Last month, The CJN Podcast Network debuted its first original fiction podcast, Justice: A Holocaust Zombie Story. The seven-part audio drama is a work of subversive Holocaust education designed for the digital age, with many of its gruesome facts grounded in truth. Any shock value from merging zombies with Holocaust education was a deliberate atte…

In the days leading up to Yom Kippur, Benji and Avi were looking for ways to avoid asking themselves the tough questions that a serious introspection would demand - and they found it! In this, our pilot Q&A episode, we answered questions sent in by listeners. From the situation in Israel to ET the extraterrestrial, we covered a lot of ground. Thank…

Jacob Samuel has a couple references to his Judaism in his stand-up routine. In the past, whenever he brought it up, it usually created a moment of tension before a laugh. But in the year since Oct. 7, especially in his hometown of Vancouver, he's noticed a shift. It's harder to talk about his Jewish identity onstage. He brings it up later, or take…

In this episode, Benji and Avi sit down with Rabia Melchem. Rabia is an IDF reserve soldier, a successful AI and data science product engineer, a husband, a father and a Druze Israeli. The Druze have always been a dynamic and important part of Israel, and their contribution to the country has come into even sharper focus during the past year of war…

Arnie Lipsey has spent decades working in animation. But on the side, years ago, he began painting on canvas, using archival family photos for inspiration. He began colourizing and adapting them, eventually reinterpreting them entirely through a modern lens. That often resulted in jarring, traumatic scenes quietly unfolding behind his smiling famil…

In this episode Benji and Avi sit down with Daniel Sevitt, bibliophile and, well, left-wing optimist. We talk books, politics, and the private lives of dragons. The conversation is mostly civil, as you would expect from a conversation with a gentlemanly British book nut. Daniel has an incredible YouTube channel called GuiltyFeat, which you can find…

In this episode Benji and Avi sit down with Ohad Merlin, Middle East correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and expert on the media landscape in the Arab world. We do a deep dive into the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, and the myth that Israeli tourists always steal hotel towels. Turns out we live in a pretty tough neighborhood. If you’re feeling depres…

When Tuesdays with Morrie was first published in 1997, it elevated Jewish author Mitch Albom to a level of literary stardom that reverberated beyond the book world. The story—which detailed Albom's frequent visits with his former professor, Morrie Schwartz, who was dying of ALS—has since been adapted into a TV movie and an off-Broadway production i…

In this episode, Benji and Avi get the lowdown about the educational system from the best high school teacher in Raanana, the one and only Rebecca Perlin Sadinoff! Like most high-school teachers in Israel, Rebecca is on strike (so she couldn’t tell us she was busy). Rebecca explains what’s wrong with children’s education in Israel – but also what’s…

In this episode, Benji and Avi had the privilege of sitting down with Raanana’s own Eli Ziering. Eli's brother, Aryeh Ziering of blessed memory, was killed in action on October 7th near Kibbutz Zikim in Israel's South. Aryeh was a major in the IDF's elite Oketz unit, and an all-around wonderful person whom we knew and loved. Eli wanted to share wha…

In this episode, Benji takes us on a journey to Italy – where he is a mini-celebrity! – to uncover some family secrets from World War II. He is helped by a motley crew of wonderful Italians who are as dedicated to uncovering the truth as he is. Spoiler alert: For the Italian speakers out there, here is one of the TV news segments that aired in 2021…

This week, Benji and Avi enter the mysterious and fascinating world of international diamond dealing. They sit down with Elliot and Dov Tannenbaum, the father and son team that runs Leo Schachter Diamonds, one of the world's largest diamond manufacturers. We cover a lot of ground here: the history, the characters, the secrets of the trade, and the …

You may have heard Talia Schlanger's voice on CBC Radio or NPR, where she has spent years hosting music programs and interviewing artists. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was taking notes, planning for her own eventual leap into the music industry—a leap she finally took this past February, with the release of her debut album, Grace for the…

A few episodes ago (episode 3), Benji and Avi discussed the thorny topic Haredim not serving in the IDF. During their discussion, Benji told a few not-too-flattering stories about Moishy, one of his Haredi cousins. Now we get to hear from Moishy about what's really going on today in the Haredi community. The introduction is in English, but the conv…

Turns out Benji and Avi don't speak English. Or at least not modern-day SoFlo dialect. In this episode, Benji and Avi sit down with their youngest guests yet, Eliana and Aly, who took an hour out of their Israel summer program to try to explain to two very slow learners what it's like to be a teenager navigating social media and the modern world. S…

There are only a handful of pediatric oncology bone marrow transplant specialists in Israel, and our guest, Dr. Aviva Krauss, is one of them. She's skilled, brilliant, caring, and passionate about saving children's lives. She's also at the breaking point. Join us as we shine a light on what can only be described as a scandal. A medical system that …

