North Star with Ellin Bessner

Toronto police have arrested and charged a 32-year-old Toronto man after he allegedly tried to stop someone from putting up posters of missing Israeli hostages along Yonge Street. Police say further hate-related charges could be laid. Meanwhile late Monday, Ottawa police announced they have laid various charges against a 29-year-old man after death threats were made during a phone call with Rabbi Idan Scher, of Congregation Machzikei Hadas last Friday. The charges brings the total so far to 9 people who have been arrested and charged in Canada since Oct 7, when the barbarous Hamas attack on southern Israel killed 1,400 people and prompted Israel’s declaration of war against Hamas in Gaza. Jewish communities from Vancouver to Regina and Winnipeg and Ottawa to Montreal and Moncton have been targeted with antisemitic incidents. These have included damaged mezuzot; a bomb threat made to an elementary school; a weapon fired in the dead of night through the front door of a Jewish home; restaurant patrons being harassed; and death threats made against Canadian Jews. All this to say nothing of Hamas and ISIS flags being waved in the streets. Canada just announced a one-time pot of $5 million for security guards and equipment to protect Jewish and other religious groups’ offices and day care centres. But can the police do more? Should Canadian Jews stay away from schools and synagogues and events? CIJA’s director of community security, Gerry Almendrades, tells _The CJN Daily _host Ellin Bessner that’s actually the worst thing Jews can do: give into the fear. What we talked about Read the Public Safety Canada announcement on temporarily expanding funding for security at Jewish and other buildings, issued on Nov. 6. Why Toronto police charged a man with a hate-motivated assault in connection with an incident involving someone putting up Israeli hostage posters in Toronto, in The CJN Read the sections of Canada’s Criminal Code dealing with hate. Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

Maya Winkler, 19, was supposed to be taking classes at Reichman University in Herzliya this year—but is instead spending her days collecting supplies for Israeli soldiers and babysitting their kids. Leora Prutschi, 18, was supposed to be on a reverse Shinshinim project—a year of service for Diaspora teens in Israel—but is instead commuting from Eilat to Timna, 30 km north, to teach English to displaced Israeli kids whose homes were destroyed. Meanwhile, Joey Lipetz, 18, studies at a yeshiva in Mevaseret Zion, near Jerusalem, where he also assembles piles of ritual green prayer shawls for soldiers and recites psalms for them. These three teenagers are among an untold number of young Canadian Jewish students who went to Israel for a gap-year program, or to do a year of university studies, only to find their plans dramatically upended by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and subsequent war. And while many in their cohort have returned to Canada, these three have chosen to remain in Israel, despite pressure from their families. Winkler, Lipetz and Prutschi spoke to The CJN Daily host Ellin Bessner about why they feel safer staying to help Israel, even as they face rocket attacks in a country traumatized by the barbaric murders of 1,500 Israelis and foreign tourists near the Gaza Strip a month ago. What we talked about Learn more about Maya Winkler and her brother Zachary's famous fundraising charity events for SickKids in The CJN archives (2018 and 2014) Hear the hostages’ families plead with Canada to do more to help free their loved ones held by Hamas in Gaza, on The CJN Daily Meet the social worker who helps bereaved Israeli families identify the remains of their loved ones murdered by Hamas, on The CJN Daily _ _Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer.Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

Just ahead of her first visit to Canada as Israel’s newly-appointed Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism, Michal Cotler-Wunsh had strong criticism of the Trudeau government’s decision to abstain last week on a vote at the United Nations’ General Assembly about the Israel Hamas war. Cotler-Wunsh calls the decision by Canada to abstain, rather than vote “No”: “worse than silence”. The new special envoy arrives in Canada today for talks in Ottawa on Parliament Hill, and then speaks in Toronto at a fundraiser for a Jewish group. Cotler-Wunsh is Israeli, but grew up in Canada, the daughter of professor Irwin Cotler, human rights crusader and Canada’s own first Special Envoy fighting antisemitism – a position he just finished last week. Cotler-Wunsh was apppointed to her new post just three weeks before the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas on Southern Israel killed over 1,400 people and kidnapped over 239 more, using tactics which she calls “genocidal”. She’s working feverishly now to explain to the world why Jews and allies must fight “this existential war” on the Jewish State and people, and why Hamas’s tactics have roots in age-old antisemitism now disguised as modern anti-Zionism. As you will hear, some moments of panic ensued when Cotler-Wunsh joined The CJN Daily host Ellin Bessner from her office in Tel Aviv right in the middle of a rocket attack. What we talked about Learn more about Michal Cotler-Wunsh and her previous work as an MK in Israel’s Knesset, in The CJN. How Michal Cotler-Wunsh co-founded an inter-Parliamentary task force to combat online hate on social media, in The CJN. Read Michal Cotler-Wunsh writing in The CJN in 2016 about her father’s legacy. Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

