a heightened at tention to detail, making them ideally suited to sit for hour s on end, s taring at a computer screen that shows image s from a small patch of border terrain I have visited several of the se unit s over the year s If a rock is moved a few centimeter s , they know immediately They are the eye s on Hamas 24/7

Roni was among the more senior members of the small unit and had returned to base on Oct 4, following a shor t family holiday As she was leaving to catch a train, she said goodbye to her dad, telling him, worriedly: “Dad It’s so volatile there ” The word she used in Hebrew conveys explosivenes s, as if a cauldron was boiling over, or a volcano about to erupt

Eyal as sured her that the IDF was the best militar y in the world and that the leadership was surely on top of things Eyal believed in Israel’s power but, more impor tantly, in the profes sionalism and dedica-

tion of senior militar y leadership Not in a million years would he imagine the horror his life was about to become

Roni was set to greet several new recruit s joining her team that weekend and to as sis t in their training and orientation Among them was Na’ama Lev y, a 19- year-old peace ac tivis t from the central Israeli cit y of Ra’anana Video footage of Na’ama went viral on the morning of Oc t 7, showing her being pulled by her hair from the trunk of a white jeep in Gaza Cit y, where she’d been s tuf fed in like a load of garbage Her arms , face and feet were bloodied, her expre s sion pure terror, her Achille s tendons severed so she could not run or e sc ape, the but t of her light grey pant s drenched with blood and soiled with dir t Men surrounded the jeep, screaming “Allahu Akhbar,” as Na’ama was shoved into the back seat bet ween t wo masked terroris t s c arr ying Kalashnikov s . Na’ama and Roni were among the first to be brutalized that day. Roni was tor tured before being asphyxiated in a locked room set afire with accelerant, to which Hamas added toxic gas in order to ensure maximum pain and suf fering. Five months on, her father seethes with rage

The army at the highest levels knew about the ver y real threats on the border with Gaza But senior leadership chose to dismis s the scouts’ concerns, ar ticulated repeatedly in repor ts, as being about nothing more than hijinks by a bunch of Hamas punks They demeaned the female scouts, who pleaded with their male superiors to pay at tention to the shocking repor ts they had been making for months, based on obser vation of Hamas training drills that were extraordinarily rigorous, disciplined and ongoing It was all there Day af ter day On their screens

Israeli Major General Aharon Haliva, commander of the IDF Militar y Intelligence Directorate, had bet ter things to do When aler ted late on Oct 6 to deeply concerning activit y in the Gaza Strip, Haliva told the underling that he was on holiday in Eilat and not to be contacted until af ter 9 a m the following day General Haliva slept soundly as Roni was brutalized

Israeli civilians and soldiers were abandoned by the state And five months on, we have yet to receive a remotely appropriate explanation as to why

Why did the IDF, Shin Bet domestic securit y ser vice, and senior civilian leadership

scof f at the detailed intelligence repor ts made by the female soldiers for well over a year ? Why was one female officer threatened with a cour t mar tial if she persisted in expres sing alarm at what her soldiers were repor ting ? Why was a repor t obtained by IDF militar y intelligence at least a year before Oct 7 which detailed a planned at tack against Israel dismis sed as the fantasies of Hamas punks?

Why did ever y aspect of Israel’s defence infrastructure and capabilit y fail its citizens living in the vicinit y of the Gaza Strip? Why did the IDF deploy mas ses of troops in the West Bank in the days leading up to Oct 7 and leave the Gaza area completely exposed? Why did it take eight hours, minimum, from the launch of the at tack, for the IDF to show up? And why was the air force nowhere in sight ? Why did it take three weeks for the IDF to get boots on the ground, meaning that any pos sibilit y to “shock and awe” Hamas and rescue hostages was squandered?

Imagine, if you dare, the fur y of Eyal Eshel Israelis revere the IDF “The people’s army,” they call it The militar y is the great equalizer in society, a true meritocracy At least, that was the myth that we all believed

We find ourselves in the most serious national crisis since the founding of the state in 1948. It cannot and should not be airbrushed. It is real. And, yes, it is dire.

