Episode 7: Breaking Bread

When Richard Wood recently took over Omnitsky's Kosher, a staple of Vancouver's Jewish community for three decades, he made a few changes. He found a new building, opened a small market section, and hired the restaurant's first-ever head chef. When accepting applications, one name stood out to him: a Palestinian Muslim man named Mustafa Ghanim.

Richard wound up hiring Mustafa, who left his hometown of Nablus for Tel Aviv years ago, and has spent nearly a decade working in kosher Israeli kitchens. Now, in Vancouver, their little-known story is a testament to the possibility of everyday peaceful coexistence between Canadian Jews and Muslims—and it became the backdrop for the second live episode of In Good Faith, The CJN's interfaith podcast series.

So podcast hosts Avi Finegold and Yafa Sakkejha flew to Vancouver to speak with Richard and Mustafa and share stories about their respective food cultures. And while they were there, they invited 50 people from both the Muslim and Jewish communities to pack the restaurant and enjoy a decadent meal prepared by the Palestinian kosher chef himself.

Credits

• Hosts:

Yafa Sakkejha and Avi Finegold

• **Producers: ** Michael Fraiman and Zachary Judah Kauffman

• Editor:

Zachary Judah Kauffman

This podcast is sponsored by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, with support from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.