This week, The CJN launched its new bite-sized daily newscast, The CJN Daily. Catch up on our first four episodes here:
What exactly happened at Mount Meron? In our debut episode, Ellin focuses on the tragedy that killed 45 people and injured more than 150 others during what was supposed to be a celebration for Lag b’Omer on Mount Meron. Ellin talks with Dr. Oded Oron, a visiting scholar with the Israel Institute, who explains what the event is supposed to be—and how it all went wrong. After that, Dr. Ira Robinson, director of the Concordia Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies, talks about the anti-Zionist Toldos Aharon Hasidic sect, which played a central role in the lethal events.
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The origins of—and need for—Jewish Heritage Month. With so many Jewish cultural events happening in May—film festivals, literary celebrations and the Walk with Israel, not to mention the Israeli holidays of Independence Day and Yom HaShoah—it’s no accident that the Canadian government, in 2018, announced May would be Canadian Jewish Heritage Month. On the show today, Conservative senator Linda Frum and former Liberal MP Michael Levitt join to discuss how they helped usher this official designation into law.
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Counting the Jewish victims of COVID-19. While no one knows the number of Canadian Jews who died from the COVID-19 pandemic, the editorial team at Maclean’s is casting a wider net. They’ve teamed up with journalism schools across the country to write an obituary of every Canadian who died from the virus for a massive collection called They Were Loved. Dafna Izenberg, the managing editor of special projects at Maclean’s, talks about a few prominent Jewish stories that stuck out to her.
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The Jewish movement to clean up offensive speech. Clean Speech Ottawa is a movement backed by more than 25 Jewish organizations. Their goal: encourage people to be mindful of the ways in which their flippant, offensive, condescending or insulting language can hurt other people. Their goal is to spread peace across communities “one word at a time.” One of the founders, Rabbi Zischa Shaps, joins the show to talk about the birth of the movement and why it matters so much in 2021.
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Our next episode airs Monday. Be the first to hear it by subscribing on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.