The CJN Rosh Hashanah 2023

The Canadian Jewish News

Canadian.

Jewish.

Advocacy.

SHANA TOVA! Wishing you a good and sweet year.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations across Canada.

The Fashion Issue

OCTOBER 16-17, 2023 OTTAWA, ONTARIO

ANTISEMITISM FACE FIGHT

WWW.FIGHTIT.CA

PRESENTED BY CIJA & CANADA’S JEWISH FEDERATIONS SPONSORED BY

FIELDGATE FAMILIES

Autumn 2023 | High Holidays 5784

IT

The Canadian Jewish News The Fashion Issue

Autumn 2023 | High Holidays 5784

SPONSORED CONTENT

Happy New Year & Shana Tova from Jerusalem!

Join us on November 30, 2023 Pathway to the Future Gala Honourary Patrons: The Koschitzky Family Event Co-Chairs: Warren Kimel, C.M. and Debbie Kimel / Lewis Mitz and Wendy Posluns Dinner Co-Chairs: Wendy Eisen, C.M. and Elliot Eisen

Gala Committee: Stephanie Abrahami, Elliott Eisen, Wendy Eisen, C.M., David Golden, Gary Grundman, Debbie Kimel, Sarena Koschitzky, Sarah Krauss, Lewis Mitz, Joel Reitman, C.M., David Rosenbaum, Renee Rubinstein, Carol Ryder, Judi Shostack, Doron Telem

Honouring the memory of Julia Koschitzky z”l The Jerusalem Foundation of Canada / nomiy@jerusalemfoundation.ca / Tel: 416-922-0000 w w w . j er u sa l em fo u n d ation .or g

Bernie and Jennie Goldberger: Happier Here™ at V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community

B

ernie and Jennie Goldberger are two of many happy Community Members at V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community. Bernie, a Bergen-Belsen survivor, moved to Canada with dreams of beginning anew. His successful career as a ladies’ coat manufacturer and real estate developer didn’t stop until his retirement. His wife Jennie, who was by his side all those years devoted her life as a homemaker and parent to their three children, five grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren.

The couple have been married for 70 years, and remain just as inseparable today in their spacious 1-Bedroom + Den Suite. They can often be seen together holding hands, wearing matching outfits and beaming jubilant smiles. The two were kind enough to share more about why they choose to make V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community their home - because they are Happier Here™.

Jennie recounts the day she decided that she would retire along with her husband: “I was done with cooking and housework and told Bernie I wanted to retire too! I said ‘I’m ready to move even if you aren’t!’” Bernie reluctantly agreed and after going to see other retirement homes they knew V!VA Thornhill Woods was their first choice.

Since moving in, Jennie is finally done with cooking and housework, and Bernie agrees “There are less things to worry about.”

Where there is less to worry about, there is more to enjoy. Both Bernie and Jennie make full use of all the amazing amenities, events and programs that V!VA Thornhill Woods offers, noting that their social life is more vibrant than ever. In addition to traditional cultural events, V!VA Thornhill Woods features a full activity program for the mind, and the body. “We enjoy the concerts – especially the monthly Yiddish Café concerts – and art classes.

The fitness activities like swimming and other exercise programs are great for mind and body, too.” With her new-found free time, Jennie has since become the unofficial photographer of the Community, taking photos of her fellow Community Members and gifting them printed copies. “Well, having other Community Members to talk to and relate to is crucial.”

The food was an important part of the decision to move in. V!VA Thornhill Woods serves the high quality of food that V!VA communities are renowned for, notes Community Relations Manager Wendy Teperman, and with traditional Jewish-style food prepared by a Red-Seal Chef. Pork and Shellfish are not served, meat and dairy are kept separate, and all meat is sourced from kosher butchers. “The food is quite good,” the couple share “and the servers are outstanding.”

That resounding acclaim extends to every Team Member at V!VA Thornhill Woods. “Having on-site doctors and nurses readily available is priceless and so convenient. The care from not just the Wellness Team, but from all of the Team Members is exceptional, and very heartwarming.”

V!VA Thornhill Woods has 134 suites varying from studios and one-bedrooms to one-bedroom with den and two-bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. Care levels range from independent to assisted living, with the 28 assisted-living suites on a dedicated floor with its own dining room. All levels of care include three meals a day plus snacks and weekly housekeeping. But, emphasizes Teperman, V!VA Thornhill Woods “is not just bricks and mortar, amenities, or suites. It’s the people who live and work here coming together with open arms and hearts.” Bernie, reflecting on his initial reluctance to move into a retirement community, offers a simple piece of advice to anyone thinking about doing the same, even if they are hesitant: “Do it! It was the right decision at the right time!”

All V!VA communities are pet friendly, have health professionals on site and offer respite and trial stays. The Canadian owned and operated chain has eight locations in Ontario. V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community is located at 9700 Bathurst St. in Vaughan. For more information, visit www.vivathornhillwoods.ca or call Wendy Teperman at 905-417-8585.

What’s inside

34

THE FRONT PAGES

8

8

Jennifer Podemski in conversation with Rivka Campbell

14

Meet the voice behind The CJN’s podcast Rivkush

18

A new era for Holocaust museums in Canada LILA SARICK

15 14 Cover: Naomi Harris; This page: Naomi Harris; Daniel Ehrenworth; Shlomi Amiga; Gluekit

FEATURES 24

Two rabbis talk Jewish fashion theory AV I F I N E G O L D A N D M O R D E C H A I TO R C Z Y N E R

64

34

Catching up with Jeanne Beker on the rebound ELLIN BESSNER

46

COVER STORY: What to wear on Yom Kippur N AO M I H A R R I S

56

Pop culture of the 1990s: Good for the Jews?

P H O E B E M A LTZ B O V Y

4

THE BACK PAGES 64

Looking back at the year in culture wars

78

Ron Csillag remembers 5783’s Honourable Menschen

94

The history and mystery of the etrog

94

Contributors Shlomi Amiga (p.14) is a commercial and editorial photographer whose work has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Report on Business, Broadview, Chatelaine and more.

When not producing work for clients, he enjoys documenting serendipity on the streets of Toronto and beyond.

Ellin Bessner (p.34) launched The CJN Daily podcast in May 2021, which she hosts in tandem with reporting breaking news and writing personality profiles.

She previously worked for CBC and CTV, taught journalism at Centennial College, and is the author of Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II.

Ron Csillag (p.78) joined The Canadian Jewish News in 1984, left in 1986, returned in 1990, left in 2006, returned in 2017, retired in 2020 and retired again in 2021. He’s now reporter emeritus who appears on The CJN Daily’s “Honourable Menschen” feature to discuss recent obituaries of great Jewish Canadians.

THECJN.CA 5

Yoni Goldstein CEO and Editor-in-Chief Marc Weisblott Managing Editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy Senior Editor Ronit Novak Art Director Etery Podolsky Designer Sarah Zahavi Design Associate Lila Sarick News Editor Michael Fraiman Podcast Director Grace Zweig Sales Director Kathy Meitz General Manager

Board of Directors: Bryan Borzykowski President Sam Reitman Treasurer and Secretary Ira Gluskin Jacob Smolack Elizabeth Wolfe

For all inquiries info@thecjn.ca Cover photo: Naomi Harris Printed in Winnipeg by Kromar Printing Ltd.

With the participation of the Government of Canada.

6

The way we wear a new year…

T

here was a strict dress code at my high school. And the code was even stricter for me.

Students at our all-boys yeshiva had to wear kippahs, of course, but also collared shirts, khakis or dress pants—no jeans allowed—and formal shoes (sneakers were forbidden). I could live with most of that, to be honest: there was plenty of room to play with colours up top, and the style guide didn’t say anything about the bagginess of your khakis, or how low on the hips you could try to keep them (hey, it was the mid-’90s).

Besides, it was a massive improvement over the dress code at one of the elementary schools I went to, where collared shirts could only be worn in one of three colours: white, blue and, for some reason, yellow.

But there was one high school dress rule I could not, would not, abide by. You always had to have your shirt fully tucked into your pants.

To my teenage self, this was the height of fashion faux-pas (again, the mid-‘90s).

Tucked-out meant nothing less than freedom, tucked-in was how people like my dad looked when they left for work and synagogue.

The tuck was the line for me.

It was probably the least-enforced rule of the dress code anyways, far behind the holy triumvirate of collar, crease and sensible shoes. Lots of kids paid little attention to the tuck rule, shuffling down the hallway with their shirt tails flying, daring the principal— the enforcer of the code—to make them tuck it in. Many of them got away with it.

And yet, you’d have five untucked guys walking together, and the principal would only notice one of them.

Why did he pick on me? It became a bit of a joke among my friends. There might have been a few reasons, but I was actually a pretty good kid—and he definitely wasn’t mean or vindictive.

Years later, my mother admitted she had spoken to the principal just before the beginning of Grade 9 and told him to notice when my shirt was untucked. That explanation made a lot more sense.

After high school, I was ready to bust out.

I got obsessed with rare Japanese jeans

for about a decade. I spent too many hours in online style forums sharing poorly lit pictures of the latest cuts and fabrics from obscure mills, then months trying to track down one of the pairs that made its way to North America.

I also got big into hats, which were another no-no in high school. And then, for a bizarre few months, I worked as the editor of a fashion magazine.

I don’t generally see many connections between Judaism and fashion. There are lots of Jewish designers, of course, but not much in the way of Jewish design, outside of the Orthodox world. I don’t even know what that would look like, but I’d like someone to try and figure it out.

Still, I like to get something new for the High Holidays. It doesn’t have to be big, like a suit or anything—just one item that puts me in the spirit of the season. And preferably that no one else will be wearing.

But in the end, it’s often hidden under the season’s must-have accessory for Ashkenazi Jews looking to display a deeper link to the liturgy. And it’s a cotton robe.

Now that I think about it, the stark white kittel, in its elegant simplicity, might represent the height of Jewish fashion. It makes you look like an angel. Wearing it, you kind of even feel like one.

When I put on this kittel—as I did at my wedding, during the High Holidays and at the Passover seder, and eventually when my time comes to an end—I know something life-changing is about to happen.

And the best thing of all? You don’t need to tuck it in.

— Yoni Goldstein

Cottonbro Studio/Pexels

The Canadian Jewish News

BR04_CJN2022_1012

Cottonbro Studio/Pexels

BR04_CJN2023_0718_OL_FINAL.indd 1

2023-06-22 1:15 PM

Jennifer Podemski

on living at the intersection of Anishinaabe and Ashkenazi The producer of Little Bird talks with Rivka Campbell about how her heritage informs her creative work PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL EHRENWORTH EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

8

THECJN.CA 9

O

n May 28, at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Rivkush host Campbell spoke with the filmmaker and actor about her childhood in Jewish Toronto and her newest project, a six-episode show, produced by APTN and Crave, about an Indigenous child adopted by a Montreal Jewish family.

Rivka: Jennifer is a wonderful blend of Ashkenazi Jewish and Indigenous Anishinaabe, on her mum’s side. And Jennifer has been in the biz for like 30 years, which I find just mind-blowing, in film and television.

Jennifer: I know, because I look 30.

Rivka: Well, I figure you started when you were like five. And for the last 25 years you have been creating and producing your own stuff with your company, RedCloud Studios.

I want to kick it off by delving a little bit into who you are, because you’re this blend of two distinct cultures. How was that as you were coming up in this world?

Jennifer: I grew up at Bathurst and Wilson.

My father is in Toronto, Saul Podemski. My aunt, Rachel Katz Podemski. My daughter, too—she came later, but more importantly, grew up at Bathurst and Wilson. So this is my area.

Being here, to share this story, this is very full-circle for me today, which is excellent, especially because I’m trying to do a lot of full-circle moments. I just turned 50 and I think it’s great to do full-circle moments at those milestones.

I think I had a an identity crisis for a long, long time until I felt my true power as a storyteller and recognized the power of using your voice and sharing what’s on your mind to express the things that are inside of you in a way that could potentially be a bridge-building experience.

I was surrounded by Jewish people my whole life, and just always got the looks, because I think there was this idea that I didn’t belong. But on the flip side of that, I went to Hashomer Hatzair Camp Shomria from Grade 7, and that’s really where I found my place as a burgeoning activist.

So growing up and having that influence really informed the person that I became.

Also, it’s my grandfather’s birthday today, Joe Podemski. He would be 101. He just passed away a year and a half ago. But he was the ultimate philosopher, a Holocaust survivor from Lodz, always interested in 10

deep political conversations about identity and all kinds of things.

Rivka: So, kind of hardcore Jewish. Okay, so what about your Indigenous side?

Jennifer: So again, growing up here, we were here, I guess until Grade 1, and then we moved to Vancouver to be closer to my mum’s family. So I did have a very immersive experience living in that world. I think the ultimate reality was that my parents’ relationship—sorry, Dad, just live on a podcast—my parents’ relationship was challenged, and I think there were cultural barriers and addictions issues and all kinds of different elements and variables. So nowhere was comfortable.

I wasn’t comfortable over there. I wasn’t comfortable over here. It’s hard to see your family fall apart when you’re a child, and also be sort of caught in an identity thing.

“I wanted to tell a story that was at the intersection of Jewish and Indigenous identities.

Who else knew all of that information like I do?”

So then when we came back, we started going to the Native Centre in Toronto, which was a very important thing, because that was all I had. I didn’t have any Indigenous friends—I had my sister. We explored our identity together. I don’t know if it would have been the same without her.

My sister Tamara is five years younger, and then I have another sister, Sarah, who’s 10 years younger, but it was mostly Tamara and me growing up together, fielding and navigating the complex middle part of always being different.

Rivka: Because it is complex, and it’s wonderful that you had a support system in your sister. But let’s fast forward through your life.

Tell us about Little Bird. What brought you to that decision to produce it? Because it’s a tough, hard story.

Jennifer: I’m used to doing tough, hard stories. It seems like everything that I’ve done

in my career has been really hard, emotionally. Except for one short documentary about going back to Lodz, Poland, with my grandfather, I’ve only ever made Indigenous content, and it’s always been super heavy.

Even when you try to do comedy, it intersects with the reality of the current situation that we’re in.

So when this project came to me, it was 2015, and it was just a pitch. I had known that there was a group of kids that were, when they were taken, were sent through Jewish Family & Child Service in Montreal, because a lot of child-welfare agencies got this catalogue. And the catalogue, when you see it, it looks like a catalogue that’s selling children.

Rivka: Yeah, I got kind of stuck on the word catalogue.

Jennifer: It’s a terrible reality, but it was marketed. It was a program out of Saskatchewan. The program was called “Adopt Indian and Métis” and it was designed to continue the removal of Indigenous children and filter them through the child-welfare system, which was newly created at the time, in the ’60s, so that the provinces would absorb the cost of foster care.

This program that started in Regina created these catalogues with pictures—and we do tell part of that story in Little Bird—and Jewish Family & Child Services got one of these. That’s why there’s only a handful, as far as I know from all the research we’ve done, like 28 people that were adopted at that time who were raised in Jewish homes in Montreal.

The production company came to me, Resolution Pictures from Montreal, and said, We’re interested in making a show about this concept of an Indigenous girl adopted into a Jewish home. Because of your background, we thought maybe this would be something that you were interested in.

And anyone who makes television knows that once you say “yes” to making a show, you know that you’re giving at least five to 10 years of your life to make it. In Canada, you usually go through several years of development, and most of the time, a show doesn’t get made.

So I did say yes. I was only in foster care for a few weeks, as I understand it. But I was very compelled to tell this story because I had known that nobody else had done it.

And I also, really badly, wanted to tell a story

THECJN.CA 11

that was at the intersection of Jewish and Indigenous identities. Who else knew all of that information like I do?

Rivka: You’re the perfect fit.

Jennifer: I’m like two consultants in one. So I wanted to humanize this story. I wanted to take the opportunity to explore the connection between these cultures in a way that would uplift the Jewish values that I was raised with and honour my Jewish legacy, and also honour my Anishinaabe legacy.

Rivka: I don’t know if I want to use the word

Esther is really a culmination of a lot of people’s stories. And although we only had three actual advisers with us the whole time, I had maybe 20 advisers that I worked with throughout the process who helped to inform her perspective and a lot of the PTSD that we were showcasing for her.

I really wanted to create Esther’s mom, Golda, like my grandfather. You have to be a very open-minded, very special human being to have the storyline that Golda has. I didn’t expect my grandfather to pass away, to not see this. But that was created for him, to see that he was always one for a very difficult conversation and to argue it out, or debate it

of residential school, although there were things prior to that.

I am a second-generation residential school survivor. Both of my grandparents went to residential school in Lebret in Saskatchewan.

And terrible things happened at residential school. By design. Many survivors that we speak to—because I’ve worked a lot with survivors in my storytelling work—call it a children’s prison, and some call it an extermination camp, because they were killing children.

And we know that now, because—we always knew it—but we know it now because of all the children’s bodies being found. And then the last residential school closed in 1996.

So we’re not very far removed from that dismantling of families.

The reason that Indigenous people represent the lowest outcomes when it comes to health and education, and the things that most of us take for granted, is because they’re still living very much in a colonial, violent state with very few rights. And that legacy continues.

I don’t have the answers to how that is going to end, but I know a lot of it has to do with voting. I know a lot of it has to do with support and allyship and the education system. Because I don’t think we’re going to raise a very good generation of children if we don’t start figuring out ways to address some of the more devastating social realities, especially for Indigenous people who are at the lowest outcomes of all people, but for everybody.

Little Bird tells the story of the Sixties Scoop children—with a Jewish twist. Airing on Crave and APTN parallel, but there are similarities between you and the main character of Little Bird, whose adoptive name is Esther Rosenblum, but was born Bezhig Little Bird. You are the grandchild of Holocaust survivors?

Jennifer: Of one Holocaust survivor.

Rivka: And Bezhig’s mother is a Holocaust survivor. So tell me, is she a particular person? How did she develop?

Jennifer: She was created. The basis for her was me. When you create characters, it comes from a very personal place. So that started with the most personal stuff that I could share about myself with my writing partner, Hannah Moscovitch, and Jeremy Podeswa, and days and days of talking about that.

12

out, and see all the sides and the perspectives. He was very into survival. And to be into survival like he was, you have to find a way through stuff. So that was like Golda.

