First Nations genocide and the need for Jewish understanding

What can the Canadian Jews do to help First Nations people?
A still from "Becoming Nakuset", a short documentary that screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in June 2021. (Image courtesy of TJFF)

Few Canadians understand both the First Nations and Jewish communities as well as Nakuset. The prominent activist, at a young age, was taken from her home in the Sixties Scoop and adopted by a wealthy Jewish family in Montreal. Today, she joins the podcast to discuss Canada’s reckoning with its recent history of brutality against First Nations people, especially in the light of the mass grave of children discovered at a Kamloops residential school.

Plus: We discuss the terrible hate crime that killed four Muslim people in London, Ont. In the first 24 hours, there was a flurry of fears among Canadian Jews that the alleged perpetrator—Nathaniel Veltman, at times erreously reported as Veldman or Feldman—could have been a member of the community. (It has been all but confirmed that he is not.) In the wake of the tragedy, our hosts ask: Does it even matter if he was Jewish? What impact did the Islamophobic attack have on the Jewish community? And what would it have meant if Veltman actually were Jewish?

Related links

  • Learn more about Nakuset’s work at resiliencemontreal.com and nwsm.info
  • Read “London’s Jewish leaders to attend vigil for Muslim family killed in car attack” at thecjn.ca
  • Read “London imam’s ‘inflammatory’ remarks at vigil link Israel to local killings” at thecjn.ca

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Melissa Lantsman and Ilana Zackon. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andrew Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network.

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