OneTable is a non-profit organization with two goals: make Shabbat a regular part of young people's Jewish lives, and combat the epidemic of loneliness among that same demographic. Hosts can receive a small stipend for every guest who attends their Friday night dinner, and the broader Jewish community benefits from higher levels of Shabbat engagement. But despite hundreds of thousands of young Jews being interested, OneTable laid off a quarter of its staff in December 2025, struggling to find financial support while realizing their repeat users were often accepting money for hosting dinners with friends that they would have hosted regardless. And on an even deeper level: is there even a viable business model for a one-note non-profit like this? Our rabbinic podcasters discuss.

After that, they look at how the Art Gallery of Ontario came under fire when they decided not to acquire work by acclaimed photographer Nan Goldin because of alleged antisemitic comments, and finish off with some Textual Healing.

Credits

• Hosts:

Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Socalled

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With the release of Wicked: For Good, Jewish audiences have been asking online: Are the munchkins supposed to be Jews? What about Elphaba—the vilified, bookish, green-skinned witch? Is she Jewish-coded?

It's a question asked by some Jewish culture critics seemingly every time a movie with goblins, elves or hook-nosed monsters comes out. Are J.R.R. Tolkien's dwarves Jewish? Is Nosferatu Jewish? Are Star Trek's Ferengi species Jewish? And then, if the answer strikes you in the affirmative, the logical follow-up is: "Is this vaguely antisemitic?"

But as our three rabbinic podcasters discuss on this week's episode of Not in Heaven, the question may reveal more about the person asking it than the onscreen goblins themselves. The real question may not be, "What were the filmmakers' intentions when creating these characters," and instead, "What does this negative interpretation say about us as a community?"

But before that, Yedida takes a detour down a different cinematic road: a Jewish analysis of the heavily Christian animated film David, which is something of an origin story of the biblical king.

Credits

• Hosts:

Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music:

Socalled

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(+ get a charitable tax receipt)

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Antisemitic acts don’t all mean the same thing, even if they provoke the same fear. A swastika sprayed on a synagogue door in Winnipeg is not the same as a fire set at a synagogue in Mississippi. And while community members understand this, when violence and intimidation come to their own neighbourhood, it's easy to fall into a maximalist trap that treats all threats as equal.

On this week's episode of Not in Heaven, our rabbinic hosts hone in on Rabbi Matthew Leibl's hometown of Winnipeg, where local police swiftly tracked down the vandal who went on a hateful graffiti spree, laying down charges of mischief and breaking and entering. They dig into the communal response and ask if anything needed to be handled differently. And before that, the hosts look at a new initiative that aims to repurpose religious real estate to help combat homelessness.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music: Socalled

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The winter holiday season is upon us, which means binging TV shows and comfort movies is one of the only ways to pass the time while temperatures plummet outside. With this annual tradition, in the Jewish media world, come annual think pieces about Jewish onscreen representation. And while our rabbinic podcasters have delved into this subject already with the ever-popular sitcom Nobody Wants This, there is a better—and much more deeply Jewish—TV show available to stream on Netflix: Long Story Short.

The time-travelling show depicts a single family over multiple generations, bouncing between the 1950s and 2020s, showing how generational trauma manifests in parenting styles, psychological effects, and emotional manipulation—all with a uniquely Jewish flair.

On today's episode, with Matthew Leibl away, The CJN's director of podcasts, Michael Fraiman, sits in to discuss the show's impact and themes, and where it fits into the long cannon of hyper-Jewish television that sprang up in the 2010s.

Before that, Avi Finegold and Yedida Eisenstat dissect the latest controversy swirling up around misinterpreted comments by Sara Hurwitz, and the gang recaps their American Thanksgivings through a Canadian lens.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music: Socalled

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A recent, landmark study of current and future rabbis was met simultaneously with celebration, skepticism, and concern by groups across the Jewish community.

The survey by Atra – Center for Rabbinic Innovation, indicated significant upward trends in rabbis choosing community positions rather than leading congregations from the pulpit, rabbinical students who identify as LGBTQ+ (51 percent), and the number of students receiving rabbinic ordination from nondenominational schools.