A lot of my mother is in it. A lot of my own grandparents are in it. So it is a personal story that actually has nothing to do with me, if that makes sense.

Rivka: It makes perfect sense. At the end of the first episode, there is a notation that kind of blew my mind. “There are more Indigenous children in custody today than ever.” And I just stopped and thought, how?

Jennifer: So today we call it the Millennial Scoop, because there are more children in care today than ever before. And it is a direct connection to the impact mostly

Jennifer: You see it a lot in Saskatchewan, because there’s a very rich Jewish community and a very rich Indigenous community— often you’ll see those two peoples partnering to make social change.

So I guess the call to action would be to lean towards being an ally and finding your common values towards dismantling systemic racism, because it does start in education, it does continue into the workplace, and into other sectors.

The thing that I’ve learned through my Jewish value system is, for me, it’s always to find the answer, to do what’s right and what’s good for the whole community. And what’s right for the whole community means that you can’t leave anybody behind. Because that’s how bad things happen. n This conversation has been edited. To hear the full interview, visit thecjn.ca/little-bird

Courtesy: Bell

Rivka: So, what is your challenge to those of us here? What do you wish to see?

THECJN.CA 7

Courtesy: Bell

Rivka Campbell recording Rivkush at the Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto, June 2023

A

Jew of Jamaican descent, born and raised in Toronto, Rivka “Rivkush” Campbell is among the country’s foremost community builders for Jews of Colour (JOCs). As the founder of the organization Jews of Colour Canada, as well as the director of a documentary on the same subject, she has been a candid and vocal activist for Jewish diversity and inclusion, appearing in the media, synagogues, and events as a sought-after expert and speaker. Part of her mandate includes opening new avenues for dialogue with the mainstream Jewish community, sharing stories and perspectives to illuminate the broader Jewish public on what life is like as a JOC trying to fit into predominantly white Jewish spaces.

“We want to live in a world in which our Jewishness thrives,” Rivka says of her work, “a world where we can be

14

appreciated as leaders within the Jewish community; a world where our identities as people of colour are supported by Jewish communities that are committed to fighting racism, supporting inclusion and promoting Jewish diversity.”

Rivka is also the sole Canadian recipient of the inaugural JewV’Nation Fellowship from the Union for Reform Judaism, and is currently the executive director at Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Toronto.

Her podcast with The CJN, Rivkush, now in its third season, and sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, is the world’s only podcast dedicated to highlighting the stories of fascinating JOCs: activists, artists, rule-breakers and change-makers.

Over the years, Rivka has sat down for deep dives with prominent Canadian JOCs such as Devyani Saltzman, the founding

curator of Toronto’s Luminato festival and a past director of public programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario; lawyer and wouldbe leadership candidate for the federal Conservatives Joel Etienne; and J-Rob, a punk rocker, poet and video game streamer in Montreal.

However, her show also has an international mandate. She’s interviewed Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College and the daughter of acclaimed civil rights activist Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in a live podcast taping at Limmud Toronto. Other guests have included award-winning chef Michael Twitty, comedian Rain Pryor (daughter of Richard), and controversial Israeli columnist Hen Mazzig. n —Michael Fraiman, director, The CJN Podcast Network Listen to the archive at thecjn.ca/rivkush

Photograph by Shlomi Amiga exclusively for The Canadian Jewish News

Who is Rivkush?

Meet the woman changing perceptions of Jewish identity one podcast at a time

Photograph by Shlomi Amiga exclusively for The Canadian Jewish News

#STAND

UP

YOUR GIFT SUPPORTS OUR VULNERABLE

CHANA TOVA

CHANA TOVA

5784 WITH GROCERY COSTS AT A 40-YEAR HIGH, THOUSANDS OF OUR MOST VULNERABLE RELY ON FEDERATION CJA FUNDED FOOD RELIEF PROGRAMS. Federation CJA, in conjunction with the Jewish community Foundation, provided $1,013,850 in funding for food security to help support vulnerable households over the High Holidays and Passover holiday period. This increase in investment towards food security programs to local impact partners helped support 9,215 household interactions over the 2022/23 holiday period allowing families to celebrate with joy and dignity.

SHANA TOVA U’METUKA!

#STAND

UP

WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU. PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY.

2023 COMBINED JEWISH APPEAL

514.345.2600 • federationcja.org

BEST WISHES FOR A SWEET AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR FROM OUR SPONSORS

From Your Liberal MPs

Wishing you a healthy, happy, and sweet New Year!

De la part de vos député.e.s libéraux

Nous vous souhaitons santé et bonheur pour la nouvelle année!

Shana Tova

Hon. Omar Alghabra

‫שנה טובה‬

Shafqat Ali

Rachel Bendayan

Omar.Alghabra@parl.gc.ca

Shafqat.Ali@parl.gc.ca

Rachel.Bendayan@parl.gc.ca

Carolyn.Bennett@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Bardish Chagger

Shaun Chen

Paul Chiang

Julie Dabrusin

Mississauga Centre

Waterloo

Brampton Centre

Hon. Carolyn Bennett

Outremont

Toronto—St. Paul’s

Bardish.Chagger@parl.gc.ca

Shaun.Chen@parl.gc.ca

Scarborough North

Markham—Unionville Paul.Chiang@parl.gc.ca

Julie.Dabrusin@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Karina Gould

Hon. Steven Guilbeault

Anthony Housefather

Hon. Helena Jaczek

Burlington

Laurier—Sainte-Marie

Mount Royal / Mont-Royal

Toronto—Danforth

Markham—Stouffville

Karina.Gould@parl.gc.ca

Steven.Guilbeault@parl.gc.ca

Anthony.Housefather@parl.gc.ca

Helena.Jaczek@parl.gc.ca

Hon. David McGuinty

Hon. Marco Mendicino

Yasir Naqvi

Hon. Mary Ng

Ottawa South

David.McGuinty@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Rob Oliphant

Don Valley West

Rob.Oliphant@parl.gc.ca

Eglinton—Lawrence

Marco.Mendicino@parl.gc.ca

Ya’ara Saks

York Centre

Yaara.Saks@parl.gc.ca

Ottawa Centre

Yasir.Naqvi@parl.gc.ca

Hon. Judy Sgro

Humber River— Black Creek

Judy.Sgro@parl.gc.ca

Markham—Thornhill Mary.Ng@parl.gc.ca

Francesco Sorbara

Vaughan— Woodbridge

Francesco.Sorbara@parl.gc.ca

Sameer Zuberi

Pierrefonds—Dollard

Sameer.Zuberi@parl.gc.ca

Staying on top

Getting to the top is hard. Staying on top is harder still. Yet again Michael Marcovitz has been ranked among Canada’s top wealth advisors by The Globe and Mail and SHOOK Research* based on:

Contact me today for a free tax-smart portfolio evaluation.

Best practices • Service model • Investing process • Team quality • Specialist support “Every other ranking focuses on the quantitative side... but how do you recommend an advisor based on how much money they make?

We want to focus on the quality and the impact on clients’ lives.”

– RJ Shook, co-founder & president, SHOOK Research

We believe our tax-efficient approach works and how much money you make is less important than how much money you keep. That’s how we help you stay on top.

Michael Marcovitz MBA, LL.B. Senior Investment Advisor TD Wealth Private Investment Advice 79 Wellington Street West, 11th Floor Toronto ON M5K 1A1 T: 416 308 9084 E: michael.marcovitz@td.com W: michaelmarcovitz.com

*Ranking details: https://theglobeandmail.com/business/rob-magazine/article-Canada’s-2022-top-wealth-advisors/ The Marcovitz Group is a part of TD Wealth Private Investment Advice, a division of TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. which is a subsidiary of The Toronto-Dominion Bank. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.® The TD logo and other TD trademarks are the property of The Toronto-Dominion Bank or its subsidiaries.

THECJN.CA 17

Toronto’s newest museum opened June 9, on the Sherman Campus, in Bathurst Manor, the neighbourhood where many survivors rebuilt their lives after the war.

Toronto Holoc a

Toronto Holocaust Museum

T

he museum is divided into four distinct halls that document the rise of modern antisemitism, the Holocaust and its aftermath, as well as the lives of survivors in Canada after the war.

Artifacts, often donated by survivors in Toronto, explore the wide range of experiences, including a concentration camp uniform and a Torah rescued during Kristallnacht. The forest room is a contemplative space in the midst of the galleries that displays the names of family members who died in the Holocaust.

18

c aust Museum Moses in the Ark / Birth, Novelty, Inventions, Gifts!

T

he 10,000-square-foot museum was designed for a time when the numbers of survivors is dwindling and intolerance is rising. It relies heavily on technology. Eleven life-size video monitors present over 200 minutes of testimony, telling survivors’ stories. Students, the majority of visitors, will be able to take a tablet-based tour that uses Augmented Reality to bring artifacts and documents to life.

THECJN.CA 19

Holocaust museums enter a dynamic new era across Canada

I

n addition to Toronto’s new Holocaust museum, three other centres in Canada— in Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver—are also either being renovated or completely redesigned. All of the museums were initially spearheaded by survivors, who wanted a place to memorialize their loved ones and to teach younger generations.

The museum redesigns now contemplate what is being called the post-survivor era, when survivors won’t be able to tell their first-hand stories of the horrors of the Shoah.

Museums are also grappling with how to teach about genocide in a time of increasing Holocaust denial.

Montreal The most ambitious project is the only museum which won’t be on a Jewish community campus. The Montreal Holocaust Museum, scheduled to open in the fall of 2025, will be located on St. Laurent Boulevard, close to other museums and in the heart of what was once an immigrant Jewish neighbourhood.

It will be by far the largest in the country, at 45,000 square feet Architects were selected 20

in an international competition and construction is expected to start this fall, said Julia Reitman, chair of the capital campaign.

The $90-million project has received contributions from provincial and federal governments as well as the Azrieli Foundation. About $10 million, which will include an endowment, still needs to be raised.

The new building will have a “Dimensions in Testimony” installation, a project by the USC Shoah Foundation, that lets people pose questions to survivors, prompting real-time responses from pre-recorded videos. The first French-language testimony of a Montreal survivor using this technology will be in the museum.

The facility will have space for permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as a gallery designed for children and families to open discussions about racism and antisemitism.

“We were looking for a temporary exhibit space to be able to refresh the exhibit space, to bring in exhibits from elsewhere and also to be able to talk about other genocides elsewhere to put it into a present-day context,” Reitman said.

The old building received about 25,000 visitors annually, but was so busy that some groups had to start at the end and work toward the front of the space. That provided a disjointed experience. The new building hopes to see about 100,000 visitors a year.

With 14,000 artifacts, the largest collection in the country, curators will still have to make decisions about what to exhibit.

However, the prize of the collection, a tiny heart-shaped birthday card made clandestinely in Auschwitz, will still be at the forefront of the museum.

Winnipeg Winnipeg was the first centre to complete its $200,000 renovation, re-opening its 1,100-square-foot space in January.

The Heritage Centre of Western Canada was stripped to the walls to rebuild, with a greater emphasis on life before the Second World War, antisemitism in Canada and the accomplishments of survivors in Canada, said executive director Belle Jarniewski.

A large image of Auschwitz that used to dominate the back wall of the museum

MOntreal Holocaust Museum; Freeman Family Holocaust Education Centre; Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

The art and science of preserving survivor stories for future generations

Architectural design of the new Montreal Holocaust Museum

Freeman Family Holocaust Education Centre

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

has been replaced with a projection of the names of the 1,050 Holocaust survivors who settled in Winnipeg.

“We wanted to pay tribute to the survivors and a picture of Auschwitz doesn’t define them,” Jarniewski explained. “Certainly, some of them were in Auschwitz, but it doesn’t define the broader experience of survivors. Moreover, we wanted to pay tribute to these courageous people who started new lives, who came here, after having lost so much.”

The refurbished centre puts a new emphasis on the richness of prewar life. Displayed in a large case are a family tree that dates back to 1760, a Talmud printed in the 1800s, and an accordion that was passed down by a French family of entertainers. All the centre’s artifacts were donated by Manitoba residents.

Like all the museums, the Winnipeg centre emphasizes technology, including an interactive table that has stories, maps, photos and short videos about 24 survivors, developed by Yad Vashem in Israel and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The advantage of the device, which is also used by the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, is that it can be updated to reflect the latest knowledge about the Holocaust, Jarniewski said.

The centre is also where researchers can tap into the 55,000 testimonies recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation. Most poignantly, it holds interviews recorded with local survivors, first in the 1980s and then updated, as they aged and were able to reflect more deeply on their experiences.

“It’s so important,” said Jarniewski, “because almost of them are now gone.”

Vancouver Vancouver’s museum’s redevelopment is part of the massive JWest project that will see new facilities for a Jewish community centre, a school, and housing.

Plans are still in the early stages and architects and exhibition designers have yet to be selected, but the centre will more than double in space, from its current 4,000 square feet to about 9,000 square feet, said Nina Krieger, executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

She anticipates the new centre will open in about three years. A budget for the project has yet to be announced.

Currently, the centre only has space for visiting temporary exhibits. The new building will have room for a permanent exhibit that introduces the history of the Holocaust and integrates the stories of local survivors. Space will also be available for temporary exhibits that explore new themes.

Robert Krell, a child survivor from Holland who has been deeply involved in Holocaust education in Vancouver, was interviewed and filmed for the Dimensions in Testimony project.

As the last of the country’s centres to redesign its space, Vancouver’s is learning from the other three museums, Krieger said. Each centre draws on local stories but they share similar challenges in the post-survivor era.

“In the span of 11 days, the Vancouver community lost three Holocaust survivor speakers,” Krieger went on. “It just really underscores the urgency of documentation and collections initiatives involving eyewitnesses and the importance of our work, which we know sadly is more relevant than ever due to the mounting antisemitism and racism and xenophobia, that we witness globally and across Canada and in all the regions that the centres operate in.” n LILA SARICK THECJN.CA 21

22

Rabbinics of Clothing A couple of Orthodox rabbis discuss the Jewish notions of sartorial selection

R

abbi Mordechai Torczyner, who spent the past 14 years in Toronto, recently recorded a series of lectures dedicated to fashion topics like the history of Jews in the garment business, the concept of having a specific synagogue wardrobe, and how clothes create a mood. Rabbi Avi Finegold, host of the Bonjour Chai podcast for The CJN, has significant style-related opinions of his own.

And so, they got together to contemplate the concept of Jewish fashion sense. Listen to more of their conversation along with links to Rabbi Torczyner’s entire seven-part “Jews and Clothes” seminar at thecjn.ca/fashion Finegold: Despite the doom and gloom about assimilation, we’re probably living in one of the least assimilated periods of all time. The ability to have loose ties with the Jewish community exists: you can go to shul if you want and then leave and go live your life—however you want. This idea has only existed for the past century or so, and I think clothing enables it, because we’re not forced to have a Jewish wardrobe. What happens when you’re no longer forced to wear specific clothing?

Torczyner: The historical contention that this is new in our time is interesting, but I feel like there is a phenomenon like that in Roman times, when you had that option of being out and yet in. I wonder whether that’s something one would do for oneself, or the people around you. In other words, you’re not fooling anybody by adopting the clothing. You’re talking about a world where, as you said, 24

somebody is able to be in and out.

I think of clothing much more as what somebody puts on to convey a message. And the message can be one of affiliation. Or it can just as easily be something that somebody puts on in order to convey disinformation. Do you know what I’m saying?

Finegold: You’re speaking about camouflage, right? Is clothing a camouflage or is clothing an identity?

Torczyner: My thinking on this is shaped by the fact that for much of our history, it hasn’t been an advantage to convey Jewish identity.

We tell a convert to Judaism that this isn’t a fun group to be joining. There are a lot of challenges there. A person who dressed Jewishly was not generally doing so in order to receive social advantage.

Finegold: Nowadays, there’s a social advantage to being able to go back and forth.

If I’m visiting Toronto, I can make a choice to put on a knitted kippah and fit into the crowd at [modern Orthodox synagogue] Shaarei Shomayim. And I can take that off and put on a velvet yarmulke and go to [more traditionally Orthodox] Shomrei Shabbos and feel like I’m more on the inside over there. And that clothing enables you sometimes to identify with the in-group.

My first year in Toronto in 2009, I delivered a series of classes called “Tzibburology,” It was the study of what it takes to create Jewish community and the functioning of Jewish community. And part of it was sparked by the

PHOTOGRAPHY BY COT TONBRO STUDIO / PEXEL THECJN.CA 25

“The way in which we signal our Judaism using clothing says something.

Am I trying to be part of your group or not?

Clothing functions in that way more often than we realize.”

26

work of a sociologist named Rich Sosis, who did a lot of work on the sociology of Jewish communities, for example kibbutzim in Israel, And he writes about the concept of costly signaling, which is an idea that when you identify as a part of a particular group based on a behaviour that comes with a cost, then people in the group are more apt to trust you. So you could think of that in terms of somebody who’s wearing a heavy black material during the summer must be a believer.

I can trust this person. He’s for sure part of the group. Somebody who wears a kippah to take a subway ride through a dangerous part of town, you’re more apt to think, yeah, he’s probably really in this, or he wouldn’t be doing that. There’s an element of dress that convinces you—because it has a price to it.

Finegold: I was at a couple of haredi weddings recently, and I realized that my dress automatically brands me as an outsider even though I grew up in those communities. I’m not putting on the tie that everybody else would expect me to wear or changing my fabric yarmulke for a velvet one or one that’s three sizes bigger in order to signal to the in-group that I’m part of them. I’m signalling that this is who I am now, and that’s how I live. The way in which we signal our Judaism using clothing to whatever other groups are there often actually says something. Am I trying to be part of your group or am I specifically trying not to be part of that group?

Clothing functions in that way more often than we realize.

And I find that fascinating. It goes to something very personal. I know you’re not someone who dresses extravagantly—you have a very specific wardrobe. While I’m not saying that you fit this stereotype, there is the image of the schleppy rabbi that exists, often because of what they’re wearing. Where do you think this idea comes from? Because it seems like, on the one hand, it makes perfect sense. I’m spending time studying and preparing sermons. I don’t have time for my clothing. And yet rabbis are often poised and have a demeanor that signals something.

