Friday May 2 has been declared an official day of remembrance and mourning in British Columbia after last weekend’s horrific attack on a Filipino cultural festival in Vancouver. To date, 11 people died and dozens more remain wounded after a 30-year-old man drove an SUV into a crowd at the city’s Lapu Lapu festival on April 26. The suspect has been charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder, but the investigation continues. Leaders of the Filipino community say they feel deeply touched by the heartfelt outreach and solidarity being shown by Canadian Jewish groups. In Vancouver, Jewish residents have mounted prayer vigils and also set up an emergency fundraising campaign. The outpouring of support is being described as an example of kapwa, the Filipino tradition of solidarity and unity, as that community processes the grief while seeking answers on how the mental health system failed so badly to prevent the massacre. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we’re joined by two members of Canada’s Filipino community, who also share deep ties with the country’s Jews: David Decolongon, who works in Vancouver for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), has family and friends who attended the festival and witnessed the horrific attack; and Primrose Madayag Knazan, from Winnipeg, is an award-winning Filipinx-Jewish author and playwright with expertise on how the Philippines helped rescue European Jews during the Holocaust.

Related links

• Where to donate through the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Filipino Community Emergency Support Fund.
• When Canadian Jews fundraised in 2013 to help disaster relief efforts in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan struck the country, in The CJN.
• When the Philippines rescued 1,200 European Jews during the Holocaust, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

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

It will be a very different kind of Yom ha-Zikaron in Israel for the family of Ben Brown. In July 2024, a Hezbollah rocket injured the 20-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., while he was on duty with the Israel Defense Forces’ Golani army unit at a strategic base overlooking the Lebanese border. No one else was hurt, or killed. Now, as the Jewish State remembers more than 25,000 soldiers and also victims of terrorism who’ve fallen throughout Israel’s history, Brown’s family is commemorating in their own way—on the ground in Israel, where there son is still in hospital. Brown has spent months receiving treatment, after being in a coma, with a traumatic brain injury. The former yeshiva student is out of danger now, but he still receives hours of daily therapy. His family and friends keep a constant vigil, as he cannot yet speak properly for long, or walk distances unassisted. Despite a controversial progressive media website publicly listing Ben Brown among 85 Canadians who’ve served in the IDF over the years, Brown’s family says they’re not focusing on the unwanted negative attention. Instead, the family is marking Israel’s Memorial Day together in Israel, and plan to attend local events—including the 77th anniversary of Israel’s independence the following day. They want Canadians back home to understand why their son felt he had to defend the Jewish State—especially after Oct. 7. On today’s The CJN Daily, Ben Brown’s father, Jeffrey Brown, joins from Israel to explain. Related links

• Read more about Ben Brown’s injury after Oct. 7, in The CJN.
• Hear how the Jewish community in Toronto came together to support Ben Brown’s family through prayer, on The CJN Daily.
• Why those Canadians who served in the IDF and were on a new list published by an anti-Israel paper are fighting mad, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

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

It’s Election Day in Canada. By last count, there are at least 27 Jewish candidates running in the 2025 federal election for all major parties, including the Conservatives (10), Liberals (7), NDP (5), People’s Party of Canada (2), Green (2) and the Bloc Quebecois (1). Despite polls pointing to a Liberal victory, several Jewish candidates are running in ridings deemed too close to call. On today’s show, we’re zooming into a few of those ridings, to take a better look at what the issues are on the ground. In Mount Royal, incumbent Anthony Housefather has been fending off attacks about his party’s perceived anti-Israel stance from new challenger Neil Oberman; in Toronto–St. Paul’s, Conservative Don Stewart won a tight by-election less than a year ago, but may lose if the longtime Liberal stronghold returns red. To talk about those ridings and others—including races to watch in Winnipeg, York Centre, Outremont, Davenport, Thornhill, Eglinton-Lawrence, Toronto Centre and elsewhere—we’ll hear from two reporters with The CJN. Joel Ceausu is our Montreal correspondent, and Jonathan Rothman has been reporting from Toronto. Both join The CJN Daily for an election-day preview of what are the issues at stake.

