Treasure Trove celebrates Passover and remembers Israel’s first vineyards
As we drink our four cups of wine at the Passover seder, many of us will be drinking wine from Israel. We’ll be continuing a tradition which began in 1882 when the first experimental vineyards were planted in Rishon LeZion with the financial and moral support of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a French Zionist, philanthropist […]
What it was like to share Passover with two new young Canadians from Afghanistan
Why was this Passover different from all other Passovers? We served halal meat and started the seder after sunset so our friends who were fasting for Ramadan could eat. The friends, refugees from Afghanistan, moved to Toronto, where my family lives, almost a year ago: Vasila, a 24-year-old women’s right activist wanted by the Taliban […]
Montreal seders were dark and cold after an ice storm caused widespread power outages
On Wednesday afternoon, hours before the first seder of Passover, the power started to go out in homes across Montreal. “We knew the weather was going to be all over the place for Pesach but I didn’t really check the specifics,” said Mettannah Jacobson, a Montreal resident. There was an ice storm on Wednesday morning […]
Treasure Trove: David Matlow reflects on April as ‘Freedom Month’
April 1948, one month before Israel’s proclamation of statehood, was declared Freedom Month by America’s United Jewish Appeal in support of its $250-million campaign. UJA chairman Henry Morgenthau Jr. noted the long and historic association between April and freedom both in Jewish and American history including the holiday of Passover, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the first […]
Tam Tam vs. Tum Tum: A tale of two feuding Canadian matzah bakeries
What company comes to mind when I say matzah? Chances are you thought of Manischewitz. Since its founding by Rabbi Dov Ber Manischewitz in Cincinnati in 1888, the Manischewitz brand has become nearly synonymous with Passover, dominating the matzah market. This was certainly true 75 years ago, when in 1948 the company made a big […]
Matzah shortage emergency in Halifax has a happy ending—thanks to a local rabbi
An “emergency” shipment of matzah for Passover has arrived in Halifax just days after the Atlantic Jewish Council declared a city-wide matzah emergency. And organizer Rabbi Yakov Kerzner was on duty on April 2, at his Beth Israel Synagogue on Oxford Street to distribute the 150 pounds of matzahs which he hastily ordered earlier this […]
Final Round: Who’s the greatest Jewish athlete of all time?
Who is the GADYA, the Greatest All-time Diaspora Yiddish Athlete?
Passover food drives across the country find the need has gone up by 20 percent this year
“Macaroons?” “Got it!” “Ok, here we go: strawberry jam!” That was the scene in the main hall of Toronto’s Lipa Green building on Sunday, April 3, where hundreds of volunteers, including Canadian Members of Parliament, spent the day packing Passover food boxes for the city’s needy. The boxes were destined for 1,000 clients of the […]
Snowstorms in Winnipeg—not to mention COVID everywhere else—threaten to disrupt Canadians’ seder plans for the third year in a row
Happy Pandemic Passover from The CJN!
The CJN’s book columnist Hannah Srour has a tale about her family’s personal exodus from Egypt
At my family’s seder each year we act out the following scene: my father—who has led our seders in the years since my grandfather’s passing—places the afikoman bag over his shoulder and asks the rest of us in Judeo-Arabic: “Miwen jaiye?” [From where are you coming?]. We answer: “Mi-Mitzrayim” [From Egypt]. “Lawen rayech?” [Where are […]