When you look at the priests in the temple, why do you think that rabbis got to the point where it’s a point of pride to say they don’t think about their clothing?

way that respects the Torah that you represent. We generally assume it has to do with wearing clean, respectable clothing, and going beyond that manifests a certain concern for worldliness which is considered somewhat improper. There’s a Midrashic line about Joseph in the biblical story that he was playing with his hair—kind of curling his hair—and it was a demonstration of immaturity. The idea that you’re gonna try to keep up with trends says, well, your values are in the wrong place. Why is that what you’re focusing on?

This isn’t at all my philosophy. Mine is just that I don’t have the head space to keep up with the different things. I tried years and years ago. I tried to learn how to match ties to striped shirts and I couldn’t do it.

Torczyner: The Talmud emphasizes that a Torah scholar is required to be careful in the sense that if there’s a little bit of food that gets on their garb, they’re actually liable for death. And while that language is hyperbolic, there’s a sense that you have to dress in a

Finegold: I think about this a lot because I care about clothes. I also remember that when I was the rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal I wore canonicals. On the one hand, it covered up everything that I was going to wear that

Shabbat until kiddush, by which point everybody’s made up their mind about how they feel about me based on the sermon. On the other hand, wearing a robe and a special hat really imparts leadership, and the type of clothing that you wear creates a reality, the world approaches you in a certain way.

I think that rabbis would want to approach their day-to-day interactions in some specific fashion. And, until recently, a rabbi that wasn’t wearing canonical clothes in the streets was considered untoward. You were supposed to be presenting as a rabbi. I have a hard time figuring out why rabbis say, I’m going to be presentable, but I shouldn’t be regal. I’m not saying that people should be flashy, but I’ve always wanted to have a day-long seminar for rabbinical students to explain to them, this is how you dress. This is how to pick out a suit, even if it’s a plain navy suit. This is going to affect how you are perceived. What to wear to a funeral, what to wear to a wedding, when you should wear a tuxedo to a wedding when you shouldn’t.

THECJN.CA 27

“There’s a sense that you have to dress in a way that respects the Torah that you represent.

We generally assume it has to do with wearing clean, respectable clothing.”

I find that rabbis often lay these by the wayside.

Torczyner: You’re making an interesting point in this distinction between attractive clothing and regal clothing, because I think there’s a lot of room for that distinction.

Pursuing attractive clothing in a rabbi would actually worry me. I’m a child of the end of the 20th, beginning of the 21st century.

And, unfortunately, I’ve seen scandals from time to time. And I would worry a little bit if I saw that there’s a rabbi who’s so concerned about the attractiveness of his appearance.

Finegold: There’s an entire Instagram account that got turned into a book called @PreachersNSneakers. It’s about this phenomenon in the evangelical Christian world, preaching while wearing these thousand-dollar shoes.

28

Torczyner: You also have Talmudic examples of this—including some that go in the opposite direction: Rabban Gamliel II was around in the period of the destruction of the Second Temple. He’s the one the Romans saved as the descendant of King David. He’s the political leader of the Jews. If you disagree with him in the rabbinic world, you’re toast.

Rabban Gamliel gives instructions that when he passes away, to bury him in plain white canvas or linen. At the time, it had become very expensive for people to dress up the bodies of their loved ones when they passed away. The Talmud even records that they reached a stage where people were abandoning the body because they couldn’t afford to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak, on the burial.

And Rabban Gamaliel says to bury him in plain clothing so that everybody will then

have license to do that. And that has become Jewish tradition. Jewish tradition is plain shrouds, not to dress people up in fancier suits than they ever wore in their lifetime.

So we have that as a very specific model of demonstrating humility. Granted, it’s in death, at which point what people think of him doesn’t really matter anyway. But that’s an iconic image of how rabbis approach clothing. We have discussions about rabbis respecting their clothing.

Finegold: The famous one about the rabbi picking up the hem of his garment when passing through a thorny area because his skin could heal, but the clothing can’t…

Torczyner: You’re talking about Abba Chilkiah. Another one is a rabbi who calls his clothing mechubadai: that which honours me, or is honoured of me. And so he was

also very careful in terms of the way that he handled the clothing.

We also look at the quality of clothing for prayer in a unique way. Both in terms of having special clothing for prayer. But also, when you come to pray, if it’s a time of trouble and suffering, you’re supposed to specifically dress down. Whereas if it’s a time when things are good, then you dress in a more regal way, to reflect that. It becomes a religious identification. We’re getting a little bit away from your point about how rabbis dress, but I think there is the sense of clothing as a communicator.

There’s a classic Talmudic idea about the soul, where they talk about a person’s responsibility to make sure that that one enters the next world ready to answer to God. And the phrase that’s used in the Hebrew is, Bechol et yihiyu begadach levanim: At all times, your clothing should be white.

They talk about a servant who’s been given clothing by his master, and he never wears it, because he wants to return it clean at the end. He doesn’t know what day the master is going to demand it of him.

Finegold: You brought up the type of clothing that one wears during prayer. I find that the people that focus on this a lot, especially in the Orthodox community, suffer in that time from what I would refer to as the triumph of halachic formalism. This idea that if you’re wearing shorts and a tank top, It’s all of a sudden regal clothing so long as you throw a jacket and a hat on top of it. Clothing ends up a crutch.

Torczyner: It is silly, the formalism of a jacket being worn and therefore you’re wearing something nice doesn’t take away from the fact that it doesn’t do the job. You haven’t convinced anybody that it’s respectful.

You can’t make a pretense of it any more than when it comes to prayer. If a person says, well, I’m going to say the words really loudly and forcefully, but my head is completely somewhere else. The fact that you said the words loudly and forcefully doesn’t make it a better prayer. So, if you’re dressing with a jacket on, but everything else about your outfit says the beach, it’s just like the prayer that’s loud and forceful, but has no thought behind it.

Finegold: I was thinking about how uniforms sometimes come into conflict with the Talmudic idea of tzniut—how everybody is supposed to be dressing modestly when you’re wearing a uniform that doesn’t necessarily fit

in with the rest of what the world is wearing at the time. You’re supposed to not draw attention to yourself as a Jewish individual because of your clothing. And yet, the haredi community dresses in a very specific uniform that really makes themselves stand out when they are out in the world.

Torczyner: But what you’re dealing with is the question of competing values. Fundamentally, I have one value that says, don’t attract attention. I have another value that says, stand apart from a community whose values you don’t share. Don’t present yourself as though you are part of a group that you shouldn’t be a part of. So it could be that I would blend in well walking down the street if I were wearing what they wear. But there will be a price that comes along with that, that maybe is an unacceptable price. It’s not a sole value. It’s part of a constellation of values.

Finegold: If a fashion designer invited you to inspire a clothing collection that reflected Jewish values, what would you suggest they do?

Torczyner: Tzniut should be one of them.

This idea that I’m not showy, that I don’t exist for public consumption, is definitely a value— not just because of its close association with clothing, but just in general. I think the world needs more privacy. Respect is also a value that the world needs. And if that can be expressed in clothing, all the better.

I wonder about clothing that’s supposed to carry a message in the most literal sense.

Someone wears a dress to the Met Gala that has a slogan on it, or a T-shirt with a slogan on it, or Melania Trump with her raincoat that said, “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” I wonder if people should wear clothing with bumper stickers. Maybe magnets more than bumper stickers. You don’t want to be stuck with it.

And there should also be something that says I don’t take myself that seriously. That’s another value that you have within Judaism.

We’re supposed to take our responsibilities seriously, but not to take ourselves that seriously—to understand that we’re a work in progress. If that could be conveyed also by one’s clothing, I don’t know what it looks like, but it’s a value the world needs. n THECJN.CA 29

YOUR TURN

to continue the story 1960-1971

1971-2014

2014-2020

The Canadian Jewish News

For the first time in its 63-year history, The Canadian Jewish News can accept charitable donations, as one of the Canada Revenue Agency’s registered journalism organizations.

You can donate at thecjn.ca/donate

THE BACK PAGES

The Biggest, The Greatest The Most Comprehensive

ISRAEL REAL ESTATE EXHIBITION IN CANADA Toronto

OVER

70

T EREN DIFF JECTS PRO OSS ACR EL ISRA

Montreal

26 October 2023

29 October 2023

THURSDAY 15:30-21:30 “THE BAYT” 613 Clark Avenue West Thornhill, Ontario

SUNDAY 11:00-18:00 Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue 4894 Saint-Kevin Avenue Montréal

IT’S CLOSER THAN YOU THINK!

COME AND MEET REPRESENTATIVES OF HOUSING PROJECTS IN: JERUSALEM, TEL AVIV, RAANANA, BEIT SHEMESH, MODIIN, GIVAT SHMUEL, MA’ALE ADUMIM, ASHKELON, NETANYA & MORE LAWYERS, MORTGAGE CONSULTANTS, MONEY TRANSFER EXPERTS & MORE EMANUEL

GROUP ‫שיווק פרויקטים בנדל ן‬

PARTICIPATION IS FREE WITH ADVANCE REGISTRATION FOR REGISTRATION AND MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT: REALESTATEISRAEL.ORG

32

Shana Tova!

As we welcome the New Year, we extend our warmest wishes for a year filled with sweetness and blessings.

At CMI Mortgage Investments, we believe in starting the new year with new opportunities. Explore the potential of lucrative investments to help you build a prosperous future. Our trusted mortgage investment company offers a range of investment options designed to align with your financial goals.

With our expertise and commitment to excellence, we provide a reliable platform for your investment journey. Discover the possibilities and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with partnering with a reputable institution.

As you gather with loved ones to celebrate this joyous occasion, consider how investing with CMI can help you make the most of the year ahead. We are dedicated to your success and look forward to being a part of your financial growth.

Mortgage Awards of Excellence 2022 Best Private Lender

Globe And Mail, Canada’s Top Growing Companies 2022

Canadian Business 2020 Growth 500 List

Contact Us

1-888-465-8564 info@thecmigroup.ca cmimortgageinvestments.ca

Shana Tova, and a prosperous New Year!

Scan our QR Code to Learn More

THECJN.CA 33

From covering catwalks to

conquering cancer Legendary fashionista Jeanne Beker on how she’s living her best life now

By Ellin Bessner for The CJN Daily 34

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NAOMI HARRIS EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

Beker at her home in Toronto, June 2023 THECJN.CA 35

J

eanne Beker comes on our Zoom call with in her ear.

“His motto? ‘Don’t be afraid and never give a wide smile and a friendly hello, sporting a black-and-white polka dot blouse and silver up.’ And that’s totally what saw him and my jewelry. I couldn’t see what designer clothes mother through the war.”

Beker says she also drew inspiration from she was wearing from the waist down, but at people who reached out to share how breast the time, it didn’t occur to me to ask her.

Truth be told, I was a little nervous to inter- cancer had impacted their lives—including view her, because she’s one of Canada’s when the endings were not so happy.

“Whether it was their journey or their wives most iconic and beloved broadcasters, with a career spanning nearly half a century. She or their sisters or their mothers, but all of helped pave the way for generations of Jewish them were really giving me that whole cheerjournalists like who came after her. Women leader boost,” she says. “They were all saywho weren’t all blonde hair and perky noses. ing, ‘You’ve got this, just keep going, it’s gonWomen like me. na be OK.’” Beker, 71, was doing an interview for And in mid-June 2023, after a year of underThe CJN Daily from her Northumberland going surgery, chemotherapy, the resulting County farmhouse east of Toronto dubbed hair loss, and side effects from the cancer Chanteclair, which she bought in 2000 after a fighting drugs, Beker was hooked up to an divorce from former Toronto radio personality intravenous machine at the Princess MarBob Magee. garet Hospital in ToThe wall behind her ronto for her final inis adorned with a carifusion of Herceptin.

“My dad always said to She dutifully docucature of Beker in her younger years, showing me ‘It’s very important mented her appointstriking, oversized eyes ment on that day— how you dress because and, although it was and her trademark long, black hair and bangs. that’s the first thing a little hokey, Beker She has short hair now gamely stepped up that people see about to ring the clinic’s after her breast cancer treatment and the you and that’s how treatment bell (litbangs are different, but erally, a bronze bell) they’re going to judge to mark the end of Beker still uses that imthat stage of her canage as the profile photo you right off the bat’.” on Instagram cer journey.

And while other “I’m going to miss high-profile Jewish Canall the angels here, adian women in broadcasting have survived but in the meantime, I’m going to celebrate!” breast cancer in recent years—including Dr. she exclaimed to her 55,000 social media Marla Shapiro and Sandie Rinaldo—they followers.

Beker handles all her own postings, too. She weren’t as public about their odyssey.

Beker’s social media audience has nearly kicked off this summer by jetting off to Scottripled in the year since she decided to go land, visiting friends in Calgary, and hanging public and to use her high profile to document out with her musician daughter Joey O’Neil, the diagnosis. The posts started right after who lives in Dawson City, Yukon. the fateful phone call from her doctor in June Joey crocheted the red string bracelet which 2022, after a routine mammogram found a her mother sports on her left wrist, under mass in her breast. her watch. It’s an ancient Jewish tradition “And it was, like, the biggest shock of all be- designed to ward off bad luck. Beker kept it cause my mother never had breast cancer, my on throughout her cancer journey: her two sister didn’t have breast cancer. (She doesn’t daughters wear their own.

A similar talisman became part of her daily know if her grandmothers did, since they were wardrobe when Beker was pregnant. (Bekky murdered in the Holocaust.)

Beker credits her late father Joseph’s un- O’Neil, the older sister, lives 15 minutes away wavering wartime attitude for helping her get in Roseneath, Ont.).

“My mother insisted that I tie a little red ribthrough it. He survived serving in the Polish army, internment in the ghetto, and later, be- bon on my bra strap, which I wore the entire ing on the run with his bride, Bronia. To evade duration of both pregnancies.”

Beker hosts a weekly fashion program Style the Nazis, her parents hid in a series of attics, and sheltered in earthen bunkers beneath Matters on the TSC home-shopping channel farms. His daughter could feel him whispering across Canada. The eighth season begins

36

THECJN.CA 37

Makeup and hair by: Genny Rovito

this fall. But she became a household name through Fashion Television, which originated with Citytv Toronto in 1985, and aired in more than 100 countries. The show morphed into its own specialty channel until Bell Media pulled the plug on the franchise in 2012.

But for 27 seasons, she flew around the world with camera crews to cover the fashion business: attending the runways of Paris and Milan to nab exclusive, behind-the-scenes interviews with top designers including Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino and supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford.

Beker also curated and launched her own fashion lines, edited fashion magazines, mentored up-and-coming Canadian designers and wrote a handful of books. Designers created special outfits for her.

But she also credits her late mother’s prized turquoise-coloured Brother sewing machine for launching her on the road to international fame. It showed up at the family home in 1959, as a gift from her father when they moved into Toronto’s Bathurst Manor neighbourhood. From then on Bronia made all the family’s clothes.

Inspired by designs from Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines, Beker’s mother would head down to Spadina Avenue to pick up fabric at a store called Stitsky’s—which was perfectly fine for the mod styles dreamed up by Jeanne and her sister Marilyn.

These sartorial skills also came in handy for her first TV news job as an entertainment reporter in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

“I haven’t picked up a needle and thread like that in years,” she laughs.

But it wasn’t only her mother’s fashion sense that propelled Beker into the world of designer samples and look books. It was advice drilled into her by her father. After the couple settled into their new Canadian home, Joseph Beker ran a slipper factory in Toronto.

TOP: Peak shoulder pads at FT: June 30, 1989; BOTTOM: Jeanne behind the runway: Sept. 14, 1994 38

Keith Beaty/Toronto Star/Getty Images; Bernard Weil/Toronto Star/Getty Images

“This has become a whole other arena for me, a whole other way of lending my voice to something that could really help save lives, and certainly grow awareness.”

“My dad always said to me ‘It’s very important how you dress because that’s the first thing that people see about you and that’s how they’re going to judge you right off the bat’. So he was very, very adamant about always telling me that I should look my best.”

Jeanne Beker is one of approximately 40 percent of Canadian women who have dense breasts. But she was not aware she had them. As a result, following current provincial medical recommendations, she went for mammograms only every couple of years.

“It has nothing to do with the size of your breasts. Like a lot of people think, ‘Oh, you’ve got big boobs, you’ve got dense breasts.’ It has nothing to do with that. You could have very small breasts and they could still be dense.”

Since her own diagnosis, Beker has become a spokesperson for several breast cancer awareness groups and charities, including Dense Breasts Canada, and the breast cancer campaign called Be Your Own Breast Friend by the lingerie chain La Vie En Rose.

Later this fall, on Oct. 21, she’ll be honoured at the Princess Margaret Hospital’s One Life fundraising gala in Toronto.

“I’m still very much working and doing all the things that I love career-wise, but this has become a whole other arena for me, a whole other way of lending my voice to something that could really help save lives, and certainly grow awareness,” she says.

And while continuing to deal with related health issues from the cancer, such as energy loss and being monitored for any side effects on her heart, she’s now admittedly living her best life. She enjoys spending time in the country, walking her dog with her partner Iain MacInnes.

She also helps Bekky sell produce and greeting cards at the weekly market in Coburg.

And when her TSC show took its summer hiatus, Beker doubled down in the writing of a new memoir, slated to be published by Simon

“Quick and easy! Now if only we could do something about these dowdy blue hospital gowns… “: June 5, 2023

and Schuster in November of 2024. This book will be about the stories behind some of her favourite designer clothing pieces.

She’s worn a lot of them over the years. The closets of her principal residence in Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood remain “stuffed” with items. While she used to donate regularly to the Hadassah-WIZO Bazaar, and supported fundraisers for cancer charity Gilda’s House—corralling celebrity friends to make their own donations, too—she hasn’t culled her collection since the pandemic. The release of her next book might be a motivator to put a few items on display.

Beker promises her next memoir will tell the story about the black velvet bell-bottom pants she wore to an interview with Madonna, only to arrive and discover the pop star was wearing the exact same ones.

There will also be a section about one of her mother’s beloved party dresses from the 1970s, which had been sewn by a professional dressmaker. Decades later, Beker wore that same dress to a bar mitzvah and danced the night away.

“I was just overwhelmed with joy thinking about how many horas that dress had seen.” n

Shana Tova!