I s r a e l i s s p e a k o f t h e i r re l at i o n s h i p wi t h

t h e s t ate a s a “c o n t r a c t ” T h ro u g h o u t t h e

l a s t ye a r o f s o c i a l u n re s t , w h e n m a ny

I s r a e l i s p rote s te d t h e swe e p i n g j u d i c i a l a n d i n s t i tu t i o n a l refo r m s p ro p o s e d by t h e c o a l i t i o n gove r n m e n t , m a ny s a i d t h at we n e e d a n ew c o n t r a c t wi t h t h e s t ate

T h e ex i s t i n g c o n t r a c t i s p re d i c ate d o n

t h e ag re e m e n t o f c i t ize n s to s e r ve i n t h e

m i l i t a r y to s e c u re a l i b e r a l, d e m o c r at i c

s t ate wi t h a J ewi s h m aj o r i t y I n re tu r n ,

b a s e d o n t h e wo rd i n g o f t h e D e c l a r at i o n

o f I n d e p e n d e n c e, a s we l l a s 7 5 ye a r s o f

n at i o n a l c u l tu re, t h e s t ate m u s t s u p p o r t

i n s t i tu t i o n s t h at a re d e m o c r at i c

Of ten misunderstood in Diaspora com-

munities, the protest movement was not a bunch of lef tist, anarchist rogues Not by a longshot It reflected the diversit y of Israeli societ y, socially, economically, and politically, but with one exception It did not include the ultra- Or thodox, or haredim, who comprise 14 percent of the current population of 9 million

Since the founding of the state, haredi men have been granted an exemption from ser ving in the militar y In return, they are free to dedicate their lives to the study of Torah until age 26 The state fully suppor ts them and their large families When they turn 27 and are required to work to earn a living, they are unqualified to do much, having had a rudimentar y secular education Many take menial jobs and continue to study, relying on the largesse of foreign donors

This “arrangement” came about in the weeks before the state was declared by prime minister David Ben Gurion Haredim were threatening to oppose the establishment of a secular state before the United Nations In their eyes, only God could restore statehood for the Jews

Ben Gurion faced a ver y practical conundrum. He had to stifle haredi dis sent and present a unified voice before the global

Ultra-Orthodox protesters dance while holding a sign reading “ The people of Israel do not have a right to exist without Torah,” Route 4 near Bnei Brak, March 4, 2024

communit y And so, he agreed to finance the few hundred yeshiva students preferring a life of religious devotion In return, a potential haredi revolt was aver ted

As Ben Gurion stated then and in subsequent years, he was doing the impossible and creating a state af ter a 2,000-year hiatus Others, he felt, could deal with the details

Among the issues which so many opposed during the protests in Israel last year was an insistence by haredi political par ties that their exemption from military service be enshrined in a Basic Law These Basic Laws meant originally to form the basis of a proper constitution have become the next best thing They ar ticulate broad principles regarding the manner in which laws may be passed and

Haredi and other coalition leaders including Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu lashed out, smearing the protesters as traitors and resisters

The impact of those at tacks was lethal

Among the ranks of the protesters were the vast majorit y of corporate CEOs, heads of banks and key financial institutions, tech executives, academics, current and former heads of the Bank of Israel, former IDF chiefs of staf f and heads of Shin Bet and Mos sad, and, most telling, reser vists from top IDF combat and intelligence units and the air force These are not exactly loopy, revolutionar y t ypes Some haredim went so far as to refer to the protesting Israelis as “shirkers”

of ser vice for reser vists will rise to 46 from the current 40

Af ter 90 days of reser ve dut y in hell, when almost immediately upon discharge, many men received fresh call-up notices to repor t for dut y in the nor th in late March and April, this news was just too much

Meanwhile, the haredim continue to demand their exemption, saying that their piet y is what saves the countr y, not weapons and warriors This epic bat tle will come to a head in April, when ever y year since 1948, the Knes set has extended the haredi exemption

I expect that this year will break the cycle If not, the “contract” will be torn up, and that por tends a downward spiral in so many ways

appropriate substantive parameters

For many Israelis, demanding a Basic Law to legitimize the haredi refusal to ser ve was a step too far

In exasperation, many par ticipants in the protest movement said that if the nature of the state was to be modified to the degree that it would no longer be democratic, then they may not ser ve when called May not To even venture into such sacred territor y in Israel is extreme Militar y ser vice is morally not negotiable

That is how serious a crisis the countr y faced That is how deep and wide were the social chasms