At the onset of the Holocaust, after Maxwell Smart's family began being targeted and killed in Nazi-occupied Europe, he became separated from his mother, who made one final request of her young son: "Please run away." He did as he was told. He ended up spending one and a half years living in the cold, desolate woods of Eastern Europe, meeting and m…

What’s it like establishing a first-of-its-kind water park in the Holy Land? What’s it like dreaming a big dream and making it happen – on the mean shores of Tiberias? Which city has the rudest Israelis? Which tourists are the most polite? In this episode Benji and Avi sit down with the man behind Aqua Kef, Ami Ohayon, a French oleh who rolled up h…

Benji and Avi discuss the thorny issue of army service as it relates to Israel's Haredi community. Send us a textDi Benji and Avi

Danila Botha wants you to know something about her writing: it's not autobiographical. She pulls ideas and themes from real life, from the media and history, from current affairs and what she sees in the world. She is not personally a glitter-strewn closeted lesbian Orthodox woman, nor is she a drug addict who once met Anne Frank in a dream. But th…

Benji and Avi are both fathers of combat soldiers in the IDF who have been on active duty during the war. In this episode, they discuss the pride and the fear that have characterized the past months - and the humor in between. Send us a textDi Benji and Avi

In this, their world premier episode, Benji and Avi, two middle-aged American guys living in Israel, discuss what moving to Israel has been like. There are insights in this episode that will literally change your life - probably for the worse. This episode was recorded on June 8, 2024. Send us a text…

When Jaclyn Grossman was an 18-year-old opera student, her teacher heard her soprano voice and informed her she'd sing the music of Richard Wagner. Grossman didn't know much about the German composer, but quickly fell in love with his music. She was not particularly phased by the fact that Wagner was infamously antisemitic, included offensive Jewis…

During the pandemic, David Sklar—an actor, playwright and co-host of The CJN's arts podcast Culturally Jewish—wrote a theatre script called Vial. The plot focuses on a college professor who feels conflicted when one of her far-left-wing Jewish students writes an extreme essay about Israel; the professor, who starts off adamantly pro–free speech, be…

On December 1, 2023, Charles Officer passed away at age 48. The award-winning filmmaker was revered in the national arts community, having directed documentaries such as Invisible Essence, about the cultural impact of The Little Prince, and The Skin We're In, a film adaptation of author Desmond Cole's popular essay on racism in Canada. His movies w…

Irena Gut Opdyke was a Polish nurse who, during the Second World War, was forced to become a housekeeper for a high-ranking German officer. At some point, she was offered the chance to save a dozen Jewish lives. She agreed, hiding them in a space nobody would think to look—in the German officer's basement. Later honoured as a Righteous Among the Na…

When a member of the Jewish community in London, Ont., recently decided to go through with medical assistance in dying (MAiD), it sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community. Some were angry and confused, others were sympathetic and supportive—and others felt mixed emotions, including the father of Jordi Mand, a playwright and screenwriter. Ma…

On March 5, the biggest comedy festival in the world, Just for Laughs, announced it was cancelling this year's events in its hometown of Montreal and filing for bankruptcy protection. The news shocked international comics and local Montrealers—but Andy Nulman, who co-founded the festival in 1985 and spearheaded its expansion through the 1990s, wasn…

Eric and Erin Warner's grandfather lived to the admirable age of 103. And in that time, the Jewish immigrant to Canada saw Toronto change in innumerable ways, from the migration of Jews out of the Ward and Kensington Market to mass communication shifting from the radio to the internet. It's a life's story that Eric, who's worked in music promotion …

Seth Zosky is a massive fan of Kanye West. He owns the shoes, has heard all his songs, and—as a drummer—dove deep into Kanye's innovative use of the retro 808 drum machine. So when Kanye started coming out as an unhinged antisemite in 2023, making ridiculous comments on podcasts and social media about Hitler, spouting conspirary theories and tweeti…

Ari Gross has never written a comic book before. But when he decided to try making one, he found his background came in handy. A machine learning engineer by day with a background in data science, Gross completed his PhD on the history and philosophy of science and technology—a perfect fit for writing a comic that brings 20th-century Toronto and Ka…

On Jan. 9, a group of Jewish Hollywood entertainers—among them David Schwimmer, Amy Schumer, Debra Messing, Jason Alexander and Michael Rapaport—published an open letter, signed by hundreds of Jewish media industry professionals, that slams the Motion Picture Academy for ignoring Jews in its "Representation and Inclusion Standards", unveiled in 202…

On January 2, the Belfry Theatre in Victoria, B.C., announced it is cancelling a forthcoming production of The Runner, a one-man play—created by a non-Jewish theatre artist—that tells the story of an Orthodox Jewish volunteer who decides to help a young Palestinian woman instead of an Israeli soldier. The decision to cancel the production came afte…