Related links

• The CJN’s Jonathan Rothman takes the temperature of Jewish voters across Canada ahead of the April 28 federal election.
• The CJN’s Joel Ceausu reports from the riding of Mount Royal where incumbent Anthony Housefather faces off against Neil Oberman for the Conservatives.
• Lila Sarick reports on York Centre, in The CJN.
• Phoebe Maltz-Bovy on why she voted Liberal, in The CJN.
• What’s at stake in Winnipeg, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

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

With just a few days left in Canada’s federal election campaign, U.S. president Donald Trump has once again inserted himself onto the ballot question: the American leader repeated on Wednesday that Canada would “cease to exist” without the United States. Trump also threatened to further increase tariffs on Canadian cars and auto parts. The sabre-rattling about Canada’s future, on economic independence and our status on the world stage should be top of mind for voters in Monday’s election, says Alan Kessel. And he would know: Kessel has spent more than 40 years as one of the Canadian government’s most senior legal advisors and diplomats. Kessel, of Ottawa, recently retired from the public service, leaving him to speak more freely about some of the critical international files he’s handled, and what’s at stake, especially the North American free trade agreement Canada signed in 2018 with the U.S. and Mexico—which Trump now wants to blow up. Kessel also worked on cases involving Israel that were brought to the United Nations’ International Court of Justice, and to the nearby Criminal Court, which recently issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, Alan Kessel joins to discuss why Trump’s trade war on Canada is illegal, what Canada’s next leader should do about it, and what’s behind the recent Liberal government’s completely different approaches when it comes to supporting Ukraine, but not Israel.

Related links

• Read more about the impact of Trump’s tariff trade war on Canadian Jewish business owners, in The CJN
• What Canadian leaders think about the ICJ’s ruling on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, in January 2024, in The CJN.
• Why rising antisemitism is convincing some Canadian Jews to vote Conservative this election.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

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

Eighty years after a Holocaust survivor from Canada saved a wounded, young Jewish orphan by hiding him in his crawl space underneath a washroom in Warsaw, a ceremony in Israel this week will honour the late Peter Jablonski’s wartime heroism. But it won’t be part of the official annual state Yom HaShoah ceremony run by Yad Vashem, the organization in charge of Holocaust Remembrance for the State of Israel. They confer Righteous Among the Nations medals only to non-Jews, not to ordinary Jews. They do spotlight Jews who saved Jews, especially Jewish partisans and resistance fighters, in their museum and education programs.

Instead, Jablonski’s courage for rescuing that young boy, Walter Saltzberg of Winnipeg, and a handful of others, will be honoured by B’nai Brith International and the KKL/Jewish National Fund at a gathering Thursday April 24 in the Martyrs’ Forest in Jerusalem. The two groups created the event decades ago to honour Jews who rescued Jews, and they have been campaigning ever since for Yad Vashem to change its policy.

Jablonski was 23 when he rescued Walter Saltzberg, who was just 13 at the time–and was badly injured by falling German bombs that destroyed the pair’s first hiding place. Jablonski treated the boy’s injuries, protected him from other hidden Jews who wanted to kill the boy when his moans risked giving their new location away to the Nazis. After five months, they were liberated, in 1945. Jablonski helped arrange surgery for Saltzberg to fix his deformed leg, and eventually Saltzberg was able to leave Poland for his new home in Canada, where as luck would have it, the two survivors reunited decades later.

On today’s The CJN Daily, we speak to the late Walter Saltzberg’s son, George Saltzberg, of Toronto, who is in Israel now where his late father's rescuer will posthumously receive the Jewish Rescuers' Citation. He joins to explain why he’s made it his mission to ensure Jablonski’s selfless acts aren’t forgotten.

