Political observers are describing Canada’s move as “unprecedented” after foreign minister Anita Anand announced on June 10 the country has joined 4 other allied nations in imposing travel and economic sanctions against two extreme-right wing, Israeli politicians for being part of West Bank settler violence against Palestinians. Canada has slapped similar sanctions on several civilian Israeli settlers three times already since 2024, accusing them of fomenting attacks on Palestinians and their villages–attacks which largely go unpunished. But the listing of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, sitting members of a democratic, Western government that is a long-time ally of Canada, is being seen as an important diplomatic “signalling its extreme displeasure with the Israeli government”. Smotrich is Israel’s current finance minister, while Ben Gvir is in charge of national security. Both men live in settlements on the West Bank, and both have made highly controversial remarks about Palestinians, about wanting to annex the West Bank and Gaza for Israel, even that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people. The International Court of Justice is now hearing a case about incitement to genocide because of some of these remarks. While progressive Jewish leaders in Canada have praised the sanctions on the two men, in practise, experts say Canada rarely enforces them. To explain the strategy behind Canada’s team approach to the new sanctions on Israeli politicians and what message they’re meant to send, on today’s episode of North Star, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Thomas Juneau. He is a professor of political science and an expert in Middle East studies at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.

Related links

• How Canada, France and the U.K. rebuked Israel’s renewed military campaign in Gaza and threatened sanctions about expanding settlements, on May 19, in a joint statement.
• How Canadian Jewish leaders express concerns about Carney’s threat of sanctions on Israel.
• Here is Canada’s announcement of sanctions against extremist settlers, published June 10 2025.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

Now into their third week as officially-sworn in members of Canada’s 45th Parliament, newly elected Conservative MPs Tamara Kronis and Roman Baber are getting used to their new seats in the backbenches of the House of Commons. They have plenty in common: both trained as lawyers, grew up in Toronto, and, in the 2025 federal election, managed to flip their ridings blue for the first time in a decade. And on top of all that, both are the offspring of Jewish immigrant families, although Baber’s Canadian passport is much more recent. This is Kronis’s first time in political office, although she ran unsuccessfully for the Tories in the same Vancouver Island riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith in the 2021 election. She comes from a prominent Conservative political family: her late father, Jules, was a party operative dating back to the days of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Roman Baber represented the heavily Jewish Toronto riding of York Centre provincially from 2018 to 2022, during the first Doug Ford government in Ontario. Before throwing his hat into the ring federally, he ran unsuccessfully for the federal Conservative leadership, losing to his current boss, Pierre Poilievre. With Parliament having resumed May 26, these two newcomers have been learning the ropes of their new roles while navigating some historic moments. They met King Charles during his recent visit and dove headfirst into speaking up about housing affordability, the national drug-overdose crisis and important Jewish issues including antisemitism and the recent desecration of the national Holocaust monument. On today’s episode of North Star (formerly The CJN Daily), Tamara Kronis and Roman Baber join to share what their first whirlwind weeks have been like.

Related links

• Read more about Roman Baber’s political career, including running for the leadership of the federal Conservative party in the election which Pierre Poilievre ultimately won in 2022
• Hear Tamara Kronis explaining the International Court of Justice’s 2024 hearing brought by South Africa against Israel for genocide.
• How the April 28, 202 federal election brought longtime Conservative politician Roman Baber and candidate Tamara Kronis to Ottawa, this time as rookie Opposition MPs.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here)

For five weeks after Oct. 7, 2023, the two sons of Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver thought she was among the hostages from Kibbutz Be’eri who had been kidnapped into Gaza by Hamas terrorists. But after her house was destroyed that day, and they received no further word about her fate, her sons Chen, an archeologist based in Connecticut, and Yonatan, an Israeli social worker, threw themselves into campaigning for their mother’s release, while also channelling her spirit in advocating for a non-violent solution to the war. In late November 2023, Israeli forensic experts notified Silver’s family that her remains had been identified in the rubble of her burned-out kibbutz neighbourhood. She had been killed on the first day of the attack. Growing up, they had watched their mother’s tireless efforts to build bridges between Jews and Palestinians, while they pursued their own, different lives and career paths. Now, as the two-year anniversary of their mother’s murder approaches, Vivian Silver’s sons are still mourning their mother, but also curating her legacy as “Vivian”, an internationally-renowned political anti-war symbol. On today’s episode of The CJN’s newly-rebranded North Star podcast (formerly The CJN Daily), host Ellin Bessner sits down with Chen and Yonatan Zeigen to explore how having a purpose helps with their grief, rather than seeking vengeance for past trauma.

