Bonjour Chai

Of the 135 recent appointees to the Order of Canada, at least 19 are Jewish. The recipients come from diverse fields of medicine, the arts, community activism and religion. For this week's episode of Bonjour Chai, The CJN's weekly current affairs podcast, we've invited four on for one-on-one interviews to discuss their lives and careers: Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Cara Tannenbaum, Jane Heyman and Olga Korper.

Plus, Avi sits down with Rabbi Daniel Korobkin to discuss his latest editorial in The CJN about the Chaim Walder controversy, and the hosts catch up after the winter vacation.

What we talked about:

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andre Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

What were the biggest Canadian Jewish stories of 2021? What did readers of The Canadian Jewish News care about? What stories transcended the community? In a special end-of-year one-on-one, Avi sits down with Yoni Goldstein, editor and CEO of The Canadian Jewish News, to discuss the year's most popular stories and recurring themes.

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andre Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

In late November, Michael Toledano, a Jewish documentary filmmaker, was arrested while recording from behind the blockades of Wet'suwet'en activists in British Columbia. His arrest made headlines across the country, prompting many Jewish Canadians to ask: What has the relationship between these two communities looked like throughout history? From bigotry to ghettoization, genocide and colonialism, there are many parallels—and also many distinctions. David Koffman, assistant professor of history at York University and an expert in Canadian Jewish history, joins to discuss.

Plus: The hosts wrap up 2021 in Jewish culture and debate the right way to respond to Christmas greetings.

What we talked about

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andre Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

A new trailer for the very Jewish, very popular TV show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel recently dropped, announcing its next season for February. Notably, the lead actor, Rachel Brosnahan, is not Jewish. Is that okay? Should non-Jews play Jewish characters on film and TV? Two Jewish actors approach the issue from opposite sides and duke it out.

Plus, the hosts debate Canada’s diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Olympics, and the recent convoluted controversy around the Toronto District School Board attempting to censure a Jewish trustee for speaking out against antisemitic teaching materials.

What we talked about

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andre Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind for Jewish students at the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus. The campus student union passed a motion supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, which would curtail activities and services that "normalize Israeli apartheid." The main issue that sprung up: kosher food. Who's going to find a kosher caterer that supports BDS?

To understand the resolutions, as well as what daily life is like for Jewish students at U of T's Scarborough campus, we're joined by Tyler Samuels, a graduate from the campus who now works at Hasbara Fellowships Canada.

Plus: We discuss the CBC's recent list of 18 "words and phrases you may want to think twice about using" and how it affects Jews; our hosts debate latkes versus sufganiyot; we've got a whole slew of recommendations for Hanukkah music, movies and books; and Ilana recites a snippet from Lemony Snicket's modern classic, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming.

What We Discussed

Our Hanukkah Recommendations

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andre Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

In the last decade, executives at the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime have realized that Hanukkah exists. Now every year seems to bring a new heaping spoonful of shmaltz for Jewish audiences and anyone bored of watching the same Christmas stories told with new wide-eyed actors. Recent entries have been Mistletoe & Menorahs and Love, Lights, Hanukkah!, while this year's Eight Gifts of Hanukkah puts its own semitic spin on the format.

But how should we feel about these movies? Are they a sincere effort to educate Middle America about the Seleucid Greek takeover of a small province of Jews and their successful revolt and rededication of the temple? Or is it a shallow attempt at forcing onscreen diversity? We discuss.

Plus: Hear about the final book in our month-long book club, Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories: From This Broken Hill, Volume 2 by Michael Posner.

What we talked about

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andre Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

Some news: we're launching a Slack channel. If you want to join our community in a tangible way—at least until we can start hosting live events—and chat with Avi, Ilana and David about Jewish topics (or anything at all), email [email protected] to get the exclusive invite. You can also now follow and engage with us on Twitter @bonjourchai.

To navigate this world of online community-building, we invited Jesse Brown, host of the popular Canadaland podcast, to join the show. He shares his thoughts on how social media plays a role in building Jewish communities, the role of institutional gatekeeping online and how podcasting is in fact very much like Judaism.

Plus, we discuss the third book in our month-long book club, Gary Barwin's Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy.

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andrew Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

Ritual circumcision for Jews came under heavy fire in October. First, an article came out in the New York Times in which writer Gary Shteyngart recalled his own botched circumcision and how it pains him to this day. That same week, by coincidence, an organization called Bruchim went live. Their mission: advocating on behalf of Jews who don't feel comfortable with circumcision.

It's a sensitive subject. But Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, our guest this week and a founding member of the board of Bruchim and filmmaker who created a documentary about circumcision, doesn't shy away from these discussions.

Plus: We have a guest appearance by Margaret Atwood, who explains why she loves the Book of Job, and the hosts dig into the second book in our month-long book club: Gideon's Bible by Rick Salutin.

What we talked about

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andrew Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

It's a question that grows more disturbing every time it pops up in the news: Should private sellers of antiques be allowed to sell Nazi memorabilia? Some will argue history cannot be rewritten and these antiques are simply testaments to a different era; others will decry any sale as profiting off genocide, and insist such items belong in a museum with proper context.

But how can you regulate the sale of private goods? Should we worry about the threat of white supremacists buying old Nazi goods to hang on their walls? Our hosts discuss.

Plus: We're kicking off the first-ever Bonjour Chai book club! Read along as Avi, Ilana and David discuss a different Jewish book each week, starting with Joanne Levy's Sorry For Your Loss. Levy joins to discuss her work and kick off our literary liaison.

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andrew Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

As a group, Jews have one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the world. And as a country, Canada also ranks at the bottom of opt-in organ donations, well below other developed nations. The pandemic has exacerbated the problem, putting thousands of people on lengthy waiting lists for life-saving procedures. But the scarcity has existed long before COVID—and will persist afterwards.

There are numerous misconceptions about organ donation in Judaism, including misinterpretation of halachic law and cultural taboos. But what are the facts? What are the statistics like in Israel? How should Canadian Jews move forward, as provinces debate shifting from an opt-in to an opt-out system?

To discuss these issues, we're joined by Robby Berman, the director and founder of the Halachic Organ Donor Society, and Elena Solomon, a Jewish woman in Toronto who's life depends on her finding a kidney donor soon.

What we talked about

Credits

Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Michael Fraiman is the producer. Andrew Goulet is the technical producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. Find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.