And then, Oct 7 happened

Not only do haredim, aside from a ver y small number, refuse to ser ve militarily, they continue to demand increasing financial suppor t from the state Throughout the postOct 7 period, when so many reser vists have died, been maimed and suf fered all manner of grave injuries, the haredim have carried on with their normal lives

But this war has changed ever ything Israel has a shor tage of army personnel ; conscripts and reser vists The IDF announced in Februar y that all Israeli men will ser ve longer compulsor y terms Reser ve dut y will be doubled annually, and the age

Israelis are not unified We are gut ted, shat tered and spent

Ask yourself If you lived in Israel would you ser ve? Would you send your sons and daughters to ser ve? Many Israelis are reluctantly beginning to say they refuse to bear this burden any longer unles s the haredim also ser ve

These Israelis disparaged as resisters are the salt of the ear th They are depleted, deeply mistrustful and feel betrayed And they will no longer submit to the terms of the old contract All citizens must step up to do their par t Only then, perhaps, can we begin to speak of unit y n

An Israeli protester lifts her T-shirt next to Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men outside an army recruiting office in March 5, 2024, during a demonstration against their army exemption

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Wishing you peace, joy and good health at Passover that lasts the whole year through.

W H O W E A R E / C E Q U E N O U S S O M M E S

The Canadian Rac e Re lations Foundation is a Crown Corp oration c ommi tte d to f ighting rac ism in Canada. We work to strengthen the s o c ial fabric o f our s o c ie t y b y supp or ting , enabling and c onvening c ommuni t y group s and organi zations through our grant s , s er v ic e s and ne t work o f public , re s earch and c ommuni t y par tners .

L a Fondation canadienne de s re lations rac iale s e st une s o c ié té d ’É tat qui s ’e st engagé e à lu tter c ontre le rac isme au Canada. Nous travaillons à renforc er le tis su s o c ial au Canada en aidant , hab ili tant e t ras s emblant le s group e s e t le s organisme s c ommunau taire s grâc e à de s subventions , de s ser vic e s e t un ré seau de par tenaire s dans le milieu de la re cherche e t dans le s s e c teurs pri vé e t c ommunau taire .

W H AT W E

We supp or t c ommuni tie s through funding anti-rac ism pro je c t s and e vent s

We e le vate public dis c ours e on anti-rac ism through par tnership s and e ducation

We move public p olic y re late d to s y stemic anti-rac ism and hate

We he lp munic ipali tie s de ve lop anti-rac ism pro grams

Nous aidons le s c ommunau té s en f inançant de s pro je t s e t de s é vénement s de lu tte c ontre le rac isme

Nous é le vons le dis c ours public sur la lu tte c ontre le rac isme par le b iais de par tenariat s e t de l ’é ducation

Nous fais ons avanc er le s p oli tique s gouvernementale s lié e s à la lu tte s y stémique c ontre le rac isme e t la haine

Nous aidons le s munic ipali té s à dé ve lopp er de s pro gramme s de lu tte c ontre le rac isme

L e a rn m o re a b o u t o u r wo rk a n d h ow we c a n we ave a stro n g , e q u i ta b l e Ca nada to g e th e r

Po u r e n s avo i r p l us su r n o tre trava i l e t su r la faç o n

d e bâti r e ns e m b l e u n Ca nada p l us fo r t e t é q u i ta b l e

A t S t e e l e s M e m o r i a l C h a p t a k e p r i d e i n p r o v i d i n g J e w i s h c o m m u n i t y w i t h a s

t h a t i s s e n s i t i v e , c a r i n g h e l p f u l i n y o u r t i m e o f n e e p r o f e s s i o n a l s t a f f t a k e s d e t a i l i n t o c a r e f u l c o n s i d e r

F o r s o m e , i t i s t h e r e l i e p e a c e o f m i n d k n o w i n g t h e i r w i s h e s a r e n o w r e c a n d w i l l s o m e d a y b e h o n b y t h e i r f a m i l y . F o r o t h i s t o u n b u r d e n l o v e d o f f i n a n c i a l d e c i s i o n s e m o t i o n a l t i m e .