Since 1996

Toronto's Largest Consignment Showroom for Luxury Furniture and Home Decor

New Arrivals Daily 185 Bridgeland Avenue ¥ Toronto (5 mins from Yorkdale Shopping Centre)

Find Unique and Beautiful Items for your Home Instagram

Open 7 Days a Week, 10 am - 5 pm 416.256.9256 ¥ ofthingspast.com ¥

B r o w s e ¥ C h o o se ¥ En jo y FURNITURE

¥

ART

¥

MIRRORS

¥

LIGHTING

¥

AREA RUGS

¥

CRYSTAL

¥

ACCESSORIES THECJN.CA 39

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT ERROL & MARLENE

ABELL

DENISE

GALANTI

HOWARD & SUSAN

MINTZ

DOROTHY

SHAFFER

JAY

ABER

STEVEN

GALLEN

HOWARD

MODLIN

PERRY

SHAK

AUBREY & BARBARA

ABRAMS

CHARNA

GALPER

RON

MORGENTHAL

SIMON

SHAPIRO

LANNY

ABRAMSON

CAROL

GARELICK

HARVEY

MOSCOE

BRIAN

SILVER

TED

ADLER

A HAROLD

GARFINKLE

HARVEY

NAFTOLIN

BRIAN

SIMON

LAURA

AGENSKY

MATTHEW

GILLMAN

JOSEPH

NAIMAN

RHODA

SINGER

ARTHUR

AMEIS

SAMUEL

GLAZER

MARGARET

NIGHTINGALE

PETER

SKIERKA

PHILIP

AMSEL

EDDIE

GLICK

ROSALIND

NIKOLAEVSKY

HARVEY

SKOLNICK

PHIL

ANZARUT

ZANA

GLINA

MORRIS

NORMAN

PAUL

SKOLNIK

AUBRIE

APPEL

MELANIE AND JERRY

GLUSS

ETHNE

NUSSBAUM

BARRY

SLAPCOFF

RACHEL

ARCHIBALD

VICTOR

GOLDBERG

SANDY

OFFENHEIM

ALBERT

SLIWIN

SUSAN

ARGINTARU

JOAN

GOLDFARB

RAYMOND

OSTER

LAWRENCE

SMITH

DAVID & MARGARET

ATTIS

AVRA

GOLDHAR

BARBARA

PALTER

JOEL

SNITMAN

TED

AXLER

JERRY

GOLICK

STANLEY

PASTERNAK

DANIELLE & IAN

SOLO

SEYMOUR

AXLER

ALLAN

GOODMAN

STEVEN

PEARL

WALTER

SOWA

ELEANOR

BAKER

JONATHAN

GOODMAN

REEVIN

PEARL

JEFF

SPRINGER

MARILYN

BAKER

GRETA

GOODZ

LYNN

PEARSON

MARY MARTHA

STARKMAN

LISA

BAUM

BENJAMIN

GORDON

PAULA

PERLMUTAR-ORETSKY

EVELYN

STEINBERG

LARRY

BELL

ERIC

GOSSIN

JOAN

PESKIN

VICTORIA

STEINBERG

STEVE

BENMOR

BRUCE

GRAM

ELAINE

PESSES

GORDON

STRAUSS

PHILIP

BERGER

MARION

GREENBERG

AYELET

PILZ

JEFFREY

STUTZ

SUSAN C.

BERGER

LINDA

GREENWALD

PHYLLIS

PINCHUK

HOWARD

SUD

GAIL

BERMAN

LONY

GROPPER

ARTHUR

RABINOVITCH

LINDA

SUGAR

WILLIAM

BERNSTEIN

DAVID

GROSKIND

ROSE

RAVINSKY

SHIRLEY

SWARTZ

HARVEY & ROSLYN

BIENENSTOCK

JEFF

GROSMAN

ROCHELLE

REICHERT

GREG

TUGG

MARILYN

BINDER

ERNIE

GUTSTEIN

JONATHAN

RESNICK

HARRY

TURK

DAVID

BIRNBAUM

HYMIE

GUTTMAN

TONI

REZNICK

GARY

URLICH

SHIRLEY

BLAICHMAN

MARK

HADID

BENDAYAN-ELKOUBY

RICA

LAURIE

URMAN

HYMAN

BLOOM

STEPHEN

HALPERN

FLORENCE

RICHMAN

DORA

USHER

LORRAINE

BLOOM

NELSON

HALPERN

RICHARD

RODNEY

GARY

VINER

ELEANOR

BONDER

MONDA

HALPERN

JESSICA

ROSEN

BARBARA

VININSKY-MILLAR

JACK

BORENSTEIN

JOYCE

HARRIS

MOISHE

ROSEN

JOY

WAGNER

ERIC

BORNSTEIN

ELIE-RACHEL

HAZIZA

JACOB

ROSENBERG

SHEILA

WALKER

SANDRA

BORSUK

JAMES

HEIFETZ

ELLEN

ROSEN-LAZANIK

GARY

WATERS

AVROM

BROWN

CHARLES

HELLER

CAROL

ROTHBART

MIRIAM

WEBB

ROBERT

BRYM

FLORENCE

HERTZMAN

SHELLEY

ROTHMAN

EDWARD

WEINBERG

ROSE

BYER

MURRAY

HOFFMAN

GELLA

ROTHSTEIN

SHELDON

WEINGARTEN

ARNOLD

CADER

VERONICA

HONIGWACHS

DAVID

ROYTENBERG

PHIL

WEINSTEIN

HOWARD

CADESKY

JUDITH

HOWARD

MICHAEL

RUCKENSTEIN

SUSAN

WELTMAN

FRAN

CAINE

MARK

HUNDERT

HENRY

RUSCHIN

JUDY AND JACK

WINBERG

STEPHEN

COHEN

MARTIN

ISAIF

RAPHAEL

RUSH

LISE

WINER

MATTHEW

COHN

LESLEY

JACOBSON

STANLEY

SAGER

PAULINE

WINTRAUB

BRUCE

COLE

ELAINE

JUSTEIN

DOROTHY

SAMSON

NAOMI P

WITTLIN

HARRIETTE

COLLE

EDWARD

KALKSTEIN

MARK AND NAOMI

SATOK

SHARON

WOLFE

GAIL

COOPER

CALVIN S

KALMAN

BEA

SCHACHTER

RAFI

YABLONSKY

DEBBIE

COWITZ

JONATHAN

KANTOR

ROBBIE

SCHWARTZ

E PAUL

YANOVER

JOEL

CUPERFAIN

BERNARD M. L.

KATZ

HELEN

SEGAL

CHARLES

YOLLECK

STEVEN

DAIN

MRS. CECIL

KAUFMAN-STEIN

PEGGY

SEGAL

CECILE

ZAIFMAN

PETER

DAN

RANDI

KAY-LEIFER

MARILYN

SEGALL

CHERYL

ZELDIN

SARA

DAVID

BRIAN

KINGSTONE

MARY

SELDON

DALIA

DAY

FELICE AND WAYNE

KIRSH

ELLEN

DAYAN

AGNES V

KLEIN

GAYLE

DE BLOEME

ZOE

KLEIN

ROGER

DE FREITAS

BERNARD

KLEINBERG

JOSEPH

DEITCHER

SHARON

KLUG

DAVID

DIAMOND

TOBI

KOLNICK

COLUMBIA FRAME INC.

MARC

DOLGIN

MARVIN & NAOMI

KRYM

LISA

DRAPER

JACK

KURIN

ELDEE FOUNDATION

LEN

DVORKIN

ART

KUSHNER

WENDY

EISEN

LIVIA

LAMBRECHT

GREENBERG-MANOR FAMILY FUND / JEWISH FOUNDATION OF GREATER TORONTO

BETTY

EISENSTADT

ELAYNA

LATSKY

GURMAN FOUNDATION

EDITH

FEIGER

DAVID

LAWEE

ISADORE

FEINSTEIN

STEVEN

LAX

GARY

FELDMAN

MURRAY

LEVINE

SHIM

FELSEN

JONATHAN

LEVINE

RE/MAX REALTRON REALTY INC.

MARK

FENSON

SUSAN

LIEBERMAN

SARAH

FINDELBOROUGH

STEPHEN

LIPPER

THE AMAYN CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

MARILYN

FINKELSTEIN

ALLAN

LITOVITZ

SARAH

FISHER

BRIAN

LUDMER

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL/THE JAMLET FOUNDATION

RINA AND LARRY

FISHER

ANNE

MANDELL

THE MORRIS & ROSALIND GOODMAN FAMILY FOUNDATION

MIKE

FLORENCE

ZOE

MARGOLIS

PETER

FRAENKEL

ROSALIE

MARKUS

JUDY

FRANKFORT

JEFF

MARTOW

PHYLLIS

FRIEBERG

EVA

MARX

HELEN

FRIEDMAN

KEITH

MELOFF

MARY

FRUITMAN

DAVID

MERVITZ

WILLIAM

FRYDMAN

GILBERT

MILLER

ANITA

GABBAY

JACQUELINE

MILLS

GALIN FOUNDATION

MARTIN & FRANCIE STORM FUND / JEWISH FOUNDATION OF GREATER TORONTO METROPIA MANAGEMENT LIMITED PARTNERSHIP

THE AZRIELI FOUNDATION

THE SCHULICH FOUNDATION THE SHARP FOUNDATION

DONATE AT thecjn.ca/donate

THE CANADIAN RACE RELATIONS FOUNDATION wishes you and your loved ones a happy Rosh Hashanah.

LA FONDATION CANADIENNE DES RELATIONS RACIALES

vous souhaite, ainsi qu’à vos proches, un joyeux Rosh Hashanah.

The Canadian Race Relations Foundation is a Crown Corporation committed to fighting racism in Canada. We work to strengthen the social fabric of our society by supporting, enabling and convening community groups and organizations through our grants, services and network of public, research and community partners.

La Fondation canadienne des relations raciales est une société d’État qui s’est engagée à lutter contre le racisme au Canada. Nous travaillons à renforcer le tissu social au Canada en aidant, habilitant et rassemblant les groupes et les organismes communautaires grâce à des subventions, des services et un réseau de partenaires dans le milieu de la recherche et dans les secteurs privé et communautaire.

Visit crrf-fcrr.ca to learn more or follow us on social media.

Visitez crrf-fcrr.ca pour en savoir plus ou suivez-nous sur les médias sociaux.

Show them we all have a role in shaping a brighter future.

Create lasting impact. Start your fund today.

JewishCommunityFoundation.com/tikkun-olam or call us at 604-257-5100.

42

THECJN.CA 43

Book a tour today!

L’Shana Tovah V’Metuka Wishing you are your family a new year filled with peace, happiness and good health. Come and experience the warmth and vibrancy of our community.

For more information call 1-866-959-4848

866 Sheppard Avenue West, Toronto, ON

aspiralife.ca

44

SPONSORED CONTENT

Follow the Smart Money EVER WONDER WHERE THE BEST REAL ESTATE MINDS INVEST?

We’ve done the math. Too much demand and nowhere near enough supply. That spells opportunity for anyone who can help solve the problem. With half a million more people every year1, Canada’s population is growing significantly faster than our housing supply. The numbers tell a powerful story. Ontario alone needs 1.8 million homes beyond what would normally be constructed by 20302 - a number that at present appears hard to reach.

It’s a generational challenge with enormous market potential, and that means many new players will be attempting to enter this field. For investors looking to minimize risk, that’s where the stable performance and consistent track record of Cameron Stephens Mortgage Capital (CSMC) comes in.

Established in 2004, CSMC is a leading non-bank mortgage lender that specializes in residential land, development, and construction financing.

The current CSMC portfolio includes over $3 billion in assets under management, of which over $2.4 billion is managed for institutional investors and $0.6 billion is managed for private investors, including several large family offices.

Cameron Stephens Mortgage Trust (CSMT) was created in 2019 to offer institutional and private investors the opportunity to invest in a diversified portfolio of primarily first mortgage

investments originated and underwritten by its manager, CSMC. CSMT is open to accredited investors looking to add real estate to their portfolio through providing residential land, development, and construction loans. Even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, these asset classes have remained resilient, and the current focus by all levels of government on addressing the housing shortage is providing a stronger impetus to growth.

When you’re balancing risk and reward, you will appreciate that CSMT’s aim is both rewarding and conservative: superior risk-adjusted returns with minimal volatility. There is a lot of history to support that aim: CSMT has no loan losses since inception, and its net annual returns since inception have ranged from 7.4%-8.0%*.

CSMT’s YTD 2023 net annualized return is 9.6%* as the majority of its loans are indexed to the Prime Rate, which has increased significantly over the past 12 months.

Another reassuring fact is that CSMT is a private fund that isn’t linked to volatile public markets.

And based on CSMC’s stellar credit quality, there is no anticipated unit price volatility.

Issuances are held monthly, so there are regular opportunities to invest.

CSMC knows real estate. The bedrock underpinning the company is its prudent investment philosophy, strong underwriting, and exceptional performance track record. CSMC’s infrastructure allows for a collaborative approach to deal structuring, underwriting, and funding to help ensure that the needs of its Investors and Borrowers are aligned in a win-win fashion.

Farsighted, thoughtful, and experienced. The fundamental goal of CSMT is to preserve the capital of its investors, while providing them with consistent growth and stable returns over the long term. Simply put, conservatively opportunistic.

Canada’s housing shortage is both a generational challenge and opportunity. Choose Cameron Stephens Mortgage Trust and add yourself to the equation. *Past performance may not be indicative of CSMT’s future performance.

1. Statistics Canada – Population Projections for Canada (2021 to 2068), Provinces and Territories (2021 to 2043) – August 22, 2022 2. CMHC – Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages: Estimating what is needed to solve Canada’s housing affordability crisis by 2030 – June 23, 2022 Please note that this investment is only available to those who qualify as accredited investors under applicable securities laws.

For more information, contact us!

Contact: 416-591-8787 x 241 CameronStephens.com/Investing

THECJN.CA 45

Kippur Slippers How to adorn your toes on the Day of Atonement PHOTOGRAPHY AND COMMENTARY BY NAOMI HARRIS EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

H

ave you ever wondered why on the holiest of days we also get to wear our comfiest of kicks? The concept was certainly not for comfort—in fact, just the opposite.

On the Day of Atonement, the Torah commands us to afflict ourselves and refrain from certain luxuries such as eating and drinking, washing or anointing our bodies and even marital relations (as if you need more of an excuse than having skipped bathing). We take it for granted that leather shoes were once the epitome of comfort and hence the custom of wearing shoes made of synthetic materials. Today, running shoes and slides are often more comfortable than their leather predecessors, especially with the advent of vegan options.

Here are a few recommendations of kosher-yet-relaxed footwear for Yom Kippur.

So, whether you opt for sneakers, flip-flops, slippers or Crocs, this is the one day of the year you’re expected to wear the sweatpants of footwear in shul.

Photographed at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue in Toronto.

46

What goes better with your kittel than the iconic Adidas Stan Smith?

Don’t be fooled by this timeless sneaker, the vegan upper and rubber outsole is made of 50 percent recycled materials: stylish and good for the planet as well.

THECJN.CA 47

48

Front row seats (left to right): Crocs Classic Clog in Lime Punch personalized with food-themed Jibbitz; every mayven knows that the New Balance 574 Core is the only way to go; why wear Converse when you can wear the Comme des Carçons Play collaboration; Uggs Scrunchta in Sunny Yellow sports textile upper with sheepskin insole (there’s always one in every crowd).

THECJN.CA 49

Nice Jewish girls pack a little something to break the fast, and wear Uggs Sport Yeah slides, pictured here in Dragon Fruit.

50

Sephardis know that pomanders (clove apple) stave off hunger pangs, revive those feeling faint and pair well with Converse Chuck Taylor All Star high tops in classic red. (Use oranges or lemons depending on colour coordination).

Every big macher knows New Balance 574 are the official sneaker of old Jewish men, and Yom Kippur is the best night to buy Israel Bonds. With rising interest rates, get some for the grandkids!

On’s Cloud 5 Push running shoes, seen here in Fiji Rose, signature speed lacing system is perfect when feeling faint from fasting. The Swiss make good chocolate, watches and now running shoes.

Kachol ve’lavan… wear Israel proud with Adilette Aqua Slides in Solar Blue/Cloud White. Invented by Adidas in 1963 for footballers to ease tired feet, imagine how good they’ll feel while saying the Amidah.

THECJN.CA 51

The Toronto Prep School is an independent, co-educational, university preparatory school for discerning students and parents.

250 Davisville Avenue #200 Toronto, Ontario M4S 1H2 416.545.1020 www.torontoprepschool.com

Contact Fouli Tsimikalis Director of Admissions

ftsimikalis@torontoprepschool.com

The Toronto Prep School education experience includes: • a semestered, university preparatory curriculum • MacBook Pro with educational software • Indoor TPS Fitness Facility • an extended after school study program • Saturday Club study program • maximum class size of 16 students • extra-curricular clubs and athletic program • New Theatre, Music Recording Studio and New Media Lab

Home of the Spartans!

Wishing our students, faculty and community, Shana Tova uMetuka

‫שנה טובה‬

52

The Voice of the People Is Israel headed in the right direction?

How worr are you abied antisemiti out sm?

JOIN OUR PANEL jpanel.net/cjn

for your chance to win 2 tickets to Israel and other great prizes!

Shana Tova!

Wishing you health and happiness for the new year

Book a tour (905) 738-0905 Four Elms Retirement Residence (905) 738-0905 | 1500 Steeles Ave. W, Thornhill FourElmsRetirement.com

THECJN.CA 53

THE ANNE TANENBAUM CENTRE FOR JEWISH STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO WISHES YOU AND YOUR FAMILY A YEAR FILLED WITH HEALTH, JOY, PEACE & LEARNING!

WE THANK OUR SUPPORTERS AND FRIENDS for helping us build a vibrant Jewish Studies program!

We taught more than 1000 undergraduate students and offered over 65 courses in Jewish studies. Our students are supported by generous scholarships, such as Oscar Yolles Bursary in Jewish Studies, Robert Ross Scholarship, and Kideckel Robbins/ Harry & Sarah (Sadie) Kideckel Memorial Scholarship in Jewish Studies.

The robust Granovsky-Gluskin Graduate Program has over 70 enrolled students, and is the largest Jewish Studies graduate program in the world.

Thanks to the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies Fund, Himel Family Endowment, Disenhouse Family Fund, and Toronto Workmen’s Circle Foundation, our Yiddish Graduate Stream continues to grow and thrive.