The statistics have garnered their share of skepticism and criticism, namely that they under represent Modern Orthodox rabbinical students and that they do not include traditional Orthodox and Haredi populations. But even with those caveats, some community leaders worry that these trends indicate a non-Orthodox rabbinate whose demographics are significantly different than the lay populations they hope to serve, and who may have more difficulty than their predecessors in building relationships with mainstream Jewish community organizations.

Our hosts - 3 rabbis and not a pulpit between them - discuss how the study matches up with their own observations and what it means for the future of the Jewish community.

They also chat about the recent brouhaha within the Jewish community about an upcoming exhibit at Winnipeg’s Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and a spate of Jewish Canadian organisations recently losing their charitable status. And of course, some Textual Healing to ease our listeners into Shabbat Parshat Vayetzei.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music: Socalled

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This episode originally aired on The CJN's peace-building podcast, In Good Faith. To subscribe and hear more, visit thecjn.ca/faith.

Mainstream Jews, who support Israel and consider themselves Zionists, feel like they are under attack. When they see people wearing keffiyehs and storefronts stamped with Palestinian flags, they hear an implicit attack: "You are not welcome here."

But for Palestinians, watermelons and keffiyehs aren't anti-Jewish icons at all: they're symbols of national pride.

How can everyday Canadian Jews and Muslims even start a conversation when words and symbols have such different meanings to different people? Telling people they're overreacting isn't an effective tool, nor is public shame, arguing over historical facts or posting online memes.

What might work: navigating difficult conversations. On today's episode of In Good Faith, The CJN's interfaith podcast miniseries, we speak with two people who are working toward exactly that.

Niki Landau and Bashar Alshawwa both came to conflict resolution through trauma. Landau lost a close friend, Marnie Kimmelman, to a terrorist pipe bomb on a Tel Aviv beach at age 17; Alshawwa was shot by an Israeli army sniper during a protest in 2014. Now they're touring Canada, bringing Jews and Muslims together for lengthy closed-door dialogue sessions, with a singular goal: create a toolkit to guide Canadians through conversations they desperately don't want to have.

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.

In the lead-up to New York's mayoral election, many prominent Jewish New Yorkers came out against the eventual winner, Zohran Mamdani. Now that Mamdani has won, what do they do? How do they reconcile that a third of the city's Jews voted for someone who has spoken out against Israel? And how can they preach about unity when they already made clear they were taking sides?

This is the topic of today's episode of Not in Heaven, inspired by a recent column in the Forward, titled, "I spoke out against Mamdani. Then he won. Here’s how we walk forward together," by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove. In it, the rabbi writes how found it "totally bewildering" that a third of Jewish voters voted for Mamdani. Our rabbinic podcasters dig into what that says about the shifting politics of North American Jews and how, if at all, our communities can stand together and be united.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl

• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

• Music: Socalled

Support The CJN

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The hit Netflix rom-com Nobody Wants This is back, and with it are Jewish debates about intermarriage and onscreen representation in mainstream media.

The show's first season tells the story of heartthrob Rabbi Noah (Adam Brody) and non-Jewish podcaster Joanne (Kirsten Bell) falling in love. It was an unexpected hit for Netflix last fall, topping its most-watched list for weeks. Some Jewish viewers rejoiced at a popular portrayal of a common reality: families blended with non-Jews, not terribly religiously observant, yet still connected to their Jewish identity.

Others bristled at a show that celebrates a Jewish religious leader breaking a deeply held community taboo, and criticized it for it representation of Jewish practice.

Regardless of which viewpoint you took, the show was a nearly unavoidable topic at Jewish dinner tables when it first launched—and season two appears to be trending in the same direction. Our three rabbinic podcasters discuss the show, its merits and its pitfalls, including how is ostensibly frames Judaism as an obstacle to be overcome on the road to happily ever after.

Credits

• Hosts: Avi Finegold, Yedida Eisenstat, Matthew Leibl
• Production team: Zachary Judah Kauffman (editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
• Music: Socalled

Support The CJN

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