Yehupetzville with Ralph Benmergui

A spiritual search was part of the reason Aryana Rayne moved to Bowen Island years ago. Judaism wasn't exactly part of that quest, but once she discovered a small Jewish community on the island of 3,600 people—mostly ad hoc gatherings, meeting in people's homes and celebrating potluck holidays, with an emphasis on the mystical side of Judaism—something clicked. She started going to seminars, reading up on her religion and becoming a lynchpin of the community.

Today, the Jews of Bowen Island have a driftwood Hanukkah menorah, a formal organizational name and a Torah scroll they purchased off eBay. Rayne joins to discuss life on the island, how she lives a Jewish life in her own way and how the future looks bright for their community.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

From Niagara Falls to Grimsby, Port Colbourne to Port Dalhousie, you'd be hard pressed to find authentic Jewish baked goods outside of one young bakery: The Bagel Oven.

What began in the basement of a St. Catharines synagogue, and later moved to a remote building off a bumpy rural road in Beamsville, is now a fully fledged Jewish deli in Thorold South, serving up specialty challahs, deli-style cream cheese, smoked salmon and true Montreal-style bagels.

Its owners, Jessica and Steven Bretzlaff, join to tell their story of why they moved to Niagara, how they started their business, what makes the perfect bagel and how Jessica became known across the region as the "bagel lady".

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca. Learn about the Bagel Oven at thebageloven.ca.

Fifteen years ago, Elizabeth Loder moved from New York to Newfoundland for what was meant to be a short meteorology assignment. Fast-forward to 2021: Loder, now married and raising three children in St. John's, is a lynchpin of the local Jewish community—a baal tefillah—while still working as meteorologist and engineer.

What has she observed as an outsider welcomed in? How has she brought her knowledge of Judaism to such a small community? How does she handle raising her children Jewishly, when they're surrounded by non-Jews? Loder answers all these questions in this deep dive into Jewish life on the Rock.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

Before Robert Brym became an esteemed sociology professor at the University of Toronto, he was the only kid in Saint John, New Brunswick, whose first language was Yiddish.

Born to a religious mother and atheist socialist father, Brym had to navigate cultural and religious different Judaism while figuring out how Jews assimilated (or didn't) in a small Maritime society. From the 1970s, Saint John's Jewish population has dwindled, as Brym—and other Jewish kids from the Atlantic region—moved to bigger cities for school and work.

Brym, today one of the country's foremost experts on Canadian Jewish demographics, understands this exodus all too well, and joins to discuss his upbringing and wider Jewish demographics in small towns and beyond.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

It had long been a dream for Charles Karstadt to own a piece of land in his life. And not just a suburban house, but a real plot of earth, where he could farm honey from bees and take hikes in the nearby woods with his partner, Shari Hirschberg.

They spent a long time looking for the right place, ultimately landing on a rural home in Uxbridge, Ont. With few public amenities and plenty of natural surroundings, it seemed perfect, even though it was far from their former Jewish community in Toronto. Then the pandemic hit—and suddenly, their decision was vindicated.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

After living in New York City for 10 years, Alice Frank Patry moved to Vaudreuil, a suburban town across the river from the Island of Montreal. There, married to a non-Jewish man, an hour's drive from the Jewish epicenter of Montreal, Frank Patry became ordained as a Renewal rabbi. She joins to discuss her reasons for moving, her connection to Judaism and how she celebrates her faith in a town with barely any Jews.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

Many years ago, when Joel Axler first moved to Walkerton, Ont., he was sitting in a diner when a postal worker walked in and asked him a question: "Are you in the witness protection program?"

People from the big cities, she explained, don't usually move to the town of fewer than 5,000 people, which sits about halfway between Toronto and Tobermorey. Axler explained he was not being hunted by criminals—he just liked the place.

Axler spent years in show business, having co-founded the Yuk Yuk's comedy club in the 1970s. When a job opportunity presented itself in Walkerton, he found he enjoyed the simple life: no chasing invoices, pitching clients or dealing with politics. Life was affordable, nature was nearby. Why not stay?

On today's episode, Axler joins his old friend Ralph to talk about why he moved, why he stayed and what life is like as one of only two Jews in town.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

In October 2020, Robert Walker scratched a lifelong itch: he embarked on a road trip across Northern Ontario, from the major hubs of North Bay and Timmins to the smaller towns of Iroquois Falls, Chapleau and Wawa. Along the way, Walker—a religious Jew—sought out as many landmarks, old synagogues, store names and museum artifacts as he could find that brought to life these small, local Jewish communities. Walker joins today to share his incredible stories from that trip.

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

Few Canadian Jewish communities have experienced such tumultuous changes as Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. In 1902, the coal mining town on the eastern edge of Cape Breton became the site of the first synagogue constructed in the Atlantic provinces. Over the years, Jewish workers shifted into retail and business, growing to several hundred families by the mid-20th century.

These trends held strong for decades, until the overall population of Glace Bay began to decline in the 1970s. The island's oldest synagogue closed down in 2010, and many of its Jews ended up moving away.

On today's episode, six Jews who grew up in Glace Bay join to share their memories of the once-thriving city, describe what antisemitism looked like and recall how Jewish shop owners formed a quiet alliance with striking coal miners.

Credits

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada, which you can learn more about at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.

Rabbi Jeremy Parnes left his home in England around a decade ago. He only planned on visiting Regina, Saskatchewan, for a year. But, as these things go, he wound up staying—and hasn't looked back. The Renewal rabbi took the helm of he city's Beth Jacob Synagogue, one of two local Jewish institutions (alongside the Chabad in Regina—not bad for a city whose Jewish populace sits in the hundreds).

On today's episode of Yehupetzville, Rabbi Parnes joins to share his story, explain why he stayed, describe his interfaith efforts and answer the burning question in every small Jewish community: what's the future of Regina's Jewry?

Yehupetzville is hosted by Ralph Benmergui. Michael Fraiman is the producer and editor. Our music was arranged by Louis Simão and performed by Louis Simão and Jacob Gorzhaltsan. Our sponsor is PearTree Canada: learn more about them at peartreecanada.com. This show is a member of The CJN Podcast Network—you can find more great Jewish podcasts every day at thecjn.ca.