We hosted 36 hybrid events during the last academic year, with more than 2700 attendees in-person and online. Thanks to the support of the Pearl and Jack Mandel Family Fund, Tanenbaum Family Fund, Halbert Fund, and many others, we engaged with world-class scholars from Israel, Europe, and North America.

SHANA TOVA!

calendar!

www.jewishstudies.utoronto.ca

Professor Anna Shternshis Director, Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies

Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies @cjsuoft

LOOKING FOR A JEWISH OVERNIGHT CAMP FOR SUMMER 2024?!

1 & 2 WEEK OPTIONS OR FOR FIRST TIME CAMPERS

BOOK YOUR VIRTUAL OR IN PERSON TOUR TODAY! For more information, contact:

Jill Doctor, Associate Director jill@cbbottawa.com

613.244.9210 @cbbofottawa

54

Join us in the new year for our exciting ATCJS 2023/24 Public Lecture Series!

Check our website for the full event

www.cbbottawa.com

SHANA

Tova

From our CBBO family to yours!

Shana Tova from all of us at The Dunfield Retirement Residence.

THECJN.CA 55

56

Picturing

Jew-ish Jew

Reflecting on how we saw ourselves onscreen in the 1990s

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy

THECJN.CA 57

ike many millennials, I miss the 1990s.

Doubtless many GenXers do too. It was a prosperous time, one before smartphones, when it was still possible to go out and have fun without photographic evidence of said fun reaching the wider world. People interacted in person and were not online all the time, suggesting that one another “touch grass.”

The clothes were better (fast fashion had yet to tank garment quality), as was the music. It was an era of greater geopolitical peace. A less identity-aware time, for better and worse, but on the whole a more placid one. These were the years before 9/11, and the ensuing wars, not to mention the ensuing thing where you’re stopped from bringing guacamole on an airplane because this count as a liquid.

Meanwhile, the horrors of the two World Wars were long enough in the past that it really did feel possible that life was going to be, on the whole, pretty good. The Cold War had ended. Americans’ optimism levels were, per Gallup polling, higher than in 2022, and trending upwards. Further fueling 1990s nostalgia in the 2020s is the knowledge of all that would come in the decades that followed: Trump, Covid, and the ubiquity of social media. Even those of us who didn’t relish every bit of the 1990s (i.e. who were in middle school for much of them) may see positives in retrospect.

And calm times tend to be good ones for a certain group of people who are often scapegoated in more tumultuous ones. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about Jews.

A 2022 Anti-Defamation League report offers a clue as to why Jews might yearn for decades of the recent past: “In 2021, ADL tabulated 2,717 antisemitic incidents across the United States. This represents a 34% increase from the 2,026 incidents recorded in 2020 and is the highest number on record since ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.” While it is not possible to quantify exactly how antisemitic any particular era (apart from Nazi German, of course) felt—and while there will always be regional variation—some data suggest that global antisemitism began rising around the year 2000, or the start of the Second Intifada, and then into the so-called War on Terror.

This is in keeping with my own memory of that period, which is that while antisemitism certainly existed in the 1990s, circa 2000 is when it shifted from a phenomenon of oldschool xenophobes to something tied up, in the mainstream, with people’s interpretations of world events. It was possible, in the 1990s, to see antisemitism as something on its way

58

out, in a way that would not have been in 2004, and that really wouldn’t have in 2022.

The 1990s were also a deeply Jewish moment in popular culture. We were everywhere in sitcoms—Friends, Mad About You, Seinfeld. The 2000 movie Meet the Parents, wherein Ben Stiller is a Jewish man marrying into a non-Jewish family, was a critical and box office hit. (It’s close enough to the ‘90s to count, in my books.) Even Frasier, a show about gentiles, was chock-full of explicitly and ambiguously Jewish love interests.

(Bebe Newirth as Lilith, sultry even in pleated khakis, the ones that recently came back into style: #goals.)

The big one, though, was Fran Drescher’s The Nanny, which ran from 1993 to 1999.

It was the rare show told completely from a Jewish perspective. By this I mean that the

We were everywhere, but not openly everywhere. gentile characters are portrayed as having strange gentile ways: being uptight, drinking more than Manishewitz, wearing too much beige. It is they who are the oddities, from the show’s standpoint. The Jewish characters represent not ethnic curiosities but familiarity.

And we had, in Monica Lewinsky, a Jewish headline-news story that, while upsetting in what it said about the state of sexual misconduct, had nothing to do with antisemitism. If anything, the problem was that the gentile leader of the free world loved her a little too much.

T

he 1990s is not the only era to be the object of Jewish wistfulness by any means. There is, for example, the longing for the shtetl, or at least the Fiddler on the Roof version thereof, as representative of a lost form of Jewish authenticity. And nostalgia for the Jewish delicatessen—see David Sax’s 2009 book, Save the Deli—involves poignant taste-memories of a New World but still distant (mid-century, roughly) Jewish existence.

As a general principle, Jewish nostalgias have always been tinged with an understand-

ing that even if some elements of the past are appealing, we are nevertheless fortunate to live in the times we do. Uncomplicated nostalgia, the carefree kind, was for other people, for members of groups that had not been genocide victims, enslaved, or otherwise mistreated on a grand scale. (Louis C.K. had a (pre-cancellation) 2008 comedy routine about how a time machine to the past would be fun for white people but not Black ones. So too for Jews. Fond as I am of the décor on Poirot, you won’t catch me wishing I lived in the 1930s.

Are the 1990s, perhaps, the first exception to this longstanding rule? Is part of their nostalgic appeal that they were they better for Jews than today? While it might seem that the decade was on the whole superior, a closer look at some of the Jewish pop culture of that era complicates matters. We were everywhere, but not openly everywhere.

Coded, hinted-at Jewishness could make it in the mainstream, whereas explicitly Jewish content remained—or creators and gatekeepers feared would remain—too niche.

I think of the unspoken quasi-Jewishness of Seinfeld, which read as super-duper Jewish… to Jewish audiences. Mainstream viewers were none the wiser, unless they happened to catch one of the few episodes where Jewishness explicitly came up.

Indeed, something curious happens when you stop and think about the iconic Jewish film and television characters of the 1990s.

If you start—in the most innocuous way possible—making a list, you soon discover that a number of these fictional creations are… not actually Jewish.

Jerry Seinfeld, the person as well as the sitcom character: both Jewish. No doubts there.

But George Costanza? He was portrayed by a Jewish actor, but as written in the show, the Costanzas are Italian-American, religion unspecified. The most we learn about George is that his faith of origin is not something he’s attached to. We learn this in the episode where he converts to Latvian Orthodoxy, for a woman he’s involved with, giving as his reason, “I like the hats.” It’s an intensely Jewish intermarriage plot—Estelle Costanza’s metaphorically tearing her hair out in strongly New York-accented English—but Jews go unmentioned.

Yet George is coded as Jewish. He is a prototypical nebbish, a neurotic over-analyser whose parents (briefly) move to Florida. And as viewers of Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000 and ongoing) can hardly miss, George is something of an alter ego of Seinfeld creator Larry David, whose Jewishness is not up for

iStock; CBS; Paramount Pictures; Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, Warner Bros; NBCWarner Bros; NBC

L

debate. The “Larry David” character on Curb (a fictionalized version of the real person) is basically who George would be if he were successful.

Then there’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the actress who played Elaine, who comes from the same Dreyfus family as Alfred Dreyfus of the Dreyfus Affair. Her character reads as Jewish to anyone familiar with the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the likely background of a white woman with curly dark hair and friends like Jerry and George. Elaine is totally Jewish.

Until, of course, you remember that there is a plotline surrounding her “shiksappeal”—an exploration of the (purported) phenomenon of Jewish men being attracted to non-Jewish women. (Who were these fictional Jewish men of 1990s Manhattan, whose quest for a distinctly non-Jewish woman led them to Elaine? It made no sense!)

Then there were the “JAPs,” like “shiksa” a term now viewed as a quasi-slur, but that was common parlance in the 1990s, as well as a definite on-screen type. The characters one thinks of as Jewish American Princesses were not necessarily Jewish.

To take another example of a female character whose Jewishness was more subtext than text: Rachel Green from Friends, portrayed by non-Jewish actress Jennifer Aniston, is not outright describe as Jewish, but ticks so many boxes (the love of shopping, the Long Island nose job childhood, the orthodontist fiancé named Bernie Farber, the name) that she hovers in that same Schrödinger’s Jew zone, Jewish and not at the same time. Thus the Hey Alma article headlined, “Is Rachel Green Jewish?” Or, indeed, an identical Vulture headline.

A casual viewing of the show makes clear that Ross and Monica are Jewish (their father is, and there are the occasional references to their own Jewishness), but where Rachel is concerned, does not spell it out.

Nor do statements from behind the scenes.

Per co-creator David Crane, “‘In our minds I guess [Rachel] was Jewish,’” which is not the unequivocal statement it might seem.

Intent is not everything! Nor is the 2014 tweet from someone identifying himself as a former Friends writer that Hey Alma treats as definitive: “Rachel is Jewish. I think.” A lot of thinking and guessing going on.

The ultimate, though, would have to be Cher Horowitz, the protagonist of 1995 film Clueless. Cher with her shopping bags, Cher with her wealthy lawyer father, Cher with her daddy’s-girl naiveté (trying to seduce a gay male classmate), and—hard to miss—the last name “Horowitz”: she was surely as Jewish THECJN.CA 59

iStock; NBC

as they come. Right?

While Silverstone herself is Jewish (as all the circa-that-era articles about how did you know that some Jews are blond? Reminded us), as is movie creator Amy Heckerling, not to mention her handsome if quasi-incestuous love interest played by Paul Rudd, Horowitz was not an explicitly Jewish character. Thus the Jewish Chronicle headline, “Cher Horowitz is not Jewish.” But is that definitive? The source is a JTA interview in which Heckerling says Clueless was not meant to be “a Jewish story,” but rather a retelling of Jane Austen’s

identity conversations, a character having a Jewish vibe but not actually being Jewish would make no sense. In the 1990s, ambiguous, hinted-at, now-you-see-it-nowyou-don’t Jewishness was everywhere, and even greeted as a sign that we’d arrived. Like coded gayness, coded Jewishness was the best anyone could hope for, at least from mainstream entertainment. It implied a society where one could be too gay or too Jewish, which is to say, a society rife with prejudice.

This sort of evasiveness about Jewish identity would never happen on screens now.

novel Emma in then-modern-day Los Angeles.

Horowitz, per Heckerling, is based on “‘the daughters of people in show business in L.A.’” Does this make her a non-Jewish character, case closed? Or merely a Jewish-coded one?

It is easy to miss the forest for the trees in this discussion and to find oneself trying to ascertain which of these characters is or isn’t Jewish per the show’s universe. For one thing, there is not always a consistent answer, regarding Jewishness or any other trait. (Does Frasier Crane drink beer or is he too snooty for that? Cheers and Frasier offer different answers.) What actually matters, I think, is the way in which this nebulous category of coded Jewishness functioned.

In 2023, a time characterized by forthright

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is definitively about Jews, though some non-Jewish casting choices have caught flack. Broad City depicts Abby and Ilana going on a Birthright-style trip to Israel. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does not leave viewers—even those unfamiliar with star and creator Rachel Bloom—wondering about Rebecca Bunch’s Jewishness. A musical sitcom with a song called “JAP Battle” does not leave the viewer guessing the protagonist’s origins. Nor, for that matter, does the movie title Shiva Baby, a buzzy 2020 comedy, inspire Jewish journalists to investigate whether this is or is not a film about Jews.

While coded identity always speaks to a sense that society is not ready for (aka is bigoted against) members of a particular group,

60

there are different types of prejudice. My sense—backed up by the initial reception of the Seinfeld pilot (“too New York, too Jewish,” according to an exec)—is that Seinfeldian reticence, Jewishness-wise, was more about trying not to confuse viewers with particularity that might go over their heads, than with a fear that if people took George Costanza to be Jewish, this would empower antisemites.

Put another way: if Seinfeld were too distinctly Jewish, it would not only repel the haters of urban Jews, but would also simply not reach as many non-Jewish viewers as it would if it kept the specificity under wraps. They might pass on a Jewish sitcom not because they necessarily disliked Jews, or doubted that New York Jews could be real Americans, but because they didn’t think it was intended for them. The show itself took the stance that antisemitism was a thing of the past, mocking Jerry’s Uncle Leo for his paranoia, seeing Jew-hatred everywhere. It’s hard to imagine a show doing this in an era when virtually every Jewish communal institution devotes itself to ending Jew hate.

If the 1990s were hazy about the Jewishness of their Jewish pop-culture characters, they were all the more so about the very existence of non-Ashkenazi Jews and Jews of Colour. It might surprise you (or not, depending your own Wikipedia usage) to learn that Jerry Seinfeld, unlike his television counterpart, had a Syrian Jewish mother.

And if you really want to get into the weeds of invisibly Jewish Seinfeld trivia, which I think I have by now established I do: Brian George, the actor who played Babu Bhatt, the Pakistani restauranteur who calls Jerry a “very bad man” in scenes whose racial sensitivity was a bit lacking even by 1990s standards, was “born in Jerusalem to Jewish parents of Lebanese, Indian, and Iraqi descent, who had immigrated to Israel.”

The 2020s can be a sanctimonious time, an era in which the humorless-on-both-sides battle between ‘woke’ and ‘anti-woke’ dominates cultural conversations. A hyper-focus on identity, across the political spectrum, has not necessarily translated to friendlier times for marginalized people. If we are living in great times for feminism, how is abortion newly illegal in much of the United States? If things have never been better for the LGBT community, what’s with the intensity of rightwing transphobia and resurgent homophobia, not to mention the hostility to drag?

But I will say this for our times: I think audiences of today would be ready for a Jewish George, a Jewish Rachel, and even—why not?—a Jewish Babu. 

Happy New Year ‫שנה טובה‬

Shana Tova

Robert Bard, President BUILDING WEALTH FOR OUR CLIENTS FOR OVER 90 YEARS

Personalized Portfolio Management dorchesterwealth.com

1100 Rene Levesque Blvd. West, Suite 650 Montreal, Quebec H3B 4N4 T 514.861.5841 TF 877.551.5841

STARKMANS MEDICAL SUPPLY

Health Care Depot

L’Shanah Tovah May this New Year be filled with health and happiness for you and your family.

From all of us at Minden Gross LLP

From our family to yours

Minden Gross llp

BARRISTERS & SOLICITORS

O Tru ve st r 9 ed o Fo Ye r ar s

145 King St. W., Suite 2200 Toronto, ON M5H 4G2 416.362.3711 @MindenGross www.mindengross.com

THECJN.CA 61

IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO START YOUR LEGACY Did you know that leaving a charitable gift in your will or insurance policy can significantly reduce your taxes during your lifetime, while decreasing the estate tax burden for your heirs?

Make a planned gift to CHW to ensure your philanthropic legacy, while also ensuring the future of your loved ones.

CHW.CA/LEGACY CHW (Canadian Hadassah-WIZO) empowers women and children by supporting education, healthcare, and social services across Israel and Canada.

SPONSOR A PUPPY

Mayor Steven Del Duca and Members of Council extend their best wishes for a New Year filled with blessings of joy, health and peace.

L’Shanah Tovah!

Sponsor a puppy from just $10/month and you can be an active part of helping them grow from a small bundle of fur into a confident guide or service dog ready to lead someone past the obstacles of daily life.

Sign up at israelguidedog.ca/sponsor-a-puppy Or call 416-577-3600

62

2022-26 City of Vaughan Members of Council First row, left to right: Gila Martow, Ward 5 Councillor; Chris Ainsworth, Ward 4 Councillor; Rosanna DeFrancesca, Ward 3 Councillor; Adriano Volpentesta, Ward 2 Councillor; Marilyn lafrate, Ward 1 Councillor Second row, left to right: Gino Rosati, Local and Regional Councillor; Linda Jackson, Deputy Mayor, Local and Regional Councillor; Steven Del Duca, Mayor; Mario Ferri, Local and Regional Councillor; Mario G. Racco, Local and Regional Councillor

S H A N A T OVA Chag Sameach from Amica On The Avenue and Amica Thornhill. We wish you and your family a Shana Tova.

A M I C A O N T H E AV E N U E 4 1 6 - 4 8 3 - 9 9 0 0 AMICA THORNHILL 905-886-3400 ■

■

13466AMI_OTA_TH_RoshHashana_2023_FA.indd 1

2023-07-13 1:09 PM

THECJN.CA 63

Banned books, rogue rappers, and a ham sandwich on lard bread Phoebe Maltz Bovy on the trending topics of the year 5783 PHOTOILLUSTRATIONS BY GLUEKIT EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

S

ince starting at The CJN in September of last year, I’ve been covering the culture from a Jewish lens, in my column and on the Bonjour Chai podcast. When I sat down to think of what this past year will be remembered for, here’s a smattering of what I came up with.

Whither the secular Jew? This year saw a crisis in Israel over the role of Orthodoxy in the state. Demographically, Haredi Jews have a certain undeniable advantage. This does not stop the likes of billionaire philanthropist Michael Steinhardt—cofounder of Taglit-Birthright Israel—from asking less-observant Jews to please have more babies. Nor does it prevent the more liberal denominations from welcoming the children of intermarriage, thereby adding to the ranks of, if not fully secular Jews, non-Orthodox ones, Jews who come from a wide range of cultural backgrounds.

In any event, the days of cultural Jewishness as bagels and Woody Allen movies are—for a variety of reasons— 64

long gone. North American Jews battled it out amongst ourselves over Jewish authenticity and belonging. Rightwing American commentator Ben Shapiro called Vermont senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders “approximately as Jewish as a ham sandwich topped with shrimp on lard bread.” Is Sanders less of a Jew than the more observant and more pro-Israel (though Sanders is not anti-Israel) Shapiro? Or, as some would contend, is it in fact Sanders who exudes Jewish authenticity from every Brooklyn-accented pore, and Shapiro, darling of the small-c conservatives, who fails to measure up?

We at The CJN had our own lively debates in this area.

On Bonjour Chai we brought in legendary American Jewish journalist and podcaster Mark Oppenheimer, formerly of Tablet and its Unorthodox podcast, to discuss his argument that the secular-but-curious should give Jewish practice a chance. Indeed, with our weekly podcasts, Avi Finegold and I bring secular-observant dialogue into the

Ye, Sanders, Shapiro, Steinhardt

THECJN.CA 65

How relevant are kings and queens to Jewish happiness?