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Israel on ice

Lacing up with the players who fought an international ban

Israeli hockey games, like ever ything else related to the Jewish state, were thrust into the limelight in the months leading up to the white -andblue Magen David team lacing up in Toronto The promotional series on March 2 and 4 followed a major of f-ice victor y, in which the International Ice Hockey Federation over turned its decision to bar Israel’s national teams from its 2024 tournaments

Generations of Israeli hockey families were among the former and potential upcoming national team player s cheering at the game s organized by the private Israel Elite Hockey League, where a team of mos tly Jewish player s from acros s Nor th Americ a faced the Redeemer Univer sit y Royals from a Chris tian college in Hamilton, Ont

Along with the se “touring” conte s t s , the league aims to grow Israeli hockey through it s 10- game summer season, of fering player s a way to keep ac tive in the of f- season

Brothers Isaac and Shlomi Lev y, two former national players who run a hockey school in Montreal, are among those helping Israeli hockey develop with local as sists The new Blue Ice Arena in Ashdod, a rink built with private Canadian financing, is set to finish construction later in 2024

“We’re attracting players who play professionally in Europe, college players, and kids who just want to come to Israel and visit.”

- Isaac Levy

“ Those kids looking up to the players, if they’re hockey players, then they know that it is possible to one day, represent Israel.”

- Shlomi Levy

HAPPY PAS SOVER חמשו רשכ גח

Jewish Communit y Organizations , Synagogues and Schools join our brother s and sister s in Israel in celebrating a Happy and Kosher Pesach.

We pray for peace with securit y and honour.

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Israel Bonds/Canada-Israel Securities , Limited

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Reena

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The Song Shul

7/10 was the most catastrophic day in Israeli histor y.

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CHAG PESACH SAMEACH

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Seeing other people

A hot new book asks: Can polyamory save this marriage?

It’s easy to feel like the world’s last remaining square when reading the many polyamor y ar ticles that have appeared recently They first star ted cropping up in all those publications with New York in the name (the New Yorker, the New York Times, New York magazine, and the New York Post) Stories multiplied from there the last one I saw was in the National Post These days, ever yone allegedly has multiple concurrent romantic and sexual relationships, or wishes they did

What gives?

The impetus for this new wave of media interest in non-monogamy is a new book, More: A Memoir of Open Marriage, by the debut American author Molly Roden Winter Lots of books take on sex y subject mat ter and don’t get anything like this degree of pres s Some credit must go to a publicit y team, but the book itself pulls its weight

The clever twist in this new addition to the genre is that Winter, a married mother of two now-young-adult sons, arrives at extramarital adventures as a wide -eyed novice The reader meets a woman who’d barely been with anyone other than her husband one who is too embarras sed to buy condoms at her local pharmacy and too

shy to visit a local sex toy shop. But she’s an eager pupil She devours Dos sie Easton and Janet Hardy’s 1997 bestseller The Ethical Slut a Gen X sensation that kicked of f the last wave of media interest in open relationships mind-blown to learn that polyamor y exists at all. While sometimes this aw- shucks stance reads as disingenuous (she also mentions having gone to a sex club with her now-husband years prior) , the easily scandalized narrator allows the book to read like a journey

If you’re picturing an erotic romp, you will be disappointed More reads as a cautionar y tale about what can happen doesn’t always, but can when a woman is financially dependent on her husband In tenor if not ar tistr y of writing, it’s of a piece with poet Mag gie Smith’s bestselling 2023 divorce memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful While the couple at the centre of More stays together, it’s ver y much the same how-do-these -things - still-happen stor y of a smar t, well-educated woman who marries a high-earning man, has a couple of kids, and tells herself she has accepted her role as the submis sive -in-the -unsex ysense one in the marriage only to have the same realization as countles s women

before her about the drawbacks, autonomy-wise, of such an arrangement

There is a whole literature on Jews and polyamor y: in the Bible, in histor y, and in modern-day secular and religious set tings Does More belong on that shelf ? Elsewhere, Winter has mentioned conver ting to Judaism , but there’s no discus sion of this in the book itself Winter keeps things simple, spiritualit y-wise, and sticks with her conversion to polyamor y, and to a side plot about her mother’s own arguably more compelling finding-herself journey into a Japanese cult Jewishnes s only comes up when she mentions that Mitchell’s last name sug gests he’s Jewish (this is never confirmed, nor brought up again) , and in what I think is meant to ser ve as the meetcute stor y of how she got together with her now-husband

Is it cute? Judge for yourself

Winter writes that when she first met Stewar t, she as ses sed that he wasn’t her “t ype,” because “he fit ever y negative stereot ype of a Long Island Jew ” This, for her, apparently means having a problematic sense of humour and wearing pleated pants (I may be a Manhat tan Jew by bir th but I am guilt y on both counts ) It’s meant

