The Jewish Public Library's upcoming season of events is not to be missed!

Alain Dancyger, Executive Director of the Jewish Public Library in Montreal, is back to talk about two upcoming programs, the screening of Heart of Courage and Q&A with producer Avi Benlolo on November 19th and 20th, and the 'Café Philosophique: Political Radicalism, The enemy of Democracy?' (a reflection on the thoughts of Hannah Arendt) on December 3rd.

We are so excited to welcome Yohay Sponder on today’s episode. Yohay is a stand-up comic and producer and headliner of Funny Monday, Israeli Comedy in English in Tel Aviv.

Yohay has gained a huge following on social media thanks to his quick witted comedy, which he’s bringing to Montreal on November 16th at L’Olympia with his show Self Loving Jew. 

Get your tickets here to share in the laughs.

In this episode, we speak with Chantal and Gérard Buzaglo, co-chairs of the festival. And like the Montreal Jewish community, this interview is in both English and French!

Buy your tickets for the Festival du Cinéma Israélien de Montréal, November 5th to 19th, both in cinema and online. Get them quick, before they sell out!

Israeli cinema has gone from strength to strength, with many films gaining international recognition. This year, at the 20th annual Festival du Cinema Israélien de Montréal, a production of the Communauté Sépharade Unifiée du Québec, you can discover a diverse line-up of diverse feature films and documentaries.You can catch the following films, amongst others:

- The Ring: The opening film, it won the Audience award at the Israeli Film Festival in Paris

- Bliss : The closing film, this drama stars acclaimed Israeli actor Sasson Gabai- The Shohani Riddle: An extraordinary documentary on the enigmatic M. Shoshani

- Pink lady: Set in Jerusalem's Orthodox community, it tells the story of a wife trying to keep her family together

- Cabaret Total: Nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Actor, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Music at the Ophir Awards, and winning Best Makeup- Come closer : A young woman's journey following her brother's accident, this movie with a talented cast won many Ophir Awards

- A letter to David: A powerful documentary about October 7th and David Cunio, who was held hostage for 738 days before being released.

On today’s episode, we speak with Alain Dancyger, Executive Director of the Jewish Public Library in Montreal. Alain is no stranger to the Montreal cultural world, as former Executive Director of the Grand Ballet Canadiens de Montreal, amongst other cultural institutions. During the episode, we hear how Alain is bringing his expertise to the Jewish Public Library, revamping its cultural programming.

With the vision and determination of community members, the Jewish Public Library opened in 1914 in a cold water flat on Saint Urbain Street with 500 books. It was more than just a library, it was also a place of literary and cultural exchange. The Jewish Public Library has grown with the community, now boasting a collection of almost 150,000 books, with over 40,000 books borrowed annually. Alain talks about the library’s programming for the upcoming year, the importance of taking the library’s programming outside of the library walls and into the community, and the relevance of libraries in in the 21st Century.

In this episode, we're joined by Lyn Julius, journalist, author, and founder of Harif, a UK charity representing Jews from North Africa and the Middle East. Lyn is dedicated to promoting the history, culture and heritage of Jews from the MENA region. In today’s episode, Lisa speaks with Lyn about her book “Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilisation in the Arab World Vanished Overnight” and why it's important to know the history of the MENA Jewish communities. 

As you’ll hear in this episode, you can join Harif for their free webinars on a wide range of interesting topics, including the upcoming talk on the stars of the Algerian music hall on August 26, 2025 at 2:30pm Montreal-time and 7:30pm UK-time.

At Chai Montreal: The Podcast, it’s important for us to share diverse stories and uplift the many voices of the Jewish community. We thank Lyn for her work to promote the history of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa and we hope that you follow Harif to learn more.

Millet Ben Haim, Nova Music Festival survivor and Vice President of External Affairs of the Tribe of Nova Foundation, joins us for a second episode to talk about the Nova exhibit and the Tribe of Nova Foundation.

The Nova exhibit started as a memorial in Israel, showing items collected from the site of the Nova Music Festival, and has been shown in New York, Miami, LA, Buenos Aires, Toronto and Washington, DC. Millet explains the origins of the exhibit, the process to bring the exhibit to North America, and the importance for everyone to see it.

Millet also talks about the important work of the Tribe of Nova Foundation, which provides critical and crucial support for those affected by the attack on the Nova Music Festival, providing mental health support and community.

Learn more about the Tribe of Nova Foundation and how you can help support survivors' healing process by visiting the website here.