Related links

• Watch the B’nai Brith International/KKL-JNF ceremony honouring the heroism of the late Peter Jablonski live from Israel on Thursday April 24, 2025.
• Read more about Peter Jablonski’s Holocaust story, and buy the book written by the young cousin he also saved, George Mandelbaum.
• Watch the Yad Vashem Yom HaShoah national ceremony live broadcast from Israel on Wednesday April 23, 2025.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

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

With just a week left in the 2025 federal election, it remains unclear which way Jewish voters will lean. Will they give stock to the parties’ promises on the economy, housing and sovereignty? Or will they be single-issue voters and focus on security within their own community? And how will they decide which party’s stance is more aligned with their views on Israel and the ongoing conflict with Hamas? Although Canadian Jews make up just one percent of the population, surprisingly, all the main federal party leaders have made promises about these very issues, including during both of last week’s nationally televised debates. While many polls are predicting a Liberal majority government, the members of The CJN Daily‘s political panel are not unanimous in their prognostications. On today’s episode, we assemble David Birnbaum, is a former Liberal member of the Quebec National Assembly; Emma Cunningham, a former NDP riding executive in Pickering, Ont., who now serves as a school board trustee east of Toronto; and Dan Mader, a Conservative party strategist with Loyalist Public Affairs in Toronto, who also volunteers for CJPAC, the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee.

Related links

• The CJN’s Jonathan Rothman takes the temperature of Jewish voters across Canada ahead of the April 28 federal election.
• The CJN’s Joel Ceausu reports from the riding of Mount Royal where incumbent Anthony Housefather faces off against Neil Oberman for the Conservatives.
• Get The CJN political columnist Josh Liebleine’s Passover take on the election campaign, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

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

Fresh from a hectic Passover weekend of assisting in conducting services at his Beth Sholom Synagogue in Toronto, and also leading a community seder there, Rabbi Louis J. Sachs says he has been trying to ignore the “noise” of the surprise lawsuit brought against him late last month by his previous congregation. Sachs’ former synagogue, Beth Torah congregation–about a ten-minute drive north from his new job–filed a lawsuit March 27 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice alleging breach of contact and suffering financial losses from their former rabbi’s conduct before he moved. Beth Torah wants the court to award them $750,000 in damages, including future lost membership. While none of these allegations have been proven in court, Rabbi Sachs insists he disagrees with what Beth Torah is saying about him–that he violated his contract by slacking off on his duties for them, while doing a series of events for the new shul before officially leaving his old one. In his view, he gave Beth Torah plenty of notice. He left after a little more than two years because he says he was unsatisfied he had to do so much administration work: the new place has more staff, which would allow him to focus on carrying out the rabbinical and pastoral work for which he was trained. Sachs joins The CJN Daily’s Ellin Bessner today to explain why he intends to “clear his name” in court and what his message is to both congregations. Also on the episode, we hear from Beth Sholom’s president Margaret Lindzon and from Rabbi Avi Finegold, The CJN’s resident rabbi, on why rabbis leave. Beth Torah declined to do any interviews with The CJN.

Related links

• Read Beth Torah’s allegations in the lawsuit filed March 27, 2025 in the Superior Court of Justice, and what Beth Shalom and our resident Rabbi Avi Finegold think, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

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

Eighty years ago, on April 15, 1945, the notorious Nazi death camp Bergen-Belsen, in Germany, was liberated by Allied troops. To their horror, British artillery crews discovered about 60,000 starving and deathly ill survivors, as well as 10,000 corpses lying, unburied, on the ground.

It was a sight and smell that the late Jack Marcovitch never forgot. The Ottawa veteran had only turned 22 when he arrived there as an army private in the closing weeks of the Second World War. His family believes he played a role in one the war's most iconic scenes: the arrest of Bergen-Belsen's commandant, Josef Kramer, notoriously dubbed "The Beast of Belsen".

Marcovitch rarely spoke about his experiences at Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank had died of typhus just a few months earlier. Now, on the milestone anniversary of the camp's liberation, Marcovitch's daughters—Linda Eisenberg and Gloria Borts—join The CJN Daily to share what their father brought home with him and how the trauma marked him for life.

Related links

• Watch Jack Marcovitch at Bergen Belsen on an old CBC interview.
• Learn about some of the Canadians who survived Bergen-Belsen including the late Cantor Moshe Kraus of Ottawa,
• Learn about some of the Canadian soldiers who helped the survivors of Bergen-Belsen, on the Veterans Affairs Canada website, as well as about Bernie Delson, and Sol Goldberg.

Credits

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

Support our show

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