Phoebe Maltz Bovy reviews More by Molly Roden Winter

to be romantic, I gues s, that she looked past what she interpreted as his distinctly Jewish brand of unpleasantnes s All this anecdote accomplished was to make me think that these people she with her casual anti-Jewish quip, he with his reluctance to lif t a bot tle of dish detergent might just deser ve each other

husband And then she comes home and learns that not only has she failed to get a rise out of Stewar t, but that he’s into it: he finds the idea of her with other men a turnon They renegotiate the terms of their marriage such that both are allowed to have outside sexual par tners, and, eventually, additional long-term romantic relationships

The subsequent stor y of how Winter’s marriage opened up is neither titillating nor empowering Stewar t has come home late from work, again, leaving her with all the childcare and housework, as usual She storms out of the house in a huf f and ends up going out for drinks with a female friend At the bar, she flir ts with a man, imagining that she is somehow get ting revenge on her

All of this might sound modern, but the home life she describes with her husband, who remains her primar y par tner, strikes me and her! as bleak and archaic They have two young sons, but he comes home af ter they’ve gone to bed and works on weekends, even once she’s returned to paid employment herself She thinks “about all the years I’ve spent my nights alone with

the kids the dinners, the bedtimes, the dishes, the lonelines s of doing it all by myself ” She writes that she “love[ s] being a mother,” but why must she do ever ything ? She wonders this I wonder this

The why is addres sed, in a sense Winter and her husband eventually uncover, in couples’ therapy, that the reason she had done all the childcare when the kids were lit tle which he doesn’t dispute is that she was a control freak and he had worried he’d get it wrong This is presented as a therapeutically brilliant revelation about her per fectionist tendencies, rather than the sor t of psychobabble a man might come up with to retroactively explain why he had saddled his wife with all domestic responsibilities. You’d think Bet t y Friedan never existed, let alone the many waves of feminism since. The heterosexual landscape she inhabits seems at least 50 years out of date. Somehow, despite More’s many orifices and contor tions, the result is les s Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City than Edith Bunker from All in the Family

Prowling for strange men of fers Winter not so much liberation as a distraction from life as a doormat or maybe just an oppor tunit y to ser ve as a doormat for a wider pool of men She meets some real charmers, like one man with questionable integrit y regarding condom usage, and another who turns out to be playing the long game to get her into bed with his girlfriend (Winter is not bisexual but acquiesces ) These liaisons generally take place af ter she has done her kids’ dinner, bedtime, and clean-up She waits for her husband to get home from work or ‘work’ or wherever he is, so she can head out This is time she should be sleeping ( “‘I did not sleep ver y much,’” Winter confirmed to the New York Times in an inter view ) She writes about working with her therapist to sor t out why she keeps get ting migraines, anticipating some existential revelation, when if I may armchair diagnose it seems more likely to be a sleep deficit My head hur ts just thinking about it

That polyamor y might not always be the mos t woman- friendly arrangement become s obvious if you think about why plural marriage c ame to be s tigmatized, even outlawed, on liberal grounds ( The Wikipedia entr y for polygamy has a clarific ation note up top : “Not to be confused with Polyamor y or Polysexualit y ” I am

going to ignore the se ins truc tions and will make the c ase that one should, in fac t, confuse the se t wo things )

P o l y a m o r y m ay d i s t i n g u i s h i t s e l f by “ t h e i n fo r m e d c o n s e n t o f a l l p a r t n e r s i nv o l ve d , ” b u t t h e wo r l d d o e s n o t o p e r a te a c c o rd i n g to d e f i n i t i o n s T h e d e e p l y ro o te d c u l t u r a l p r a c t i c e o f a c e r t a i n s o r t o f m a n a m a s s i n g a g ro u p o f wo m e n fo r h i m s e l f, c a n n o t n o t re a p p e a r u n d e r t h e g u i s e o f c o n s e n s u a l n o n - m o n o g a my

Do not take my word for it Advice columnist and podcaster Dan Savage has long sug gested that straight people adopt the easy-breez y at titude towards “ethical non-monogamy ” favoured by many gay men (for whom these gender dynamics are not, for obvious reasons, an is sue) . With polyamor y the topic of the moment, he recently took a call from a despondent woman in an open relationship Her boyfriend of a year had moved on to another woman while still stringing her along What’s his incentive to make a clean break, though, if they’re polyamorous? The call put Savage in an awk ward spot, which he acknowledged.