Related links

• Read more about the sons of the late Vivian Silver, fresh from their June 4 Toronto fundraiser/celebration of their mother’s life, in The CJN.
• To learn about the Vivian Silver Impact award and to donate.
• Hear how Silver’s family and friends gathered in November 2023 in Israel for her private funeral and then for a separate public memorial service, on The CJN Daily.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Bret Higgins

Support our show

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Two years and eight months into her term on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, a high-profile advocate for the Jewish community and other marginalized groups, announced her resignation during a school board meeting on June 3. She was the only Jewish trustee on the school board. Kaplan-Myrth’s tenure has been challenging, to say the least. When she advocated for mandatory masking during the COVID pandemic, she received countless antisemitic insults—even death threats—via social media and email, for which the police did lay charges against some of her critics. The school board has tried to censure her several times, prevented her from coming to meetings or speaking, and she has been in a running battle with a rival trustee over what she considers was racism against her because she is a white, Jewish Israeli-Canadian. But things came to a head recently after an email campaign by the National Council of Canadian Muslims to the board, accusing her of anti-Palestinian racism. Kaplan-Myrth said the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is so “toxic” and “dysfunctional” that she had to quit, for her own mental health and for the safety of her family. She joins Ellin Bessner of The CJN Daily to explain how she hopes her resignation is a wake-up call to what’s going on in school boards across North America—and why her problems may not be over.

Related links

• Watch Dr. Nili-Kaplan Myrth’s resignation speech at the June 3, 2025 OCDSB meeting: she begins at the 4 hour mark.
• Learn about the disgusting threats sent by an Ontario man to Dr. Nili Kaplan Myrth that resulted in his recent conviction in 2025, in The CJN.
• Hear a previous interview with Dr. Kaplan-Myrth when she was initially sanctioned by the Ottawa public school board in 2024, on The CJN Daily.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

While Israel’s government is still engaged externally in a nearly 19-month long war with Hamas in Gaza, crucial elections are underway for Jews around the world–including beginning June 5, for Canada–for control of Israel’s four main national Zionist bodies: the Keren Kayemeth/Jewish National Fund, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Keren HaYesod/United Israel Appeal, and the World Zionist Organization. These historic non-governmental institutions take direction from the World Zionist Congress, based in Jerusalem, and described by founder Theodore Herzl over a century ago as the unofficial “Parliament of the Jewish People”. This election will choose the 500+ official Congress members for a five-year term, which begins this fall. Organizers say there is much at stake. This election is being described as a battle for the soul of Israel, as it pits centrist and progressive Jewish slates against an increasingly powerful coalition of Orthodox and Haredi groups, who are campaigning for Torah values including supporting more settlement building on the West Bank. The Zionist Congress controls not only the policies but who gets appointed to run these major Israeli agencies, and, as a result, where and how their multi-billion dollar budgets are spent. (A tiny fraction of the money comes back to Canada to fund Zionist programming here.) While Israel and the United States are allocated most of the seats, the rest of the Jewish Diaspora including Canada makes up the rest. Canadian Jews are being asked to vote until June 15 through an online ballot. So who is running in Canada’s WJC elections this month? And how can you cast your vote?

On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner speaks with vote organizer Stan Greenspan, the president of the Canadian Zionist Federation, and himself a candidate. Plus you’ll meet candidates Jacob Kates Rose with the progressive Hatikvah Canada slate, and also Dr. Yizhar Hess, a high-ranking Jerusalem-based diplomat who came to Canada recently to drum up support for his slate known as Mercaz-Canada, which represents Conservative-Masorti Jewish values.

Related links

• How Canadian Jews can vote in the WZO’s elections from June 5-15, 2025.
• What is the World Zionist Congress anyway? Read Ron Csillag’s 2020 feature in The CJN.
• Why the American Jewish community was split over voting in the WZO elections, in The CJN.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

On the evening of June 1, a synagogue in Mississauga, Ont., will officially welcome nine new members of the Jewish faith, during Shavuot services. The conversion candidates have been studying for months, having undergone ritual baths and—in some cases—symbolic circumcisions, all to join the Tribe. The timing of the ceremony for these “Jews by choice” harkens back to the Biblical story we read on Shavuot about Ruth, a Moabite woman who joined the Israelites through marriage, and whose descendants included King David and Jesus Christ. For months, Canadian rabbis of all denominations have been reporting heightened levels of interest in conversions. Some candidates are looking to commit for their Jewish spouse; others proceeded solo on their own spiritual journeys. However, one thing many had in common: Oct. 7 has a lot to do with it. Why would anyone want to become Jewish, you ask, when antisemitism and anti-Zionism are becoming increasingly mainstream? We get answers on today’s episode of The CJN Daily. Rabbis Taylor Baruchel of Holy Blossom Temple, the largest Reform congregation in Canada, and Stephen Wise, the spiritual leader of Shaarei-Beth El Congregation, in Oakville, join to explain the phenomenon.