If you ask some relatives of the nearly 240 Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, they will say “there hasn’t been enough pressure” to free their loved ones. That’s one of the key messages they emphasized during private meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and with other Canadian politicians and journalists, on Oct. 30. The Israeli group said they are getting little to no information on their loved ones’ status from their own government, which they’ve accused of failing to protect their families. They called on Canada to break off diplomatic and financial ties to organizations and countries that help Hamas, and they want Canada to pressure Israel to make hostage recovery the top priority. On today’s The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner brings you the powerful words of several relatives, including Winnipeg-born hostage Vivian Silver’s son, Chen Zeigen; Aharon Brodutch, a Canadian-Israeli physicist whose sister-in-law and three young children were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza (including his niece, Ofri, 10, who attended Camp Gesher in Ontario this summer, and nephews Yuval, 8, and Uriah, 4); Harel Lapidot, a Regina-born Israeli lawyer, whose niece Tiferet Lapidot, 22, was murdered at the Supernova music festival, and Itay Raviv, with three relatives held hostage and one uncle murdered at Kibbutz Nir Oz. What we talked about Why Vivian Silver’s close friend thinks she would want to be freed from Hamas peacefully, on The CJN Daily Watch the full press conference by families of the Hamas victims on CPAC’s YouTube channel Read more about the hostage families’ anguish in The CJN Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

As Israeli tanks and infantry forces began a limited push into Gaza over the weekend, ahead of an expected full-scale ground invasion, families and friends of the now-230 hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 want to make sure their loved ones aren’t forgotten. That’s why Toronto social worker Lynne Mitchell, a longtime friend of kidnapped Canadian-Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, is speaking out. She’s telling the world who Silver is and how her friend went to Israel to devote her life to helping forge peaceful relationships between Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and Jews. She believes Silver, a widow, would not want to be freed through violent raids—but rather by mediation or negotiation. It’s been more than three weeks since Silver, 74, was captured by Hamas while hiding in her safe room inside her Kibbutz Be’eri home, where 130 residents were later found slaughtered. Mitchell joins The CJN Daily to share how Silver’s family has been navigating this tense moment—and what she hopes will happen next. What we talked about Learn more about Vivian Silver in The CJN Join the “Missing Vivian Silver” Facebook group Read about the funeral for Alexandre Look, a Canadian murdered at the music festival in Israel, in The CJN Register for the Toronto rally on Nov. 1 in support of the hostages Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

Canadian social worker Joy Frenkiel can’t get two particular sounds out of her head: IDF soldiers hammering wood to build coffins, and the motors of refrigerated containers storing hundreds of still-unidentified bodies at an Israeli military base. Frenkiel moved to Israel from Chomedey, north of Montreal, in 1996; since the horrific murders of at least 1,300 Israelis and foreign nationals earlier this month by Hamas, the Ramat Gan resident has been helping bereaved families go through what is likely the hardest experience of their lives. Frenkiel not only travels with military teams on solemn home visits to break the news to next of kin—she also supports grieving parents, spouses and other relatives when they go in-person to the morgue at the Shura military base at Ramla to officially identify the remains. For Frenkiel, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, seeing the condition of many of the bodies has been almost beyond description. But, as she tells The CJN Daily‘s host Ellin Bessner in the third episode of our series on “The Helpers” in this war, Frenkiel is honouring those who were murdered to fulfill the mitzvah of giving kindness during the darkest period of Israel’s modern history. What we talked about Help ZAKA, an Israeli organization giving the victims of Hamas a Jewish burial Read more about the work of ZAKA in The CJN archives (2015) Meet the Canadian couple who hid for their lives near the Gaza border when Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, on The CJN Daily Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our intern is Ashok Lamichhane, and our theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

Dr. Brad Strauss is a cardiologist at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, with a roster of patients and several new medical devices under development. But immediately following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, Strauss dropped everything and booked a plane ticket to Tel Aviv. Despite his flight being delayed by missile threats—it took him two days in transit—he arrived ready to work near the frontlines around Gaza. Instead, he was accepted by the cardiology team at the HaEmek hospital in Afula, in the country's north—within firing range of Hezbollah's rockets. Strauss is the only Canadian doctor volunteering with that hospital's heart unit right now. But The CJN is aware of many other Canadian medical professionals who are on the ground to help. And there will be thousands more, as Israel wants foreign-trained medical staff from Canada, the U.S. and the European Union to volunteer, anticipating casualties straining their health care system. In the second episode of our week spotlighting "The Helpers" in the Holy Land, Strauss speaks to The CJN Daily host Ellin Bessner about what motivated him to come and why stress is causing heart problems for patients who he has seen during these last two weeks. What we talked about Help the HaEmek hospital in Afula buy a portable x-ray machine for the ER and a portable cardiac echo machine. Tax-deductable donations can be sent via the Neeman Foundation Learn about Israel’s health ministry creating this web portal for foreign-trained medical professionals from Canada and abroad to sign up to volunteer If you missed Monday’s The CJN Daily episode with the Canadian toymaker Ronnen Harary of Spin Master and how he is delivering 25,000 toys to displaced Israeli kids, listen here Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer.Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please