If you've heard of Gila Münster, who bills herself as "Toronto's cross stitching, cross-dressing Jewish American Princess," it's probably because of her drag queen storytelling events. After the height of the pandemic, she began partnering with public libraries across Southern Ontario, hosting story hours for children to supplement nighttime perfor…

Ruth Rakoff had only written one book before, a memoir based on her cancer diagnosis. That was in 2010. Two years later, her brother David Rakoff—an acclaimed writer and storyteller—died of Hodgkin's lymphoma. That traumatic period, in part, inspired her to spend nearly a full decade writing her second book, Untethered, a novel published in Sept. 2…

The story of Chiune Sugihara has become relatively well known among the Jewish community. The Japanese diplomat, known as "Japan's Schindler", wrote transit visas for thousands of European Jews, helping them flee Nazi persecution and the concentration camps. Among the many families saved by Sugihara visas was the Bluman family, which wound up in Va…

When Niv Shimshon woke up to the horror of what happened in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he immediately contacted his friends and family back in his home country. The Israeli-born photographer—who moved to Canada 10 years ago, now living in Hamilton with his wife and two young children—could only donate a bit of money to his family's kibbutz and offer w…

It's no secret that the arts industry—theatre, film, music, visual arts, dance; pick your favourite—is mostly filled with left-leaning individuals. Unfortunately for Jewish artists, that means the arts community is also largely anti-Zionist (or pro-Palestinian), and given how big a role networking and affiliations play in booking gigs and landing s…

In Matthew Jocelyn's ideal world, audiences would look at upcoming programming from the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto and ask, "Really? The Koffler is doing that?" Ruffling feathers isn't new for the artistic leader, who spent 28 years in France, where he worked in some of the nation's top opera houses and was awarded as a Knight of the Ord…

Sarah Segal-Lazar's momma never actually wanted her to be a doctor—nor did becoming an artist really shock her. But the Canadian musician and actor nonetheless drew inspiration from that common trope, where the offspring shunts the professional expectations of their parents, to write the hilarious theme song to The CJN's arts and culture podcast, C…

Most Canadians have never heard of Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld, a woman who left early 20th century Russia and wound up in Barrie, Ont., where she cultivated her love of sports into Olympic glory—including a gold medal. In some ways, hers is a standard turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrant story, portraying a woman who succeeded by sheer force of will …

There's a certain type of Jew, usually Ashkenazi, sometimes Israeli, with a mop of curly hair, an acousitc guitar and an affinity for marijuana, who will inevitably love bands like The Grateful Dead and Phish. Those groups are collectively known as "jam bands", which play lengthy, musically complex songs, often in concert, always with a hefty relia…

When Bobbi Goddard travelled to Mexico in February 2020, she planned on staying just a couple months. But when the pandemic began, locking down borders and economies, she was happy to stay longer, practice Spanish and catch an opportunity to kickstart her dream career as a country music singer. It wasn't the first time she'd chased a dream—and acco…

Jacob Balshin didn't take a conventional route to stand-up comedy. The Thornhill native majored in philosophy before working a string of random jobs—at Pizza Pizza, a pet store, Costco, Bulk Barn—all while honing his craft. Now he's releasing his debut comedy album, 30 And Breathing Funny, which he recorded in downtown Toronto on his 30th birthday,…

One day, after Shaina Silver-Baird graduated from theatre school, the rabbi from her bat mitzvah called her up to ask her if she'd be a cantor for an upcoming wedding. Silver-Baird was not religious; she didn't go to synagogue, speak Hebrew or understand exactly what she was getting into. But she agreed. Years later, from that experience, a web ser…

When Jeff Rothpan moved to the United States decades ago to pursue comedy as a career, he couldn't imagine he'd one day be working with some of his idols, including Steve Martin and John Cleese. But that's where life took him, and since then, he's written for internationally recognized ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, Canadian model Pamela Anderson and t…

Among the first major massacres of the Holocaust infamously took place in Babyn Yar, Ukraine, where Nazis murdered more than 33,000 Jews in 1941. Today, the harrowing site—when not under fire by invading Russian forces—is a rising tourist attraction, not just for its historical significance, but also a mesmerizing new synagogue and memorial that wa…

When Lisa Rubin, artistic and executive director of the Segal Centre for Performing Arts in Montreal, caught Prayer for the French Republic in New York City last year, she walked out of the theatre certain of one thing: she had to put this show on. She knew it wouldn’t get a long run on Broadway, overshadowed by Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt next doo…

In March 2023, Alison Darcy and Joseph Shragge, the co-artistic directors of Scapegoat Carnivale, a theatre company in Montreal, debuted their latest work, Vertip. The show is about a puppeteer who uses stereotypical puppets, based on old Eastern European traditions, including a money-grubbing Jewish loan shark named Zyhd. One day, Zyhd comes to li…

Join actors David Sklar and Ilana Zackon as they schmooze with creative Jews of all disciplines, taking you behind the scenes of what matters most to Canada's Jewish arts community—and why our cultural representation matters.