Related links

• Meet three Canadians who converted to Judaism after Oct. 7, despite everything, on The CJN Daily.
• Why Alexandria Fanjoy Silver converted twice, on The CJN Daily.
• Read more from Emily Caruso Parnell about the conversion process she underwent from both Orthodox and Reform pathways, in The CJN archives.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Vitaly Beckman, a Vancouver-based illusionist, recently accomplished something only four other performers have ever done: stump famed American magicians Penn and Teller with an illusion… for the third time. Beckman wowed the legendary duo in an episode of their long-running reality TV series, Penn & Teller: Fool Us, at the Las Vegas theatre bearing their name. They awarded him a trophy before inviting him back to perform on April 26 as the closing act for their own live show. Beckman has been pursing magic and illusion for nearly three decades, ever since he got hooked by watching David Copperfield on his parents’ television while growing up in Haifa. But like many Jewish immigrant families, his Soviet-born parents wanted their son to go into a more stable and respectable profession, so Beckman did a mechanical engineering degree at the Technion, Israel’s university specializing in science and engineering, before coming to Canada and pursuing his passion for fine art, painting and illusion. And after performances in Times Square and off-Broadway—including a benefit for Ukrainian Jewish orphans with Sylvester Stallone—Beckman is back home in Canada these days, testing out some new material. As he tells Ellin Bessner on The CJN Daily, illusion and magic may be just the thing to help heal divisions and strife during our turbulent times.

Related links

• Watch the March 28, 2025 Penn & Teller: Fool Us episode where Vancouver’s Vitaly Beckman won for the 3rd time in a decade.
• Check out Vitaly’ Beckman's website for news and future tour dates, and bookings.
• Learn how two Toronto Jewish magicians Ben Train and Jonah Babins pivoted during the pandemic to entertain their audiences online, on The CJN Daily.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)

Last year, the 2024 UJA Walk With Israel was tinged with pain, coming just months after the Oct. 7 massacres and being marred by intimidating anti-Israel protesters. But participants at this year’s event, held on May 25, felt a strong sense of Jewish pride and confidence, and refused to allow protesters to spoil the day—raising $1.4 million along the way, $200,000 more than last year. The 56th annual fundraiser was held under heavy security, coming just four days after a gunman, yelling “Free Palestine,” shot two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. With that news still fresh in people’s minds, thousands of police and security officers were on hand, officials told The CJN, and there were noticeably fewer protesters than the year before—just one arrest, compared to six arrests in 2024. Toronto police arrested one man at the event, charging him with mischief and causing a disturbance, after he was heard hurling antisemitic threats. But while the event went off mostly smoothly, attendees questioned why the police created “designated protest areas” on both sides of the last major intersection before the finish line, forcing the record-breaking 56,000 participants to pass through a gauntlet of pro-Pro-Palestinian yells and chants, along with smoke bombs. The CJN Daily‘s host Ellin Bessner brought her microphone and managed to stay dry despite the torrential downpour that drenched participants at the afterparty. On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Omri Kohavi, a survivor of the Nova music festival and Ilan Faktor, a music producer; Jesse Brown, who brought the Nova exhibition to Toronto; Rabbi Michael Dolgin of Temple Sinai, whose synagogue hosted the starting line for the walk; newly-elected Conservative MP for York Centre, Roman Baber; Steven Del Duca, the mayor of Vaughan; Melissa Lantsman, the deputy Conservative leader and re-elected MP for Thornhill; Matthew Taub, a community advocate; and Toronto city councillor Shelley Carroll, who chairs the city’s Police Service Board.

Related links

• Read how the City of Toronto’s bubble legislation will keep protests 50 metres away from Jewish buildings, and come into force on July 2, in The CJN.
• Learn more about the exhibit about the Nova music festival now showing in Toronto until June 8, in The CJN.
• Learn more about the Tribe of Nova Foundation, which helps survivors and bereaved families of Nova victims.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Dov Beck-Levine

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The CJN Daily (Not sure how? Click here)