On this episode, we're joined by Millet Ben Haim, who shares her survival story from the Nova Festival in Kibbutz Re'im, where the joy of dance and community was abruptly shattered by the Hamas attack. Her story highlights the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable circumstances.

3,882 people arrived at The Nova Festival in Kibbutz Re’im, in Southern Israel between October 6th and 7th, 2023. Millet Ben Haim was one of the partygoers dancing with her friends in the early morning of October 7th when the music stopped at 6:29am. We are honoured to share this conversation with Millet, and the story of her survival.

During our talk, Millet mentions that this is not a political matter, it’s a human matter. In Israel, there’s now a common saying, in relation to the hostage situation, that says: "ze lo yamin, ze lo smol, ze yashar" “It’s not right, it’s not left. It’s straight.” This is not a political story, it’s a human one.

This episode is dedicated to Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, and Alex Lubanov, all taken from the Nova festival, and Carmel Gat, taken from Kibbutz Bee’ri, who were murdered after 11 months in Hamas captivity, to Leon Bar, and to all of the victims of that day.

*Trigger warning* This episode contains content relating to terrorism, murder, shooting and rape.

On today’s episode of Chai Montreal: The Podcast, we speak with co-creator and showrunner Jennifer Podemski and executive producer Christina Fon, of the limited series Little Bird, premiering on APTN and Crave on Friday, May 26.

Little Bird is a six part limited series that follows Bezhig Little Bird, played by Darla Contois, taken from her family at the age of 5 on the Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan and adopted and raised by a Jewish family in Montreal. Her mother, Golda Rosenblum, played by Lisa Edelstein, didn’t know the circumstances surrounding her adoptive daughter’s removal from her birth family. Now in her 20s, Bezhig, or Esther as she’s now known, embarks on a journey to the Canadian prairies to trace her roots. She discovers that her forcible removal from her parents was part of what was later coined as ‘the

Between 1951 and 1984, an estimated 20,000 or more First Nations, Métis and Inuit infants and children were taken from their families by child welfare authorities and placed for adoption in mostly non-Indigenous households, mostly out of province, or out of the country. The mass removal of Indigenous children from their homes, supported by government policies, later became known as the Sixties Scoop.

Little Bird explores universal themes of resilience in the face of trauma and loss.the documentary explores the connections between the ground-breaking movement for Indigenous narrative sovereignty and the impact of the child welfare system as experienced through the Little Bird series’ Indigenous creatives, crew and Sixties Scoop advisors.

Welcome back to Chai Montreal: The Podcast. After a brief hiatus, we’re excited to be back and continue to share important stories from our community.

On this International Women’s Day, we wanted to speak with an inspirational woman who is working hard to make our world, and more specifically, our planet, a better place to live. Our guest on today's episode is Naomi Scherer, an Italian living in France, she recently made some big life changes to live life more ecologically correct. Naomi works in business development at Circouleur, France’s first and only recycling paint company. Circouleur’s business model of saving and recycling paint that other companies send to the incinerator is like what Naomi has done in her own home renovation – saving materials and items that would have been thrown away and giving them a second life. All while reducing the impact on the environment. You can follow Naomi's eco-renovation journey on Instagram at @maison_circulaire.

At Chai Montreal, our aim is to celebrate Jewish stories and we’re glad we can bring attention to stories of strong Jewish women like Naomi who use their passion to make a positive impact. Hearing her talk about how her Jewish grandparents' history of resilience and drive is built into her DNA is truly inspiring.

Do you know the Jewish history behind International Women’s Day? National Women’s Day, the precursor to International Women’s Day, was established in New York City by Theresa Serber Malkiel. Malkiel was the head of the Woman’s National Committee of the Socialist Party of America and created the first day celebrating women in 1909. Born in 1874 into a Jewish family, she and her family fled persecution in the Russian Empire (in what is now Ukraine) to the US. An American labour activist, suffragette and educator, Malkiel dedicated her life to the liberation of women.

In the spirit of Malkiel, and all of us strong Jewish women, Chai Montreal wishes you a happy International Woman’s Day!

On this episode, Lisa speaks with Eda Holmes, Artistic and Executive Director of Centaur Theatre, and director of Centaur’s newest production, Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes. The play was written by acclaimed Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch, for which she won the 2021 Governor General’s Award for English-language drama. During the interview, we’ll hear about Eda’s reasons for choosing Hannah Moscovitch’s newest play and the production process.

We’ll also hear about Eda’s vision to bridge the gap between the francophone and anglophone theatre communities in Montreal.