Canadian Jewish conversation. Though our numbers may be dwindling, secular Jews are still kicking around, podcasting (if not praying) with the best of them.

The end of antisemitism?

Antisemitism the term was coined in the 1880s; antisemitism the phenomenon predates it by millennia. People have been hating Jews since there were Jews, and we have been defending ourselves for just as long. But 5783 was a banner year for the phenomenon of fighting antisemitism. Having largely dispensed with their preoccupation of getting Jews to marry in mainstream and more obscure Jewish 66

institutions switched gears and went all-in on ending “Jew hatred.”

Seemingly every social media post from a community organization is about this fight and how one can contribute to it, financially or otherwise. Come to this rally! Or, more often, Boost this message! The sense of urgency is palpable.

There has, in fairness, been a bunch of Jew-hatred to address.

Kanye West (“Ye”) brought antisemitic ranting to the mainstream in a way that felt, if not historically unprecedented, then still an ominous revival. Pro-Israel Jewish students worried about cancellation (with Jewish students often assumed to be pro-Israel unless they specified otherwise), while visibly Jewish people of all ages have risked physic-

al assault. The problem itself is real, and often poorly addressed within a contemporary progressive identity politics framework, with its emphasis on being materially disadvantaged or visibly racialized.

If the idea is to fight privilege, what do you do with a form of bigotry that so often manifests itself as accusations of privilege? In EDI-type contexts, antisemitism is sometimes ignored, and—per David Baddiel and others—not seen as counting. Some of the specific instances causing concern—an allegedly swastika-shaped New York Times crossword puzzle, or a new British Telegraph logo resembling a Nazi flag in colour scheme—have been overblown, but others have not.

As for whether the answer is for Judaism to be subsumed into a fight against antisemitism—not in any practical danger of happening, but the message that’s sent when so many communal organizations post and email incessantly on that topic—that is less straightforward.

Does better funding for anti-antisemitism campaigns meaningfully reduce the number of attacks on Jews? Seemingly not, as the emphasis on antisemitism in messaging has coincided with year after year of unprecedented antisemitism headlines. Does raising awareness of historical mistreatment of Jews automatically translate to less of the same? As Dara Horn argued in The Atlantic last spring, when all that people learn about Jews is the various ways we’ve been murdered over the millennia, this does not lead to a populace that’s especially informed about Jewish life. Holocaust denialism is a problem. So, too, are modern-day Nazis who see an upsurge of Hitler references on social media as a good thing.

New monarch on our money It was a big year for the British royal family, which as Commonwealth sorts meant a tangentially big one for Canadian Jews. Queen Elizabeth II died, her legacy merged in many minds with that of the whole previous century. King Charles is no longer just a type of spaniel. And then there’s Prince Harry. Oh, Prince Harry. Is he a maligned hero or aggrieved influencer? Have we forgiven him for dressing up like a Nazi at a party that one time? Do we still care about his quasi-exit from the royal clan and now flailing efforts to build a multipronged, multimedia bridge-burning campaign? His ghostwritten memoir, Spare, sold like whatever is the British version of hotcakes.

(Tepid scones?) Harry’s ego aside, the royal pomp and turmoil revived the question of how relevant kings and queens and the like are in today’s world. Are they a throwback to pre-meritocratic times? Or are they all that stand between Canada and—horrors—the American way?

Where do Jews stand in relation to royalty? There were court Jews, back in the day, not that my own peddler ancestors had anything to do with all that. The absence of royals has not, historically, indicated that a particular government will be favourable. But a hereditary system of power will be less meritocratic—and thus less inclusive to Jews. In any event, Britain’s Chief Rabbi was given accommodation to walk to the ceremony (it was on Shabbat), an event that also included other faith leaders from outside the Church of England, and the coronation led to the creation of a new Canadian crown, devoid of previous religious symbolism. Not as Jew-friendly as replacing the crown with a kippah, say, or with one of Mayim Bialik’s iconic hats from the 1990s sitcom Blossom, but a welcoming gesture all the same.

Modest-chic has a moment In Vogue, the writer Mattie Kahn coined a term no one was expecting: Torah-teacher aesthetic: a no-frills, muted-colours style in which the hemlines are long, as are the sleeves, and the shoes—like the rest of the outfit—are “sensible.” Alongside coastal grandmothers, Jewish day school teachers are now, apparently, fashion inspiration.

In one sense, modest fashion is neither new nor specifically Jewish.

Religiously observant women of all faiths—as well as secular women not keen on baring their midriffs—have demonstrated that style can include a bit of extra fabric for ages. If all that’s meant is that midi skirts are having a moment, this is not, on its own, earth-shattering.

But Kahn argued, convincingly, that the whole look of a somewhat prim Orthodox Jewish woman can now be seen on mainstream runways, and on influencers who are not themselves observant Jews, or Jews at all. She distinguishes between Torah-teacher aesthetic and things like the prairie dress revival, which was frillier and girlier.

As a fashion development, long denim skirts being the hot new thing felt both empowering and confusing to the Jewish women who grew up wearing these clothes whether they wanted to or not. Indeed, the more clothes-conscious among the former Jewish day school students often discard such garments the first chance they have. So how odd for the very same looks to now be the height of chic!

But it’s not only former Jewish day school students ambivalent about the calf-length skirt trend. For Jewish women who’ve never been in such settings, a skirt like this makes us look Orthodox. Which is a fine thing to be, but if you’re not, it might very well not be the message you want to send.

Books on the bonfire There is a mood of book-bans afoot. Censoriousness is the vibe across the political spectrum, but in the US, right-wing bans run rampant, with content relating to race and gender the primary targets.

Free speech group PEN America spoke out against the removal of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s landmark book, Between the World and Me, from a South Carolina high school curriculum, on the basis of its anti-racist content. Jewish books are well-represented among banned content.

Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, about the Holocaust, had too much nudity (mouse nudity?) for some in Tennessee and Missouri. In Florida, meanwhile, a graphic novel based on Anne Frank’s diary was apparently too homoerotic. (The Anne of this book expresses a rather tame sexual desire that would involve the removal of tops.)

All of this has implications for free expression generally, but also for the teaching of Jewish history and literature specifically. If you can’t discuss bigotry—or even mention nudity—it gets rather difficult to teach the Holocaust, or indeed any number of historical and presentday conflicts. If young people can’t learn about humanity’s worst moments, how will they know not to repeat them?

Politics are the new religion The culture wars wage on, dividing populations in North America and beyond. There are truckers who hate Trudeau. There are traditionalists who love Trump. There are new editions of old books— famously, ones by Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie — being issued with sanitized language to avoid using words like fat, and Elizabeth Gilbert decided to postpone publication of her latest novel, which is set in Russia, indefinitely. Who your friends are, what music you listen to, even which light beer you drink, has become a statement about which political team you’re on. A sports analogy is called for, then, or maybe a religious one. Has politics replaced faith? Clearly not, but for some, politics definitely seems to function as a religion, bringing meaning and community as well as an opportunity for ostracizing heretics. Thus, the “freedom” team’s frequent references to witch-burnings.

The specific cause at the centre of culture-wars discussions has varied over the years. For a while, starting in 2017, with #MeToo, it was feminism. Then the vibe shifted and in 2020-2021, following THECJN.CA 67

the killing of George Floyd, #BlackLivesMatter became the message. While people are still arguing about racism and sexism and let us not forget the various intersections of the two, the bigger issue these days would appear to be transgender rights.

Yes, brains bigger than mine have broken over the topic of transgender people, what their deal is, and where they came from (for even though they existed before five minutes ago, they were less in the news). Are they the frontier in a post-gender utopia, an existential threat to feminism as we know it, or just people trying to go about their lives — lives that have been saddled, by others, with tremendous symbolic significance?

The past year, then, saw debates about who gets to participate in women’s sports, and about which authors are too transphobic to appear at a library. It also saw anti-trans legislation in the United States, and pushback to drag queen story hours in southern Ontario.

Some posed sensible-sounding questions about youth gender medicine, while others deBalancing remote work with the rising cost of everything compensated over the fact that young people today are dyeing their hair purple. (They’ve been doing so for decades, but apparently neon hair now reads as a stance in the culture wars. I can’t keep up.) that 45-year-olds are living in their parents’ basements for lack of other options.

Everyone will go on talking about trans people, often to the detriment of actual trans people, until cultural preoccupations, as they always do, shift to the next topic.

The office you never leave The pandemic brought with it the work-from-home revolution. While plenty of people (emergency room physicians, delivery workers, etc.)

The rising price of... everything did, unavoidably, continue doing their jobs in person throughout, There was a time not that long ago when, if someone told me I’d be white-collar office workers s were first forced into, and then discovspending $10 on bread, I’d have said that this loaf better have been personally baked by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and autographed ered that they often enjoyed, the home office. Gone were the openby my favourite actors. Yet I now regularly tap my credit card for this plan offices where every birthday was acknowledged with cake and amount, for a loaf that, while on the large side, has no special feathe after-work happy hours with colleagues. The time had come to put up a shower curtain room divider between yourself and whoever tures worth highlighting. you lived with, and hope the blurred-background Zoom function obPeople of all ages have become the elderly person who cannot believe coffee no longer costs a nickel, because the cost of everything scured the reality of your living situation. seems so untethered what it was even a year ago. Lunch at a bareIn the pauses between more existential concerns, many began bones restaurant is $15 before tax and tip. Rent for a one-bedroom reflecting on what the post-pandemic future would look like. Would Toronto apartment is, at the time of my writing, approximately ten downtowns survive? What would come of office buildings? Who trillion dollars. Whatever you want to blame it on—inflation, continued would buy the rayon business suits, the $14 prepackaged salads? supply chain disruptions, or rapacious supermarket magnates— But also: What would come of sick days once staying home was the everything costs like three times what it feels like it possibly would. default? Would the parents of young kids appreciate the ability to Meanwhile, incomes have not tripled. These developments have led work from home, or be too busy clamouring for irl childcare? How some to food banks, others to vegetarianism, and others still (ahem) would things go for people with office-requiring jobs but no quiet to the nihilism of buying the nice cheese regardless. space to work?

Cost-of-living increases have had a disproportionate impact on Remote work seems like it will stick around in many sectors—at many Jews. If you want to live in a larger Jewish community, you’re least in part, at least for a while. A lot of people seem to like it, and effectively restricted to these higher-priced residential areas. When it allows employers to hire from a larger geographic pool. But the the price of groceries goes up, that of kosher food shoots higher still. longer-term impact on how we live remains to be seen. It’s not clear And for the subset of Jews for whom continuity is a major concern, if people will still meet friends and maybe even spouses through there are one or two implications there as well. The age keeps professional networks that exist solely on Zoom and Slack. creeping up at which it becomes financially plausible for a young or Also unclear: whether white collar work will survive the arrival of AI. not-so-young adult to live independently. A trend towards adulthood If a computer can play the role of lawyer, designer, or accountant, starting later seems at odds with a more-Jewish-babies mission. One that’s going to more drastically alter the future of the labour market can rail against intermarriage but this will do little to address the fact than where any of us have parked our laptops. n 68

Proudly

CANADIAN OWNED AND MANAGED COMPANY

Since 1954

Wishing you a Happy & Healthy

New Year.

SHANA TOVAH

Canada Sportswear Corp. www.canadasportswear.com

Rosh Hashanah

The stated ROI is for F-Class with Distribution Reinvestment Plan (DRIP), net of any fees. This investment is for Accredited Investors only as defined by National Instrument 45-106 Prospectus Exemptions. Potential investors must speak with a licensed Dealing representative to determine their eligibility and the First Source units before they can subscribe to the offering; please contact Scott Roberts at scott@firstsourcemortgage.ca. The content of this communication is intended for informational purposes only and is not and should not be construed as investment or tax advice to any individual, or as an endorsement or recommendation of any entity or security discussed. Before investing, investors should review the First Source Mortgage Fund’s Offering Memorandum which details the potential risks including but not limited to real estate industry risk, mortgage borrower default risk, and general economic outlook risk amongst others. Mortgage investments are not guaranteed, returns may fluctuate, and past performance may not necessarily be repeated. Units of the First Source Mortgage Fund are eligible investments under the Income Tax Act (Canada) for RRSPs, RRIFs, DPSPs, RESPs and TFSAs.

www.robapp.com

@robinsapplebyllp THECJN.CA 69

With Many Good Wishes For a Happy New Year Kraft Berger LLP Wishes our Clients & Friends Happy & Healthy New Year

STEEL FOUNDATION PRODUCTS Pipe & Piling Supplies’ high quality stocks include Wide-flange Beams • Piling Pipe • Spiral Pipe • Sheet Piling Bearing Pile Beams • Concrete Piles

Pipe & Piling offers competitive pricing and quality pre- and post-sale expertise.

Sales & Stocking Locations Vancouver

Edmonton

Calgary

Toronto

Montreal

Halifax

(604) 942-6311

(780) 955-0501

(403) 236-1332

(416) 201-8700

(450) 445-0050

(902) 835-6158

Washington

Nebraska

Pennsylvania

New York

Illinois

(253) 939-4700

(402) 896-9611

(800) 874-3724

(800) 874-3724

(800) 874-3724

5025, Ramsay ◊ St. Hubert ◊ Quebec ◊ J3Y 2S3 Tel: (450) 455-0050 ◊ (514) 879-9008 Fax: (450) 445-4828 www.pipe-piling.com

David Yabrov Jerry Dykopf Elias Benaim Howard Bergman Jeff Westreich Jay Feingold Allan Jubenville

Jay Benaim Colin Reitsma Justin Abrams Jason Simon Kelvin Lam Gary Yeung

3160 Steeles Avenue East, Suite 300, Markham, Ontario L3R 3Y2 Tel 905.475.2222 Fax 905.475.9360 Toll Free 1.888.563.6868 www.kbllp.ca accountants@kbllp.ca

L’Shanah Tovah Wishing You A Healthy New Year Conditions treated: • Cold and Flu • Chronic Pain • Skin Conditions • Fatigue • Weight Management • Digestive Conditions • Stress Management • Allergies ADHD • Depression/Anxiety • • Smoking Cessation • Environmental Illness • Pediatric Health concerns • Cardiovascular Disease • Women’s/Men’s Health concerns • Diabetes and more...

Neurological Conditions • Naturopathic Medicine is covered under most group benefit health plans

Dr. Betty Rozendaal BES, MA, R.A , ND C

EUE

T

STREE

V IEW A

BAYV

E YONG

REET

ST ST BATHUR

STEELES AVENUE

WOODBINE AVENUE

12 A CENTRE STREET

4 Hwy 40

HWY 407

Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine Registered Acupuncturist a ic ath Thornhill Naturopathic Health Clinic 12 A Centre Street tario L4J 1E9 Thornhill, Ontario

New Patients Welcome Ask for your FREE 15 minute consultation FREE Parking

www.thornhillnaturopathic.ca Phone: 905-707-2001 Fax: 905-707-2004 Toll Free 1(855) DrBetty 70

Happy New Year and Best Wishes to our Valued Clients and Friends

Mortgages • GICs • RRSPs • RRIFs The Effort Trust Company Toronto Hamilton 980 Yonge Street, Suite 30 50 King Street East Toronto, ON M4W 3V8 Hamilton, ON L8N 1A6 Phone: 416-924-4680 Phone: 905-528-8956 Fax: 416-924-4685 Fax: 905-528-8182 www.efforttrust.com

KOSHER STYLE

THECJN.CA 71

When it means more than anything

Since 1951

File

14794RB Rudolph’s Identities r3-1.ai

Project

You need a specialist insurer

Rudolph’s Bakeries Identities

Folder Location

canada M9C 1B4

We've been by your side for half a century and as times and challenges change, we always will be. Our specialists share your passion for your community and provide the tailored products, tools and guidance you need to care for your synagogues and your congregations.

Our specialists make us who we are

Our bread available at all major grocery food stores.

Factory Outlet Hours: Monday to Friday 8:30 am to 4 pm

!!FRIDAY SPECIALS!! BUY 2 GET 1 FREE!!

390 Alliance Ave. (Black Creek & Weston Rd.) 416-763-4315

Visit us at ecclesiastical.ca

We would like to wish all our customers & friends

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!

®

FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS,

SHANA

TOVA

Summer Fresh is proud to offer many fine Kosher products for you and your family.

Look for us in the refrigerated section of your favourite store.

To All Our Family & Friends Best Wishes For

A Happy & Healthy New Year!

Toby Feldberg and Family

C A NA D I A N · F A MI L Y O WN ED · MA DE WI TH SI MP L E INGR E D IE NTS

summerfresh.com @summerfreshisfresh 72

14794RB Graphics

FINEST NATURAL GRAIN, Size see specificsCANADIAN above Printed Start Date March 6, 2014 Designer BAVARIAN BAKING TRADITION. Date Last Modified July 8, 2014 Creative Director

Happy Rosh Hashanah Shanah Tovah FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS

We’ll suit you.

Call to book a tour (416) 928-0111 111 Avenue Rd, Toronto Visit VerveSeniorLiving.com Monthly rates from $5,675 including three meals a day, recreational recreational programs, housekeeping and 24-hr emergency response.

2145 AVENUE ROAD, TORONTO, ON M5M 4B2 416.441.2888 | HARVEYKALLES.COM

‫שנה טובה ומתוקה‬ Wishing You a Sweet Year

Amarjit (A.J.) Manhas, CPA, CA Stephen Chesney, FCPA, FCA CA Munsoor A. CPA, Khan,

H. GordonCPA, Lee,CA Jeffrey R. Dessau, CPA, CA

Allan Garber, CPA, CA Benjamin J. Detsky, CPA, CA Pei (Peter) Zhang, CPA, CA

Acting as individuals and corporations

Celebrating over 65 years of excellence Amarjit (A.J.) Manhas, CPA, CA H. Gordon Lee, CPA, CA Jeffrey R. Dessau, CPA, CA Munsoor A. Khan, CPA, CA Pei (Peter) Zhang, CPA, CA Michael Hummel, CPA, CA

Stephen Chesney, FCPA, FCA Benjamin J. Detsky, CPA, CA Lauren Cole, CPA, CA

Acting as individuals and corporations

20 Holly Street, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario M4S 3E8 & 45 Vogell Rd., Suite 510, Richmond Hill, Ontario, L4B 3P6 Tel: (416) 485-6000

www.yalepgc.ca PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS GMN International is an association of legally independent accounting firms

THECJN.CA 73

www.Steeles.org At Steeles Memorial Chapel, we take pride in providing the Jewish community with a service that is sensitive, caring and helpful in your time of need. Our professional staff takes every detail into careful consideration.