Ronnen Harary and his university friends founded the toy and entertainment company Spin Master in 1994, launching with Earth Buddies and later the wildly successful Air Hogs toys. Today, it’s their Paw Patrol characters and Gund stuffed animals that are globally famous. And for the last two weeks, since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, Harary has been on the ground in Israel distributing 25,000 toys for Israeli kids and their families who have been affected by the war with Hamas. And that’s not all. His personal charity is buying new beds for the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem to boost capacity ahead of expected casualties. Meanwhile, the Canadian philanthropist has also personally driven boxes of socks and supplies to army bases all over Israel, and his charity is helping a Canadian-led operation sending a food truck to feed soldiers before they embark on what’s expected to be an unprecedented ground assault on the Gaza Strip against Hamas. Today, The CJN Daily is kicking off a week of stories about what we’re calling “The Helpers”: Canadians stepping up to help Israel during these difficult times. Host Ellin Bessner speaks to Harary and to Franck Azoulay, a former Montrealer who now runs Harary’s personal charity and is himself serving with the IDF. Read how Harary sends gifts to children in conflict zones, including Israel, through The Toy Movement, in The CJN Learn more about the Canadian initiative to send a food truck from the Canaanite restaurant in Kfar Adumim, the West Bank, to feed Israeli soldiers at their bases—and donate to the crowdfunding campaign. Read how Spin Master was founded in a garage, in The CJN Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our intern is Ashok Lamichhane, and our theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

There’s been a lot of attention paid this week to the way some major news organizations are covering the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, which was launched on Oct. 7. The CBC, in particular, has come under scrutiny because it is a government-funded body to the tune of more than $1 billion a year. Twelve days ago, a CBC internal memo was sent to staff right after the attack happened, reminding journalists not to use the word “terrorists” or “terrorism” without attribution, when writing their stories. The memo was leaked to the public, sparking a barrage of complaints. This week, the federal Conservatives demanded CBC brass appear in front of a parliamentary committee to explain why their news teams have been advised to use more neutral language when describing the murderous massacre of 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals. The CBC says it is not alone in insisting its team not call the Hamas gunmen terrorists: the BBC doesn’t either. They don’t want to be seen to be taking sides, even while showing the gruesome carnage in as clear and accurate detail as they can. The CJN Daily‘s host, Ellin Bessner, spoke to Brodie Fenlon, the editor-in-chief of CBC News, to find out what’s behind the controversial wording policy of militants vs terrorists, and whether it should change. What we talked about Read the CBC blog by Brodie Fenlon, editor-in-chief of CBC News, explaining the reasoning why they won’t call Hamas terrorists. Learn more about the show of solidarity by Canadian leaders at the CIJA Antisemitism: Face It, Fight It conference, in The CJN. How the conflict is impacting Jewish students on university campuses, in The CJN. Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our intern is Ashok Lamichhane, and our theme music by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.

Tiferet Lapidot had been teaching English to children in Africa before she returned to Israel this fall to be with her family for the High Holidays. She was planning to go to Australia after holidays ended, around the time she was going to turn 23. But, first, she decided to go to the Supernova music festival near the border with Gaza. That's where she found herself frantically running for her life on Oct. 7, trying to escape from Hamas terrorists, who committed a murderous massacre at the now-notorious festival. Lapidot managed to make one last phone call home to her mother. But after that, the family heard nothing. They feared she was among the nearly 200 kidnapped Israelis and foreign tourists taken hostage in Gaza. But on Oct. 18, after an agonizing wait that took over a week, the family learned their daughter was among the 260 partygoers who died that day. On The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner speaks with the late Tiferet Lapidot's aunt, Galit Goren, and with her uncle, Harel Lapidot, both of whom are Canadians living in Israel. This interview was recorded days before the family learned of Lapidot's fate. What we talked about The Canadian Sephardi Federation and the Quebec Sephardic community are asking people to put up free posters showing the names and faces of the missing hostages. You can download these posters for free, which can also be sent to your politicians, at kidnappedfromIsrael.com Read more about The Abraham Global Peace Initiative’s $100,000 reward for information leading to the exact locations of the hostages Ten mental health tips to help your kids (and you) cope with anxiety during this difficult time in Jewish history: on The CJN Daily Credits The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer.Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here