“There’s a lot of atheistic Mormonism being shipped under polyamor y these days,” he said on the podcast, referring to the caller’s boyfriend’s behaviour as “t ypical, biblical straight male as sholer y ”

In other words, people may claim they’re doing a ver y modern and feminist version of open marriage, while the on-the - ground realities sug gest nothing of the kind Consider that an early manifestation of modern open marriage was called wife - swapping Yes, technically the swinging went both ways, but it’s right there in the language who’s actually calling the shots Consider, too, a New York magazine mention of a polyamorous rule pat tern wherein outside par tners are allowed, but only if they have female genitalia Not unlike monogamy, polyamor y as it exists in the world as separate from the Platonic form of polyamor y described in books on the subject of ten winds up being more favourable to men

In this post-#MeToo age of thinking critically about consent, does it not stand to reason that a woman who is financially dependent on her husband might ‘consent’ to an open marriage, not because she’s a free spirit, but because her choices are constrained? While More is not a straightfor ward case of a wife looking the other way at her breadwinning husband’s dalliances, it’s not far of f That Winter, too, has lovers

changes lit tle Her doing so is not an as ser tion of power within her marriage, or even something she gives much indication of enjoying I base this not only on the surprisingly scant (but not altogether absent) erotic moments, but also on how of ten Winter writes about not wanting an

At the bar, she flirts with a man, imagining that she is somehow getting revenge on her husband. And then she comes home and learns that not only has she failed to get a rise out of Stewart, but that he’s into it: he finds the idea of her with other men a turn-on.

open marriage There’s the time she tells a couple’s therapist, “We’re here because I don’t want to be in an open marriage anymore But Stewar t does ” Then there’s that time she vows to “tell Stewar t that I tried as hard as I could, but I just can’t do open marriage anymore ”

Winter cavor ting outside her marriage caters to her husband’s proclivities He likes picturing her with other men, and understands that as long as she’s doing so (even if it is somewhat at his behest) , he gets to date other women Win-win as far as he’s concerned

While her lovers disappoint, there is one steady Other Man in Winter’s life: Mitchell,

her therapist He does what Stewar t will not or cannot: puts her needs first Mitchell gently raises the question of whether she’s using extramarital sex as “an illusion of freedom ” She gestures at contemplating this, regarding her own life and her mother’s, but doesn’t appear to quite listen to this point As Tyler Austin Harper writes in his Atlantic review of More, “The only solution [ Winter] can imagine is to persist in an open marriage, rather than push for an equal one Inward sexual revolution plainly feels more pos sible than a revolution in who does the dishes ”

Much of the criticism of More has centred on the couple’s socioeconomic privilege, and the way it’s easier for upscale married people to mess around without consequences in an era when the less well-to-do strug gle to get married in the first place. “Polyamor y, the Ruling Class’s Latest Fad,” reads the Atlantic headline. The New Yorker casts its own war y eye at “the new monogamy skepticism of the moneyed,” and takes a not-unjustified dig at Winter for noticing that a lover’s apar tment lacks a mudroom.

Money barely comes up in the writing perhaps, unlike the author’s urinar y tract infections, it is too personal but there are clues. Indeed, the big gest tell of them all is that money itself barely comes up A new lover star ts mas saging her feet, prompting her to write, “I’m thank ful I squeezed in a pedicure yesterday ” Af fairs and nail salon visits, in this economy ? Blithe spending abounds The real estate angle, however, makes the rest look like peanuts : Winter and her husband buy and renovate a house in Park Slope, a housing t ype that today costs several million U S dollars

So yes, these are rich people, living in the rarified worlds generally covered by lifest yle ar ticles But at least as relevant to More is where she fits, financially, within the relationship It’s clear in the book as much as it can be without their tax documents that she’s the lower-earning (and, while a stayat-home mom, non-earning) spouse She refers to Stewar t as the family’s “provider ” While the balance of power may change now that she’s a famous author, More is about a woman with lit tle leverage in her relationship At various points, he wants an open marriage and she does not; it’s making her unhappy Each time, this resolves itself with her having some epiphany about how she wants the same thing he does so actually ever ything is fine Is it, though? n

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