For some, it is the relief and peace of mind knowing that their wishes are now recorded and will someday be honoured by their family. For others, it is to unburden loved ones of financial decisions at an emotional time.

For information on prearranged funeral services, please call us at

905-881-6003

Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA (JFC -UIA) mourns the passing of the beloved MIRA KOSCHITZKY z”l former Chair, Canadian Jewish Congress, National Executive and Ontario Region , among many other leadership roles in Toronto, across Canada, and to the benefit of Israel and the global Jewish community.

We extend our deepest condolences to her husband Saul, children David (Sarena), Joel (Riva z”l), and Tamar (Eric Goldstein), grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

May Mira’s memory be a blessing

Ariella Rohringer Chair, JFC-UIA

Steven Shulman CEO, JFC-UIA

ing Memo Lov ry In

mira koschitzky z"l

or visit

May the entire family be comforted among the mourners of zion and jerusalem

Serving the Jewish Community since 1927.

Canadian friends of bar-ilan university

www.steeles.org

www.cfbiu.org

74

Sarah Mali Director General, Israel

UJA Pays Tribute To Mira Koschitzky z”l Over decades of devoted Jewish community service, Mira built a legacy that will never be forgotten. She was a pioneering philanthropist who forged a new path for women everywhere, from serving as Chair of the National Executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress to her many leadership roles at UJA, Bnei Akiva Schools of Toronto, Associated Hebrew Schools of Toronto, and Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, among others. Her passionate advocacy for Jewish causes, love of Israel, and deep commitment to community inspired those around her. She will be deeply missed. May her memory be for a blessing. ‫הַמָּקוֹם יְנַח ֵם א ֶת ְכֶם בְּתוֹך ְ ׁש ְא ָר א ֲבֵלֵי צִיו ֹּן וִירו ּׁש ָלַיִם‬ Hamakom yenakhem etekhem betokh shaar avelay tziyon viyrushalayim

Mira Koschitzky, Toronto, 10 Sep. 1979. Photograph by Graphic Artists Photographers. Courtesy of Ontario Jewish Archives, fonds 67, series 27, file 439 THECJN.CA 75

Honourable Menschen: 5 Ron Csillag remembers some newsworthy Jewish Canadians who passed away from autumn 2022 through early summer 2023

I

78

Gerda Frieberg

politicians or the odd scoundrel the next?

Properly done, obituaries are “biographical essays that set a life in context, pay tribute to achievements, and account for failures and faults,” as Sandra Martin, former full-time obit writer for the Globe, wrote in a collection of her best, Working the Dead Beat: 50 Lives that Changed Canada.

As far as The CJN goes, I’ve always felt that every Holocaust survivor whose life ends in Canada deserves a full obit. Of course, that’s not feasible, but many of the better-known figures who have passed over the last year have received the treatment.

I committed a basic faux pas when I wrote the obit for Holocaust survivor and educator Gerda Frieberg because I came to know her over the years. For reporters at The CJN, she was hard to miss.

Outspoken, gutsy and with boundless energy, Gerda, as she was universally known, came along just at the right time to chair the Ontario Region of the lamentably defunct Canadian Jewish Congress. A highlight for any obit writer was a specific event: The time she faced down Holocaust denying pamphleteer Ernst Zundel and neo-Nazi leader Wolfgang Droege. At Toronto City Hall, she strode up to both of them and uttered something in German. She then turned around to the press in tow and gave a line straight out of a Hollywood Western (and pure catnip for an obit writer): “I told them is no room for three of us here and I have no intention of leaving.” The two men strode away. Gerda died on Jan. 3 at the age of 97.

Any obituary recounting a Holocaust survivor’s rags-to-riches tale is bound to satisfy. So

Elliot Sylman/Toronto Holocaust Museum; Fedele Arcuri/March of the Living; iStock

like the expressions on people’s faces when I tell them I write obituaries. They range from blank, to mildly interested, to a combination of alarm and bewilderment.

“Somebody’s gotta do it,” one man shrugged. Maybe it’s akin to saying you’re a mortician.

I then explain: These are not the smallfont death notices in the classifieds that are hastily assembled by the deceased’s loved ones or a funeral home, or both.

These obituaries are long-form accounts of lives I’ve written for The Canadian Jewish News and the paper that pioneered, in Canada, the full-page obit on a dedicated, ad-free page every day, the Globe and Mail.

Readers may also confuse obits for eulogies or tributes to the subject. While they tend to be flattering, they’re supposed to be warts-and-all portraits, combining the laudatory with the louche, written by a journalist who, ideally, did not know the deceased, or not very well.

Maybe writing obits is like whistling past the graveyard. Even so, the whole subject gives rise to black humour. “The first thing I do is check the obits page,” goes the old Borscht Belt crack. “If I’m not there, I get up.”

Or: Told that the legendarily taciturn U.S. President Calvin Coolidge was dead, Algonquin Round Table mainstay Dorothy Parker wondered: “How could they tell?”

One more: The late American comedy pioneer Jackie “Moms” Mabley made a career of celebrating the demise of her much-unmissed late husband. “They say you mustn’t say nothing but good about the dead,” Moms noted. “He’s dead. Good.”

These are the common japes of the “dead beat,” as it’s sometimes morbidly called—but the best beat on any publication, as obit writers routinely insist. In what other area can you switch gears and write about scholars, business moguls, athletes or scientists one day, and war heroes, academics, artists,

n: 5783 it was when Saul Feldberg died in Toronto on Jan. 13 at the age of 87. Feldberg built Canada’s largest furniture manufacturing businesses, the Global Furniture Group and Teknion Corp.

His story was novel-worthy: He started sweeping floors in a small furniture business when he arrived in Canada as a teenager with his parents in 1953. Born in Poland in 1935, Saul’s mother saved his life by arranging for false documents and making the dangerous journey to reunite with his father in Russian-occupied Lvov.

“We were always running from something,” he wrote in his memoirs. “We ran from the bombs, from hunger, from the German army.

We ran to survive.” Like many who shared his experience, he did more than merely survive.

Mira Koschitzky

Now and then, a family member’s eulogy is a nice substitute for a dispassionate obituary. So it was with community stalwart Mira Koschitzky who died on June 11, a few weeks shy of her 88th birthday. Koschitzky was born in 1935 in what was then the Czechoslovak Republic, her childhood cut short by the outbreak of war.

“In 1943, her parents placed her and her

Alex Buckman

“The first thing I do is check the obits page,” goes the old Borscht Belt crack. “If I’m not there, I get up.”

younger sister Lily into hiding with a peasant couple who had worked with my grandfather prior to the war,” eulogized Tamar Goldstein, Mira’s daughter. “At the age of eight, Mira was separated from her parents and burdened with the responsibility of making sure her younger sister did not unwittingly reveal their Jewish identity when they were in hiding.”

The girls and their parents survived and immigrated to Toronto when Mira was 12.

“She was an ardent Zionist,” understated her daughter. With her husband Saul, Koschitzky would go on to volunteer for a slew of Israel-based and local Jewish advocacy and educational organizations, her name becoming virtually synonymous with

philanthropy and communal service.

Another child survivor of the Holocaust was Alex Buckman, a tireless educator and advocate for fellow child survivors who died in Warsaw on April 21. He was 83. In a poetic twist, Buckman was in Poland accompanying the Canadian March of the Living delegation when he died. He served as president of the Vancouver Child Survivors Group and had spoken to thousands of students in British Columbia through the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Born in Brussels, he was seven months old when Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940. At age two, his parents sent him into hiding, and he would find shelter in a dozen different non-Jewish homes. In his 2017 memoir Afraid of the Dark, Buckman wrote that he felt compelled to share his story for two reasons: “First, I want others to know the price of hate. Hate destroys the lives of innocent people. It breaks families apart and its effects are felt for a lifetime.

Second, and most importantly, I share my story to honour the memory of my parents. Talking about our stories gives them a chance to live again and gives me the opportunity to remember them.”

THECJN.CA 79

plicity in rounding up Jews, and which made quite a stir in France.

A University of Toronto professor for nearly 50 years, he also played a leading role in helping pry open the Vatican’s war-era archives on the Holy See’s record during the Holocaust. Bold and confident, Marrus was a natural subject, and the history teacher I always wish I’d had.

Roslyn Swartzman

Dubbed the “Elie Wiesel of Calgary,” Sidney Cyngiser shared his story of tragedy and resilience with countless Alberta students and educators for decades, as our friends at the Alberta Jewish News noted in their obit. “He often said that he would retire when he reached the ripe old age of 100,” the story went on. “On June 27, Sid passed away at the age of 99.”

Born in Lodz, Poland in 1924, he and his father were forced into slave labour.

Cyngiser’s father succumbed to starvation and overwork, but his son endured, surviving beatings, malnutrition, and disease. He was the sole survivor of his family.

A successful businessman and generous philanthropist, Cyngiser and his wife, Bronia, created scholarships devoted to human rights and funded the Holocaust Collection at the Mount Royal University Library.

Obit writers often reach for superlatives and found them in Michael Marrus, among the world’s greatest authorities on France during the Second World War. Also considered the dean of Holocaust scholars in Canada, Marrus, who died last Dec. 23 at 81, seemed the opposite of the dusty 80

historian. Always sartorially stylish, he was a piercing writer who co-wrote a history that revealed the extent of Vichy France’s com-

Michael Marrus

Marnie Burkhart/Here to Tell: Faces of Holocaust Survivors; iStock

Sidney Cyngiser

Writers on this beat have to become instant experts in the subject’s field—or at least good enough to sound credible. Roslyn Swartzman, a respected Canadian artist whose work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée des Beaux-Arts du Québec, died on Feb. 5 in Montreal. She was 91.

Swartzman was primarily a printmaker but accomplished in painting, sculpture and

Maccabi Tel Aviv FC; iStock

drawing, often turning to the natural world as a theme. In abstract landscapes, she combined etching with her distinctive embossing, as our obit noted. An inspiring but tough mentor, she was a teacher and later head of the graphic arts department at the Saidye Bronfman Centre School of Fine Arts (SBC) in Montreal from the mid-1960s until 2006.

She was recalled as a renaissance woman who loved life, lived intensely and dedicated her life to the pursuit and teaching of art.

Another can’t-miss obit was on businessman and philanthropist Leo Goldhar. Anyone born above his parents’ delicatessen and cigar shop in Toronto, a tough kid with a short fuse who never graduated high school but went on to fame and fortune, must be compelling. When he died on March 11 at 91, Goldhar was an icon in Toronto’s philanthropic community.

The street-smarts he earned early in life were deployed to build successful land development and construction businesses and advance an enormous array of charitable ventures. His crowning achievement was the Joseph & Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus in Vaughan, a hub for the GTA’s growing Jewish community that Goldhar realized by tackling land acquisition, zoning and fundraising challenges. “He was a force of nature,” said his lifelong friend, Lionel Schipper. “Once Leo took something on, he was relentless.”

Sometimes, obit writers cannot avoid using a cliché. But in this case, it was true that Hamilton’s Rabbi Bernard Baskin was virtually a household name in Canadian Jewry.

Rabbi Baskin served as spiritual leader at Temple Anshe Sholom in Hamilton, Ont. for 40 years and was a long-time columnist for The CJN. He died Jan. 18 at the grand age of 102.

Admiration for his staying power in the pulpit was outdone only by his voracious reading regimen. He wrote thousands of thoughtful book reviews for The CJN and other newspapers for over half a century. He delivered his annual book talks in Hamilton well into his 90s. When he moved into a Toronto retirement home in 2017, he continued giving book lectures, and his final talk was just three weeks before he died. He was indeed one of the People of the Book.

With the death of MP Jim Carr last Dec. 12 of multiple myeloma and kidney failure at the age of 71, Canada’s Jewish community lost a friend, advocate and supporter.

A descendant of Russian-Jewish immi-

Leo Goldhar

grants, Carr, a one-time professional oboe player and journalist, served in the Liberal cabinet in two ministries. He was diagnosed with cancer the day after being re-elected in 2019. The year before, he’d led a mission to Israel to oversee the modernization of the free trade agreement between the two countries. “I’m delighted as (a) Jewish member of Parliament and as a Jewish member of the

Jim Carr

“He was a force of nature. Once Leo took something on, he was relentless.”

— Lionel Schipper

cabinet to be here representing Canada,” he said at the time. Our obit could not but reflect Carr’s rare quality: A politician who was a genuinely decent guy, and who died too soon. A nice postscript: In a June byelection, his son, Ben Carr, replaced him as Liberal MP in Winnipeg South Centre.

Builders make for good obits; you can see their legacy every day, for free. The “two Jacks,” as The CJN obit combined them, played seminal roles in building modern Toronto, and died within days of each other in October 2022. Jack Diamond and John “Jack” Daniels were both Jewish immigrants, and both became architects—a field in which Jews of their generation were rare, as The CJN’s obit noted.

THECJN.CA 81

John “Jack” Daniels

Diamond, who was just shy of his 90th birthday when he died, was born in South Africa into a family from Lithuania. His grandfather was murdered in a 1917 pogrom.

The two Jacks “changed the landscape of Toronto, literally and figuratively, and leave an imprint that will last for generations.”

Jack Diamond

82

Toronto-Dominion Centre. The two Jacks “changed the landscape of Toronto, literally and figuratively,” recorded our obit, “and leave an imprint that will last for generations.”

Winnipeg-born Ben Steinberg, who died last February at 93, was a musical jack-ofall-trades: Composer, conductor, organist, and music educator. He was a fixture at Toronto’s Temple Sinai, serving as director of music beginning in 1970 and then as composer-in-residence starting in 1996.

Steinberg’s prodigious output comprised sacred services; works for choir and/or soloist and organ or orchestra; a cantata; and instrumental works, including a suite for flute and string trio based on Israeli folksongs. Of Steinberg’s music, fellow composer Michael Isaacson wrote, “While conservative, pragmatic and always well-mannered, it is also gratefully mindful of its tradition in a deeply lyrical way.”

Al Gilbert, C.M.; Diamond Schmitt; iStock

Daniels, who was 96, left Poland in 1939 at the age of 12, his family fleeing looming Nazism.

Diamond attained international acclaim on the design side, with numerous achievements in Toronto, including Holy Blossom Temple. Daniels was more the builder, the force behind the Toronto Eaton Centre and

A few final Menschen: Mendelson Joe (born Birrel Josef Mendelson) in Toronto, was a complete artist, self-taught in music and the visual arts, who reveled in idiosyncratic paintings and sang folk-blues for decades. The ever-colourful artist died on Feb. 7 at the age of 78.

“The journalistic genre that, more than any other, deals in the very stuff of life.”

— Margalit Fox

more than a second. “It surprised me,” he said of his late-stage prowess. “I didn’t know I could do it.”

Dr. Avinoam Chernick, a pioneering obstetrician-gynecologist and sex and relationship therapist, died May 8 in London, Ont. He was 88. Chernick fought for women’s rights and in the 1990s was among a handful of doctors in London who performed abortions, leading to the targeting of his family home and clinic.

Obit writers are sometimes perceived as ghoulish, as when they prepare an obit prior to the subject’s death. Daily newspapers do this routinely, putting advance obits “in the can” in case a prominent person passes unexpectedly. I was about to do just that when Monte Kwinter died on July 21 at age 92 before I could begin. A Liberal MPP for 33 years, he became the oldest representative at Queen’s Park when he was near 82. My fondest memory of Kwinter was when he publicly opposed his own Liberal government’s rescinding of the Equity in Education Tax Credit, a hugely popular measure that provided relief to parents of children in Jewish schools. His stance was brave, but Kwinter was eventually shuffled out of cabinet.

Squashhouse Media; Benjamin’s Park Memorial Chapel; iStock

Joseph “Jerry” Gross

I’ll leave the last word to my favourite obituarist, the hugely-talented Margalit Fox, who has retired from the beat at the New York Times. Obits, she once wrote, are “the journalistic genre that, more than any other, deals in the very stuff of life.” 

Joseph “Jerry” Gross was among the thinning ranks of machalniks, volunteers from overseas who fought in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. He died in Montreal on Jan. 14 at the age of 96. Gross was among 268 Canadians, most of them Second World War veterans like him, who joined with natives of British Mandate Palestine in the fight to secure the nascent Jewish state. He was jailed briefly for refusing to fire on the Irgun arms ship, the Altalena. Gross explained the reason for his derring-do thusly: “Be a Jew— that’s it.”

“Lightning Lou” Billinkoff of Winnipeg, died March 14 at the age of 99 after a 10year sprinting career that saw him become the fastest Canadian man in the 90-to-94 and 95-to-99 age groups. At the age of 96, he ran 50 metres in 15.67 seconds, beating the 2018 world record in his category by

Monte Kwinter

THECJN.CA 83

The Schwarz families of Cooper’s Iron & Metal Ingot Metal Company extend their best wishes to clients and friends for a

S h a n a T o v a h u ' me t u k a h

Happy and Healthy New Year MELI SSA LANTSMAN MP THORNHI LL

MELI SSA. LANTSMAN@PARL. GC. CA MELI SSALANTSMANMP. CA•905886991 1

WISHING YOU A SWEET NEW YEAR! !‫שנה טובה ומתוקה‬

MICHAEL

KERZNER

MPP/Député - York Centre 830 Sheppard Ave. W. Toronto, ON M3H 2T1 416-630-0080 michael.kerzner@pc.ola.org michaelkerznermpp.ca 84

We would like to wish our clients and friends a Happy and Healthy New Year!

1220 SHEPPARD AVE. EAST, SUITE 406 TORONTO, ON M2K 2S5 • TEL: 416-498-7200

We wish you a sweet New Year that brings good health and happiness that lasts the whole year through.

L’Shana Tova!

HOWARD SONE, CPA, CA RANDY ROVET, CPA, CA MARLA CHASSON SONE, CPA, CA DOUG STOCKWELL, CPA, CA FRANCESCA IASPARRO, CPA, CA MONICA ALIMCHANDANI, CPA, CA DANIEL STERN, CPA, CA BRIAN COOKE, CPA, CA

416 863 1188 | torkinmanes.com

BANKING

&

DEFENCE

BUSINESS

INSOLVENCY

CORPORATE FINANCE

LABOUR & EMPLOYMENT

DISCIPLINE & LIABILIT Y

LAW

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY TAX

LITIGATION

COMMERCIAL

REAL

FAMILY LAW

ESTATE

CONSTRUC TION

HEALTH LAW

NOT-FOR-PROFIT & CHARITIES

TECHNOLOGY, PRIVACY & DATA MANAGEMENT

INSURANCE PROFESSIONAL

TRUSTS & ESTATES

LUXURY, ICONIC & CUSTOM FURN ITURE

Best wishes for a Happy & Healthy New Year

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Best wishes this Jewish New Year

CARROCEL.COM 245 Bridgeland Ave . Toronto 416 . 639 . 2554 @carrocelto THECJN.CA 85

The district court in Tel Aviv:

Court case no. 16743-11-12

Applicants: 1. Gerry Kolin 2. Joshua Kolin Are represented by Adv. Eli Etgar, and/or Adv. Eran Heller, 35 Jabotinsky Rd., Twin Towers 2, Ramat Gan, ISRAEL 5251108 Phone: +972-3-6090903 Fax: +972-3-6090903 Email: office@etgarlaw.co.il

Respondents: 1. Registrar of Companies and Partnerships 3 Hashlosha St., Tel Aviv Tel: *5601 Email: mishonline@justice.gov.il 2. Ehud Gera 32 Ben Yehuda St., Tel Aviv 3. Zimmerman

-VS-

Notice of company revival and notification of a substitute invention to respondent 3 A motion was submitted on November 22nd 2022, for the revival of the company Traffic and Transportation Research Institute Ltd. (Israeli Company no. 510323835), registered address at 1 Rupin St., Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, within Court case no. 16743-11-12, which is conducted at the District Court in Tel Aviv, for the purpose of receiving funds deposited in the compensation Provident Fund. The applicants are the heirs of the late shareholder Jacob Kolin.

The registered shareholders of the company are the late Kolin Jacob, Gera Ehud and Zimmerman. Since Zimmerman's details are unknown and the motion could not be delivered to him, this advertisement is a substitute for the motion's delivery.

An interested party in the motion, may submit to court a response to the motion, within 30 days from the date of publication of this advertisement (court recess days will be included in the number of days).

A copy of the motion can be obtained, free of charge, by a request to Etgar and Co. Law Offices, 35 Jabotinsky Rd., Twin Towers 2, Ramat Gan 5251108.

Tel.: 972-3-6090903 Fax:972-3-6090916 Email: office@etgarlaw.co.il Eli Etgar, Adv Etgar and Co. Law Offices 86

Best wishes to our clients, colleagues and friends for a happy and healthy Rosh Hashanah.

Wishing our Jewish colleagues and friends around the world Shana Tova, a blessed new year 5784.

Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, a Canadian charitable non-profit organization, was founded to deepen understanding of the breadth, complexity, and diversity of Ukrainian-Jewish relations over the centuries, with a view to the future.

ukrainianjewishencounter.org

foglers.com

Now Open!

Visit North York newest Inspired Senior Living residence

Book your personal tour at

(647) 660-1068

or info@donmillsretirerment.com

THECJN.CA 87

Suite 408, 4100 Yonge Street Toronto, Ont M2P 2B5 (TEL) 416-512-9500

(FAX) 416-512-9501

www.ccsb-law.com

The Lawyers and Staff of CCSB Law LLP Barristers and Solicitors

Jeffrey L. Cummings Evelyn R. Schusheim Howard G. Cooper Jeffrey H. Berliner Stanley J. Wax E. Courtney Petch Daniel P. Cooper Ashley Doidge Bernard Buschke

wish all their clients and friends a very Happy & Healthly New Year

We wish you a

Sweet & Happy New Year!

From all of us at Sterling Karamar Property Management & Sterling Silver Development Corporation

88

SPONSORED CONTENT

Canadian Friends of Bar-Ilan University Appoints Randy Spiegel as New CEO Randy will head up CFBIU, joining a global resource development team under the leadership of Dr. Sharon Goldman, VP of Development for Bar-Ilan University and the Canadian Board of Directors, chaired by Harold Spring.

“Randy’s extensive leadership experience in numerous Jewish not-for-profit organizations, combined with his thoughtful leadership style and success in the field of development, position him well for the CFBIU CEO role,” noted Harold Spring.

Bar-Ilan is Israel’s fastest growing university, ranked among the top universities in the world. Its emphasis on multidisciplinary and impact-based research, combined with its continued incorporation of Jewish values and Zionism, situates Bar-Ilan in a critical and unique space within Israel’s academia.

As CEO for CFBIU, Randy brings a successful track record raising millions of dollars for charitable activities, as well as working with hundreds of volunteers and community leaders. “This position is a tremendous opportunity to help grow an organization dedicated to providing outstanding education and research opportunities for both emerging and established scholars dedicated to having a positive impact on Israel and the world,” stated Spiegel.

Randy, who holds Masters degrees in Jewish Communal Service and Management of Human Services, joins CFBIU after a very successful 11 years as Executive Director of Beth Tzedec Congregation, North America’s largest conservative congregation, prior to which he served for eight and a half years as Executive Director of Zareinu Educational Centre, (now known as Kayla’s Children Centre).

To connect with Randy and learn more about Bar-Ilan University or to make a donation, please email him at randy@cfbiu.org or call him at 416-993-6746.

Yad Sarah: Medical equipment loans and social services—to Israel with heart

W

e see miracles happen every day at Yad Sarah. And we are committed to providing everyone in Israel with the medical assistance they need.

Yad Sarah provides rehabilitative equipment, alarms and monitors—either free or deeply discounted—that allows for recuperating at home. We also provide dental care, medical research and rehabilitative therapy. If you need crutches, wheelchairs, oxygen equipment, hospital beds or bassinets, one of our 107 branches can serve you. (We are a nonsectarian and non-governmental organization.)

Our latest initiative is a hotel for women who have experienced pregnancy loss through miscarriage or stillbirth, which can be a traumatic experience on par with going to war. Now, a recuperation hotel in Jerusalem will provide support, relaxation and validation outside of a maternity ward. The plan is to host 100 women a year, to cope with their loss, heal and find strength.

Within three days of word getting out about this initiative, 30 people contacted Yad Sarah about staying at the hotel, a solution previously unavailable in the country.

You can join over 7,000 brave “Nachshon ben Aminadav” and discover how we have assisted so many. Visit us, volunteer with us, or donate to strengthen the bond between Canadian Jews and our brothers and sisters in Israel.

Yad Sarah’s motto is “Mikol Halev” or “From the Heart,” because our hearts are overflowing with compassion and action, representing the best of Israel’s spirit, mutual support and community.

Your charitable gifts within Canada will also generate a tax receipt. I hope we can count on you.

‫לשנה טובה‬ Arlene Weisbart Executive Director, Canadian Friends of Yad Sarah info@canadianfriendsofyadsarah.com 416-781-6416 THECJN.CA 89

THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES AND PROFESSIONALS WISH YOU

A HAPPY & HEALTHY YEAR 5784! Shana Tova!

l’’Shana Tova Mayy yyou be inscribed in the Book of Life

Alice Kern

Financial Security Advisor

YOUR TRAVEL INSURANCE SPECIALIST *Pre-existing medical condition insurance and Covid-19 Trip Cancellation/Interruption Students Single Trip • Multi-trip (Annuals) *subject to insurers’ Terms and Conditions

Tel: (514) 332-3776 TOLL FREE: 1-866-270-4996

email:

alice.kern@abrfinancialservices .ca

TRANSPORT TO AND FROM FLORIDA SEND YOUR CAR & CONTENTS WITH FAST AND RELIABLE SERVICE

CALL 416-225-7754 www.torontodriveaway.com EMAIL: info@torontodriveaway.com

TORONTO DRIVEAWAY SERVICE 265 Rimrock Rd, Unit #1, Toronto, ON M3J 3C6 Since 1959

The Goldenberg, Paris & Wexler Families

Enjoy the feeling of a simple mitzvah.

Volunteer with Circle of Care and help older adults live longer, healthier lives in the community.

Even one to two hours a week of volunteering can make a big difference in the life of an older person who is lonely, needs help getting to medical appointments, or finds it difficult to go to the grocery store or prepare meals.

As a non-profit charitable organization, many of our key programs, are supported by our volunteers. We are especially looking for new volunteers for our Kosher Meals on Wheels and Jewish Hospice Visiting program.

With deep roots in the Jewish community, Circle of Care, a nonprofit, charitable organization, has been helping older adults in the GTA live comfortably and independently in the comfort of their homes for nearly 50 years.

Visit circleofcare.com/volunteer or call 647-200-7323 90

Sid and Michael Gladstone and Families

Wish Our Customee and Friends a Haay & Healthy New Year 1549 Avenue Road

416 782 1129 • royallighting.com Sun: 11:30 am - 5 pm | Mon - Sat: 9:30 am - 5 pm

YACHAD Serving the Special Needs Community for 25 years Where Inclusion Is Our Priority Wishing you and your families

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR

@YachadToronto For further information email: torontoyachad@ou.org

Shana Tova!

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year from the team at Chartwell Constantia!

Join us for our Open House event on September 22 – 23 from 10am – 4pm

CHARTWELL CONSTANTIA 784 Centre Street, Thornhill 289-588-0974 • Chartwell.com

THECJN.CA 91

Jewish Community Organizations, Synagogues and Schools wish

A HAPPY & HEALTHY YEAR 5784

Shana Tova!

Adath Israel Congregation Beit Rayim Synagogue & School Bernard Betel Center Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Beth Sholom Synagogue Beth Tikvah Synagogue Beth Tzedec Congregation Canadian Friends of Ezrath Nashim - Herzog Hospital Canadian Friends of Hebrew University Canadian Friends of Yad Sarah Canadian Magem David Adom for Israel City Shul Congregation Darchei Noam Congregation Habonim Hebrew Beach Institute & School Holy Blossom Temple Israel Bonds/Canada-Israel Securities, Limited Na’amat Canada Toronto Reena Reform Jewish Community of Canada Temple Emanu-El Temple Har Zion Temple Kol Ami Temple Sinai Congregation The Song Shul Toronto Board of Rabbis

‫שנה טובה‬ 92

Sagecare

Have a Happy, Healthy, Sweet, and Prosperous New Year!

Elder living for dementia care

437-882-6147 sagecare.ca

FRUITMAN KATES LLP, CHARTERED PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANTS 1055 Eglinton Ave. W, Toronto, ON 416.920.3434 www.fruitman.ca

Your investments are personal.

So is our approach.

Draw on our knowledge, experience and commitment.

We are committed to helping our clients achieve – and exceed – their wealth objectives over the long term. We will work closely with you to provide tailored solutions in your pursuit to reach your distinct wealth goals. We measure our success by the success of our clients.

Shana Tova!

Barbara Schwartz Zukor, BSc, CFA Senior Portfolio Manager barbara.zukor@nbpcd.com | 514-282-5894

Michael Zukor, CIM, CPA

Senior Portfolio Manager michael.zukor@nbpcd.com | 514-282-5844

Zukor Investment Group

BMO Nesbitt Burns

BMO Private Wealth is a brand name for a business group consisting of Bank of Montreal and certain of its affiliates in providing Private wealth management products and services. Not all products and services are offered by all legal entities within BMO Private Wealth.

Banking services are offered through Bank of Montreal. Investment management, wealth planning, tax planning and philanthropy planning services are offered through BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. and BMO Private Investment Counsel Inc. Estate, trust, and custodial services are offered through BMO Trust Company. Insurance services and products are offered through BMO Estate Insurance Advisory Services Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. BMO Private Wealth legal entities do not offer tax advice. BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. BMO Trust Company and BMO Bank of Montreal are Members of CDIC. ® Registered trademark of Bank of Montreal, used under license.

PCD21130

www.zukorgroup.com

THECJN.CA 93

THE ELUSIVE ETROG Jewish studies professor Joshua Teplitsky had his fascination with the etrog further sparked when he rummaged through some archives in Prague. A manuscript titled Documents Related to Acquiring Citrons for the Jewish Community revealed an early1700s merchant rivalry that culminated in one being sent to prison. Teplitsky, a Toronto native who now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, imagined there were more stories to be told about the application of this agricultural commandment—one of four species related to the autumn holiday of Sukkot—and the unparalleled sensory role it plays in practicing Judaism. The new book, Be Fruitful!, is filled with fragrant discoveries from his co-editors and contributors, with tales about how etrogim were sourced in the Diaspora (many a lemon turned up instead) and how the Torah commandment to use a pre etz hadar (“beautiful tree fruit”) has shaped Israel. This pictured container, from the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem circa 1920s, even incorporates an Islamic influence. “What appeals to me most is the combination of aesthetic and observance,” says Teplistky. “How those binaries are all tangled up so wonderfully in a little fruit with so many timeless messages.

And then, after seven days, it withers away.”

Sukkot begins on the evening of Sept. 29, 2023.

Be Fruitful! The Etrog in Jewish Art, Culture, and History, edited by Joshua History Teplitsky, Warren Klein and Sharon Liberman Mintz (Mineged Publishing House, 2022)

94

SPONSORED CONTENT

Happy New Year & Shana Tova from Jerusalem!

Join us on November 30, 2023 Pathway to the Future Gala Honourary Patrons: The Koschitzky Family Event Co-Chairs: Warren Kimel, C.M. and Debbie Kimel / Lewis Mitz and Wendy Posluns Dinner Co-Chairs: Wendy Eisen, C.M. and Elliot Eisen

Gala Committee: Stephanie Abrahami, Elliott Eisen, Wendy Eisen, C.M., David Golden, Gary Grundman, Debbie Kimel, Sarena Koschitzky, Sarah Krauss, Lewis Mitz, Joel Reitman, C.M., David Rosenbaum, Renee Rubinstein, Carol Ryder, Judi Shostack, Doron Telem

Honouring the memory of Julia Koschitzky z”l The Jerusalem Foundation of Canada / nomiy@jerusalemfoundation.ca / Tel: 416-922-0000 w w w . j er u sa l em fo u n d ation .or g

Bernie and Jennie Goldberger: Happier Here™ at V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community

B

ernie and Jennie Goldberger are two of many happy Community Members at V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community. Bernie, a Bergen-Belsen survivor, moved to Canada with dreams of beginning anew. His successful career as a ladies’ coat manufacturer and real estate developer didn’t stop until his retirement. His wife Jennie, who was by his side all those years devoted her life as a homemaker and parent to their three children, five grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren.

The couple have been married for 70 years, and remain just as inseparable today in their spacious 1-Bedroom + Den Suite. They can often be seen together holding hands, wearing matching outfits and beaming jubilant smiles. The two were kind enough to share more about why they choose to make V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community their home - because they are Happier Here™.

Jennie recounts the day she decided that she would retire along with her husband: “I was done with cooking and housework and told Bernie I wanted to retire too! I said ‘I’m ready to move even if you aren’t!’” Bernie reluctantly agreed and after going to see other retirement homes they knew V!VA Thornhill Woods was their first choice.

Since moving in, Jennie is finally done with cooking and housework, and Bernie agrees “There are less things to worry about.”

Where there is less to worry about, there is more to enjoy. Both Bernie and Jennie make full use of all the amazing amenities, events and programs that V!VA Thornhill Woods offers, noting that their social life is more vibrant than ever. In addition to traditional cultural events, V!VA Thornhill Woods features a full activity program for the mind, and the body. “We enjoy the concerts – especially the monthly Yiddish Café concerts – and art classes.

The fitness activities like swimming and other exercise programs are great for mind and body, too.” With her new-found free time, Jennie has since become the unofficial photographer of the Community, taking photos of her fellow Community Members and gifting them printed copies. “Well, having other Community Members to talk to and relate to is crucial.”

The food was an important part of the decision to move in. V!VA Thornhill Woods serves the high quality of food that V!VA communities are renowned for, notes Community Relations Manager Wendy Teperman, and with traditional Jewish-style food prepared by a Red-Seal Chef. Pork and Shellfish are not served, meat and dairy are kept separate, and all meat is sourced from kosher butchers. “The food is quite good,” the couple share “and the servers are outstanding.”

That resounding acclaim extends to every Team Member at V!VA Thornhill Woods. “Having on-site doctors and nurses readily available is priceless and so convenient. The care from not just the Wellness Team, but from all of the Team Members is exceptional, and very heartwarming.”

V!VA Thornhill Woods has 134 suites varying from studios and one-bedrooms to one-bedroom with den and two-bedrooms with 2 bathrooms. Care levels range from independent to assisted living, with the 28 assisted-living suites on a dedicated floor with its own dining room. All levels of care include three meals a day plus snacks and weekly housekeeping. But, emphasizes Teperman, V!VA Thornhill Woods “is not just bricks and mortar, amenities, or suites. It’s the people who live and work here coming together with open arms and hearts.” Bernie, reflecting on his initial reluctance to move into a retirement community, offers a simple piece of advice to anyone thinking about doing the same, even if they are hesitant: “Do it! It was the right decision at the right time!”

All V!VA communities are pet friendly, have health professionals on site and offer respite and trial stays. The Canadian owned and operated chain has eight locations in Ontario. V!VA Thornhill Woods Retirement Community is located at 9700 Bathurst St. in Vaughan. For more information, visit www.vivathornhillwoods.ca or call Wendy Teperman at 905-417-8585.

The Canadian Jewish News

Canadian.

Jewish.

Advocacy.

SHANA TOVA! Wishing you a good and sweet year.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations across Canada.

The Fashion Issue

OCTOBER 16-17, 2023 OTTAWA, ONTARIO

ANTISEMITISM FACE FIGHT

WWW.FIGHTIT.CA

PRESENTED BY CIJA & CANADA’S JEWISH FEDERATIONS SPONSORED BY

FIELDGATE FAMILIES

Autumn 2023 | High Holidays 5784

IT

The Canadian Jewish News The Fashion Issue

Autumn 2023 | High Holidays 5784